If anything Sal’s romantic involvement has improved her grades in the most above board way possible (Danny tutoring her).
Between Jason refusing to change her grades and Danny’s overall wholesomeness I’m starting to notice a pattern in Sal’s romantic life. She exudes punk rebellion against a system that failed her but she seeks out good boys who are the kind of people the system claims it’s run by.
Was part of Sal sleeping with Jason her trying to prove that his propriety was an act he’d drop when it was to his advantage? – he did drop part of his propriety of course but far less than she expected.
Eh, with Danny I feel like it’s more that Sal is drawn to him because he’s someone she can be fully vulnerable around. Which she craves, despite her rebellious exterior.
Her attraction to Danny wasn’t math but Super Mario cart. His attraction to _her_ was that he could make math comprehensible to her. And that she could make Super Mario cart comprehensible to him.
They find themselves able to improve and appreciated in unexpected ways and find themselves valued by the other. That is such a solid footing for a stable relationship that I doubt David Willis will let us have it for long.
She tried it with Jason because Jason had started out creepy and given her every reason to think he’d go for it. She didn’t seek out a “good boy” to prove he really wasn’t so good. She got hormoned on by Peewee Herman right from the start/.
at least it’s nice that walky defended her, though i would’ve expected it to be the first opportunity to be like “Oh if you’re not fond of Amber I’ll break it off and make up with Lucy for dinner” lol
Perfect time to say “I’m only with her because you clearly weren’t fond of Lucy and didn’t want her for lunch” Unfortunately, Walky underestimated his mother being blatantly insulting and got caught up in defending Amber.
There’s no time for that. Amber’s presence set off a thermonuclear warhead, now we’re all Sarah Connor at the playground’s chain-link fence in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
Its particularly interesting, because I don’t think anyone was mentioning it being *Amber* that would screw the whole thing up by not sticking to the plan, let alone doing it by revealing that particular bombshell…
Ppl just expected amber to be herself versus basically airing out ppl’s secrets tho accidentally nuking a social conversation out of spite/fight/flight reflex would be fiting for her lol
Not so much that it’s out of character for Amber as Walky didnt stop to consider all that would intail being in his mothers presence. Like lighting a match near gasoline. .
She hates any partner for David that dare exist outside the ideal consumable package for American capitalism to grind to dust — namely, straight, white, neurotypical and all round “””normal”””.
As soon as Sal started becoming the Golden Child, Linda started mentally retconning Sal as an innocent, defenseless victim who can do no wrong and Amber as an evil supervillain.
A confrontational parent would prolly trigger her flight or fight response and she can’t just straight up punch Linda (though i’m sure as an altenrative that’d also be equally entertaining)
Yeeeah the best thing for Sal and Danny to do right now is to just stand up and go. This was always gonna be a fucked up dinner, but it’s even worse now, it’s just imploding. There is no salvaging this. Sal, leave with Danny and just spend time with someone who loves you unconditionally.
well maybe sal and danny can sneak off (if they’re not blocked in the seats by the parents tho i’m sure sal woudl find a way) but walky’s def not able to flee after that bomb drop lol
Oh yeah no Walky has incurred the mom wrath. He’s stuck there now, things have gone from wacky to apocalypse. As for Sal and Danny, maybe Sal can use her window climbing skills to get them out of the booth.
Wally incurred Linda’s wrath, Linda incurred Amber’s wrath, Amber has probably incurred Wally’s wrath – it’s a closed circuit of wrath. A wrath triangle.
As far as I can tell, Danny has a half-wall to the left of him and full wall behind him, the table in front of him with Charles across the way, and Sal to his right.
Sal has Danny (and then the half-wall) to her left, full wall behind her, table in front of her with Amber across the way, and Linda to her right between her and freedom.
I don’t normally have claustrophobia, but this specific situation of not being able to physically get out while the conversation is imploding would give me claustrophobia.
Well, they should’ve known the risks but if Linda’s upset about walky being a failure maybe she’d be like “who cares about dating, you better get straight a’s the rest of the year”
I honestly could see her doing that too. “Maybe if you weren’t pingponging between women, you’d be studying!!!” “I promise, mom, I would in fact not be studying. I would be bored and not-studying.”
Given the way US law is structured it’s virtually impossible to get through a day without unknowingly or at least accidentally committing at least a misdemeanor or two.
I hope the person who uploaded your favorite song to Spotify got the file from an official source and had a proper license to upload it, right? Did you walk across a street with no crosswalks today because the store was right there, instead of walking an extra four blocks to find one? Did you hear a snippet of a Metallica song from someone’s car, constituting a public performance, without paying? Maybe you pulled into someone’s driveway for a few moments to turn around because you were going the wrong direction? Answer a persistent phone call to tell them you’d call back because you were driving? Smoke weed in a state where it’s not legal? Look at a passing cop for too long? Share some of the chips you bought with your food stamps?
Not every crime is made equal, and saying “well don’t do crimes at all” isn’t just ignorant, it’s dangerously short-sighted.
But Linda can’t tell on Amber without also dumping on Walky. “I said I wouldn’t do that” indicates this was discussed and that also he should have noticed that he didn’t fail as expected… Either the narrative has to become “hapless Walky was so naive and unobservant that he didn’t notice his grades had been changed after a discussion about hacking them” which raises questions about his intelligence (or undiagnosed ADHD and thus their parenting) or that he was party to it and it was a “yeah, of course I wouldn’t really do that, we’ll say no more” 😉 convo where they both knew she would do it…
So he’s either a complete moron or a willing accomplice to sketchy behavior? Yeah, I can see what you mean. That’s quite a pickle. Hope she likes dill.
Even assuming you’re confident that Linda can’t tell without throwing Walky under the bus, even assuming Linda comes to the same conclusion, and even assuming Linda isn’t willing to do that (which are all pretty big assumptions to begin with), there’s still the possibility that Linda (or one of the four other people at the table) will fuck up.
For the record, I don’t believe Danny would purposely snitch, even if it was just Walky but especially not with Amber involved. Of the non-Linda people at the table, I’d be more worried about Walky having an attack of conscience (probably only meaning to turn himself in, but that could easily get Amber caught too). And Charles’s mouth is apparently also a wildcard. And who knows if Sydney is still lurking around.
Not saying any of this is gonna happen in the comic, but it’s still an incredibly unnecessary (bundle of) risk(s).
Wow, this is certainly going worse than I expected, and I am here for it. Let’s see how long until this turns into a full fledged meltdown, and when Sal and Danny just bounce and leave everyone else to their arguing.
So is Walky doing better in school now, so Amber hasn’t had to change any recent grades? Or is Walky still on the verge of failing?
The issue only seemed to be with his math class– “flunking out of school” seems like an exaggeration– and he did seem to get a bit better once his hacked grade allowed him not to be failing. He might just not have a math class this semester and be doing okay otherwise.
I see, hopefully he has gotten better at the math he was having difficulty with. I do remember him talking to Jason before Jason left, so maybe he has been getting help.
i think he was only failing/needing extra tutoring in math, feels like something that could be made up if there’s a college equivalent of summer schoolbut idk if it means walky stopped trying since
I’m actually waiting for this to mess up Sal and Danny’s budding relationship. Things keep getting heated, Danny throws in on hating on Walky, and Sal defends her brother?
I don’t think Danny’s gonna Dan it up like that. The only time he did something similar to what you said was when he decided to be a dick about Mike being in a coma. But he had some ground to stand on there, because Mike was a supreme asshole, and he kept being incredibly douchey to Amber and Ethan.
Danny is aware his dislike of Walky is really petty. And that he doesn’t actually know Walky well enough as a person to make any valid criticisms of him or say he’s absolutely trash.
I think Sal, Walky, and Danny are actually going to come out stronger with this. Linda’s basically doing EXACTLY to Walky what Danny’s parents have done to him. Lionizing Dorothy and saying he peaked with her. It’s probably making Danny really uncomfortable watching this, even if he has a petty dislike of Walky.
Idk, I feel like even Sal would have some trouble defending Walky bringing Amber. She’s the ex-girlfriend of Sal’s new boyfriend and he had to have known that was the social equivalent of dropping a nuke on their dinner.
I don’t think Walky thought of that at all. He and Lucy both seem to underplay when people are angry with them (his reaction to Danny being mad to see him at roller derby) and in their cute planning for making Lucy look better with comedy dinner tropes neither considered the real life grudges that would be aired.
The grade hacking was before midterms last semester and he passed that class and moved on to the next level of maths, so he pretty clearly did do better the rest of the semester. The secret hacking gave him some confidence and I believe they also set something up on his phone to poke his ADHD brain while he’s trying to study.
He’s smart enough, so he just had to figure out someway to study effectively.
Nebbish is a specific type of nothing, more of a weak nerdy milquetoast. Howard might be a nebbish.
I think Linda might want a more literal word for nothing, such as bupkis. I’ve never heard somebody call a person bupkis, but I don’t speak much Yiddish. It also means potato.
I’m glad Linda’s not one of ours though. We really don’t need a Linda/Naomi teamup. (Ethan’s mom.)
The original meaning of “bupkis” (bobkes, bubkes, bopkes) isn’t potato; it’s beans.
Wiktionary says that the word (באָבקעס) derives from that for beans (bobes; singular bob), but actually originally meant “goat or sheep turds” (which do visually resemble beans; clusters of small rounds). I am not sure if Wiktionary is correct (Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish doesn’t mention a goat/sheep turd meaning), but there it is.
You might be thinking of the similar word bulba or bulbe (בולבע), which does mean potato. Rosten also has a slang meaning of “mistake”; “faux pas”. The slang meaning may be narrowly limited to Yiddish theater usage; a bulbenik is an actor who blows their lines.
As long as I have Rosten open, I note that he has the original pronunciation of nebbish as nebech (guttural “ch” as in Bach). There is also the very similar in both meaning and pronunciation nefish. And both nebech and nefish are mentioned as being similar in meaning to schlemiel
Another word meaning “nothing” is gornisht (גאָרנישט), but I don’t think is usually applied to people.
You know, I knew this was a bad idea. But somehow…SOMEHOW with all their history and everything taken into account I still didn’t realize it was gonna be THIS bad.
The way I’m looking at it, they just haven’t been able to circle back around to that point. There’s just been so many different varieties of insanity going on, and I can’t really blame Linda for seizing upon “Walky’s dating the girl that stabbed Sal” over “Walky got a new girlfriend in a couple of hours”.
Honestly, the only one that’s openly accepted Amber to the table is Charles. Linda’s not said a single kind or welcoming word about her.
Given that he’s the 2nd marriage/partner maybe she picked him because she knew he’d stick it out, or he was always more of a backseat kinda parent that didn’t do as much
I wish Charles would lovingly but firmly confront his wife about her peculiar behavior, but I think he’s not there yet. That bomb needs Sal to snap and set it off with a tirade against Linda’s treatment of her. I think Linda’s fortress of superiority might crumble if her whole family momentarily united against it.
Yeah, of course Amber, who Linda already hates, who is then instructed to be her most hateable-to-parents self, is not going to be received well. If he had shown up with a different white girl pretending to be his girlfriend, and Linda was just chill about it, maybe then he could be like, “Oh, so it’s good that I’m two-timing Lucy as long as the other girl is white?” OR SOMETHING. That couldn’t really happen here, wouldn’t make sense to expect that it would.
In fact, Lucy’s lookin’ so good right now, Linda’s secretly looking up divorce lawyers on her phone under the table, because now she wants Lucy all to herself. I’m 3000% certain that Amber’s unhinged rant about creating new life from spike penises will drive Linda to cuck her own son, out of sheer desperation to escape if nothing else.
(No, this is not serious or reflective of my actual opinions on literally anything)
Yeah, I guess the plan really had nothing to do with confronting racism, just boosting up Lucy. In that case, I guess it’s working. Except there will, of course, be some extra drama.
Actually it could be that Walky has been quite clever. If Linda likes Amber then they can unmask the plan and shoult “racist!” If she hates Amber then Amber can blow up and blow out, and Walky can work the conversation around to “Lucy’s not so bad then, huh?”
If Linda were smarter the blood would have been draining from her face as a result of the second panel. I almost backed up from my screen and it wasn’t me Amber was pissed at.
Yeah, uh, this is a garbage fire in the way Walky didn’t intend to… I do think Linda needed to know the real Walky and not the version in her mind that she would mold him into. Like, damn, woman, you’re letting your -isms show hardcore.
You know, I’m a simple webcomic reader. I will happily eat popcorn as long as it doesn’t sink my ship (Joe/Joyce or Sal/Danny at the moment).
(On the other hand, there’s an episode of my favorite TV show that sinks my ship and it’s like, I still love that episode because it’s just a really great episode, even though it has that consequence. So what I’m saying is, my statement was an if and not an iff. Here’s to good storytelling!)
And now I’m realizing that Jason coming in out of nowhere with some upper-class Britishism would probably about the only thing that could make this worse.
Amusingly enough, no, this is just a pseudonym I’ve used for years in circles where I don’t want to use any of my actual usernames (mostly comment sections).
