What part is up her own ass? The part where she thinks Marcie thinks she’s cool or where she thinks Marcie thinks she’s hot? ‘Cause I think both of those are self-evident and the question is more whether or not her friend cares about her other traits, not whether Sal is actually viewed that way.
Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure why Sal is so concerned about being cool and hot, especially given she seems to hate storytime as much as Sarah does.
Because when she doesn’t match people’s preconceived notions of her, they either get bored and abandon her or turn hostile like her mom did. Marcie’s the only one who stuck around and liked her as she was without (so far as Sal could tell) any other motives. Now she’s worried if it’s just because Marcie had feelings for her and not because of Sal herself.
We’ve seen her put the mask down around Joyce and Amber, too. Amber feels obligated to make nice, but Joyce is trying to be accepting with no strings attached.
I’d guess it’s partly because it’s basically the positive-sounding flipside of adults assuming she’s a terrible hoodlum. It’s more or less the same traits, just viewed in a different light.
On the one hand she’s bein real obtuse about this, obviously Marcie’s been in her life for ages, ain’t like she’s playing a long con, thats really insulting to Marcie, I hate how Sal’s taking this
On the other hand I relate to people acting all interested in you cause you’re the cool hot brown punk chick but then it turns out they don’t want to get to know you at all, they just wanna entertain an idea of you they have in their head and maybe get in your pants
Like having someone acting interested in you but then reject who you are beneath the tattoos, piercings, and outfits kinda stings
People wanna see me as the wild looking hot person who parties hard and not the person who watches several hours of Game Grumps every day in my sweatpants
Because this is when we realize she could have been a Mike-style asshole rather than a self-centered one all this time. There are weird chunks in that sentence I just wrote. *shrug off literal thinkers*
There’s a character in the Hitchhiker’s Guide franchise called “Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged”. He was accidentally granted immortality, and having grown bored with existence, he developed a singular mission: to insult it. He got himself a super fact spaceship and a computer to track the existence of everyone in creation, and started visiting every one of them just to insult them each personally. Alphabetically.
I sort of get the feeling her motive is “I am just so right about everyone with my magical emotional x-ray vision, and I need everyone to know and see what I see.”
It’s basically just a brand of narcissism I suppose.
You’ve already met her, Malaya. You don’t like her much.
Oh Sal. Honey. I know it’s hard because most of the people in your life up to this point have only seen their preconceived notions of what you are or what they wanted you to be, but Malaya is right. This is Marcie. If anyone’s gonna love you, notion free, you can bet your ass she’ll be one of them. I know it’s not helping that her answer to whether she followed you to boarding school (which was probably a huge support during a hard time) was because of her feelings for you was ‘I dunno, maybe’, but I don’t think you have to worry about Marcie.
Cats can do the silliest things and yet walk away from it all with an unphased face like they actually meant to fall butt first into that cake. That may be Malaya.
Mass murder? I don’t remember that at all. Inaction would have killed people too. That comic was full of trolly problems of ‘who is responsible for what?’
Wait – wasn’t it established later she was brainwashed? I know it kinda went back and forth on whether she was brainwashed or whether it just enhanced feelings she already had, but I thought it settled on brainwashed, like with Daisy.
I think so, Daisy realised she had been controlled once she snapped out of it, Sal did not, she believed everything she said and did was her own fault. Also her whole thing with Danny wouldn’t have been able to snap her own of it had she had Daisy style brainwashing.
Yeah, see, I keep getting stuck because they kept going back and forth on it later. Sal also didn’t even believe any tampering at all had been done initially (plus this is Sal – guilt issues are her one of her defining characteristics) so it got really confusing for me for a while.
You have hit on the plot of Curtain (Poirot’s last case) where he discover’s a murderer who kills psychologically – by analyzing people, discovering their weaknesses, and driving them to suicide by engineering events that play on every one of their greatest fears.
See, I was of the opinion they were just both jerks who went out of their way to harass targets, as opposed to people like Joe who can be a jerk but doesn’t seem to go out of his way to interact with people who have made it clear they think he’s a jerk.
I guess Mike is more interested in multiple targets wheras Malaya will be shitty to people but loses interest in most of them fairly quickly except Sal.
I don’t think that’s the case, Eve, because Malaya doesn’t go out of her way to interact with Sal. Malaya is friends with Marcie who Sal hates the friendship of so Sal has done her best to sabotage, insult her, and thretaen physical violence of. Malaya is not intimidated or inclined to give Sal any slack for it.
Except Malaya takes EVERY opportunity to interact with Sal.
She made a point of engaging Sal when Marcie gives her a message to pass along instead of delivering the message and fucking off.
She shined a sunlamp in Sal’s face while ‘sunning her iguana'(Fuckface was in the opposite direction of the door), then acted as if Sal wanted to KILL her iguana because Sal’s response to a contextless bright light was “get that out of my eyes or I’ll break it (so the light can never be shined in my face again.)”
Except malayas been shown to go out of her way to antagonize other people. Remember when sal was trying to distract her so she could talk to Marcie alone about the plan?
What? No, she went out of her way to go antagonize two people she thought were “fake”. One of them tried to seduce her. Did you just blank out on those comics or something?
I get where Sal’s coming from, and I definitely get why she’d say what she’s saying – she’s clearly extremely insecure about the nature of her relationship with Marcie, and she knows it’s been unstable in the past – but yeah, panel two Sal’s statement should have seemed fundamentally silly to her if she’d thought back to realize that she was not born a fully-formed cool-biker-girl.
Oh sure, but I’m betting the Marcie confession was less than an hour ago so I can’t blame her for not having rationally thought things out. In her place my mind would still be on the “AHHHHHHHHHHH” stage.
Except the end of the conversation was being likened to Malaya, being put into a type, and saying she might be a friend in the same way as she is to Malaya versus how she was in the past (which is friends because I can’t haz in pants). There are a lot of people saying Sal, honey, Marcie loves you for more things and this is true. But she told Sal, I have a type, you’re it (the hot brown brash Carmel Sunday whatever that is the Venn diagram with Malaya), and that means dynamic might shift for those reasons. So Sal is voicing pretty much what she was told.
This does make it more likely that the whole pretense that Sal was into Marcie was in fact a reverse con, with Malaya helping Marcie get Sal’s attention.
Are there pictures of young Sal on the internet? I mean obviously you’d think Facebook but who would Malaya plausibly be friends with that would post pictures of kid Sal? Sal doesn’t seem like the social media type, nor does Marcie really. I guess that’s the most logical answer, but nothing beats me imagining Malaya broke into the Walkerton house to peek through old photo albums while mumbling “I knew she wasn’t hot shit!” to herself!
If this means we’ll finally get Malaya actually having a clue who Sal actually is, then fuck it, I’m in. Because we’ve heard that song plenty by now, but this is the first time it’s ringing true.
Malaya has just enough smarts to feel dangerous, which is fair since she’s about to be a sophomore, translation “wise idiot”. If she were smarter (or maybe wiser) she would realize it’s not very smart to be so abrasive, and she would be aware of how much she doesnt know.
Actual wise people regularly assert that they know little to nothing and rarely seek to give others advice, let alone unsolicited advice. Malaya talks more than she listens, a trend that tends to reverse with wisdom.
I’m curious what Mike’s take on Malaya would be, if he had any time to care.
It’s kind of fucked, but I think it’s a reflection of her own insecurities rather than anything about Marcie. It’s “maybe she doesn’t really like me. Maybe no one really likes me”, not an attack on Marcie.
That did seem weird to me. Sal’s not exactly in the habit of confiding in Malaya.
Maybe she’s just in a state where it had to come out and Malaya was there?
Ah, I wondered why Sal was so angry about things. That explains it.
Sal, sweety, in this one case Malaya is right: Marcie has known you much longer than your current presentation of feminity.
Do people really hate Malaya that much? She’s a jerk to Sal, who is a jerk to a bunch of other people. She can’t stand Lucy or Joyce, and honestly they’re pretty irritating (Lucy much more so). Other than that, what did she do that was so bad? She decided to fuck someone who was super down to fuck? She didn’t pick up on signals that Marcie was in to her at all?
I dunno, I feel like she’s not a genuinely bad person unlike, say, Mary.
I feel the same confusion. Maybe it’s the time she was like “let’s make people hate us more” with Joe? She seems like someone who outwardly projects that she’s “bad” and clings to it. We saw this with changing her mind whether to be mad about Fuckface’s excusion too. I don’t know.
Well, just today she was going to go tell someone off because she thought they looked ‘fake’ to use her words. The guy wasn’t doing anything to her, he was just standing around. That’s a pretty crappy thing to do.
But yeah, mostly, Malaya just kinda has a shitty attitude and we see fewer humanizing moments of her than we do with people like Sal, Carla, or Sarah, so a lot of readers don’t like her.
Personally, I’ve always liked Malaya, shitty attitude and all.
Basically her entire self image is of being The Only Person Who Admits The Truth That Nobody Actually Likes Things and you know what, fuck that person, that person is an unbearable shithead.
She comes off as someone who will decide she doesn’t like a person for arbitrary and often completely nonsense reasons, then hound you about it constantly with no opportunity to change their opinion because they just will not listen to evidence.
A lot of it is honestly the denseness. Like, someone being an asshole is irritating, but someone being an asshole and being constantly, loudly Wrong about it (in your opinion) can be fucking infuriating.
It’s the obnoxious attitude of “I know far more about your thoughts and motivations and personality than you do, and will loudly state so as often as possible” Which even on it’s own is possibly the most annoying trait a person can have.
There’s also the fact that she pretty much goes out of her way to interact with Sal to bug her and go after her even when Sal is trying to avoid her or avoid talking to her. Like, there’s dicks, and there’s dicks that make “just avoid them” not an option.
You have obviously never been the target of a Malaya because they fucking suck. People that take everything you do in bad faith, that try to tell you who YOU are when you are nothing but honest about yourself, that will say ridiculous fucking things things just to get on your nerves or undermine you or demonise you and try to steal your friends are not nice people.
She doesn’t have a problem with Joyce or Lucy for valid reasons. She took one look at Lucy and decided she hated her. Because she like, smiles and is actually friendly.
And Malaya will do anything to spite someone she has decided is worth spiting. The problem with her having sex with Joe wasn’t whether he consented, but that she only did it because she managed to convince herself that Sal had a crush on him and wanted to spite Sal by taking him away from her.
She might not be going around trying to convince people to die and blackmailing people like Mary, but telling you to your face that you hate animals because you don’t like someone shining a bright light in your face is not a rational conclusion and is just further harassment.
The thing about Lucy is she’s sort of a bad roommate and it’s easy to associate her with certain roommate/nerd archetypes. She’s full of “what I’m supposed to say” platitudes, insists on being friends with everyone whether they like it or not (Billie’s a jerk but she has every right to not want to be friends with her roommate), and she’s one of those Potter fans who acts like nerds are an oppressed class. Plus, Harry Potter is one of those fandoms where everybody’s kind of into it but people who are *really* into it get a bad rap. Yknow, the female fanbase’s heavy emphasis on male/male shipping, treating it like a valuable treatise to be consulted in all political discussions, etc.