Ok so Garbage Scow Stocks are dropping rapidly but I’m not gonna cash out yet. There could be an uptick in the next few pages. The DOW Walkerton is strong!
Linda’s behavior feels a little over-the-top here. Like, yes, Linda is an asshole, but blatantly insulting someone to *this* extent directly in front of them feels sort of forced–like a sacrifice made to allow the scene to flow better.
Realistically, I feel like Linda would be “taking Walky aside” and very obviously shittalking Amber while Amber could still basically hear them. You know, the polite way.
You never met my mother. This is absolutely something she would have done although people who hadn’t witnessed her doing similar things would never have thought she would.
normally yeah she probably wouldn’t say that but between the Golden Child thing and the… histories between amber and this family, she’s probably too angry to bother hiding it
Also, Amber’s been taking the awfulness up to 11 as intended. She’s being rude, but based on what’s been presented to her, her reaction is entirely understandable.
Is it over the top to be horrible to the person that stabbed your child and never went to jail for it? (as far as Linda’s point of view, Amber never suffered any consequences)
I’m not saying Linda is correct, but I can completely understand why she’s talking like this
Requests for information cost nothing, is my main hang-up. If Linda ever wanted to know what consequences Amber faced, she could always have looked into it. Instead, she sits on her little high horse and passes judgment from above.
So we’re just gonna ignore how Amber sounded like she was threatening to kill Walky’s mom for being a dick? I know she wasn’t, but it sure sounded like it.
I definitely read it as an implied threat, where Amber has enough wiggle room that if Linda were to push charges and say Amber was threatening her, she could say “What? I just reminded her my dad was dead” and still TECHNICALLY be correct.
I just wonder now what legal ramifications or wiggle room Amber has for admitting to hacking the college’s grading system. Somehow I don’t think that’s anything short of expulsion headed her way
I dont believe she was threatening to kill her, but an outsider who didn’t know the whole history would probably think she was. Honestly I’m surprised Linda didn’t say something about it. I think it was more of a karmic warning. “Stop being a bongo Ebenezer Linda! Or thou art doomed!” Or something along those lines.
Or just that Linda should think about what her treatment has already driven Sal to do.
More I think about it, the less of a threat it sounds like. The more that first bit seems intended to parallel Linda’s treatment of Sal rather than how she’d normally describe Blaine’s abuse.
“Help” and “a 5150” are not in the same time zone. Also, I don’t think she’s actually willing to do actual murder over this, it’s just being aggressive.
(Fun fact: deciding that any sort of aggression by a mentally ill person is tantamount to Literal Imminent Murder is exactly why forcing someone into a psych ward for an indeterminate period is a horrible idea. Oh no, she’s mad at being treated like shit, let’s drug her and lock her in solitary, that’ll….. help….)
She hallucinates to the point of having conversations, refuses to seek help, uses violence to feel better and just implied murder as a response to verbal put downs and also thinks she’s amazing girl
It’s not the implied threat, it’s the implied threat backed up by extensive history of violence which shows she’s capable of being violently aggressive
Technically not even “her”-her, right? I’m still fairly ignorant about how systems work and self-describe, but Amber and Amazi-Girl started referring to each other separately after a while, and weren’t even sharing memories at some point.
Shes Amber, a girl with massive problems that isn’t getting the help she needs and at some point its going to blow up in her face and instead of hospital it’ll be prison
Most people hallucinate when they’re seriously sleep deprived, which was the case when Amber started hallucinating. Since then I’m guessing she’s continued not sleeping very well, though not as bad as it used to be.
Even if you don’t have any idea how disassociation actually works, which is understandable because neither do psychologists!, the only thing she’s had that’s a “hallucination” was maybe? Ghost Mike? And hallucinating during a period of extreme grief is both a fuck of a lot more common than you imply and not related to whether she’s dangerous.
I think Amber’s last line in panel two has plenty of plausible deniability in interpretation.
“What do you mean, a threat? I didn’t kill him. He’s the one who decided to go for a policeman’s gun and get himself shot. All I was saying is that spontaneous bad choices can have severe consequences.”
Walky specifically brought Amber to look bad but then instantly tries to defend her when it works. Not a very good plan even without the unexpected consequences.
“My dad was a controlling, egotistical, hateful, violent prick too, and look where that got him.” Is basically how I read it. At the very least, even short of the whole “dying” thing, he wound up estranged and detached from his wife and daughter, with absolutely no hope of ever rebuilding whatever passed for a bond with them, all due to his own actions that he consciously made.
(I know I said it’s a justified threat, and I’d like to specify that I meant that in the case of it actually being one, for the sake of clarity)
that’s the thing about implied threats. they have to sound like things that aren’t actually threats. so you have to be careful not to say things that could be interpreted as threats.
Like if you’re calling an elected official, you cannot say “you’ll be sorry,” you have to say, “you’ll be sorry because we’re going to vote you out over this”.
Seems like a very direct way to spell out a triggering behavior. After being pushed to a certain point, I don’t think people can be held accountable for their responses.
Can’t say that I agree. If someone performs a horrifying action in the heat of the moment, triggering behavior or otherwise, the effects are still there. You either should be held responsible for your actions OR if you truly cannot be held responsible for your actions then you should be under some manner of supervision.
Counterpoint: She turned a guy into Swiss cheese less than six months ago and was upset she didn’t get the chance to do more to him.
Counterpoint to my own counterpoint: He drugged and raped multiple women and intended to do it again, and every day he’s in the hospital is a day he’s not out with the actual people causing more harm.
Conclusion: At least she’s channeling that aggression in more beneficial ways?
Extra note: I’m already calling Linda “it” in other comments for dehumanising somebody to their face, so why did I type “he” and “him” for the rapist? I definitely don’t consider blatant rudeness (even if it’s super harsh) to be worse than rape, so maybe I should swap the responses around?
Or just not call people “it” even facetiously. Can’t say I’m a big fan of using problematic behavior ironically to call out problematic behavior cuz it snowballs into “If they can do it I can do it too” and that’s just bigotry backwards.
I agree that the effects of anything anyone does are always going to have happened. I’m only saying that there are very clear cases where the person doing those things can’t be held against them, because someone else was shoving them violently in that direction to begin with. Like, people’s actions don’t happen in a vacuum, everything comes from somewhere, and if I psychologically torment my own child and turn them into a nervous wreck with erratic behavior, then that behavior is my fault, not theirs, and I should be the one held accountable for whatever they do as a direct result of my torment. Like if I beat the shit out of them with a belt and then they start to panic whenever they hear a belt buckle rattling or a sudden loud noise, I don’t think it’s really reasonable or compassionate to blame them and hold it against them if they flail and smack someone while they’re in that state.
There are some grey areas, like if they started blowing up random kids’ lockers that’d be mainly on them (but also on me for not raising them to be better than that), and it gets less grey the older they get and the more they (one hopes) understand their own trauma and it’s effects better.
I do also agree that if a person is in a state where all sense and rationality has left their mind, to the point where nothing they do can be reasoned with or (relatively) easily corrected, they most likely need some kind of supervision. And of course that supervision, just like the actions, should be taken by degrees as well. Like, we’re not gonna send a kid to a behavioral correction facility full of actively dangerous and malicious other kids just because they had their head down in class due to a depressive state induced by repeated threats from school faculty (random example, definitely not still bitter). But we might have a teacher’s assistant try to keep an eye on them or something in case they have an emotional meltdown and become inconsolable, so that a directly involved adult who the kid knows can at the very least contact their parents and say “Hey can you pick up X? They’re not doing well at all and they’ve been asking for you.”
Okay, that got away from me a little. Point is, I don’t think we disagree overall, just maybe on the level of detail?
I think Taffy put it better than I did, but I do want to point out that you have 0 actual first hand experience with psychological abuse. Also, yes, she needed supervision at the time. Not like always and forever lock her away or whatever sanist bullcrap, but like, in that moment she very much did need supervision. Better supervision than what she was getting, obviously. Like I agree with you, technically, I just don’t think that means she needs to be institutionalized right at this moment, or at all actually. Institutionalization is a form of violence.
Well, let’s not assume things about real people’s lives and lived experiences, here. That’s not exactly fair, and makes the discussion way more personal than is warranted. We’re all just people talking about stuff.
I don’t think she needs to be institutionalized. But I definitely thinks bringing up her father instead of just saying “Yeah I’m sorry I did that” and then going on to bring up her upbringing would’ve sat better with me. Like Sal basically apologized for her so maybe she’s piggy backing on me but like…from Linda’s perspective, this girl stabbed her daughter. I don’t really know that I’d feel all that compelled to treat her charitably. I’d find it hard to believe she’s grown from the incident considering she seems to be taking none of the responsibility.
Yes, she was abused, goaded, insulted and traumatized into taking an action she at the time felt was right. That action resulted in her stabbing an already restrained Sal in the hand. Sal now lives with a permanent scar on her hand because of that incident.
I know that WE the audience are set up to hate Linda and believe she’s a racist awful person who doesn’t care about her kids, so she’s obviously “in the wrong” but in this instance I think it’s worth admitting some level of fault for what she did.
Yeah, “I only permanently reduced your daughter’s ability to use her hand because my mean dad humiliated me” is not a great take. Like, Linda is a crappy parent but her hating Amber makes sense.
Ah, but Linda doesn’t know the full details. And even if she did, “someone else badly hurt you so you hurt my child” isn’t probably going to sway her to Amber’s side.
Sometimes people who had childhoods as monstrous as Amber’s (or worse) go on to hurt people but many don’t. Amber shouldn’t have stabbed a handcuffed and restrained Sal. The action doesn’t make her evil and her circumstances require compassion but taking responsibility for her actions is important to break the potential cycle of violence.
Haha, WHOOPS.
Amber, you were supposed to be the lightning rod of hatred so that they’d prefer Lucy (somehow). Not dethrone the Golden Child.
But OH WELL
Not that he’d be dethroned for long. Abusive savior-syndrome mothers like Linda have a way of quickly turning golden children into scapegoats and vice versa. 😒
Its actually amusing that this was working out exceedingly well, based on Linda’s comments, riiiiiight up until Amber managed to fuck the whole thing up in the one way that no one here was expecting…
Uh I though we were “not” being cartoon villains. You’re not supposed to tell the proles they are a lower class of human being to their face.
I mean, I like it. More than vague complaints behind their back about not being “right” for her son. Maybe you realize you can’t let people know you’re racist (or, you think you’re hiding it) but being openly classist, sexist and an asshole about it ought to be enough for them to cut your out of their life with no regrets.
Linda is close to the Dean. Linda wants Amber kicked out of school. She’ll probably twist it so they don’t even make Walky redo the class and nothing is mentioned in his files while Amber gets expelled for it even though they don’t find any traces of said act.
Well wait, they’d still have to prove this actually happened. Amber saying this to make Walky’s mom mad doesn’t prove she actually did it.
The actual professor never did any grading and the TA got into trouble for his relationship with Sal…and I’m just now as I type this realizing how bad this could get…
There’s probably digital footprints. Like Amber said, the more she moves things around, the harder it is for her to erase any evidence of her ever being there at all.
The disaster-recovery backups have probably been recycled by now. Likely the prof. will continue to trust his online gradebook, and not really remember Walky’s actual performance. Walky has, or recycled, or ate, all of the physical evidence. Really, at this point it all may have been laundered by forwarding the final grade to the Registrar’s system and deleting the gradebook records.
I gotta bring this up every time the flunking thing comes up. It was one math class. As far as we know he was doing fine in all his other courses. I’m not even sure math is a requirement for his major. Walky is not at IU on an academic scholarship as far as we know. Maybe I’m ignorant to the academic requirements of IU so correct me if I’m wrong, but he was in no danger. I think Dorothy was actually in more academic jeopardy than Walky that semester.
Med should have (and used to have) math and chemistry requirements.
And if she changed his grade once without him knowing and his grades were better afterwards, it’s Amber’s position in school that gets endangered here, not Walky’s.
I think he’s a communications major right? It can lead to a lot of career options, most people I knew in college tried to use it to get into the film industry which is probably a decent fit for Walky although they usually end up becoming part of production crews for news stations.
I believe Walky’s concern was how his mother would react if she found out he was failing. Now that Amber’s ousted him, I’m curious what his response will be
Nah, unless Dorothy had completely collapsed under the strain, her “academic jeopardy” was getting Cs and Bs.
Still, Walky recovered from his early problems in math and passed it largely under his own power. The hacking was before the mid-terms, so it only would have affected a small percent of his grade.
It depends on the grade system and stuff– I never took math in college, so I don’t have an exact reference frame for it– but I could see how early failing could have doomed his overall grade. But mostly I think it was a motivational thing.
(If they had gotten 20% of their grades by then, for example– which feels like more than they would have, but– and Walky had gotten 0% on that, then the most he could get in the class would be an 80%. But if doing his best could only get him a 70% average on the future work he did (because I don’t think he started acing things later in the semester), then he’d end up with a 56%, which would likely be failing (again, depending on the grading system).)
If a student has a period of doing remarkably bad and then makes a significant improvement, a professor might have the discretion to weight the later grade. I think my brother did that, when a student was just short of a cut-off.