The way she’s treated in the comic makes this more complicated, because she’s usually framed as being blameless and it frustrates people who associate her with those archetypes. Some people have had roommates who demand our friendship, and some people have gotten really sick of “nerds” lately. I actually find Amber, and Marigold from QC, to be way more frustrating, but Amber is framed pretty critically most of the time, while Lucy is rarely criticized so far.
It’s not really fair to Lucy herself, but that’s part of why some people find her more annoying than Joyce. Joyce is regularly criticized for her behavior, and what’s more, the person she’s annoying is rarely framed by the comic as being a Jerk for not liking her. Billie is. And that sets people off, too, even though we all know Billie is kind of a jerk.
I’l reiterate that it’s not really fair to Lucy, who hasn’t had time to get properly introduced, but until we get to see her in more complex scenes than “she’s rooming with the character the narrative tells us to hate”, this is kinda where we’re at.
I really sympathize with Lucy because in many ways I used to BE her. And I constantly worried I was annoying and people pretty much confirmed those fears regularly so I’d try even harder to not be and just end up doing the opposite because I was trying too hard. Social anxiety doesn’t always take the form of Amber where she avoids talking to people, sometimes it takes the form of “constant foot-in-mouth rambling and oversharing.”
So I confess all the Lucy hate makes me sad because when I see her I feel protective and insecure about my past self at the same time.
Wait, why is Marigold frustrating? One either likes her or ignores her. Unless one is somehow invested in her success, and wants her to succeed faster… but between Momo and Dale, she seems to be doing OK.
Yeah, but Joyce is our lovable flawed white protagonist, and Amber is our quirky white protagonist with serious issues, and Ruth is our prickly white tsundere jerk, and Carla is our endearing Chaotic Neutral white jerk, Mike is our Jerk With A Hart of Gold white protagonist with serious issues, and Malaya and Roz are Satan.
I am leaving Billie out of this “how the fandom treats white jerks vs. nonwhite jerks” because it feels like she gets a weird middle ground where half the people here project their issues about jocks and cheerleaders and Nerd Oppression and half the people here adore her for her flaws, so she kinda escapes the pattern. I also left out Leslie’s girlfriend because I Can’t Remember Her Name.
The thing about racism in a fanbase is that you call it out and people really try to paint you as crazy and wrong. I think that since Willis seems to write everyone neutrally this will all resolve in the end but we just don’t get to have “flawed” brown and black people, they drop to the bottom of the barrel at the first sign of moral failure.
Oh, I was misreading the above as a criticism of the comic, not the fanbase. My bad. I don’t tend to sift through the comments often, so I’ve not necessarily seen the pattern Nikol was talking about. FWIW, I think Malaya’s a bit of an ass, but I don’t hate her, and Roz – while having some of the worst traits of a liberal activist gatekeeper – still has her values in generally the right direction.
Except Sal is high in the poles and we’ve explored almost all her known flaws – anger, clinginess, insecurity, issues with justice and authority. Dina has social issues galore and other characters in comic minimize her agency but she’s number one right now. We love us some Dina. Sarah isn’t as love able because she’s a metaphorical porcupine but she’s nowhere near the bottom! Asma isn’t main but she has a pretty vocal fan club who want more of her and we have seen her get the grumpy face on. Sarah speaks to the grumpiness of my heart, but she’s also a bunch of my own flaws so watching her missteps is a painful reminder of my own failures. Roz is baby liberal me and I want to smack past me for unintentional harm in the face. If Dorothy pulled that gate keeping and was baby liberal me, I’d want to strangle her instead.
Except your argument kinda falls apart with Sarah the anti-social black jerk who legitimately has a heart of gold, Dina the quirky dinosaur loving Asian-descended individual who everyone loves, Lucy the perpetually cheerful and optimistic but somewhat flawed black character, the mixed-race Walky (lovable goofball genius with some emotional issues) and Sal (flawed cool chick with somewhat dark back story), and a whole host of other minority characters who have good representation.
And while Malaya and Roz are pretty well disliked, the worst folks are Mary, ToeDad, Blaine, and Scarface – all white villains.
Yeah, I think it takes some selective reading to think the commentariat generally treats the white characters better than poc.
Partly it might just be a perception bias though: I know in some of the bigger dustups we’ve had here I’ve seen the boards as largely hostile to characters I like while many of the complaints were how much the boards were defending those same characters. It’s easy in threads like this to gloss over posts that basically agree with you and overreact to those that are obviously wrong 🙂
I know I’ve done it.
But yeah, nearly everyone major (except maybe Dina) comes in for their share of criticism and all but the villains have their passionate defenders. I’d want to see some statistical analysis before accepting any big bias pattern.
Fandoms in general tend to come down harder on marginalized characters, but that’s because people in general tend to come down harder on marginalized people. Willis has been pretty good about getting rid of the most blatant folks like that though, so this forum’s usually pretty decent. The big flare ups tend to be when stuff relevant to marginalization comes up – like when Sal told Walky their parents were racist, not long after Becky came out (especially after she cut her hair), when Carla and Mary were fighting, etc.
Yup, yup. And thankfully even in the relatively rare bile for a comment section, most of that isn’t made against a character directly, but rather for another due to ignorance that a certain hard circumstance exists in reality. So many times we hear that it is unrealistic or people would never do that so they dismiss it and favor the less angry character. Which is better than the reaction being due to baked in hatred and wishing harm on someone but still isn’t good for forward momentum and prevention of harm. It’s the systemic part versus knee jerk profiling part which is hard and has horrendous consequences but in a less personal way. People are not understanding due to the limits of their own experiences. However, this is still a really odd comic arc to look for that in because it’s two POC in the room right now (one with gender identity struggles) and a Dreamer who is dreaming of them and a trans lady. If we are picking sides on who is least at fault – that person is super marganalized in Indiana let alone the comic section no matter who you’re rooting for or defending.
Yeah, pretty much, with the exception of Carla and Mary’s storyline – a metric FUCKTON of transphobes chose that moment to pop up. Plenty of nasty folks when Sal first pointed out racism too but since then they’ve either left the comment section or learned, so it’s not as unbearable anymore.
Regardless of what individuals think of Carla as a character, her explanation for her chosen revenge is still one of the biggest highlights of this series for me. The ownership, the empowerment, the societal rebellion in microcosm: glorious. I’m so glad I missed most of the hate you read. I’m normally pretty late in the day, so maybe the ban-wagon was liberally applied before then.
A lot of them got banned and their comments spam filtered, yeah. And a strip or two had closed comments yeah. If the comments are closed for any particular strip, it’s a good sign something bad happened. Same happened when Sal first pointed out the racism with Walky and when we found out Becky’s mom didn’t have cancer but committed suicide.
Actually… Willis himself (don’t remember when but I remember it in a comment section) said that Mike used to be one of his best loved characters. So though I agree with you in spirit and hope that isn’t true of Dumbing of Age commenters, that hasn’t always been true. And I had anxiety about society when I read that.
Ngl, I still love Mike. It’s probably in part due to nostalgia from shortpacked, but yeah. I think he’s funny (and maybe had a crush on him as a young teen…). Obviously I would never want to hang out with someone like him irl, but since he’s just a fictional character I can enjoy it
Mike was a popular character in Shortpacked because his toxicity bred results and was born of a skewed but deep insight.
In Dumbing of Age he stopped winning, so what looked like wisdom beneath the cynicism now just looks like him talking out of his ass and enlarging people’s worst attributes.
That makes sense. I mean that’s sort of why I like having Mary screen time even if I dislike her as character: the cast at large constantly take the wind from her sails. I want that to happen to the Mary’s of real life so I find it cathartic. I do not want more Marys. Nopealope out of that.
Yes Mary might be one of the few not-downright-villain (like toedad et. al) characters that I despise. But it’s more of a “love to hate” her sort of deal where seeing her bigotry constantly slapped down and backfiring is extreme catharsis in a world where that “good wins out” deal doesn’t seem to happen enough IRL.
It’s possible people’s claims that Mike is actually some kind of asshole sage are basically trolling and it’s all just a running gag (that somehow many long time commentors aren’t in on), but they sure seem to be serious.
I am fairly certain most Mike fans are in the category of “he’s kind of hot and his jerkishness is a weird turn-on” because that is a definite type many people have in terms of liking fictional characters (myself included).
But we generally (well, hopefully, at least) would not actually like a real-life Mike. We just swoon over “bad boys with secret emotional vulnerability” in fiction.
I like Mike! But I think there’s a problem in this comments section sometimes where people conflate enjoying a fictional character with CONDONING that character’s behavior IRL.
I can like Dracula (or Spike if you want modern vampire lore) as a character and still think literally murdering people/being a creepy abusive jerk is wrong. I can like Darth Vader as a character and still think trying to kill your own son is wrong. I can like Scar as a character and still think it’s wrong to kill your brother and try to kill your nephew. I can like Sylar as a character and think slicing people’s heads open and stealing their brains is actually incredibly horrifying and disturbing. I can like Q (trek, not Bond) as a character and think manipulating the lives of people with godlike powers is actually really abusive and wrong.
I enjoy Mike as a character, because it’s fiction. If I met a Mike in real life I would think he was a horrible emotionally abusive jerk and want nothing to do with him. But too often in this comment section I see people baffled that anyone could like Mike and assumptions that if they do they must be a toxic person who condones his behavior.
Really I like most of the characters, except maybe Malaya, Roz, Mary, and Raidah (ironic because I think she’s currently my randomly assigned gravatar). Probably because they all ping particular stress-points for me I’ve experienced a lot IRL (which I understand is probably why people may not like Mike or other characters, we all have different experiences).
Well okay I also don’t like toedad and the like but I left out the really blatant obvious “created for people to hate” villains because I am pretty certain no one likes them.
Yeah not only did I have bad teen experiences with mean girls who did that under the guise of trying to be “helpful”, I grew up with a brother who STILL does this, so it is a particular sore spot for me.
Thanks! <3 The teen stuff is water under the bridge at this point (I'm in my 30s now, so it was a while ago). The brother stuff is hard because I can't completely remove him from my life (he's also a libertarian, MRA, "women are oppressing men", "reverse racism is real" type so, realllly not someone I get along with). Thankfully I only have to see him once a year at christmas and the rest of the time I pretend I am an only child!
You have my sympathies. My brother is rapidly progressing down the MRA path and it’s incredibly upsetting. I’ve had to cut him out of my life for my own sanity, and to keep his nonsense off my FB.
That all makes sense and there’s definitely a set who like Mike as a character.
But there’s always a group that attempts to defend and justify Mike and I don’t think that’s the same thing. The “asshole sage” concept – that he might be cruel, but he’s doing it to teach his targets a lesson they need to learn.
The hinting that this pattern exists (which I don’t even see) because of possible racist tendencies of the whole (versus individuals) when we have people here from so many different countries with different demographics and experiences is confusing. The comic is in Midwest America and about an American experience, but often people are outraged because “what happens in America!?! We don’t have that problem here!”
All the white characters listed above have staunch haters and people who strongly believe improvement is important but forgiveness is not a right. Or that you need to work and get mental health issues under control and you’re still accountable even if you are less culpable over your actions. They also see them working on it and identify with that struggle and can forgive because they aren’t the victims. They have a lot of screen time. All the POC characters don’t have near the level vitriol you’re claiming against them but it does certainly exist… like with most characters. I think Dina, Sierra, Mormon chick, other R.A. and the reps at the lgbtq greet up are the only ones I’ve seen relatively unscathed (again, screen time has to do with it!) Of those, Dina being the most prominent character is the important exception to vitriol. I have not seen anyone claim Roz a demon and the worst villains are irrefutably white: toe dad, Blaine, linda, leland, carol, Mary… none of the POC touch these. I don’t think I’ve seen any of the commenters ever attempt to make a claim that Roz, Malaya etc are as bad as these. You can be vocal about a lesser issue or personality quirk angering you and still not equate it to any of the above.
The only exception Ive seen to hint at a racist slant in the commentariat is Renee (who I admittedly don’t like) and if I remember correctly is supposed to be lesbian, poc Mike (thus, my dislike makes sense since I don’t like Mike). I believe Willis said that Mike used to be a popular character (internal cringing). I don’t think Mike is popular anymore so this could be as much a demographic shift and timing issue rather then a presentation issue. Mike is also, I feel, worse then Renee with what we’ve seen because even with the Heart of Gold slant, he’s still manipulative. Renee’s abrasive and negs, which is gross but not in a “keeps a list of peoples flaws and how to exploit them in a book” gross. I can also say that all of the major cast have flaws that make you want to strangle them from time to time. They are teenagers. It’s their very not secret power and they haven’t had all the life experiences to reign them in yet. They are in a place to learn and most of them are doing so!
Ooooh, you were so close. It’s not racism, it’s protagonist-based morality. Sal has actually physically assaulted Malaya, but that doesn’t matter because Sal doesn’t like her and she’s more of a protagonist than Malaya, so it’s ok. Sal gets forgiven for putting a knife to a kid’s throat when she was 13, but it’s great when Walky suckerpunches Asher for ratting someone out to the cops when HE was 13. Mike being an asshole people? Bad. Joyce paying Mike to punch people? Great. Malaya telling Sal and Marcie to kiss? Bad. Carla screaming to the world that they are, precipitating everything? Super entertaining.
This is totally closer to the thing, but even then it’s not uniform. It’s been a hot minute but isn’t Malaya between her and Sal the first to assault anyone (serially, not calendar) in the comic series? So we saw her be aggressive first which would have left a first impression rather than it be protagonist based? Sal only called for Amazigirl to be held, and Malaya got physical. That was the first of those two interacting I remember and she was complaining before that about splitting beer with Sal just saying damn it Malaya rather than retaliating. Her first appearance was her complaining and then resorting to fists. Amazigirl being in the most wrong for stalking. Those last three examples (Joyce and Mike, Malaya, Carla) I’m pretty sure more people said bad then good initially unless they were citing comedic value, and those that didn’t eventually changed their tune. Someone made the point today that a lot of the gag strips show long term consequences and get reframed in a serious light (how Joe and Joyce’s relationship is tainted now based on that experience was the main example).
As others have said: being the target of a Malaya REALLY sucks. I feel like there’s a term for it that I’m blanking on right now (thought it was “concern trolling” but looked it up and I guess not)…
but anyway, it’s basically a subtle form of condescending bullying. Under the guise of Genuinely Trying to be Helpful someone will tell you what they think you are really like/what you’re really thinking in a really condescending/critical way, and if you try to protest or defend yourself, they brush you off because only THEIR take is the correct one and they could not possibly be wrong in their assumptions about your innermost thoughts and motivations and your denial of their Truth is just your own refusal to hear what you really “need” to hear.
Malaya doesn’t try quite so hard to pretend to be “polite” about it. She kind of approaches it in a more “I don’t care what people think, you just can’t handle the truth!” sort of way, but it’s still the same basic behavior. A person insisting they are always right and the only one with the True Answers and that disagreeing with them is a character flaw is a person that is really frustrating to deal with because you can’t have a rational, honest conversation with them, and being around them generally means constantly being criticized.
I understand too why some people might like her. They might find her behavior funny, kind of like how I find Carla’s arrogance funny where other people might find it really intrusive, it’s probably just a matter of how much these behaviors remind people of real-life sore spots/memories/awful people they’ve had to deal with.
To some extent parts of that fall under “protagonist based morality” though in a subtly different way than it’s usually used: I can enjoy Carla’s arrogance because we’ve seen enough of her to have a good idea why it’s there – that it’s mostly a disguise, emotional armor for someone who’s been hurt. And because we’ve also seen her go out of her way to help people and worry about them, as much as she tries to hide it.
We haven’t seen much of any of that from Malaya – either hints at why she is like she is or cracks in the facade where something else can be glimpsed.
…….I think I finally get Malaya. She’s projecting.
She’s fake, so she thinks everyone else HAS to be fake, too. She questions everything about herself so she has to question everything about everyone else, to avoid confronting her own reality.
Hey, this is a neat take! I hadn’t thought of this angle before. Malaya hates dishonesty because she feels dishonest about herself. Imposter Syndrome turned outward as a coping mechanism.
Tying into her questioning her gender?
It’s been pretty obvious that she was projecting her performative coolness onto Sal, but I hadn’t taken it down to that level before.
This is really interesting and something I never considered before! It’s quite possible. I’ve known people IRL who are like Malaya and at least some of them seemed to have a pattern of constantly accusing others of negative behavior they actually engaged in themselves. It’s not uncommon that bullying/criticizing others constantly is really a self-defense ego boosting technique.
I’m curious about Malaya’s parents and role models. Whatever else she may be, she has extreme confidence that her worldview and own special brand of truth vision are exceptional. I wonder what the most adversity she has been through is though.
Oh my gosh this! I mean, part of me cringes because Willis has made a set of very hate-able parents and that could bite us in the bum, but I hope they are like the Keeners, Rueteggs, and I forget Sierra’s last name!
As a person who used to work with kids: There are some true demon spawn, but 9/10 times you meet “problem child” parents, the conclusion is “no wonder.”
Malaya, you would have done fine if you’d stopped in panel 4 but, no, you had to worry about your image and ruin it all. Now Sal’s going to wonder whether your good points were, in fact, just disguised insults!
I liked the part where the entire dorm turned on her and one of them asks (something along the lines of) how many puppies do you think she’s murdered? Also the part where people told her they can multitask their hate. Also the part where a bunch of “lesser” God followers started to pray with her in not the “right” way. Basically, Mary sucks but she gets crapped on. Malaya is toxic Teflon but stuff don’t stick until it peels.
I mean I wouldn’t put her at Mary’s level because while they both think they’re better than everyone around them, Mary is homophobic transphobic trash and she is the true christian in a world of sin, wheras Malaya just seems to have decided everyone else is fake and she is the true real person in a world of phonies.
Honestly if Mary’s holier than thou-ness was based on something other than institutionalized prejudices she and Malaya would only differ in art skills. But since she is, Mary is still worse than Malaya.
I’m not putting her as a character at Mary’s level. Malaya is not evil and driving people to suicide. Malaya is no where near Mary on the awful scale. I’m explaining why Malaya’s appearances grate more to me despite Mary being objectively more awful – Mary is cathartic because she’s super horrible and then trashed or dismissed. Mary gets what she deserves (though there could be some more). Malaya is just grating and nothing happens. When things do happen to her she doesn’t deserve it even if she’s being annoying. Grating does not equal getting punched by Amazigirl who started bad interactions by stalking. She just isn’t balanced well in represention of self vs outcomes received.
I dunno, it’s not like I want a bunch of comics of Malaya getting slapped or something, she’s not just annoying she’s boring. I don’t care enough about her to want to see her get just deserts, I want the camera to just aim at other characters who don’t only incote boredom or annoyance from me. The only interesting part of strips Malaya has been in is other characters.
Anyone notice that Sal repeats what Marcie said?
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
They both say it to convey feeling confused and lost and it makes me
emotional that it’s yet another way the two of them are connected while still hurting.
If Malaya can’t check her attitude? No. Indeed, it is more likely that Sal will ignore good advice simply because it is coming out of Malaya’s mouth, preceded and followed by insults!
I mean, Sal almost strangled her and Sarah had that reaction to just a dream of Joyce while she was still visiting her folks. It’s might happened off screen and Joyce just forgave them because (at the time) Jesus?
Are we all ignoring that while Marcie loves her for other reasons too, this is literally what she vocalized to Sal: I have a type (the Venn diagram with Malaya being hot and cool), I will probably be friends with you the same way that I’m friends with the other person whose pants I want in going forward (dynamic shift not as emotionally close due to acknowledging those feelings and needing space), and I don’t know how much I’ve stuck it out due to these feelings over other parts (dunno, maybe). Sal vocalizing what she was told and then having someone be contrarian is both an insult to Sal and how much that hurt hearing and to Marcie for her trying to own up to certain parts that might have tainted their relationship while sorting stuff out. Is there truth in what Malaya says? Some but it’s pretty much washed away by willfully ignoring half of what people say or dismissing it as irrelevant.
Yeah, Malaya’s not entirely wrong about Marcie, but Sal’s not baselessly coming up with this. That conversation basically punched her insecurity button. Especially the part the may mean being less close.
I have to say I’m super proud of Marcie for owning this though! She knew it would hit these buttons, but it needed to be said because truth and salvaging things! Hiding things would have destroyed everything. What a beautiful horrendous truth!
I like how this is the nicest Malaya’s ever been but she makes one meaninglessly snarky comment at the end so her haters use that as an excuse to still wish violence upon her.
“AhA! See? She still wants to make fun of Sal! She joked about making fun of Sal! Basically as bad as Toedad!”
I’m literally just so done with her hatedom. Y’all are boring. Malaya is actually being meaningfully sincere and supportive here, despite not liking or trusting Sal, and the transparent inability to even acknowledge that, simply because she makes a Malaya Joke at the end and I guess that negate anything positive, is just freaking exhausting.
Okay, last thing – people are so inconsistant in their Reality Goggles, especially where their Scrappies are concerned. Yes, in real life, Malaya’s “animal hater” comment is incredibly rude and unfair, and Lucy’s clinginess is really hard to deal with in a roommate, and Roz’s “I’m a real leftist” comments are toxic and gatekeeping, but y’know? Dumbing of Age being more realistic than Shortpacked doesn’t mean it’s suddenly devoid of cartoony over-the-top gags that are meant to be *read* as cartoony over-the-top gags.