The intended purpose of tests is to test how well a student has understood the subject, it’s not just some arbitrary performance. If they catch up in their understanding, then they should at least pass.
All that being said, did Walky pass calc, or might he have an incomplete so far?
Early failing could have doomed his grade, depending on what percentage and how badly he’d failed it, but that wasn’t my point. Amber only fixed his grades from before the midterm, so he must have done well the rest of the semester in order to pass. He recovered from his initial problems.
Math is a general requirement for IU, so he would need to pass it at some point. That said, he’d only missed a week or two of weekly quizzes and there’s no way THAT is enough to make your grade unsalvageable – maybe he couldn’t get an A, but even so. He didn’t miss any exams or things like that.
PREDICTION: Sarah says “I told you so” laughing. Lucy, having finally had enough, shouts “Who asked you?!” then punches Sarah in the face. Sarah, still laughing, said it was worth it. Lucy’s standing with Mrs. NPD Walkerton doesn’t improve, but her inability to let her son going off her script go and getting her fat-cat connections involved leads at least one of them to call her a “climber” and to quit whining…
Walky is thus forced to both keep his GPA in the black and major in law (as being a surgeon clearly won’t work out, so “lawyer” it is) just to keep his mother off his back afterwards…
I just realized that she may have okayed this plan because she knows she’ll be there to step in at the Psychological Moment. (Forgetting that she’ll be busy and unable to adequately monitor the development.)
“Nothing”, huh. Alright, if it wants to reduce people to nothing, I’m sure it can take the same right back. Amber’s fully justified in going as far as she’s gone, and realistically she could go even further beyond.
Like, the only thing Amber ever “did to” Linda was stabbing Sal, which we’ve already seen the two work through (to the extent that they have). Anything past that is its own petty power trip.
I refuse to believe Linda actually gives a fuck about the stabbing other than as ammunition. If she did care, maybe she shouldn’t have dumped her kid in another state and refused to talk to her except to call her a failure for five fucking years.
She might say she cares, but her actions do not demonstrate any actual care.
Hard and hearty agree. A real failure of a parent, I say. She hasn’t even shown that she cares about the supposed golden child, the way I see it. Yeah, he’s real fuckin’ prepared for independent life, Linda, way to go.
She’s a complete write-off, as far as nurturing goes.
Oh this is why we needed Jason to become a TA again. Robin made him an employee of the university again just in time for the school to be able to compel him to cooperate in an investigation into the grades being changed.
If he was still just working at the restaurant, the school couldn’t make him help with that.
(Why did they let Robin make him a TA again considering why he got fired?)
Also, congratulations on admitting to commiting an expellable offence in the presence of someone who hates your guts, there, Amber, stellar move. Luckily for you, Linda is not going to rat you out because doing so would make Walky flunk.
Doing so would make herself look bad to the Dean so i doubt she will. Though I am curious about just how much influence Linda really has with him, so now I want to see Linda grab for too much by asking the Dean to over look Walkys real grade while expelling Amber only to get told off in a major way.
Her antics got people hurt And killed. There is a point where a person becomes a threat to themselves and other people and Amber is way past that point.
I don’t want her brain burned with electricity as punishment for her, “antics,” as you put it. I don’t think that drugging her is going to make things better. Like, fiction aside, psych wards are places where they just physically contain you and that’s kind of it. What you have to say is outright offensive.
Like we get that they did a pretty okay job with Ruth on screen but if she has any kind of a “scary” mental illness it might be a lot worse for her. Plus she’s fat which means she’ll automatically be treated worse in almost any hospital setting.
Like seriously please don’t interact with mentally ill people until you figure out how to be an ally.
Also, amber’s antics didn’t “get people hurt and killed.” It was a murderer. A murderer got people hurt and killed. Mostly by killing them himself. She gets herself hurt more than anyone else wrt that. She (well, amazigirl) has also saved many lives including many people from rape. Some on screen, more off screen. Her “antics,” had been good aligned, and if you don’t believe me, feel free to read through the comic again.
Forgetting all the people she beat up as Amazi Girl for minor infractions? Like holy crap, girl has split personality, violent tendencies, got people hurt, got into super dangerous situations and you ADMIT that they did good with Ruth. You admit they can help her and you are basing your perception in the crap people did in the earlyh 20th century.
Amber doesn’t want to be helped because she thinks professionals with decades of education and experience can’t help her and in the meantime she is engaging in violent and self-destructive coping methods which drag other people into it.
Yes her father was the one who killed but if she escalated by beating him up. She is spiralling, hurting people and you want to enable that because you are afraid of out-dated perceptions of mental institutions.
No, you dork, they still do that to people. Psych staff to this day gaslight, sexually assault, financially extort, coercively confine, hold down and inject drugs into, and literally apply electric shocks to the brains of patients. You are so out of touch with reality that I’m genuinely shocked that you would confidently assert such a factless opinion.
A fictional lady receiving okay treatment in a fictional hospital is literally the only evidence on your side.
I mean if you want to bring “fictional” aspect into this then let me point out that if it wasn’t for the narrative being in her favor she would have died or killed several people by this point. A lot of people die from regular fist fights, it doesn’t take much to kill a person if the circumstances are sufficiently wrong. A hit to the head as you fall and you are dead.
It doesn’t matter. You hit wrong or even right, hell the KOs are basically inflicting brain damage. They slip, they land on their spine, they hit their head and it might be game over for them. If you get into a fight that is a potential outcome.
You’re correct that institutionalizing mentally ill people sucks, but you are aware that electroshock therapy has not been used like (certainly not as a punishment) for decades, right?
If you don’t wanna be killed in a fistfight with a person who deliberately targets known rapists, maybe avoid the risk entirely and don’t intentionally and repeatedly rape people. After that line is crossed, your life is inherently worthless and anything that happens to you as a direct consequence is nothing more or less than pest control.
@Taffy except I’m not referring to people like that douchebag whom she stabbed. I’m referring to the guys she attacked for minor infractions like, I think she attacked some guys for messing with street signs?
Fair enough, then. Come to think of it, did she attack those guys, or did she just give them a toothy sneer and say some superhero quips at them? I’ll have to re-read soon.
I’ll fully admit I don’t remember either, it’s been a Long time ago but she did have a habit of picking fights. Like if nothing else she wanted to fight Sal early on due to the grudge and I think Malaya stepped up?
Anyway Taffy is great, also none of you are martial artists and it shows. Amazigirl is the type of person who will knock someone back and catch them so they won’t fall, although In comic books that maneuver is associated with villains for some reason.
Also she tried to goad two guys into fighting her when they messed with some street signs. They declined. She didn’t attack them.
Amber needs help. I’d agree with pushing for her to get the help she deserves for her mental health if there could be a guarantee that she would be treated humanly by people who are competent in the issues she presents. Unfortunately, for many people, that is not the case.
TW: Discussion of hospitalization and suicidality
Also, like… even for those who aren’t as presenting as “severely” as Amber, or with more “mainstream” mental illness, hospitalization as a forced thing can be really overwhelming. I had a friend who was hospitalized at one point, and then was “voluntarily committed.” (Her description was basically that they were like, “You can agree and be voluntarily committed, or you can decline and be involuntarily committed, which will be worse.”) And maybe she would have died then otherwise, but her takeaway afterward was that she never wanted to go to a hospital for a mental health crisis again. And now she’s dead. So.
I’ve also gone to the hospital for suicidality. I was only there overnight, and while they suggested a in-patient hospitalization program (with the same style deal– “Everyone in it is there voluntarily! People who don’t agree to treatment may be petitioned.”), I was able to go after one night to enter into a partial hospitalization program. And even with that, there’s some takeaway of like, wow, I do not want to go the hospital that way again. And that’s what’s set up for people who are at a certain level of struggling.
Anyway, the point of all that for Amber is that it’d really suck if having this intensive level of treatment forced on her would then dissuade her from being willing to consider mental health services in the future.
This is already nested to hell and back, so I’ll keep it brief. To add onto what Yumi said, I’ve had some experience with “voluntary” commitment/hospitalisation myself, and the “choices” were really not actually choices at all. They said “You can go to this specific place on your own, or we’re going to call the police to your house later tonight and your ride won’t be as nice as Mommy’s”. I was 17 and my “offense” was sitting with my head on my desk in a daze. I was dazed because they threatened to have my mom declared unfit and put me and my siblings into foster care over my absences. I was absent so much because they kept giving me out of school suspensions for any little thing, sometimes for nothing more than walking too quickly past the office. Not trauma dumping, just giving an actual account from someone who had it to go through.
But yeah, it’s totally reasonable to go straight to involuntary commitment as the first option. Some of you are so fucking heartless it’s disgusting.
I feel you so bad on that Taffy, systematic ableism is just AWFUL. 😖😖😖 😭😭😭
I mean I can’t fucking believe the insensitivity going on here, mental wards are literally the closest thing you get to hell on earth, where neurodivergents like us are basically subjected to legal TORTURE ☠️
The danger posed by these institutions is one that neurotypicals are not always attuned to picking up on, if at all. The neurotypical who does not know walks away unharmed. Amber and other ND folk like us do not.
To see our suffering as an acceptable price to pay for “business getting done” and “order getting kept” is still BIGOTRY, period. 😬
“Do you have martial arts training, like, at all?”
Theres a big difference between learning martial arts and learning fighting, early UFC fight cards showed the inherent weakness of martial arts
“Do you know the difference between wild swinging and calculated effort?”
Most people unless they have extensive fight training, more than Ambers self-defence classes anyway, generally forget everything they’ve learned and go into brawl mode
First time fighters in corporate boxing type events or with those with only one or two fights under their belt are notorious for this
“Amazigirl is the type of person who will knock someone back and catch them so they won’t fall”
The only people who can do that are fictional characters so maybe Amber can do that.
We all have different experiences we bring to discussions so yes I’m willing to bet that I have had more experience of fights than Joy because its very clear that Joy has very little to no actual experience of what a fight is actually like.
It doesn’t matter who you’d identify as. This isn’t Mortal Kombat. You’re not some fight expert whose knowledge will enlighten us all in the art of fighting. You’re an Internet Tough Guy with really shitty hang-ups about the mentally ill.
It’s also easy to dismiss them out of hand, because you’re undeservedly smue and nobody wants to waste their evening attempting an honest debate with someone whose only contribution has been “bleh lock up those smelly crazies”, with a side helping of “my comment could beat up your comment”.
I haven’t been “nothing but hateful”, I made the statement that Amber needs help (and she does) and that a 5150 is her best hope (because no one else seems to want to help her)
Others then started pointing out how bad that option is and I didn’t reply to it (even when insulted) because I don’t know enough about the subject to get into it
But I do know enough about fighting and martial arts to insert my opinion on it
What you believe about your own behavior and words doesn’t actually matter. You advocate for involuntary admissions. You’re a bigot, you’re ignorant, and instead of saying “my bad, I’ll keep my gigantic mouth shut next time I don’t know enough about something” you switched to this martial arts nonsense to keep your undeserved sense of smug fucking superiority.
Calling out neurotypical privilege isn’t an insult bruh. Can you just frickin apologize and take an L without writing an essay on how you’re “actually” right?
At this point, NGPZ, I think all they wanted to do was rile up the crazies and get some attention. Going forward, I think it’s probably better just to flag their insipid bullshit and not waste our time trying to talk to them. They clearly have nothing of value to contribute to topics involving mental health, just hand grenades they can toss into a room and watch the explosion.
Maybe you’ve been in more “fights” than the rest of us because every word out of you is so drenched in smarm, people reflexively want to punch you in the mouth. Insufferable conga.
You are literally the scummiest person I’ve met in this comments section, and I’ve met the fake Dali Lama quote guy. Smarmy is right. You’ve probably picked fights; most of my combat experience involves being ambushed and/or outnumbered by rapists. Assuming you aren’t just bluffing out of insecurity.
Well, coming from a non-American experience, here in Australia, some mental health facilities are terrible and some are incredible with long wait lists to get in.
Keeping a routine and staying in the community is good but Amber would probably benefit from some intensive care. In an ideal scenario she would try medication and therapy while school is in and then try a great mental health facility during part of the holidays. Of course, even if those options were available, Amber wouldn’t probably agree to them as she shuns possible help.
I am so sorry to all of you who have experienced such trauma at the hands of so-called “authorities”. Thank you for sharing your precious experience and insight. I wish you healing and rest from these troubles.
In my case I literally want them to pay for what they did to me to the point where I have the money to get a bachelor’s and a medical degree. And then I want them on a long ass parole sentence.
As much as I love Linda being speechless, this might be bad. They tried to sue her out of school after all, and hacking the grades probably is pretty much grounds for being expelled.
It will also complicate the relationship between walky and his mother, Amber and possibly sal.
Well, maybe they can prove that it happened, but there’s only Jason’s word for what grade he might remember giving Walky, and would he even want to snitch? Walky’s like his only friend, and he’s probably not hyped to get involved with Walkerton family politics to get Amber in trouble.
And if they could prove anything, after relitigating the argument about how Amber is not actually a danger to people since her mobster dad is dead, is it really going to be worth putting a black mark on Walky’s academic record “and” turning his girlfriend against him “and” turning Sal’s roller derby friend against her, just to “maybe” get Amber expelled?