Then I come here and people are saying, “Wow, did she really say that? HOLY COW. She’s such a horrid, manipulative person!”
I don’t see anyone complaining that Joyce’s “waking people up” habit is actually incredibly threatening and makes people feel unsafe, even though the narrative only even started to criticize it substantively, like, a couple months ago. Hell, a lot of people seem fine with *Mike*, even though he would obviously be the kind of senselessly negative, edgy, mean and unpleasant person I would stay the hell away from in real life because he would have a Youtube channel where he talks about how immigrants are ruining his “heritage”, because that’s where those “im a jerk but i speak teh hard truths” personalities actually lead to in reality.
But people don’t get nearly so mad about Carla, or Ruth, or Joyce, or Mike, because they are happy to suspend their disbelief for certain characters, and never for others.
There’s a lot of reasons, I’m sure, but I just wanted to say – stop taking everything so literally. It’s a comedy webcomic. In a comedy, people act exagerated and “say more than they really say”. I feel like Willis himself struggles with the balance between “this is more realistic than Shortpacked and actions have consequences” and “but i still want superhero fights and funny one-liners”.
There are LOTS of comments hating on all the behaviors and characters you describe. Those characters aren’t in this arch or readily doing anything at the moment. As the characters themselves stated: we can multitask.
People” take it literally” because this is one of the few comics that represents such a broad range of people and that makes it relatable. It also means people empathize more readily because they see themselves and know what it was to have those experiences. Lots of people here also say they react strongly and get it off their chest because although it isn’t real, they have dealt with this in reality and it caused harm. Many of these same people wouldn’t ask for violence in real life and are doing so here because it’s a comic and they know it’s not literal. They are embracing the emotional impulse because it is fiction. they do get the difference. Maybe they can’t act that way in the gray of meatspace or they would feel lesser by stooping or it’s a comic so they can be outraged when society would piss on them if they opened their mouth in real life.
You are claiming reality goggles but you’re wearing for them for the commentariat. The characters people defend are probably the people in real life they can handle better. I’ve literally seen every type of comment you are saying doesn’t exist when those characters are actually being presented. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to choose people based on their worst. If they are the embodiment of a personal pet peeve, it’s not going to go well despite all their positive traits.
I don’t like Malaya because of exactly what you said: THIS is the best we’ve seen. Ew. I dislike Mike more because he’s manipulative. I’ve always had problems with Joyce’s boundary issues and there are many here who agreed with me and you before and during the arch you mention. Lucy is not my cup of tea and I find her grating but she’s not some horrendous human.
All this to say – you’re being really unfair to people’s emotional reality, reducing limits of expressions over a comic to what you find palatable while saying people are taking it too hard. PST: you’re taking it too hard.
Yeah, very much this. I’d just add that some of those over the top gags dismissed as not meaningful because cartoony come back in a more serious character development sense. Carla and Mary’s slapstick prank fight and Joyce/Mike’s punching of Joe are probably the most prominent examples – the first moving pretty quickly into serious territory, but the latter being referenced again and again in Joyce’s relationship with Joe.
It makes me wary of dismissing anything – even though some things don’t come back.
The other thing is that with people like Joyce (or Carla, or Ruth, or Amber, or …), we can see their problems and critique them, but also see many examples of their good points. See them reaching out and helping others or see them grow and change.
With some of the others, we haven’t seen that. In the Malaya and Sal relationship, they’re nearly equal jerks to each other, but we’ve seen many other good sides of Sal. Malaya, not really. She’s nice to Marcie and that’s about it and we don’t even know how that developed. Some of that is because she’s a minor character, while Sal’s a protagonist, but at the same time we can only work with what we see and it wouldn’t have been hard to throw in a few scenes of Malaya reaching out to someone without breaking the fundamental conflict with Sal.
I don’t have to like a person because they to one nice thing. That’s generally not a great idea if the person, otherwise, isn’t very nice. And I wouldn’t insultive someone on a daily basis very nice.
That’s the thing i think a lot of people don’t understand about Malaya. She’s convinced herself that Sals whole schtick is just a coolness facade and that Sal is hiding who she really is behind said facade.What Malaya is missing is that it’s not a facade so much as people project an image ONTO Sal and Sal doesn’t correct them. So like… Malaya’s not WRONG necessarily, she’s just putting the blame on the wrong person (and thinking she’s one upping said person when she’s just being mean)
Through everything Malaya has projected onto Sal of herself, I think that amount of thinking she needs to be mean to cover her image of not giving a flying fuck about other people’s emotions when she’s definitely aware of those emotions is one of the most obvious. The only difference at this point between Sal and Malaya is that Sal doesn’t like being seen as that and Malaya only wants to be seen as that. I think if Malaya was honest about herself on that instead of trying to make every good thing she says become upsetting to the person she said it to, we’d really see that Malaya and Sal, on a personality level, aren’t far off at all.
It just came to me to wonder if Malaya figured out Marcie’s love for Sal from the strange display they made (at Carla’s hest)? I’m not sure it was obvious. Maybe Malaya had already figured it out.
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*li’l Sal busts through time and strangles Malaya*
*also is wearing a Pachycephalosaurus shirt*
It’s cool. Malaya’s kinda into that. But, Carla would pop out of nowhere, and make it weird.
Dina would be there, not because she popped up, but because she’s there now unseen.
(It is an act of willpower to part from the giant stuffed animal dinosaur. But Dina has willpower to spend.)
Wait, to which the strangling, or the pachy shirt?
Mal’s got a secret crush…
…on Sal? It must be that caramel flavour that is at fault.
I guess the trick worked, but not how they intended it
Malaya wins one (1) “You Tried” gold star sticker.
You spelled snicker with a t.
There was an attempt.
Yeeeeah, first time I’m agreeing with Malaya. Little up in your own ass there, Sal. And condescending to Marcie.
What part is up her own ass? The part where she thinks Marcie thinks she’s cool or where she thinks Marcie thinks she’s hot? ‘Cause I think both of those are self-evident and the question is more whether or not her friend cares about her other traits, not whether Sal is actually viewed that way.
Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure why Sal is so concerned about being cool and hot, especially given she seems to hate storytime as much as Sarah does.
Because when she doesn’t match people’s preconceived notions of her, they either get bored and abandon her or turn hostile like her mom did. Marcie’s the only one who stuck around and liked her as she was without (so far as Sal could tell) any other motives. Now she’s worried if it’s just because Marcie had feelings for her and not because of Sal herself.
We’ve seen her put the mask down around Joyce and Amber, too. Amber feels obligated to make nice, but Joyce is trying to be accepting with no strings attached.
I’m referring to the past. But yes, she’s making more friends now (thank god).
I’d guess it’s partly because it’s basically the positive-sounding flipside of adults assuming she’s a terrible hoodlum. It’s more or less the same traits, just viewed in a different light.
On the one hand she’s bein real obtuse about this, obviously Marcie’s been in her life for ages, ain’t like she’s playing a long con, thats really insulting to Marcie, I hate how Sal’s taking this
On the other hand I relate to people acting all interested in you cause you’re the cool hot brown punk chick but then it turns out they don’t want to get to know you at all, they just wanna entertain an idea of you they have in their head and maybe get in your pants
Like having someone acting interested in you but then reject who you are beneath the tattoos, piercings, and outfits kinda stings
People wanna see me as the wild looking hot person who parties hard and not the person who watches several hours of Game Grumps every day in my sweatpants
Those people lack class then :/ Sorry that happens to you
Those are gosh-durn glorious pants…
… This may be the first time I’ve not wanted to write off Malaya.
Same. Thanks, Willis.
Because this is when we realize she could have been a Mike-style asshole rather than a self-centered one all this time. There are weird chunks in that sentence I just wrote. *shrug off literal thinkers*
“…is she fucking hitting on me?” – Wolf of Wall Street
Yes. In her own twisted way.
Panel five Malaya is acting almost nice. I don’t know how to process this.
If it weren’t for the “to make fun of her”, I wouldn’t believe that was Malaya. Some damn dream sequence or some shit.
There’s a character in the Hitchhiker’s Guide franchise called “Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged”. He was accidentally granted immortality, and having grown bored with existence, he developed a singular mission: to insult it. He got himself a super fact spaceship and a computer to track the existence of everyone in creation, and started visiting every one of them just to insult them each personally. Alphabetically.
He is Malaya’s spirit animal.
He’s honestly one of my favorite characters in anything ever.
“You’re a jerk, Dethtoll. A real kneebiter.”
Heh. I loved this character… 🙂
At least Wowbagger has the excuse of being immortal and bored. Malaya is just a jerk for (as far as I can tell) no good reason.
I sort of get the feeling her motive is “I am just so right about everyone with my magical emotional x-ray vision, and I need everyone to know and see what I see.”
It’s basically just a brand of narcissism I suppose.
Wowbagger had a big role in the postume last book – And Another Thing…
Not half bad!
So that’s what would happen if Mike was The Cheese over in the Walkyverse…
You’ve already met her, Malaya. You don’t like her much.
Oh Sal. Honey. I know it’s hard because most of the people in your life up to this point have only seen their preconceived notions of what you are or what they wanted you to be, but Malaya is right. This is Marcie. If anyone’s gonna love you, notion free, you can bet your ass she’ll be one of them. I know it’s not helping that her answer to whether she followed you to boarding school (which was probably a huge support during a hard time) was because of her feelings for you was ‘I dunno, maybe’, but I don’t think you have to worry about Marcie.
And screw you, Malaya, mini Sal was ADORABLE.
Malaya I continue to hate you with unrestrained passion. Sal, continue being you.
I’ve got a nickel here. Where’s Mike?
Bargaining with your mother.
ANDRE AGASSI: Image…is everything!
…that is surprisingly insightful
of all the characters to have hidden depths, i wasn’t expecting MALAYA.
Why not? She’s shown depths repeatedly.
Only to turn around in the next panel and become a shallow… unpleasant person.
Which doesn’t erase her depths.
A LOT of people in this comic are jerks, Malaya’s just of the variety most of the readers don’t find funny.
You can’t just…you can’t just kill the entire readership, directly under the comic. There are laws.
They can do it, we just have to have a trial now to see if timemonkey is guilty of what you have accused them of.
Not at all. Depths still there. But it does make her hard to like.
Anyone else getting full page background ads? I’m glad to support this comic and all but it is kind of irritating.
Message hive works support. They’ll get rid of aggressive ads. I’ve never had to message them about an ad more than once.
Will do. Thanks!
Malaya is not surprised. Did she know about marcies feelings for sal?
I’m starting to think Malaya may be a cat.
Cats can do the silliest things and yet walk away from it all with an unphased face like they actually meant to fall butt first into that cake. That may be Malaya.