Side thought: if they did, on top of the thirty lawsuits, it might be a bad time for Linda to find out what Amber might do when she has nothing more to lose. . .
Oops, the “maybe they can prove that it happened” part probably should have read something like “maybe Amber’s willing to prove it happened.” Cause thanks to her thorough hacking really she’s the only one who can, but I guess there’s a nonzero chance she does want to get herself in trouble.
I don’t think that Jason and walky are friends. They had a lot of hostile and one friendly conversation and he got him the job at the bar and that’s it. Also, he is basically re-employed at probation, so he has no incentive to lie to his employer.
There are traces of meddling (amber stole from the office, so there’s stuff missing) and they have a confession from her in front of several people. That’s probably enough to get expelled.
But it might mean that walky fails the class because his marks get corrected. His parents probably don’t want that.
Amber will do nothing if expelled. She is way to timid to do anything about it and ag has a strong sense of righteousness. Being expelled after doing something wrong is most likely not punishable for her.
Any tampering with grades would probably be provable after some investigation, and it would probably be grounds for expulsion regardless of the original grade.
It’s not a Jury. It’s a school. It’s basically enough if the school is convinced it’s true. And Linda is on good terms with the Dean. They need to prove it if they want to sue her (which might be possible too. That was illegal).
Stay tuned for our next exciting episode, where Linda grabs a blunt Galasso knife and stabs Amber through the hand; rendering Amber unable to ever hold a phone again.
best case scenario for walky is that linda thinks amber is talking shit
solid chance that’s not going to happen though
either way linda is probably going to start suing her again, maybe report her to the school
Idk, if somebody hurts someone I love I don’t necessarily forgive them just because the person they hurt did, especially not within a few seconds of learning that information. My opinion would also not be improved by them participating in some kind of zany scheme intended to sow chaos in my family.
She’s not in the right but her actions are completely understandable, I think.
I’m not sure where “forgive them” is coming from, I’m certainly not advocating it. Linda can hold a grudge all she likes, it’s not illegal to be childish and narrow-minded, I’m only saying I’d try to at least take my kid’s input into consideration. Forgiveness is taken as permission to do it again by way too many people, but I’d like to think I could trust my own child who I raised to know her own business better than I do, regardless of how recently I learned it. A simple “Wait, what? Can I hear more about that?” Before verbally reducing a person to nothing, not just to their face, but in public where anyone could overhear it.
But then, I have at least some basic empathy and compassion for others. Linda really doesn’t seem to.
2) By hacking Walky’s grades, Amber showed that she is smart and has useful area of competence, AND that she has loyalty towards Walky. And by lying to him about it, she showed that she is willing to protect him and not hold it over his head.
3) Linda sits back for a minute, thinks about everything it (2) for a silent minute or two, and then smiles and says: “Perhaps I’ve misjudged you.”
4) Walky’s plan is even more blown up because now Linda is really starting to think that Amber is in fact worthy of Walky after all.
Nah, Linda’s got the mindset of an actual toddler. Any little slight, perceived or real, is the apocalypse and the perpetrator deserves the guillotine on the spot.
Here’s a thought that came into my head just now, not sure if anyone’s said it yet.
Can we blame Linda for Sal being at the gas station in the first place? I know, Sal went there of her own volition and all, definitely 100% a bad choice in her part, not the most advisable course of action, yadda yadda. The thing is though, I don’t think Sal would have tried robbing the place of she weren’t desperate for the money. She has a very strong sense of justice, after all. And she was only that desperate because Linda directly and unquestionably stole the money Sal had gathered to help pay Marcie’s medical bill (past or future bill, I forget which, doesn’t really matter), while berating her for even being friends with Marcie.
So, she told her kid, in no uncertain terms, “Your friend is not a valid enough human being to literally deserve a voice and your efforts to help her deserve to be punished.” No fucking wonder Sal got desperate, she was shoved into a metaphorical corner at metaphorical gunpoint, forced to either give up on Marcie or start over and keep being punished, with no upper limit on how far Linda would keep escalating over time. Of course Sal would want the most money possible in the shortest amount of time, when it’s in constant threat of being literally yanked out of her hands at a moment’s notice. It makes complete sense that she’d go for robbery, because no matter what she does, she’s going to be punished if someone finds out, and at least a cop isn’t her own mother, the person who’s supposed to keep her safe and teach her right from wrong.
I definately blame Linda. The point isn’t that Sal will be punished. By telling Sal if you save up money for your friend I’ll just steal it from you she essentially cut of the proper channels to get her friend the money she needs.
Its important to divest ourselves of the notion that only one person can be at fault for a thing, just in general. Linda is at fault for what happened there, so is Sal, so is the American Healthcare Industry, so are the school officials who took the white boy’s side of the story over Marcie and Sal’s, so are a lot of other things.
The only real argument is about how much each party gets blame for, really.
A parent’s job is to help their child out of desperate situations, not actively push them into one. Linda can’t control the healthcare industry or cure systemic racism, but she absolutely could have done the bare minimum of letting Sal keep the money she’d saved up, maybe even helped her start a fundraiser, pretty much anything besides make it worse on purpose to soothe her own ego. Nothing comes from nowhere, and expecting a child to be The Responsible One in that scenario would be ludicrous.
I love how just by seeing Danny’s mouth you can tell that his reaction to Linda’s words is exactly the same as Sal’s. He can’t believe she’s saying something so bad about Amber right in front of her. It’s time for both of them to get up and walk away.
tbh the time to walk away was when walky entered the room with amber. There was absolutely no way this was going to go well and nobody comes out ahead by staying.
What sort of person uses an obscure unit of measurement like ‘leagues’ (which is defined, BTW, as the distance a person or a horse can walk in 1 hour of time – generally considered to be about 5 km or 3 miles)?
So, I was looking at past comics: Do we know how Walky actually feels about Amber anymore? They stopped talking due to Halloween, but Walky always seems to be inserting himself in her life when possible, unless it will involve emotions. Is it possible he would rather be actually dating Amber rather than fake dating?
Way to show a combination of anger and regret in a single facial expression.
She’s realizing that she’s probably really fucked up her friendship with Walky while also rightfully telling his mother off. It’s got a “Damn you…I fucked up, though.” look to it and I love that.
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The first rule of Garbage Restaurant is let’s absolutely see how much more of a trash fire we can make
THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE = NO REGRETS
Okay. Train wreck back on schedule. All is well. Go Team Garbage!!!
The look on her face is because she forgot to live with integrity.
i mean your peril is that at which you trod into Galasso’s domain soooooo
Garbage barge, garbarge
Whoo!
Loooool
This started out as such an obviously garbage idea that the execution somehow going worse than anticipated actually loops around to being impressive.
Amber’s doing a really fantastic job here. Unfortunately.
Don’t ask the girl who is hyperaware of every single one of her own flaws to be her worst self. Lession learned.
Yeah for a second there I thought the Walkertons were going to like her for some reason, but…
Well this has certainly gone places.
😨😨😨
*boss music starts playing on Galasso’s Muzak*
I would believe that he has a jukebox that is literally all boss / villain music.
Megalovania, One Winged Angel, the Star Wars Imperial March, every Disney villain song.
…Every time I make up something crazy about Galasso’s the more I wish I could go there.
You and me both. Maybe there is an entrepreneur somewhere taking notes.
…Probably not, but one can dream.
… the Star Trek fight cue.
This is going to be Walky’s Wolf 359, isn’t it…
How so? In that everything possible is going to go wrong, constantly, for a while? If so, Yes.
I DO have a playlist that is entirely battle music (but also stuff like Morgan Page, “Fight For You”)
OH FUCK.
You know, I’m not sure if I wish I could see Linka’s face right now, or if I could see Walky’s.
What’s next, Sal defends Walky by pointing out that she herself was failing until she had sex with her TA?
the sex with the TA didn’t work though
You’re right. That makes it better.
If anything Sal’s romantic involvement has improved her grades in the most above board way possible (Danny tutoring her).
Between Jason refusing to change her grades and Danny’s overall wholesomeness I’m starting to notice a pattern in Sal’s romantic life. She exudes punk rebellion against a system that failed her but she seeks out good boys who are the kind of people the system claims it’s run by.
Was part of Sal sleeping with Jason her trying to prove that his propriety was an act he’d drop when it was to his advantage? – he did drop part of his propriety of course but far less than she expected.
Eh, with Danny I feel like it’s more that Sal is drawn to him because he’s someone she can be fully vulnerable around. Which she craves, despite her rebellious exterior.
Her attraction to Danny wasn’t math but Super Mario cart. His attraction to _her_ was that he could make math comprehensible to her. And that she could make Super Mario cart comprehensible to him.
They find themselves able to improve and appreciated in unexpected ways and find themselves valued by the other. That is such a solid footing for a stable relationship that I doubt David Willis will let us have it for long.
I feel like you don’t understand why people rebel in the first place.
Agreed.
She tried it with Jason because Jason had started out creepy and given her every reason to think he’d go for it. She didn’t seek out a “good boy” to prove he really wasn’t so good. She got hormoned on by Peewee Herman right from the start/.
— in your FACE, Charles!
Their mother would be proud of Sal if she learned that
o^o welp. uh. i feel wrong being so right about not bringing amber but uhh..
at least it’s nice that walky defended her, though i would’ve expected it to be the first opportunity to be like “Oh if you’re not fond of Amber I’ll break it off and make up with Lucy for dinner” lol
Perfect time to say “I’m only with her because you clearly weren’t fond of Lucy and didn’t want her for lunch” Unfortunately, Walky underestimated his mother being blatantly insulting and got caught up in defending Amber.
There’s no time for that. Amber’s presence set off a thermonuclear warhead, now we’re all Sarah Connor at the playground’s chain-link fence in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
Its particularly interesting, because I don’t think anyone was mentioning it being *Amber* that would screw the whole thing up by not sticking to the plan, let alone doing it by revealing that particular bombshell…
Ppl just expected amber to be herself versus basically airing out ppl’s secrets tho accidentally nuking a social conversation out of spite/fight/flight reflex would be fiting for her lol
Not so much that it’s out of character for Amber as Walky didnt stop to consider all that would intail being in his mothers presence. Like lighting a match near gasoline. .
Is it just me, or is the time drift getting worse?
Well it says “4 minutes past” for this post when the comic went up at around 10 minutes past…
The in-universe sliding timescale, the out-of-universe server clock, or both?
Server.
The server is fine; the sun is just slowing down on account of being billions of years old.
Science – the more you know…
We need to wind it back up. Anybody find the key yet?
Yes it absolutely is. I think it runs longer than a day so it gradually drifts out of sync, but I’m not sure.
On one hand, whoops, Amber.
On the other hand, wow, Linda went from passive aggressive to straight up aggressive.
Only conclusion is that she really hated the transformers preg talk.
But what could be more beautiful than two machines coming together to create new mechanical life with their big ol’ spikes?
Three machines coming together?
Impossible… the madman’s done it…
She hates any partner for David that dare exist outside the ideal consumable package for American capitalism to grind to dust — namely, straight, white, neurotypical and all round “””normal”””.
I notice you didn’t say “female”.
Bi Walky! Bi Walky!
why did I say David when i meant Walky? 😮 odd
Linda’s getting into your head.
Nah, it appears that way only by design, and it’s the other way around.
I’M the alien parasite, remember? 😈
Reassuring.
Please chew a bit faster.
IM TRYING IM TRYING!!!
I’m pretty sure she also just hates Amber personally.
As soon as Sal started becoming the Golden Child, Linda started mentally retconning Sal as an innocent, defenseless victim who can do no wrong and Amber as an evil supervillain.
Sal: “Look at me, bro. Look at me. I am the golden child now.”
Like seriously. Linda just entered an entirely new level of asshole with that kind of language.
Now we now exactly what kind of a racist Linda is, too.
As they say
Womp womp
Somewhere, Quetzalcoatl is very displeased with Merlin…
Hey if you happen to meet Quetzal sometime, mind asking them when / if they’ll answer my prayer to finally destroy Twitter?
Or as they say in Australia
dɯoʍ dɯoM
I can’t read that without picturing Amethyst slapping her butt, transformed into Pearl.
What an exquisite slip of the tongue!
Oh no dude Amber you were supposed to make YOU look bad NOT HIM. WHERE IS THIS PRIDE COMING FROM
A confrontational parent would prolly trigger her flight or fight response and she can’t just straight up punch Linda (though i’m sure as an altenrative that’d also be equally entertaining)
Yep, it was a poorly thought out plan to have Amber meet the women who blatantly wanted her expelled for her father’s crimes.
Remember that she dumped him.
YEOWCH
Annnnd it’s RANDOM SECRET OUT OF NOWHERE WITH A STEEL CHAIR
Chekhov’s hacked grades.
Oooh that actually made me laugh out loud! 😀
(Turns out I have just enough pride to avoid saying you made me lol irl, but not too much to admit it! :P)
well she’s doing very well at making herself appear to be a much worse choice than Lucy.
Goal accomplished?
Ha! As if Lucy had the skills to hack his grades.