Good poker face.
That’s what I mean when I tell people I have catlike reflexes. 🙂
Now I have that image of a cat falling buttfirst into a cake in my mind. Knowing me, it’ll probably stay there for today.
Still unsure whether to thank or to curse you 😁
No thanks or curses needed, sometimes a good, or at least hilarious deed is its own reward!
Sal is a good character (here, in Walkyverse she is a cynical mass murderer). Malaya on the other hand can go step on a Lego brick.
Mass murder? I don’t remember that at all. Inaction would have killed people too. That comic was full of trolly problems of ‘who is responsible for what?’
Remember when she threw a temper tantrum and tried to turn the North American continent into antimatter?
That’s one way to describe a total breakdown sure.
And, to be fair, there are a lot of people who would like to turn North America into antimatter.
Wait – wasn’t it established later she was brainwashed? I know it kinda went back and forth on whether she was brainwashed or whether it just enhanced feelings she already had, but I thought it settled on brainwashed, like with Daisy.
Yah I think the Biritish organization had brainwashed her at that point.
I think their brainwashing was just amplifying stuff that was already there. Sal’s not completely to blame but she’s not totally innocent either.
But later on they acted like it was straight up brainwashing with Daisy. Was it some different kind of brainwashing or did I miss something?
I think so, Daisy realised she had been controlled once she snapped out of it, Sal did not, she believed everything she said and did was her own fault. Also her whole thing with Danny wouldn’t have been able to snap her own of it had she had Daisy style brainwashing.
Yeah, see, I keep getting stuck because they kept going back and forth on it later. Sal also didn’t even believe any tampering at all had been done initially (plus this is Sal – guilt issues are her one of her defining characteristics) so it got really confusing for me for a while.
Was she an inspiration for Lucy Diamond or vice-versa? They even look alike.
…the novelist?
The main antagonist/love interest in DEBS.
See 1:24 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BIWrGxawS7E
Malaya is what people think Mike is – a warrior therapist.
Except Mike is a genius at psychotherapy while being an actual monster.
While Malaya is terrible at reading people while actually caring.
Also, neither is a warrior..
Also, neither is a therapist. But otherwise, spot on analysis.
Isn’t Malaya part of a roller derby team? Thus, she is a warrior.
You have hit on the plot of Curtain (Poirot’s last case) where he discover’s a murderer who kills psychologically – by analyzing people, discovering their weaknesses, and driving them to suicide by engineering events that play on every one of their greatest fears.
Was pretty horrific.
He drives them not to suicide, but to murder. Even Hastings. Luckily, Poirot interferes.
You guys are spoiling the heck out of some quality Christie here.
Give a spoiler warning!
Sorry!
See, I was of the opinion they were just both jerks who went out of their way to harass targets, as opposed to people like Joe who can be a jerk but doesn’t seem to go out of his way to interact with people who have made it clear they think he’s a jerk.
I guess Mike is more interested in multiple targets wheras Malaya will be shitty to people but loses interest in most of them fairly quickly except Sal.
I don’t think that’s the case, Eve, because Malaya doesn’t go out of her way to interact with Sal. Malaya is friends with Marcie who Sal hates the friendship of so Sal has done her best to sabotage, insult her, and thretaen physical violence of. Malaya is not intimidated or inclined to give Sal any slack for it.
And why should she?
Except Malaya takes EVERY opportunity to interact with Sal.
She made a point of engaging Sal when Marcie gives her a message to pass along instead of delivering the message and fucking off.
She shined a sunlamp in Sal’s face while ‘sunning her iguana'(Fuckface was in the opposite direction of the door), then acted as if Sal wanted to KILL her iguana because Sal’s response to a contextless bright light was “get that out of my eyes or I’ll break it (so the light can never be shined in my face again.)”
Malaya is far from innocent here.
Except malayas been shown to go out of her way to antagonize other people. Remember when sal was trying to distract her so she could talk to Marcie alone about the plan?
Malaya planned to seduce someone, that’s a distraction a lot of people wouldn’t hate.
What? No, she went out of her way to go antagonize two people she thought were “fake”. One of them tried to seduce her. Did you just blank out on those comics or something?
See, for me I prefer Mike because he at least owns being an asshat. Malaya acts like she’s doing Sal a fucking favor by being rude to her.
The actually caring part needs to be established.
Dammit, Malaya, you almost had me there until the end.
I get where Sal’s coming from, and I definitely get why she’d say what she’s saying – she’s clearly extremely insecure about the nature of her relationship with Marcie, and she knows it’s been unstable in the past – but yeah, panel two Sal’s statement should have seemed fundamentally silly to her if she’d thought back to realize that she was not born a fully-formed cool-biker-girl.
Oh sure, but I’m betting the Marcie confession was less than an hour ago so I can’t blame her for not having rationally thought things out. In her place my mind would still be on the “AHHHHHHHHHHH” stage.
Except the end of the conversation was being likened to Malaya, being put into a type, and saying she might be a friend in the same way as she is to Malaya versus how she was in the past (which is friends because I can’t haz in pants). There are a lot of people saying Sal, honey, Marcie loves you for more things and this is true. But she told Sal, I have a type, you’re it (the hot brown brash Carmel Sunday whatever that is the Venn diagram with Malaya), and that means dynamic might shift for those reasons. So Sal is voicing pretty much what she was told.
“You got no idea how satisfying it is that after this we won’t become pals. Ah was genuinely worried.”
“Well, my days of not takin’ you seriously are definitely comin’ to a middle.”
Look at Malaya, being nice
Wow, Malaya speaks wisely for a change!
This does make it more likely that the whole pretense that Sal was into Marcie was in fact a reverse con, with Malaya helping Marcie get Sal’s attention.
Why…..why has Malaya seen photos of Sal as a kid?..How has Malaya seen photos of Sal as a kid?!
The Internet sees all, knows all.
Are there pictures of young Sal on the internet? I mean obviously you’d think Facebook but who would Malaya plausibly be friends with that would post pictures of kid Sal? Sal doesn’t seem like the social media type, nor does Marcie really. I guess that’s the most logical answer, but nothing beats me imagining Malaya broke into the Walkerton house to peek through old photo albums while mumbling “I knew she wasn’t hot shit!” to herself!
I would assume because Marcie showed her childhood photos and Sal was obviously in them.
because marcie’s probably shown her pics from when marcie was a kid, particularly if malaya had questions about her throat, etc.
I haven’t been able to take Malaya seriously since she got her Carol Brady haircut…
The best quality Malaya has is her similarity to a broken clock.
If this means we’ll finally get Malaya actually having a clue who Sal actually is, then fuck it, I’m in. Because we’ve heard that song plenty by now, but this is the first time it’s ringing true.
Why is Malaya the smartest person in this universe?
Why is Dina the smartest person in this universe? Fixed that for you.
Malaya has just enough smarts to feel dangerous, which is fair since she’s about to be a sophomore, translation “wise idiot”. If she were smarter (or maybe wiser) she would realize it’s not very smart to be so abrasive, and she would be aware of how much she doesnt know.
Actual wise people regularly assert that they know little to nothing and rarely seek to give others advice, let alone unsolicited advice. Malaya talks more than she listens, a trend that tends to reverse with wisdom.
I’m curious what Mike’s take on Malaya would be, if he had any time to care.
Mutual spite sex.
Malaya’s right, and it’s fucked to call your best friend “just another” anything.
It’s kind of fucked, but I think it’s a reflection of her own insecurities rather than anything about Marcie. It’s “maybe she doesn’t really like me. Maybe no one really likes me”, not an attack on Marcie.
Not as fucked when the friend explicitly says that that’s how they see you.
Malaya is smiling. Are we sure there isn’t an invisible Fuckface on her head?
Why would Sal make that statement to Malaya? It just seems a huge betrayal to Marcie to say that to Malaya.
That did seem weird to me. Sal’s not exactly in the habit of confiding in Malaya.
Maybe she’s just in a state where it had to come out and Malaya was there?
Ah, I wondered why Sal was so angry about things. That explains it.
Sal, sweety, in this one case Malaya is right: Marcie has known you much longer than your current presentation of feminity.
Malaya…you actually did good here. Well done, Malaya!
Do people really hate Malaya that much? She’s a jerk to Sal, who is a jerk to a bunch of other people. She can’t stand Lucy or Joyce, and honestly they’re pretty irritating (Lucy much more so). Other than that, what did she do that was so bad? She decided to fuck someone who was super down to fuck? She didn’t pick up on signals that Marcie was in to her at all?
I dunno, I feel like she’s not a genuinely bad person unlike, say, Mary.
I feel the same confusion. Maybe it’s the time she was like “let’s make people hate us more” with Joe? She seems like someone who outwardly projects that she’s “bad” and clings to it. We saw this with changing her mind whether to be mad about Fuckface’s excusion too. I don’t know.
*excursion
Well, just today she was going to go tell someone off because she thought they looked ‘fake’ to use her words. The guy wasn’t doing anything to her, he was just standing around. That’s a pretty crappy thing to do.
But yeah, mostly, Malaya just kinda has a shitty attitude and we see fewer humanizing moments of her than we do with people like Sal, Carla, or Sarah, so a lot of readers don’t like her.
Personally, I’ve always liked Malaya, shitty attitude and all.
This. I really thought “Shitty and petty on purpose” was her self-definition. Today is the first time I’ve seen anything different.
Basically her entire self image is of being The Only Person Who Admits The Truth That Nobody Actually Likes Things and you know what, fuck that person, that person is an unbearable shithead.
She comes off as someone who will decide she doesn’t like a person for arbitrary and often completely nonsense reasons, then hound you about it constantly with no opportunity to change their opinion because they just will not listen to evidence.
A lot of it is honestly the denseness. Like, someone being an asshole is irritating, but someone being an asshole and being constantly, loudly Wrong about it (in your opinion) can be fucking infuriating.
It’s the obnoxious attitude of “I know far more about your thoughts and motivations and personality than you do, and will loudly state so as often as possible” Which even on it’s own is possibly the most annoying trait a person can have.
There’s also the fact that she pretty much goes out of her way to interact with Sal to bug her and go after her even when Sal is trying to avoid her or avoid talking to her. Like, there’s dicks, and there’s dicks that make “just avoid them” not an option.
You have obviously never been the target of a Malaya because they fucking suck. People that take everything you do in bad faith, that try to tell you who YOU are when you are nothing but honest about yourself, that will say ridiculous fucking things things just to get on your nerves or undermine you or demonise you and try to steal your friends are not nice people.
She doesn’t have a problem with Joyce or Lucy for valid reasons. She took one look at Lucy and decided she hated her. Because she like, smiles and is actually friendly.
And Malaya will do anything to spite someone she has decided is worth spiting. The problem with her having sex with Joe wasn’t whether he consented, but that she only did it because she managed to convince herself that Sal had a crush on him and wanted to spite Sal by taking him away from her.
She might not be going around trying to convince people to die and blackmailing people like Mary, but telling you to your face that you hate animals because you don’t like someone shining a bright light in your face is not a rational conclusion and is just further harassment.
If you think Lucy is more irritating than freaking JOYCE, we have no common ground on anything.
If you think Lucy is irritating period we have no common ground on anything
I mean, 0 is a number.
…what the hell has Lucy ever done to anyone?
The thing about Lucy is she’s sort of a bad roommate and it’s easy to associate her with certain roommate/nerd archetypes. She’s full of “what I’m supposed to say” platitudes, insists on being friends with everyone whether they like it or not (Billie’s a jerk but she has every right to not want to be friends with her roommate), and she’s one of those Potter fans who acts like nerds are an oppressed class. Plus, Harry Potter is one of those fandoms where everybody’s kind of into it but people who are *really* into it get a bad rap. Yknow, the female fanbase’s heavy emphasis on male/male shipping, treating it like a valuable treatise to be consulted in all political discussions, etc.
The way she’s treated in the comic makes this more complicated, because she’s usually framed as being blameless and it frustrates people who associate her with those archetypes. Some people have had roommates who demand our friendship, and some people have gotten really sick of “nerds” lately. I actually find Amber, and Marigold from QC, to be way more frustrating, but Amber is framed pretty critically most of the time, while Lucy is rarely criticized so far.
It’s not really fair to Lucy herself, but that’s part of why some people find her more annoying than Joyce. Joyce is regularly criticized for her behavior, and what’s more, the person she’s annoying is rarely framed by the comic as being a Jerk for not liking her. Billie is. And that sets people off, too, even though we all know Billie is kind of a jerk.
I’l reiterate that it’s not really fair to Lucy, who hasn’t had time to get properly introduced, but until we get to see her in more complex scenes than “she’s rooming with the character the narrative tells us to hate”, this is kinda where we’re at.
Your whole post seems to boil down to “anti-nerd bigots are angry at a non-negative portrayal of a nerd”.
I really sympathize with Lucy because in many ways I used to BE her. And I constantly worried I was annoying and people pretty much confirmed those fears regularly so I’d try even harder to not be and just end up doing the opposite because I was trying too hard. Social anxiety doesn’t always take the form of Amber where she avoids talking to people, sometimes it takes the form of “constant foot-in-mouth rambling and oversharing.”
So I confess all the Lucy hate makes me sad because when I see her I feel protective and insecure about my past self at the same time.
Wait, why is Marigold frustrating? One either likes her or ignores her. Unless one is somehow invested in her success, and wants her to succeed faster… but between Momo and Dale, she seems to be doing OK.
Yeah, but Joyce is our lovable flawed white protagonist, and Amber is our quirky white protagonist with serious issues, and Ruth is our prickly white tsundere jerk, and Carla is our endearing Chaotic Neutral white jerk, Mike is our Jerk With A Hart of Gold white protagonist with serious issues, and Malaya and Roz are Satan.
idk I don’t see any pattern here do you
I am leaving Billie out of this “how the fandom treats white jerks vs. nonwhite jerks” because it feels like she gets a weird middle ground where half the people here project their issues about jocks and cheerleaders and Nerd Oppression and half the people here adore her for her flaws, so she kinda escapes the pattern. I also left out Leslie’s girlfriend because I Can’t Remember Her Name.
Renee – which she’s supposed to be female Mike.
Anna. I meant Anna. Correct correct correct.
The thing about racism in a fanbase is that you call it out and people really try to paint you as crazy and wrong. I think that since Willis seems to write everyone neutrally this will all resolve in the end but we just don’t get to have “flawed” brown and black people, they drop to the bottom of the barrel at the first sign of moral failure.
Oh, I was misreading the above as a criticism of the comic, not the fanbase. My bad. I don’t tend to sift through the comments often, so I’ve not necessarily seen the pattern Nikol was talking about. FWIW, I think Malaya’s a bit of an ass, but I don’t hate her, and Roz – while having some of the worst traits of a liberal activist gatekeeper – still has her values in generally the right direction.
I mean, I read all the comments and feel like they align with your character descriptions below in how people react.
Except Sal is high in the poles and we’ve explored almost all her known flaws – anger, clinginess, insecurity, issues with justice and authority. Dina has social issues galore and other characters in comic minimize her agency but she’s number one right now. We love us some Dina. Sarah isn’t as love able because she’s a metaphorical porcupine but she’s nowhere near the bottom! Asma isn’t main but she has a pretty vocal fan club who want more of her and we have seen her get the grumpy face on. Sarah speaks to the grumpiness of my heart, but she’s also a bunch of my own flaws so watching her missteps is a painful reminder of my own failures. Roz is baby liberal me and I want to smack past me for unintentional harm in the face. If Dorothy pulled that gate keeping and was baby liberal me, I’d want to strangle her instead.
Except your argument kinda falls apart with Sarah the anti-social black jerk who legitimately has a heart of gold, Dina the quirky dinosaur loving Asian-descended individual who everyone loves, Lucy the perpetually cheerful and optimistic but somewhat flawed black character, the mixed-race Walky (lovable goofball genius with some emotional issues) and Sal (flawed cool chick with somewhat dark back story), and a whole host of other minority characters who have good representation.
And while Malaya and Roz are pretty well disliked, the worst folks are Mary, ToeDad, Blaine, and Scarface – all white villains.
Yeah, I think it takes some selective reading to think the commentariat generally treats the white characters better than poc.
Partly it might just be a perception bias though: I know in some of the bigger dustups we’ve had here I’ve seen the boards as largely hostile to characters I like while many of the complaints were how much the boards were defending those same characters. It’s easy in threads like this to gloss over posts that basically agree with you and overreact to those that are obviously wrong 🙂
I know I’ve done it.
But yeah, nearly everyone major (except maybe Dina) comes in for their share of criticism and all but the villains have their passionate defenders. I’d want to see some statistical analysis before accepting any big bias pattern.
Fandoms in general tend to come down harder on marginalized characters, but that’s because people in general tend to come down harder on marginalized people. Willis has been pretty good about getting rid of the most blatant folks like that though, so this forum’s usually pretty decent. The big flare ups tend to be when stuff relevant to marginalization comes up – like when Sal told Walky their parents were racist, not long after Becky came out (especially after she cut her hair), when Carla and Mary were fighting, etc.
Yup, yup. And thankfully even in the relatively rare bile for a comment section, most of that isn’t made against a character directly, but rather for another due to ignorance that a certain hard circumstance exists in reality. So many times we hear that it is unrealistic or people would never do that so they dismiss it and favor the less angry character. Which is better than the reaction being due to baked in hatred and wishing harm on someone but still isn’t good for forward momentum and prevention of harm. It’s the systemic part versus knee jerk profiling part which is hard and has horrendous consequences but in a less personal way. People are not understanding due to the limits of their own experiences. However, this is still a really odd comic arc to look for that in because it’s two POC in the room right now (one with gender identity struggles) and a Dreamer who is dreaming of them and a trans lady. If we are picking sides on who is least at fault – that person is super marganalized in Indiana let alone the comic section no matter who you’re rooting for or defending.
Yeah, pretty much, with the exception of Carla and Mary’s storyline – a metric FUCKTON of transphobes chose that moment to pop up. Plenty of nasty folks when Sal first pointed out racism too but since then they’ve either left the comment section or learned, so it’s not as unbearable anymore.
Regardless of what individuals think of Carla as a character, her explanation for her chosen revenge is still one of the biggest highlights of this series for me. The ownership, the empowerment, the societal rebellion in microcosm: glorious. I’m so glad I missed most of the hate you read. I’m normally pretty late in the day, so maybe the ban-wagon was liberally applied before then.
A lot of them got banned and their comments spam filtered, yeah. And a strip or two had closed comments yeah. If the comments are closed for any particular strip, it’s a good sign something bad happened. Same happened when Sal first pointed out the racism with Walky and when we found out Becky’s mom didn’t have cancer but committed suicide.
A lot of stuff with Becky early on too. The haircut?
God yes.
Nobody actually likes Mike. He’s one of the biggest losers in the comic. Defending Mike is one of the funniest running gags this comment section has.
Actually… Willis himself (don’t remember when but I remember it in a comment section) said that Mike used to be one of his best loved characters. So though I agree with you in spirit and hope that isn’t true of Dumbing of Age commenters, that hasn’t always been true. And I had anxiety about society when I read that.
Ngl, I still love Mike. It’s probably in part due to nostalgia from shortpacked, but yeah. I think he’s funny (and maybe had a crush on him as a young teen…). Obviously I would never want to hang out with someone like him irl, but since he’s just a fictional character I can enjoy it
Mike was a popular character in Shortpacked because his toxicity bred results and was born of a skewed but deep insight.
In Dumbing of Age he stopped winning, so what looked like wisdom beneath the cynicism now just looks like him talking out of his ass and enlarging people’s worst attributes.
That makes sense. I mean that’s sort of why I like having Mary screen time even if I dislike her as character: the cast at large constantly take the wind from her sails. I want that to happen to the Mary’s of real life so I find it cathartic. I do not want more Marys. Nopealope out of that.
Yes Mary might be one of the few not-downright-villain (like toedad et. al) characters that I despise. But it’s more of a “love to hate” her sort of deal where seeing her bigotry constantly slapped down and backfiring is extreme catharsis in a world where that “good wins out” deal doesn’t seem to happen enough IRL.
It’s possible people’s claims that Mike is actually some kind of asshole sage are basically trolling and it’s all just a running gag (that somehow many long time commentors aren’t in on), but they sure seem to be serious.
I am fairly certain most Mike fans are in the category of “he’s kind of hot and his jerkishness is a weird turn-on” because that is a definite type many people have in terms of liking fictional characters (myself included).
But we generally (well, hopefully, at least) would not actually like a real-life Mike. We just swoon over “bad boys with secret emotional vulnerability” in fiction.
I like Mike! But I think there’s a problem in this comments section sometimes where people conflate enjoying a fictional character with CONDONING that character’s behavior IRL.
I can like Dracula (or Spike if you want modern vampire lore) as a character and still think literally murdering people/being a creepy abusive jerk is wrong. I can like Darth Vader as a character and still think trying to kill your own son is wrong. I can like Scar as a character and still think it’s wrong to kill your brother and try to kill your nephew. I can like Sylar as a character and think slicing people’s heads open and stealing their brains is actually incredibly horrifying and disturbing. I can like Q (trek, not Bond) as a character and think manipulating the lives of people with godlike powers is actually really abusive and wrong.
I enjoy Mike as a character, because it’s fiction. If I met a Mike in real life I would think he was a horrible emotionally abusive jerk and want nothing to do with him. But too often in this comment section I see people baffled that anyone could like Mike and assumptions that if they do they must be a toxic person who condones his behavior.