Task failed successfully.
And you were worried.
…damn, now there’s a plot point that I had completely forgotten since my initial binge a couple years ago.
I had completely forgotten about it, too. I’ve been reading since the beginning and can’t remember how many years ago that plot point happened.
Yeeeah the best thing for Sal and Danny to do right now is to just stand up and go. This was always gonna be a fucked up dinner, but it’s even worse now, it’s just imploding. There is no salvaging this. Sal, leave with Danny and just spend time with someone who loves you unconditionally.
Avatar checks out.
well maybe sal and danny can sneak off (if they’re not blocked in the seats by the parents tho i’m sure sal woudl find a way) but walky’s def not able to flee after that bomb drop lol
Oh yeah no Walky has incurred the mom wrath. He’s stuck there now, things have gone from wacky to apocalypse. As for Sal and Danny, maybe Sal can use her window climbing skills to get them out of the booth.
The momwraths are outgrabe, man. He’s doomed.
Ambers about to gyre and gimble all over Linda’s wabe.
Somebody haul out the vorpal blade so we can all have a Snicker snack.
Wally incurred Linda’s wrath, Linda incurred Amber’s wrath, Amber has probably incurred Wally’s wrath – it’s a closed circuit of wrath. A wrath triangle.
Danny: “…w-we should go…”
Sal: “…yah, that’d… be smart…”
Danny: “…w-why aren’t we moving…”
Sal: “…can’t look away…”
Just vault over the back of the seat and run.
As far as I can tell, Danny has a half-wall to the left of him and full wall behind him, the table in front of him with Charles across the way, and Sal to his right.
Sal has Danny (and then the half-wall) to her left, full wall behind her, table in front of her with Amber across the way, and Linda to her right between her and freedom.
Non-drastic escape options are lacking.
I don’t normally have claustrophobia, but this specific situation of not being able to physically get out while the conversation is imploding would give me claustrophobia.
Oh noooooooo. Damnit Amber. Don’t tell on Walky like that!
Well, they should’ve known the risks but if Linda’s upset about walky being a failure maybe she’d be like “who cares about dating, you better get straight a’s the rest of the year”
I honestly could see her doing that too. “Maybe if you weren’t pingponging between women, you’d be studying!!!” “I promise, mom, I would in fact not be studying. I would be bored and not-studying.”
Get straight A’s the rest of the year? No problem.
Right Amber?
Telling on Walky aside, don’t admit to crime in front of someone who doesn’t like you. Or at all, preferably.
Or dont crime at all…
Nah do more crime.
DO ALL THE CRIME!
Oh, well, when you put it that way it makes total sense.
To a six-year-old.
Given the way US law is structured it’s virtually impossible to get through a day without unknowingly or at least accidentally committing at least a misdemeanor or two.
I hope the person who uploaded your favorite song to Spotify got the file from an official source and had a proper license to upload it, right? Did you walk across a street with no crosswalks today because the store was right there, instead of walking an extra four blocks to find one? Did you hear a snippet of a Metallica song from someone’s car, constituting a public performance, without paying? Maybe you pulled into someone’s driveway for a few moments to turn around because you were going the wrong direction? Answer a persistent phone call to tell them you’d call back because you were driving? Smoke weed in a state where it’s not legal? Look at a passing cop for too long? Share some of the chips you bought with your food stamps?
Not every crime is made equal, and saying “well don’t do crimes at all” isn’t just ignorant, it’s dangerously short-sighted.
Just for the record, even in states where weed is legal, it’s still a federal crime
Well, ain’t that a nice little loophole. Good to know.
But Linda can’t tell on Amber without also dumping on Walky. “I said I wouldn’t do that” indicates this was discussed and that also he should have noticed that he didn’t fail as expected… Either the narrative has to become “hapless Walky was so naive and unobservant that he didn’t notice his grades had been changed after a discussion about hacking them” which raises questions about his intelligence (or undiagnosed ADHD and thus their parenting) or that he was party to it and it was a “yeah, of course I wouldn’t really do that, we’ll say no more” 😉 convo where they both knew she would do it…
So he’s either a complete moron or a willing accomplice to sketchy behavior? Yeah, I can see what you mean. That’s quite a pickle. Hope she likes dill.
Exactly! The sort of sketchy behaviour that might see him getting in trouble/prevent the switch to medicine that Linda still has planned for him.
Also, is Danny annoyed enough with Walky (and Amber) to drop him (them) in it..? Would Sal intervene and ask him not to/tell him she disapproved?
Even assuming you’re confident that Linda can’t tell without throwing Walky under the bus, even assuming Linda comes to the same conclusion, and even assuming Linda isn’t willing to do that (which are all pretty big assumptions to begin with), there’s still the possibility that Linda (or one of the four other people at the table) will fuck up.
For the record, I don’t believe Danny would purposely snitch, even if it was just Walky but especially not with Amber involved. Of the non-Linda people at the table, I’d be more worried about Walky having an attack of conscience (probably only meaning to turn himself in, but that could easily get Amber caught too). And Charles’s mouth is apparently also a wildcard. And who knows if Sydney is still lurking around.
Not saying any of this is gonna happen in the comic, but it’s still an incredibly unnecessary (bundle of) risk(s).
The Amber and Walky drama hour. Also featuring: Sal.
Third base.
I love Amber’s fighting style
I too have always been a fan of nuclear weapons.
Wow, this is certainly going worse than I expected, and I am here for it. Let’s see how long until this turns into a full fledged meltdown, and when Sal and Danny just bounce and leave everyone else to their arguing.
So is Walky doing better in school now, so Amber hasn’t had to change any recent grades? Or is Walky still on the verge of failing?
The issue only seemed to be with his math class– “flunking out of school” seems like an exaggeration– and he did seem to get a bit better once his hacked grade allowed him not to be failing. He might just not have a math class this semester and be doing okay otherwise.
I see, hopefully he has gotten better at the math he was having difficulty with. I do remember him talking to Jason before Jason left, so maybe he has been getting help.
He is taking math, along with Sal, Joyce and Lucy.
It’s also- horrifyingly- possible that Walky hadn’t realized his other grades were that bad and Amber only knows because she went in to change math.
i think he was only failing/needing extra tutoring in math, feels like something that could be made up if there’s a college equivalent of summer schoolbut idk if it means walky stopped trying since
I’m actually waiting for this to mess up Sal and Danny’s budding relationship. Things keep getting heated, Danny throws in on hating on Walky, and Sal defends her brother?
This dinner ain’t gonna leave anyone untouched.
I don’t think Danny’s gonna Dan it up like that. The only time he did something similar to what you said was when he decided to be a dick about Mike being in a coma. But he had some ground to stand on there, because Mike was a supreme asshole, and he kept being incredibly douchey to Amber and Ethan.
Danny is aware his dislike of Walky is really petty. And that he doesn’t actually know Walky well enough as a person to make any valid criticisms of him or say he’s absolutely trash.
I think Sal, Walky, and Danny are actually going to come out stronger with this. Linda’s basically doing EXACTLY to Walky what Danny’s parents have done to him. Lionizing Dorothy and saying he peaked with her. It’s probably making Danny really uncomfortable watching this, even if he has a petty dislike of Walky.
Idk, I feel like even Sal would have some trouble defending Walky bringing Amber. She’s the ex-girlfriend of Sal’s new boyfriend and he had to have known that was the social equivalent of dropping a nuke on their dinner.
I don’t think Walky thought of that at all. He and Lucy both seem to underplay when people are angry with them (his reaction to Danny being mad to see him at roller derby) and in their cute planning for making Lucy look better with comedy dinner tropes neither considered the real life grudges that would be aired.
The grade hacking was before midterms last semester and he passed that class and moved on to the next level of maths, so he pretty clearly did do better the rest of the semester. The secret hacking gave him some confidence and I believe they also set something up on his phone to poke his ADHD brain while he’s trying to study.
He’s smart enough, so he just had to figure out someway to study effectively.
There’s a Yiddish word for nothings: “nebbish”.
Nebbish is a specific type of nothing, more of a weak nerdy milquetoast. Howard might be a nebbish.
I think Linda might want a more literal word for nothing, such as bupkis. I’ve never heard somebody call a person bupkis, but I don’t speak much Yiddish. It also means potato.
I’m glad Linda’s not one of ours though. We really don’t need a Linda/Naomi teamup. (Ethan’s mom.)
In Irish, they’d say “There’s nothin’ to ’em.”
If the particular Irish speaker were inclined to use that particular phrase.
The original meaning of “bupkis” (bobkes, bubkes, bopkes) isn’t potato; it’s beans.
Wiktionary says that the word (באָבקעס) derives from that for beans (bobes; singular bob), but actually originally meant “goat or sheep turds” (which do visually resemble beans; clusters of small rounds). I am not sure if Wiktionary is correct (Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish doesn’t mention a goat/sheep turd meaning), but there it is.
You might be thinking of the similar word bulba or bulbe (בולבע), which does mean potato. Rosten also has a slang meaning of “mistake”; “faux pas”. The slang meaning may be narrowly limited to Yiddish theater usage; a bulbenik is an actor who blows their lines.
As long as I have Rosten open, I note that he has the original pronunciation of nebbish as nebech (guttural “ch” as in Bach). There is also the very similar in both meaning and pronunciation nefish. And both nebech and nefish are mentioned as being similar in meaning to schlemiel
Another word meaning “nothing” is gornisht (גאָרנישט), but I don’t think is usually applied to people.
Somehow, this plan doesn’t seem to be going exactly how they intended.
Well, if Walky’s no longer the golden child it shouldn’t matter if the parents approve of his partner sanymore lol
You know, I knew this was a bad idea. But somehow…SOMEHOW with all their history and everything taken into account I still didn’t realize it was gonna be THIS bad.
Something. Something. Smarting of Age.
It’s looking like Sarah is going to have the ultimate “I told you so” moment later.
I think we just encountered the “giving yourself away” part of “But Don’t Give Yourself Away”
also FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
So is anyone going to call Linda out for immediately accepting that he dumped Lucy and got a new gf in a matter of hours?
I was thinking about this the whole time, but I think we’re just meant to accept the comic-book-y nature of it all.
The way I’m looking at it, they just haven’t been able to circle back around to that point. There’s just been so many different varieties of insanity going on, and I can’t really blame Linda for seizing upon “Walky’s dating the girl that stabbed Sal” over “Walky got a new girlfriend in a couple of hours”.
Honestly, the only one that’s openly accepted Amber to the table is Charles. Linda’s not said a single kind or welcoming word about her.
Racial bias is dangerously good at overpowering rationality. ☠️
No.
oh no
Now would be a good time to drop one of Amazi-Girl’s smoke bombs and escape out a window.
Better yet, one of Krieger’s.
Archer reference? 😏😎
The good news is, Linda hates Walky’s WHITE girlfriend.
So it turns out she’s just Sexist.
Or she’s prejudiced against… glasses.
“You are dating one of those FOUR EYED FREAKS? Her inferior non-seeing genes are a detriment to our pure, perfect vision”
Dorothy’s acceptable though, because, like Charles, she’s “one of the good ones”
Kind of funny that every one of Walky’s partners have worn glasses.
She was fine with the similarly bespectacled Dorothy.
As someone already pointed out, she thinks Dorothy is “one of the good ones”.
Does she know Dorothy is 1/4 Jewish? 0_0
Linda is just an all around terrible person. I wish Charles would realize this, and divorce her the same way Joyce’s dad is/did.
And then Charles and Hank kiss.
Yes to this
Given that he’s the 2nd marriage/partner maybe she picked him because she knew he’d stick it out, or he was always more of a backseat kinda parent that didn’t do as much
That assumes Charles is not, on some level, also terrible.
I wish Charles would lovingly but firmly confront his wife about her peculiar behavior, but I think he’s not there yet. That bomb needs Sal to snap and set it off with a tirade against Linda’s treatment of her. I think Linda’s fortress of superiority might crumble if her whole family momentarily united against it.
Yeah, of course Amber, who Linda already hates, who is then instructed to be her most hateable-to-parents self, is not going to be received well. If he had shown up with a different white girl pretending to be his girlfriend, and Linda was just chill about it, maybe then he could be like, “Oh, so it’s good that I’m two-timing Lucy as long as the other girl is white?” OR SOMETHING. That couldn’t really happen here, wouldn’t make sense to expect that it would.
It’s almost like this was a bad plan.
What are you talking about? Lucy is looking like a better choice to Linda by the minute.
In fact, Lucy’s lookin’ so good right now, Linda’s secretly looking up divorce lawyers on her phone under the table, because now she wants Lucy all to herself. I’m 3000% certain that Amber’s unhinged rant about creating new life from spike penises will drive Linda to cuck her own son, out of sheer desperation to escape if nothing else.
(No, this is not serious or reflective of my actual opinions on literally anything)
Remember that the plan was supposed to show up with a terrible white girlfriend so they’d appreciate Lucy.
How that also helps with racism, idk.
Yeah, I guess the plan really had nothing to do with confronting racism, just boosting up Lucy. In that case, I guess it’s working. Except there will, of course, be some extra drama.