Really I like most of the characters, except maybe Malaya, Roz, Mary, and Raidah (ironic because I think she’s currently my randomly assigned gravatar). Probably because they all ping particular stress-points for me I’ve experienced a lot IRL (which I understand is probably why people may not like Mike or other characters, we all have different experiences).
Well okay I also don’t like toedad and the like but I left out the really blatant obvious “created for people to hate” villains because I am pretty certain no one likes them.
There’s a few.
They live in the spam filter, where they belong.
All the characters you’ve listed dislike towards are the ones most sure they are Right and everyone else is Wrong so I can see it as unifying dislike.
Yeah not only did I have bad teen experiences with mean girls who did that under the guise of trying to be “helpful”, I grew up with a brother who STILL does this, so it is a particular sore spot for me.
I’m sorry. That sounds hard. *cyber hugs if wanted*
Thanks! <3 The teen stuff is water under the bridge at this point (I'm in my 30s now, so it was a while ago). The brother stuff is hard because I can't completely remove him from my life (he's also a libertarian, MRA, "women are oppressing men", "reverse racism is real" type so, realllly not someone I get along with). Thankfully I only have to see him once a year at christmas and the rest of the time I pretend I am an only child!
You have my sympathies. My brother is rapidly progressing down the MRA path and it’s incredibly upsetting. I’ve had to cut him out of my life for my own sanity, and to keep his nonsense off my FB.
That all makes sense and there’s definitely a set who like Mike as a character.
But there’s always a group that attempts to defend and justify Mike and I don’t think that’s the same thing. The “asshole sage” concept – that he might be cruel, but he’s doing it to teach his targets a lesson they need to learn.
^ This. Go ahead, love Mike as a character, I do too, but when he’s pissing on other characters, don’t tell me it’s actually just raining.
The hinting that this pattern exists (which I don’t even see) because of possible racist tendencies of the whole (versus individuals) when we have people here from so many different countries with different demographics and experiences is confusing. The comic is in Midwest America and about an American experience, but often people are outraged because “what happens in America!?! We don’t have that problem here!”
All the white characters listed above have staunch haters and people who strongly believe improvement is important but forgiveness is not a right. Or that you need to work and get mental health issues under control and you’re still accountable even if you are less culpable over your actions. They also see them working on it and identify with that struggle and can forgive because they aren’t the victims. They have a lot of screen time. All the POC characters don’t have near the level vitriol you’re claiming against them but it does certainly exist… like with most characters. I think Dina, Sierra, Mormon chick, other R.A. and the reps at the lgbtq greet up are the only ones I’ve seen relatively unscathed (again, screen time has to do with it!) Of those, Dina being the most prominent character is the important exception to vitriol. I have not seen anyone claim Roz a demon and the worst villains are irrefutably white: toe dad, Blaine, linda, leland, carol, Mary… none of the POC touch these. I don’t think I’ve seen any of the commenters ever attempt to make a claim that Roz, Malaya etc are as bad as these. You can be vocal about a lesser issue or personality quirk angering you and still not equate it to any of the above.
The only exception Ive seen to hint at a racist slant in the commentariat is Renee (who I admittedly don’t like) and if I remember correctly is supposed to be lesbian, poc Mike (thus, my dislike makes sense since I don’t like Mike). I believe Willis said that Mike used to be a popular character (internal cringing). I don’t think Mike is popular anymore so this could be as much a demographic shift and timing issue rather then a presentation issue. Mike is also, I feel, worse then Renee with what we’ve seen because even with the Heart of Gold slant, he’s still manipulative. Renee’s abrasive and negs, which is gross but not in a “keeps a list of peoples flaws and how to exploit them in a book” gross. I can also say that all of the major cast have flaws that make you want to strangle them from time to time. They are teenagers. It’s their very not secret power and they haven’t had all the life experiences to reign them in yet. They are in a place to learn and most of them are doing so!
Oh! And Asma. I’ve seen loads ask for more Asma. She handles everything so well!
*everytime I’ve said Renee today replace it with Anna. I slurred my brain space with QC.
Ooooh, you were so close. It’s not racism, it’s protagonist-based morality. Sal has actually physically assaulted Malaya, but that doesn’t matter because Sal doesn’t like her and she’s more of a protagonist than Malaya, so it’s ok. Sal gets forgiven for putting a knife to a kid’s throat when she was 13, but it’s great when Walky suckerpunches Asher for ratting someone out to the cops when HE was 13. Mike being an asshole people? Bad. Joyce paying Mike to punch people? Great. Malaya telling Sal and Marcie to kiss? Bad. Carla screaming to the world that they are, precipitating everything? Super entertaining.
This is totally closer to the thing, but even then it’s not uniform. It’s been a hot minute but isn’t Malaya between her and Sal the first to assault anyone (serially, not calendar) in the comic series? So we saw her be aggressive first which would have left a first impression rather than it be protagonist based? Sal only called for Amazigirl to be held, and Malaya got physical. That was the first of those two interacting I remember and she was complaining before that about splitting beer with Sal just saying damn it Malaya rather than retaliating. Her first appearance was her complaining and then resorting to fists. Amazigirl being in the most wrong for stalking. Those last three examples (Joyce and Mike, Malaya, Carla) I’m pretty sure more people said bad then good initially unless they were citing comedic value, and those that didn’t eventually changed their tune. Someone made the point today that a lot of the gag strips show long term consequences and get reframed in a serious light (how Joe and Joyce’s relationship is tainted now based on that experience was the main example).
As others have said: being the target of a Malaya REALLY sucks. I feel like there’s a term for it that I’m blanking on right now (thought it was “concern trolling” but looked it up and I guess not)…
but anyway, it’s basically a subtle form of condescending bullying. Under the guise of Genuinely Trying to be Helpful someone will tell you what they think you are really like/what you’re really thinking in a really condescending/critical way, and if you try to protest or defend yourself, they brush you off because only THEIR take is the correct one and they could not possibly be wrong in their assumptions about your innermost thoughts and motivations and your denial of their Truth is just your own refusal to hear what you really “need” to hear.
Malaya doesn’t try quite so hard to pretend to be “polite” about it. She kind of approaches it in a more “I don’t care what people think, you just can’t handle the truth!” sort of way, but it’s still the same basic behavior. A person insisting they are always right and the only one with the True Answers and that disagreeing with them is a character flaw is a person that is really frustrating to deal with because you can’t have a rational, honest conversation with them, and being around them generally means constantly being criticized.
I understand too why some people might like her. They might find her behavior funny, kind of like how I find Carla’s arrogance funny where other people might find it really intrusive, it’s probably just a matter of how much these behaviors remind people of real-life sore spots/memories/awful people they’ve had to deal with.
To some extent parts of that fall under “protagonist based morality” though in a subtly different way than it’s usually used: I can enjoy Carla’s arrogance because we’ve seen enough of her to have a good idea why it’s there – that it’s mostly a disguise, emotional armor for someone who’s been hurt. And because we’ve also seen her go out of her way to help people and worry about them, as much as she tries to hide it.
We haven’t seen much of any of that from Malaya – either hints at why she is like she is or cracks in the facade where something else can be glimpsed.
As much as I detest Malaya, she has a point here.
It almost seemed like Malaya was being nice for a moment there. Almost.
…….I think I finally get Malaya. She’s projecting.
She’s fake, so she thinks everyone else HAS to be fake, too. She questions everything about herself so she has to question everything about everyone else, to avoid confronting her own reality.
Hey, this is a neat take! I hadn’t thought of this angle before. Malaya hates dishonesty because she feels dishonest about herself. Imposter Syndrome turned outward as a coping mechanism.
Tying into her questioning her gender?
It’s been pretty obvious that she was projecting her performative coolness onto Sal, but I hadn’t taken it down to that level before.
So, she’s from southern Illinois? That would explain a lot.
…that would explain why Malaya is being helpful to Sal so soon after witnessing definitive proof of Sal being fake.
This is really interesting and something I never considered before! It’s quite possible. I’ve known people IRL who are like Malaya and at least some of them seemed to have a pattern of constantly accusing others of negative behavior they actually engaged in themselves. It’s not uncommon that bullying/criticizing others constantly is really a self-defense ego boosting technique.
Or you hate most what you hate in yourself. Not fun to be confronted with the embodiment of your own flaws in an interaction.
Yeah this too!
Now the question is, when is Sal going to figure out the same thing? I mean, she was willing to rob a store for her even when she was a kid.
Malaya is… helping?
She realised that too; that’s why had to slip in an insult at the end.
“Oh no, my ‘too-cool-to-care’ persona!”
Malaya’s new nickname might s well be IMAX, wiith all of that projecting going on here.
HA!
Good one!
*applause*
I too like to speak in the this manner.
Too make fun of people who speak like this.
Oh Malaya, the day the Karma Truck runs over your annoying ass is gonna be so incredibly sweet.
I’m curious about Malaya’s parents and role models. Whatever else she may be, she has extreme confidence that her worldview and own special brand of truth vision are exceptional. I wonder what the most adversity she has been through is though.
Oh my gosh this! I mean, part of me cringes because Willis has made a set of very hate-able parents and that could bite us in the bum, but I hope they are like the Keeners, Rueteggs, and I forget Sierra’s last name!
As a person who used to work with kids: There are some true demon spawn, but 9/10 times you meet “problem child” parents, the conclusion is “no wonder.”
Malaya, you would have done fine if you’d stopped in panel 4 but, no, you had to worry about your image and ruin it all. Now Sal’s going to wonder whether your good points were, in fact, just disguised insults!
Man I hope the Malaya strips end soon. I don’t think she’s ever added any aspect I enjoyed to a strip.
So, she’s your version of Mary, huh?
I liked the part where the entire dorm turned on her and one of them asks (something along the lines of) how many puppies do you think she’s murdered? Also the part where people told her they can multitask their hate. Also the part where a bunch of “lesser” God followers started to pray with her in not the “right” way. Basically, Mary sucks but she gets crapped on. Malaya is toxic Teflon but stuff don’t stick until it peels.
I mean I wouldn’t put her at Mary’s level because while they both think they’re better than everyone around them, Mary is homophobic transphobic trash and she is the true christian in a world of sin, wheras Malaya just seems to have decided everyone else is fake and she is the true real person in a world of phonies.
Honestly if Mary’s holier than thou-ness was based on something other than institutionalized prejudices she and Malaya would only differ in art skills. But since she is, Mary is still worse than Malaya.
I’m not putting her as a character at Mary’s level. Malaya is not evil and driving people to suicide. Malaya is no where near Mary on the awful scale. I’m explaining why Malaya’s appearances grate more to me despite Mary being objectively more awful – Mary is cathartic because she’s super horrible and then trashed or dismissed. Mary gets what she deserves (though there could be some more). Malaya is just grating and nothing happens. When things do happen to her she doesn’t deserve it even if she’s being annoying. Grating does not equal getting punched by Amazigirl who started bad interactions by stalking. She just isn’t balanced well in represention of self vs outcomes received.
I dunno, it’s not like I want a bunch of comics of Malaya getting slapped or something, she’s not just annoying she’s boring. I don’t care enough about her to want to see her get just deserts, I want the camera to just aim at other characters who don’t only incote boredom or annoyance from me. The only interesting part of strips Malaya has been in is other characters.
You are hitting the nail on the head on what I was trying to explain.
Fair enough. Most people on the site seem to despise Malaya right now, so I didn’t know if you put her in the True Villain Club or not.
I usually enjoy her but yeah, this particular storyline isn’t the most enjoyable.
Malaya’s one of my favourite characters
So… the awkward denialist unrequited love triangle is now complete
Anyone notice that Sal repeats what Marcie said?
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
They both say it to convey feeling confused and lost and it makes me
emotional that it’s yet another way the two of them are connected while still hurting.
Oh Malaya, coming up for a fresh breath of decency only to sink back into the depths of douchebagery.
Boom, Malaya knew the whole time
God, could Malaya just go away for like… forever? I’ve never seen such a ignorant garbage character in my life.
Marluxia may be ignorant garbage, but
So Malaya always knew … she’s even give really good advices to Sal … May this be the beginning of a better relationship between the two?
If Malaya can’t check her attitude? No. Indeed, it is more likely that Sal will ignore good advice simply because it is coming out of Malaya’s mouth, preceded and followed by insults!
I don’t think Sal can be so blind to ignore something real just because Malaya said it.
*Points at title of the comic*
Even if you set aside the characters’ youth and various personality issues, it’s human nature to push back against those who are mean to us.
that’s actually terrible advice. Marcie explicitly said she “clearly had a type”, so Sal has valid concerns here.
Yep. And her type is “Girls who, in some way, remind me the one I’ve loved since childhood”. It looks more like a rebound than “Having a type”.
Wow, that was actually… kind.
Just punch her, please.
“Oh violence solves nothing and that means she wins.”
I don’t care, Sal, just fucking punch her.
nd then she gets kicked out of school and her [parents get to treat her as even more of a failure.
They’ll do that no matter what, so who cares about their response?
Sal, Sal cares.
If the cast went around punching people for being annoying jerks, Joyce would be dead for a long time now.
Joyce? Annoying? What a patently ridiculous concept. How silly you are.
I mean, Sal almost strangled her and Sarah had that reaction to just a dream of Joyce while she was still visiting her folks. It’s might happened off screen and Joyce just forgave them because (at the time) Jesus?
Are we all ignoring that while Marcie loves her for other reasons too, this is literally what she vocalized to Sal: I have a type (the Venn diagram with Malaya being hot and cool), I will probably be friends with you the same way that I’m friends with the other person whose pants I want in going forward (dynamic shift not as emotionally close due to acknowledging those feelings and needing space), and I don’t know how much I’ve stuck it out due to these feelings over other parts (dunno, maybe). Sal vocalizing what she was told and then having someone be contrarian is both an insult to Sal and how much that hurt hearing and to Marcie for her trying to own up to certain parts that might have tainted their relationship while sorting stuff out. Is there truth in what Malaya says? Some but it’s pretty much washed away by willfully ignoring half of what people say or dismissing it as irrelevant.
Yeah, Malaya’s not entirely wrong about Marcie, but Sal’s not baselessly coming up with this. That conversation basically punched her insecurity button. Especially the part the may mean being less close.
I have to say I’m super proud of Marcie for owning this though! She knew it would hit these buttons, but it needed to be said because truth and salvaging things! Hiding things would have destroyed everything. What a beautiful horrendous truth!
This chapter, I do say… o.O I’ve been away for a while, just caught up the last few weeks and it’s like “Holy Character Development, Batman!”
…and this is why we can’t have nice things >_< Why must DoA Malaya have these stupid not-quite-but-almost-redeeming moments??????
I like how this is the nicest Malaya’s ever been but she makes one meaninglessly snarky comment at the end so her haters use that as an excuse to still wish violence upon her.
“AhA! See? She still wants to make fun of Sal! She joked about making fun of Sal! Basically as bad as Toedad!”
I’m literally just so done with her hatedom. Y’all are boring. Malaya is actually being meaningfully sincere and supportive here, despite not liking or trusting Sal, and the transparent inability to even acknowledge that, simply because she makes a Malaya Joke at the end and I guess that negate anything positive, is just freaking exhausting.
Okay, last thing – people are so inconsistant in their Reality Goggles, especially where their Scrappies are concerned. Yes, in real life, Malaya’s “animal hater” comment is incredibly rude and unfair, and Lucy’s clinginess is really hard to deal with in a roommate, and Roz’s “I’m a real leftist” comments are toxic and gatekeeping, but y’know? Dumbing of Age being more realistic than Shortpacked doesn’t mean it’s suddenly devoid of cartoony over-the-top gags that are meant to be *read* as cartoony over-the-top gags.
Then I come here and people are saying, “Wow, did she really say that? HOLY COW. She’s such a horrid, manipulative person!”
I don’t see anyone complaining that Joyce’s “waking people up” habit is actually incredibly threatening and makes people feel unsafe, even though the narrative only even started to criticize it substantively, like, a couple months ago. Hell, a lot of people seem fine with *Mike*, even though he would obviously be the kind of senselessly negative, edgy, mean and unpleasant person I would stay the hell away from in real life because he would have a Youtube channel where he talks about how immigrants are ruining his “heritage”, because that’s where those “im a jerk but i speak teh hard truths” personalities actually lead to in reality.
But people don’t get nearly so mad about Carla, or Ruth, or Joyce, or Mike, because they are happy to suspend their disbelief for certain characters, and never for others.
There’s a lot of reasons, I’m sure, but I just wanted to say – stop taking everything so literally. It’s a comedy webcomic. In a comedy, people act exagerated and “say more than they really say”. I feel like Willis himself struggles with the balance between “this is more realistic than Shortpacked and actions have consequences” and “but i still want superhero fights and funny one-liners”.
There are LOTS of comments hating on all the behaviors and characters you describe. Those characters aren’t in this arch or readily doing anything at the moment. As the characters themselves stated: we can multitask.
People” take it literally” because this is one of the few comics that represents such a broad range of people and that makes it relatable. It also means people empathize more readily because they see themselves and know what it was to have those experiences. Lots of people here also say they react strongly and get it off their chest because although it isn’t real, they have dealt with this in reality and it caused harm. Many of these same people wouldn’t ask for violence in real life and are doing so here because it’s a comic and they know it’s not literal. They are embracing the emotional impulse because it is fiction. they do get the difference. Maybe they can’t act that way in the gray of meatspace or they would feel lesser by stooping or it’s a comic so they can be outraged when society would piss on them if they opened their mouth in real life.
You are claiming reality goggles but you’re wearing for them for the commentariat. The characters people defend are probably the people in real life they can handle better. I’ve literally seen every type of comment you are saying doesn’t exist when those characters are actually being presented. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to choose people based on their worst. If they are the embodiment of a personal pet peeve, it’s not going to go well despite all their positive traits.
I don’t like Malaya because of exactly what you said: THIS is the best we’ve seen. Ew. I dislike Mike more because he’s manipulative. I’ve always had problems with Joyce’s boundary issues and there are many here who agreed with me and you before and during the arch you mention. Lucy is not my cup of tea and I find her grating but she’s not some horrendous human.
All this to say – you’re being really unfair to people’s emotional reality, reducing limits of expressions over a comic to what you find palatable while saying people are taking it too hard. PST: you’re taking it too hard.
Yeah, very much this. I’d just add that some of those over the top gags dismissed as not meaningful because cartoony come back in a more serious character development sense. Carla and Mary’s slapstick prank fight and Joyce/Mike’s punching of Joe are probably the most prominent examples – the first moving pretty quickly into serious territory, but the latter being referenced again and again in Joyce’s relationship with Joe.
It makes me wary of dismissing anything – even though some things don’t come back.
The other thing is that with people like Joyce (or Carla, or Ruth, or Amber, or …), we can see their problems and critique them, but also see many examples of their good points. See them reaching out and helping others or see them grow and change.
With some of the others, we haven’t seen that. In the Malaya and Sal relationship, they’re nearly equal jerks to each other, but we’ve seen many other good sides of Sal. Malaya, not really. She’s nice to Marcie and that’s about it and we don’t even know how that developed. Some of that is because she’s a minor character, while Sal’s a protagonist, but at the same time we can only work with what we see and it wouldn’t have been hard to throw in a few scenes of Malaya reaching out to someone without breaking the fundamental conflict with Sal.
Thank you for putting this into much nicer words than Ive been wanting to lol.
APPLAUSE
Hatedom is fake.
Hey, new avatar! Is Joyce starting with a compound word, for a pop song, associated with a 2001 animated movie?
She definitely is. I made this one the day the source strip was posted, but due to that day’s circumstances, I decided to hold off for a bit.
Gets the idea across in a tiny thumbnail = Win.
I don’t have to like a person because they to one nice thing. That’s generally not a great idea if the person, otherwise, isn’t very nice. And I wouldn’t insultive someone on a daily basis very nice.
*do. Gah.
*wouldn’t call insulting someone (Guess who can’t write today)
That’s the thing i think a lot of people don’t understand about Malaya. She’s convinced herself that Sals whole schtick is just a coolness facade and that Sal is hiding who she really is behind said facade.What Malaya is missing is that it’s not a facade so much as people project an image ONTO Sal and Sal doesn’t correct them. So like… Malaya’s not WRONG necessarily, she’s just putting the blame on the wrong person (and thinking she’s one upping said person when she’s just being mean)
Through everything Malaya has projected onto Sal of herself, I think that amount of thinking she needs to be mean to cover her image of not giving a flying fuck about other people’s emotions when she’s definitely aware of those emotions is one of the most obvious. The only difference at this point between Sal and Malaya is that Sal doesn’t like being seen as that and Malaya only wants to be seen as that. I think if Malaya was honest about herself on that instead of trying to make every good thing she says become upsetting to the person she said it to, we’d really see that Malaya and Sal, on a personality level, aren’t far off at all.
I have to say that this custom of sharing a bedroom with a stranger while you are at uni seems like a strange one to me.
Trust me — after a week or so you are no longer strangers.
Unless you are. That’s no fun.
I feature Sal saying, “Malaya, you’re a sweetheart. You asshole.”
It just came to me to wonder if Malaya figured out Marcie’s love for Sal from the strange display they made (at Carla’s hest)? I’m not sure it was obvious. Maybe Malaya had already figured it out.
Probably from conversations with Marcie, perhaps with Marcie showing pictures on he phone.
Uh, maybe I’m misunderstanding things, but does Malaya have *teary eyes* in the last two panels? o.O
She’s just squinting