Actually it could be that Walky has been quite clever. If Linda likes Amber then they can unmask the plan and shoult “racist!” If she hates Amber then Amber can blow up and blow out, and Walky can work the conversation around to “Lucy’s not so bad then, huh?”
Or she is protective of her children. Yes: Sal included.
If Linda were smarter the blood would have been draining from her face as a result of the second panel. I almost backed up from my screen and it wasn’t me Amber was pissed at.
Linda’s only seen her talk about pregnant transformers. You’ve seen what else she can do.
Yeah, think about *that* Linda. That shoe fits.
This is how that grade hacking thing comes out?
At the worst possible moment, absolutely
She’s not nothing. She’s Amazing!
Yeah, uh, this is a garbage fire in the way Walky didn’t intend to… I do think Linda needed to know the real Walky and not the version in her mind that she would mold him into. Like, damn, woman, you’re letting your -isms show hardcore.
Maybe this will be the time Walky confronts Linda about going to medical school after all.
Walky doesn’t know that apparently he’d changing his major.
Way to bring a bunker buster to a verbal fight, Walky
It’s my birthday and this is a great strip for it 😌 pure chaos
You know, I’m a simple webcomic reader. I will happily eat popcorn as long as it doesn’t sink my ship (Joe/Joyce or Sal/Danny at the moment).
(On the other hand, there’s an episode of my favorite TV show that sinks my ship and it’s like, I still love that episode because it’s just a really great episode, even though it has that consequence. So what I’m saying is, my statement was an if and not an iff. Here’s to good storytelling!)
AND broke into the department building to destroy the physical records.
You’re thorough. Don’t forget that.
Did she destroy them, or did she stash them in her room?
WHOA I CALLED IT!
I wasn’t expecting to be right about that happening!
🏆
Well, that’s set the cat among the pigeons.
And now I’m realizing that Jason coming in out of nowhere with some upper-class Britishism would probably about the only thing that could make this worse.
Appropriate username is appropriate there, but in case there’s any confusion, not someone else is actually somebody else.
Maybe they got confused and used the wrong name.
Amusingly enough, no, this is just a pseudonym I’ve used for years in circles where I don’t want to use any of my actual usernames (mostly comment sections).
Ah. So you aren’t someone else.
Nope, I’m me.
Jason might not have to come out of nowhere if they pursue this issue with Walky having his grades changed thing.
Ok so Garbage Scow Stocks are dropping rapidly but I’m not gonna cash out yet. There could be an uptick in the next few pages. The DOW Walkerton is strong!
Keep hope alive, Yotomoe!
Buy low, sell high.
Buy low, sell hay
Buy sheep, sell deer.
was wondering when this would come up
did not really expect it here
The Willis plays the long game.
“i thank everyone for withstanding me infodumping from my hyperfixations these past few days”,
no, thank you Willis! The autistic resonance is strong 🥰🎸🌈♾️
panel 1 feels like a dig at Sal. panel 2 feels like a veiled threat. But there’s not time for that.
Was pepsi ok?
There was no veil there.
The pipsi was not ok.
It was pepsi.
Ahem.
The pepsi was not okay. It was pepsi.
I dunno about pipsi.
Pipsi? I got an ad for that on YouTube once. Some kinda knockoff Furby toy with a creepy theme song.
Linda’s behavior feels a little over-the-top here. Like, yes, Linda is an asshole, but blatantly insulting someone to *this* extent directly in front of them feels sort of forced–like a sacrifice made to allow the scene to flow better.
Realistically, I feel like Linda would be “taking Walky aside” and very obviously shittalking Amber while Amber could still basically hear them. You know, the polite way.
You never met my mother. This is absolutely something she would have done although people who hadn’t witnessed her doing similar things would never have thought she would.
Whoof, sounds intense. Sorry about having a really, really difficult mother.
Hoooo yep I feel ya.
Although my mother would never say these things about partner, just about me.
No wait she absolutely did, if insulting someone else could make me feel worse. Wellp.
normally yeah she probably wouldn’t say that but between the Golden Child thing and the… histories between amber and this family, she’s probably too angry to bother hiding it
Also, Amber’s been taking the awfulness up to 11 as intended. She’s being rude, but based on what’s been presented to her, her reaction is entirely understandable.
Is it over the top to be horrible to the person that stabbed your child and never went to jail for it? (as far as Linda’s point of view, Amber never suffered any consequences)
I’m not saying Linda is correct, but I can completely understand why she’s talking like this
Requests for information cost nothing, is my main hang-up. If Linda ever wanted to know what consequences Amber faced, she could always have looked into it. Instead, she sits on her little high horse and passes judgment from above.
I think that’s the point.
Before, we KNEW Linda was JUST racist. Now, we know that the racism is just one part of a whole.
So we’re just gonna ignore how Amber sounded like she was threatening to kill Walky’s mom for being a dick? I know she wasn’t, but it sure sounded like it.
Was she? I took it as her saying that she was past it, despite the obvious comparison to Linda.
I definitely read it as an implied threat, where Amber has enough wiggle room that if Linda were to push charges and say Amber was threatening her, she could say “What? I just reminded her my dad was dead” and still TECHNICALLY be correct.
I just wonder now what legal ramifications or wiggle room Amber has for admitting to hacking the college’s grading system. Somehow I don’t think that’s anything short of expulsion headed her way
If Linda gets Amber thrown out, Walky will be out, too.
Let me explain the difference between “implied” and “blatant.”…
Be a real shame if somethin’ were ta happen to a nice fella like you, Gordon. It’s a dangerous city, Gordon, best to keep her eyes open.
I dont believe she was threatening to kill her, but an outsider who didn’t know the whole history would probably think she was. Honestly I’m surprised Linda didn’t say something about it. I think it was more of a karmic warning. “Stop being a bongo Ebenezer Linda! Or thou art doomed!” Or something along those lines.
It’s the “I’d think about that” that turns it into a threat.
Or a warning that Sal might break and stab someone.
Or just that Linda should think about what her treatment has already driven Sal to do.
More I think about it, the less of a threat it sounds like. The more that first bit seems intended to parallel Linda’s treatment of Sal rather than how she’d normally describe Blaine’s abuse.
It’s a deserved threat.
No it isn’t.
Amber could, for instance, say fuck you and walk away but instead she escalates to implied murder threats.
Amber needs help a 5150 asap
“Help” and “a 5150” are not in the same time zone. Also, I don’t think she’s actually willing to do actual murder over this, it’s just being aggressive.
(Fun fact: deciding that any sort of aggression by a mentally ill person is tantamount to Literal Imminent Murder is exactly why forcing someone into a psych ward for an indeterminate period is a horrible idea. Oh no, she’s mad at being treated like shit, let’s drug her and lock her in solitary, that’ll….. help….)
You are correct in saying all of this.
She hallucinates to the point of having conversations, refuses to seek help, uses violence to feel better and just implied murder as a response to verbal put downs and also thinks she’s amazing girl
It’s not the implied threat, it’s the implied threat backed up by extensive history of violence which shows she’s capable of being violently aggressive
She doesn’t think she’s Amazi-girl, she’s right. That’s her.
Technically not even “her”-her, right? I’m still fairly ignorant about how systems work and self-describe, but Amber and Amazi-Girl started referring to each other separately after a while, and weren’t even sharing memories at some point.
Shes Amber, a girl with massive problems that isn’t getting the help she needs and at some point its going to blow up in her face and instead of hospital it’ll be prison
Well if this was real and not a comic I mean
Most people hallucinate when they’re seriously sleep deprived, which was the case when Amber started hallucinating. Since then I’m guessing she’s continued not sleeping very well, though not as bad as it used to be.
Even if you don’t have any idea how disassociation actually works, which is understandable because neither do psychologists!, the only thing she’s had that’s a “hallucination” was maybe? Ghost Mike? And hallucinating during a period of extreme grief is both a fuck of a lot more common than you imply and not related to whether she’s dangerous.
It is, and saying overdramatic shit about “5150” doesn’t change that
You sound like how white Karens talk about Black people. 0 clue what you’re talking about.
I think Amber’s last line in panel two has plenty of plausible deniability in interpretation.
“What do you mean, a threat? I didn’t kill him. He’s the one who decided to go for a policeman’s gun and get himself shot. All I was saying is that spontaneous bad choices can have severe consequences.”
She was making a blatent dig at Linda’s hyper critical controlling.
Finally, the thread I’ve been waiting for for a long time. I hope this isn’t just a little addition to the Racist Mom arc
What’s team garbage without a lover’s spat along the way?
Oh so that’s coming to ahead now.
Walky specifically brought Amber to look bad but then instantly tries to defend her when it works. Not a very good plan even without the unexpected consequences.
But it’d look weird if he instantly agreed with her instead, right?
If he’s pretending to date her he ought to defend her at least a little bit.
Also
“I only stabbed your daughter because my Dad was abusive” doesn’t feel like the own you think it is.
I think the second part is more the point, she made a very mildly veiled threat to murder linda lmao.
I mean they don’t call her Stabby Mcstabby for nothing.
Yeah. “And he’s dead now, so I’d think about that.” Awesome xD
She is supposed to be a terrible option, so maybe “I did that because my parent was acting like you” isn’t a terrible response
“I did that because my parent was acting like you”, so maybe think about what you’re doing.
Understandable if Linda reads it as a threat, but I don’t think it’s intended as one.
“My dad was a controlling, egotistical, hateful, violent prick too, and look where that got him.” Is basically how I read it. At the very least, even short of the whole “dying” thing, he wound up estranged and detached from his wife and daughter, with absolutely no hope of ever rebuilding whatever passed for a bond with them, all due to his own actions that he consciously made.
(I know I said it’s a justified threat, and I’d like to specify that I meant that in the case of it actually being one, for the sake of clarity)
that’s the thing about implied threats. they have to sound like things that aren’t actually threats. so you have to be careful not to say things that could be interpreted as threats.
Like if you’re calling an elected official, you cannot say “you’ll be sorry,” you have to say, “you’ll be sorry because we’re going to vote you out over this”.
Seems like a very direct way to spell out a triggering behavior. After being pushed to a certain point, I don’t think people can be held accountable for their responses.
Can’t say that I agree. If someone performs a horrifying action in the heat of the moment, triggering behavior or otherwise, the effects are still there. You either should be held responsible for your actions OR if you truly cannot be held responsible for your actions then you should be under some manner of supervision.
Middle ground: she was 13 at the time and isn’t going to do it again
Counterpoint: She turned a guy into Swiss cheese less than six months ago and was upset she didn’t get the chance to do more to him.
Counterpoint to my own counterpoint: He drugged and raped multiple women and intended to do it again, and every day he’s in the hospital is a day he’s not out with the actual people causing more harm.
Conclusion: At least she’s channeling that aggression in more beneficial ways?
Extra note: I’m already calling Linda “it” in other comments for dehumanising somebody to their face, so why did I type “he” and “him” for the rapist? I definitely don’t consider blatant rudeness (even if it’s super harsh) to be worse than rape, so maybe I should swap the responses around?
Or just not call people “it” even facetiously. Can’t say I’m a big fan of using problematic behavior ironically to call out problematic behavior cuz it snowballs into “If they can do it I can do it too” and that’s just bigotry backwards.
Yeah, I guess you’re right.
Unless that’s the pronoun they actually use.
That’s also true. One of my tangential Final Fantasy acquaintances explicitly prefers that, and it gets kinda sensitive if you refer to it as “they”.
Counterpoint to your first counterpoint, I was also disappointed she didn’t get a chance to do more to him.
I agree that the effects of anything anyone does are always going to have happened. I’m only saying that there are very clear cases where the person doing those things can’t be held against them, because someone else was shoving them violently in that direction to begin with. Like, people’s actions don’t happen in a vacuum, everything comes from somewhere, and if I psychologically torment my own child and turn them into a nervous wreck with erratic behavior, then that behavior is my fault, not theirs, and I should be the one held accountable for whatever they do as a direct result of my torment. Like if I beat the shit out of them with a belt and then they start to panic whenever they hear a belt buckle rattling or a sudden loud noise, I don’t think it’s really reasonable or compassionate to blame them and hold it against them if they flail and smack someone while they’re in that state.
There are some grey areas, like if they started blowing up random kids’ lockers that’d be mainly on them (but also on me for not raising them to be better than that), and it gets less grey the older they get and the more they (one hopes) understand their own trauma and it’s effects better.
I do also agree that if a person is in a state where all sense and rationality has left their mind, to the point where nothing they do can be reasoned with or (relatively) easily corrected, they most likely need some kind of supervision. And of course that supervision, just like the actions, should be taken by degrees as well. Like, we’re not gonna send a kid to a behavioral correction facility full of actively dangerous and malicious other kids just because they had their head down in class due to a depressive state induced by repeated threats from school faculty (random example, definitely not still bitter). But we might have a teacher’s assistant try to keep an eye on them or something in case they have an emotional meltdown and become inconsolable, so that a directly involved adult who the kid knows can at the very least contact their parents and say “Hey can you pick up X? They’re not doing well at all and they’ve been asking for you.”
Okay, that got away from me a little. Point is, I don’t think we disagree overall, just maybe on the level of detail?
I think Taffy put it better than I did, but I do want to point out that you have 0 actual first hand experience with psychological abuse. Also, yes, she needed supervision at the time. Not like always and forever lock her away or whatever sanist bullcrap, but like, in that moment she very much did need supervision. Better supervision than what she was getting, obviously. Like I agree with you, technically, I just don’t think that means she needs to be institutionalized right at this moment, or at all actually. Institutionalization is a form of violence.
Well, let’s not assume things about real people’s lives and lived experiences, here. That’s not exactly fair, and makes the discussion way more personal than is warranted. We’re all just people talking about stuff.
I don’t think she needs to be institutionalized. But I definitely thinks bringing up her father instead of just saying “Yeah I’m sorry I did that” and then going on to bring up her upbringing would’ve sat better with me. Like Sal basically apologized for her so maybe she’s piggy backing on me but like…from Linda’s perspective, this girl stabbed her daughter. I don’t really know that I’d feel all that compelled to treat her charitably. I’d find it hard to believe she’s grown from the incident considering she seems to be taking none of the responsibility.
Yes, she was abused, goaded, insulted and traumatized into taking an action she at the time felt was right. That action resulted in her stabbing an already restrained Sal in the hand. Sal now lives with a permanent scar on her hand because of that incident.
I know that WE the audience are set up to hate Linda and believe she’s a racist awful person who doesn’t care about her kids, so she’s obviously “in the wrong” but in this instance I think it’s worth admitting some level of fault for what she did.
Yeah, “I only permanently reduced your daughter’s ability to use her hand because my mean dad humiliated me” is not a great take. Like, Linda is a crappy parent but her hating Amber makes sense.
It’s a little bit more complex than “mean dad humiliated me”, but whatever.
Ah, but Linda doesn’t know the full details. And even if she did, “someone else badly hurt you so you hurt my child” isn’t probably going to sway her to Amber’s side.
Sometimes people who had childhoods as monstrous as Amber’s (or worse) go on to hurt people but many don’t. Amber shouldn’t have stabbed a handcuffed and restrained Sal. The action doesn’t make her evil and her circumstances require compassion but taking responsibility for her actions is important to break the potential cycle of violence.
Haha, WHOOPS.
Amber, you were supposed to be the lightning rod of hatred so that they’d prefer Lucy (somehow). Not dethrone the Golden Child.
But OH WELL
Not that he’d be dethroned for long. Abusive savior-syndrome mothers like Linda have a way of quickly turning golden children into scapegoats and vice versa. 😒
Its actually amusing that this was working out exceedingly well, based on Linda’s comments, riiiiiight up until Amber managed to fuck the whole thing up in the one way that no one here was expecting…
Uh I though we were “not” being cartoon villains. You’re not supposed to tell the proles they are a lower class of human being to their face.
I mean, I like it. More than vague complaints behind their back about not being “right” for her son. Maybe you realize you can’t let people know you’re racist (or, you think you’re hiding it) but being openly classist, sexist and an asshole about it ought to be enough for them to cut your out of their life with no regrets.
And considering Linda knows Anthony (McHenry), this feels like a large shoe to have dropped.
Linda, I think Danny has skewed your expectations about partners.
I was going to comment specifically for this.
Linda is close to the Dean. Linda wants Amber kicked out of school. She’ll probably twist it so they don’t even make Walky redo the class and nothing is mentioned in his files while Amber gets expelled for it even though they don’t find any traces of said act.
Uh oh…oopsie doodle…
Well wait, they’d still have to prove this actually happened. Amber saying this to make Walky’s mom mad doesn’t prove she actually did it.
The actual professor never did any grading and the TA got into trouble for his relationship with Sal…and I’m just now as I type this realizing how bad this could get…
There’s probably digital footprints. Like Amber said, the more she moves things around, the harder it is for her to erase any evidence of her ever being there at all.
The disaster-recovery backups have probably been recycled by now. Likely the prof. will continue to trust his online gradebook, and not really remember Walky’s actual performance. Walky has, or recycled, or ate, all of the physical evidence. Really, at this point it all may have been laundered by forwarding the final grade to the Registrar’s system and deleting the gradebook records.
Walky was being graded by a TA who was latter fired.
I gotta bring this up every time the flunking thing comes up. It was one math class. As far as we know he was doing fine in all his other courses. I’m not even sure math is a requirement for his major. Walky is not at IU on an academic scholarship as far as we know. Maybe I’m ignorant to the academic requirements of IU so correct me if I’m wrong, but he was in no danger. I think Dorothy was actually in more academic jeopardy than Walky that semester.
Don’t confuse us with facts.
Yeah, the main thing that was endanger was Walky’s ego.
*endangered or in danger, not sure which I meant to type
They both work.
A worthy point, but it also makes sense that Amber would overstate the danger given that she’s acting on pure spite right now.
I thought Walky was in danger with his mom, who seems the type to insist on seeing proof of straight A’s.
Med should have (and used to have) math and chemistry requirements.
And if she changed his grade once without him knowing and his grades were better afterwards, it’s Amber’s position in school that gets endangered here, not Walky’s.
Walky’s not actually pre-med.
[Linda voice]Oh, yes he is.[/]
I think he’s a communications major right? It can lead to a lot of career options, most people I knew in college tried to use it to get into the film industry which is probably a decent fit for Walky although they usually end up becoming part of production crews for news stations.
I believe Walky’s concern was how his mother would react if she found out he was failing. Now that Amber’s ousted him, I’m curious what his response will be
Nah, unless Dorothy had completely collapsed under the strain, her “academic jeopardy” was getting Cs and Bs.
Still, Walky recovered from his early problems in math and passed it largely under his own power. The hacking was before the mid-terms, so it only would have affected a small percent of his grade.
It depends on the grade system and stuff– I never took math in college, so I don’t have an exact reference frame for it– but I could see how early failing could have doomed his overall grade. But mostly I think it was a motivational thing.
(If they had gotten 20% of their grades by then, for example– which feels like more than they would have, but– and Walky had gotten 0% on that, then the most he could get in the class would be an 80%. But if doing his best could only get him a 70% average on the future work he did (because I don’t think he started acing things later in the semester), then he’d end up with a 56%, which would likely be failing (again, depending on the grading system).)
If a student has a period of doing remarkably bad and then makes a significant improvement, a professor might have the discretion to weight the later grade. I think my brother did that, when a student was just short of a cut-off.
The intended purpose of tests is to test how well a student has understood the subject, it’s not just some arbitrary performance. If they catch up in their understanding, then they should at least pass.
All that being said, did Walky pass calc, or might he have an incomplete so far?
He’s in the next semester’s math class, along with Joyce and the others, so he must have passed it.
Early failing could have doomed his grade, depending on what percentage and how badly he’d failed it, but that wasn’t my point. Amber only fixed his grades from before the midterm, so he must have done well the rest of the semester in order to pass. He recovered from his initial problems.
Math is a general requirement for IU, so he would need to pass it at some point. That said, he’d only missed a week or two of weekly quizzes and there’s no way THAT is enough to make your grade unsalvageable – maybe he couldn’t get an A, but even so. He didn’t miss any exams or things like that.
Well, Walky’s plan WAS for this whole thing to be a disaster, so….
… mission accomplished?
Yep.
Aaaaand there it is, the train has crashed.
True enough, but somehow I feel that there is a lot more collateral damage to go around.
Oh no no, the locomotive crashed, the rest of the train is only Beginning to crash and it will be minutes of a very horrifying show.
You all keep making me remember the penultimate scene of _Silver Streak_. Brrr!
Some of those tankers have split open, and the contents are running toward each other…
*grabs popcorn*
And here we go!!
I’ve eat all popcorn in Joyce x Carol pages…
PREDICTION: Sarah says “I told you so” laughing. Lucy, having finally had enough, shouts “Who asked you?!” then punches Sarah in the face. Sarah, still laughing, said it was worth it. Lucy’s standing with Mrs. NPD Walkerton doesn’t improve, but her inability to let her son going off her script go and getting her fat-cat connections involved leads at least one of them to call her a “climber” and to quit whining…
Walky is thus forced to both keep his GPA in the black and major in law (as being a surgeon clearly won’t work out, so “lawyer” it is) just to keep his mother off his back afterwards…
You know, one thing I just remembered: Lucy works at Galasso’s.
Not saying she has a shift today, but oh would it be glorious.
I just realized that she may have okayed this plan because she knows she’ll be there to step in at the Psychological Moment. (Forgetting that she’ll be busy and unable to adequately monitor the development.)
Amber: I only attacked Sal because there was an annoying parent nearby
Sal *Slowly hides hand under table*
This is why we need likes!
“Nothing”, huh. Alright, if it wants to reduce people to nothing, I’m sure it can take the same right back. Amber’s fully justified in going as far as she’s gone, and realistically she could go even further beyond.
Yeah, by God.
Like, the only thing Amber ever “did to” Linda was stabbing Sal, which we’ve already seen the two work through (to the extent that they have). Anything past that is its own petty power trip.
I refuse to believe Linda actually gives a fuck about the stabbing other than as ammunition. If she did care, maybe she shouldn’t have dumped her kid in another state and refused to talk to her except to call her a failure for five fucking years.
She might say she cares, but her actions do not demonstrate any actual care.
Hard and hearty agree. A real failure of a parent, I say. She hasn’t even shown that she cares about the supposed golden child, the way I see it. Yeah, he’s real fuckin’ prepared for independent life, Linda, way to go.
She’s a complete write-off, as far as nurturing goes.
ok… this seems to be going exactly as planned.
Honestly yeah, it’s going pretty smoothly. All they need now is the actual racism confrontation.
I feel it shall be popping up shortly.
Oh this is why we needed Jason to become a TA again. Robin made him an employee of the university again just in time for the school to be able to compel him to cooperate in an investigation into the grades being changed.
If he was still just working at the restaurant, the school couldn’t make him help with that.
(Why did they let Robin make him a TA again considering why he got fired?)
He didn’t get fired, he resigned to avoid the investigation (which was baseless, but he did do the crime).
And Robin is apparently quite shrewd in this universe, who knows what strings she pulled
But Jason had nothing to do with anyone’s grades being changed. Why would he need to be compelled?
Because, if Amber did not make a mistake, Jason’s memory is the only evidence the school has of the grades being changed.
Jason was the one keeping track of Walky’s grades and attendance.
Maybe don’t boast about hacking into the school system to a friend of the dean. Just saying.
Luckily it was Walky’s grades that she hacked so Linda is unlikely to do anything with this info.
very true
I can hear “ABORT! ABORT! THE PLAN IS TURNING INTO A CLUSTER-FRICK!” blaring in Walky’s head right now.
Man, that shoe took a long time in dropping.
Also, congratulations on admitting to commiting an expellable offence in the presence of someone who hates your guts, there, Amber, stellar move. Luckily for you, Linda is not going to rat you out because doing so would make Walky flunk.
I hope she would, Amber needs to pull her head in immediately
Doing so would make herself look bad to the Dean so i doubt she will. Though I am curious about just how much influence Linda really has with him, so now I want to see Linda grab for too much by asking the Dean to over look Walkys real grade while expelling Amber only to get told off in a major way.
I’d like to see Amber sent to some sort of hospital because she really needs help
Please stay away from every mentally ill person.
Her antics got people hurt And killed. There is a point where a person becomes a threat to themselves and other people and Amber is way past that point.
I don’t want her brain burned with electricity as punishment for her, “antics,” as you put it. I don’t think that drugging her is going to make things better. Like, fiction aside, psych wards are places where they just physically contain you and that’s kind of it. What you have to say is outright offensive.
Like we get that they did a pretty okay job with Ruth on screen but if she has any kind of a “scary” mental illness it might be a lot worse for her. Plus she’s fat which means she’ll automatically be treated worse in almost any hospital setting.
Like seriously please don’t interact with mentally ill people until you figure out how to be an ally.
Also, amber’s antics didn’t “get people hurt and killed.” It was a murderer. A murderer got people hurt and killed. Mostly by killing them himself. She gets herself hurt more than anyone else wrt that. She (well, amazigirl) has also saved many lives including many people from rape. Some on screen, more off screen. Her “antics,” had been good aligned, and if you don’t believe me, feel free to read through the comic again.
Forgetting all the people she beat up as Amazi Girl for minor infractions? Like holy crap, girl has split personality, violent tendencies, got people hurt, got into super dangerous situations and you ADMIT that they did good with Ruth. You admit they can help her and you are basing your perception in the crap people did in the earlyh 20th century.
Amber doesn’t want to be helped because she thinks professionals with decades of education and experience can’t help her and in the meantime she is engaging in violent and self-destructive coping methods which drag other people into it.
Yes her father was the one who killed but if she escalated by beating him up. She is spiralling, hurting people and you want to enable that because you are afraid of out-dated perceptions of mental institutions.
No, you dork, they still do that to people. Psych staff to this day gaslight, sexually assault, financially extort, coercively confine, hold down and inject drugs into, and literally apply electric shocks to the brains of patients. You are so out of touch with reality that I’m genuinely shocked that you would confidently assert such a factless opinion.
A fictional lady receiving okay treatment in a fictional hospital is literally the only evidence on your side.
I mean if you want to bring “fictional” aspect into this then let me point out that if it wasn’t for the narrative being in her favor she would have died or killed several people by this point. A lot of people die from regular fist fights, it doesn’t take much to kill a person if the circumstances are sufficiently wrong. A hit to the head as you fall and you are dead.
How many fights have you actually been in?
Do you have martial arts training, like, at all?
Do you know the difference between wild swinging and calculated effort?
It doesn’t matter. You hit wrong or even right, hell the KOs are basically inflicting brain damage. They slip, they land on their spine, they hit their head and it might be game over for them. If you get into a fight that is a potential outcome.
You’re correct that institutionalizing mentally ill people sucks, but you are aware that electroshock therapy has not been used like (certainly not as a punishment) for decades, right?
If you don’t wanna be killed in a fistfight with a person who deliberately targets known rapists, maybe avoid the risk entirely and don’t intentionally and repeatedly rape people. After that line is crossed, your life is inherently worthless and anything that happens to you as a direct consequence is nothing more or less than pest control.
@Taffy except I’m not referring to people like that douchebag whom she stabbed. I’m referring to the guys she attacked for minor infractions like, I think she attacked some guys for messing with street signs?
Fair enough, then. Come to think of it, did she attack those guys, or did she just give them a toothy sneer and say some superhero quips at them? I’ll have to re-read soon.
I’ll fully admit I don’t remember either, it’s been a Long time ago but she did have a habit of picking fights. Like if nothing else she wanted to fight Sal early on due to the grudge and I think Malaya stepped up?
Electroshock is still being used as punishment to this day?
Anyway Taffy is great, also none of you are martial artists and it shows. Amazigirl is the type of person who will knock someone back and catch them so they won’t fall, although In comic books that maneuver is associated with villains for some reason.
Also she tried to goad two guys into fighting her when they messed with some street signs. They declined. She didn’t attack them.
Eh that’s fair then.
Amber needs help. I’d agree with pushing for her to get the help she deserves for her mental health if there could be a guarantee that she would be treated humanly by people who are competent in the issues she presents. Unfortunately, for many people, that is not the case.
TW: Discussion of hospitalization and suicidality
Also, like… even for those who aren’t as presenting as “severely” as Amber, or with more “mainstream” mental illness, hospitalization as a forced thing can be really overwhelming. I had a friend who was hospitalized at one point, and then was “voluntarily committed.” (Her description was basically that they were like, “You can agree and be voluntarily committed, or you can decline and be involuntarily committed, which will be worse.”) And maybe she would have died then otherwise, but her takeaway afterward was that she never wanted to go to a hospital for a mental health crisis again. And now she’s dead. So.
I’ve also gone to the hospital for suicidality. I was only there overnight, and while they suggested a in-patient hospitalization program (with the same style deal– “Everyone in it is there voluntarily! People who don’t agree to treatment may be petitioned.”), I was able to go after one night to enter into a partial hospitalization program. And even with that, there’s some takeaway of like, wow, I do not want to go the hospital that way again. And that’s what’s set up for people who are at a certain level of struggling.
Anyway, the point of all that for Amber is that it’d really suck if having this intensive level of treatment forced on her would then dissuade her from being willing to consider mental health services in the future.
This is already nested to hell and back, so I’ll keep it brief. To add onto what Yumi said, I’ve had some experience with “voluntary” commitment/hospitalisation myself, and the “choices” were really not actually choices at all. They said “You can go to this specific place on your own, or we’re going to call the police to your house later tonight and your ride won’t be as nice as Mommy’s”. I was 17 and my “offense” was sitting with my head on my desk in a daze. I was dazed because they threatened to have my mom declared unfit and put me and my siblings into foster care over my absences. I was absent so much because they kept giving me out of school suspensions for any little thing, sometimes for nothing more than walking too quickly past the office. Not trauma dumping, just giving an actual account from someone who had it to go through.
But yeah, it’s totally reasonable to go straight to involuntary commitment as the first option. Some of you are so fucking heartless it’s disgusting.
I feel you so bad on that Taffy, systematic ableism is just AWFUL. 😖😖😖 😭😭😭
I mean I can’t fucking believe the insensitivity going on here, mental wards are literally the closest thing you get to hell on earth, where neurodivergents like us are basically subjected to legal TORTURE ☠️
The danger posed by these institutions is one that neurotypicals are not always attuned to picking up on, if at all. The neurotypical who does not know walks away unharmed. Amber and other ND folk like us do not.
To see our suffering as an acceptable price to pay for “business getting done” and “order getting kept” is still BIGOTRY, period. 😬
Re: Electorshock still in use. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsive-therapy/about/pac-20393894
“How many fights have you actually been in?”
More than you I’d be willing to be
“Do you have martial arts training, like, at all?”
Theres a big difference between learning martial arts and learning fighting, early UFC fight cards showed the inherent weakness of martial arts
“Do you know the difference between wild swinging and calculated effort?”
Most people unless they have extensive fight training, more than Ambers self-defence classes anyway, generally forget everything they’ve learned and go into brawl mode
First time fighters in corporate boxing type events or with those with only one or two fights under their belt are notorious for this
“Amazigirl is the type of person who will knock someone back and catch them so they won’t fall”
The only people who can do that are fictional characters so maybe Amber can do that.
“More than you I’d be willing to be”
Watch out, we got a badass over here! 🤣
We all have different experiences we bring to discussions so yes I’m willing to bet that I have had more experience of fights than Joy because its very clear that Joy has very little to no actual experience of what a fight is actually like.
Whatever you say, Liu Kang.
Shrub, CHILL 😬
After what I said about martial arts Liu Kang isn’t really someone I’d identify with
To NGPZ
I’m not sure why you’re telling me to chill.
It doesn’t matter who you’d identify as. This isn’t Mortal Kombat. You’re not some fight expert whose knowledge will enlighten us all in the art of fighting. You’re an Internet Tough Guy with really shitty hang-ups about the mentally ill.
Ok so you think I’m an Internet Tough Guy, should be easy for you to go through my arguments and the points I made and refute them
It’s also easy to dismiss them out of hand, because you’re undeservedly smue and nobody wants to waste their evening attempting an honest debate with someone whose only contribution has been “bleh lock up those smelly crazies”, with a side helping of “my comment could beat up your comment”.
Smug*, rather.
So basically you can’t, good to know.
Nighty night then
Believe whatever you want, you delusional ass.
If you could you would but instead of trying to refute what I’ve said you’re resorting to mere insults
Don’t you think refuting my claims would be more insulting..?
Why do you think you’re entitled to that level of courtesy and time investment when you’ve been nothing but hateful yourself?
“the card says moops” 🙄
“DEBATE ME DEBATE ME” Sure, and then you just change tracks to something equally exhausting. Not worth the time or energy. Get a reality check, kid.
👏👏👏💯
@The Oracle: you’re good at this!
To Taffy
I haven’t been “nothing but hateful”, I made the statement that Amber needs help (and she does) and that a 5150 is her best hope (because no one else seems to want to help her)
Others then started pointing out how bad that option is and I didn’t reply to it (even when insulted) because I don’t know enough about the subject to get into it
But I do know enough about fighting and martial arts to insert my opinion on it
So no I do not believe I’m being “hateful”
What you believe about your own behavior and words doesn’t actually matter. You advocate for involuntary admissions. You’re a bigot, you’re ignorant, and instead of saying “my bad, I’ll keep my gigantic mouth shut next time I don’t know enough about something” you switched to this martial arts nonsense to keep your undeserved sense of smug fucking superiority.
Calling out neurotypical privilege isn’t an insult bruh. Can you just frickin apologize and take an L without writing an essay on how you’re “actually” right?
At this point, NGPZ, I think all they wanted to do was rile up the crazies and get some attention. Going forward, I think it’s probably better just to flag their insipid bullshit and not waste our time trying to talk to them. They clearly have nothing of value to contribute to topics involving mental health, just hand grenades they can toss into a room and watch the explosion.
You know what, YES. Re: flagging, way ahead of you. ✌️😁
*hugs the NGPZ*
Again to The Oracle
‘Not worth the time or energy.’
But apparently is worth the time typing insults instead of proving to everyone here why I’m wrong
Well its late so I’m off to bed, you can now have the last word
Maybe you’ve been in more “fights” than the rest of us because every word out of you is so drenched in smarm, people reflexively want to punch you in the mouth. Insufferable conga.
I think you’ve lost your way pal.
The site where you’re gonna get paid for being a troll is called TWITTER.com
Heyooooo!
You are literally the scummiest person I’ve met in this comments section, and I’ve met the fake Dali Lama quote guy. Smarmy is right. You’ve probably picked fights; most of my combat experience involves being ambushed and/or outnumbered by rapists. Assuming you aren’t just bluffing out of insecurity.
@Joy, 😭😭😭🫂
Well, coming from a non-American experience, here in Australia, some mental health facilities are terrible and some are incredible with long wait lists to get in.
Keeping a routine and staying in the community is good but Amber would probably benefit from some intensive care. In an ideal scenario she would try medication and therapy while school is in and then try a great mental health facility during part of the holidays. Of course, even if those options were available, Amber wouldn’t probably agree to them as she shuns possible help.
Get out of here with your good opinions and reasonable suggestions.
(Actually stick around, I genuinely like that idea)
I am so sorry to all of you who have experienced such trauma at the hands of so-called “authorities”. Thank you for sharing your precious experience and insight. I wish you healing and rest from these troubles.
I don’t want to heal. I want them to pay for what they did to me.
Thank you as always for being so supportive Laura 😭🫂
In my case I literally want them to pay for what they did to me to the point where I have the money to get a bachelor’s and a medical degree. And then I want them on a long ass parole sentence.
“sent”
k.
… I hadn’t even CONSIDERED this way of things blowing up. Wow.
Everyone thought Danny would be the one to say something, but it’s actually Amber.
The night is yet young.
you’ve heard for a freudian slip now get ready for a freuadian elbow drop from the top of a ladder.
Oh I love this mental image and Ruth is now handing Amber a folding chair.
Someone’s going to plummet sixteen feet through an announcer’s table by the time this arc wraps up.
Fuck Walky, you reap what you sow
As much as I love Linda being speechless, this might be bad. They tried to sue her out of school after all, and hacking the grades probably is pretty much grounds for being expelled.
It will also complicate the relationship between walky and his mother, Amber and possibly sal.
The only saving grace is that Walky wouldn’t look any better if this comes to light.
Well, maybe they can prove that it happened, but there’s only Jason’s word for what grade he might remember giving Walky, and would he even want to snitch? Walky’s like his only friend, and he’s probably not hyped to get involved with Walkerton family politics to get Amber in trouble.
And if they could prove anything, after relitigating the argument about how Amber is not actually a danger to people since her mobster dad is dead, is it really going to be worth putting a black mark on Walky’s academic record “and” turning his girlfriend against him “and” turning Sal’s roller derby friend against her, just to “maybe” get Amber expelled?
Side thought: if they did, on top of the thirty lawsuits, it might be a bad time for Linda to find out what Amber might do when she has nothing more to lose. . .
Oops, the “maybe they can prove that it happened” part probably should have read something like “maybe Amber’s willing to prove it happened.” Cause thanks to her thorough hacking really she’s the only one who can, but I guess there’s a nonzero chance she does want to get herself in trouble.
I don’t think that Jason and walky are friends. They had a lot of hostile and one friendly conversation and he got him the job at the bar and that’s it. Also, he is basically re-employed at probation, so he has no incentive to lie to his employer.
There are traces of meddling (amber stole from the office, so there’s stuff missing) and they have a confession from her in front of several people. That’s probably enough to get expelled.
But it might mean that walky fails the class because his marks get corrected. His parents probably don’t want that.
Amber will do nothing if expelled. She is way to timid to do anything about it and ag has a strong sense of righteousness. Being expelled after doing something wrong is most likely not punishable for her.
Any tampering with grades would probably be provable after some investigation, and it would probably be grounds for expulsion regardless of the original grade.
they’d have to prove it
It’s not a Jury. It’s a school. It’s basically enough if the school is convinced it’s true. And Linda is on good terms with the Dean. They need to prove it if they want to sue her (which might be possible too. That was illegal).
Knew it! Train careens onto interstate at rush hour!
Theeeeeere’s the other shoe!
Wow. Amber just Danned it up so hard even Danny has got to be impressed.
Stay tuned for our next exciting episode, where Linda grabs a blunt Galasso knife and stabs Amber through the hand; rendering Amber unable to ever hold a phone again.
Don’t miss it.
best case scenario for walky is that linda thinks amber is talking shit
solid chance that’s not going to happen though
either way linda is probably going to start suing her again, maybe report her to the school
Yes, I was expecting a disaster.
No, this was not the disaster I was expecting.
Brilliant! You’ve done it again, Willis!
Oh right yeah I forgot about that plot
I am enjoying this more than I should be also aaaaaa
Amber’s reason for coming to the meal was to piss off linda. Mission accomplished. Not sure how that’ll work out for everyone else.
Jesus Linda is such a piece of shit. It’s one thing to think all this but to say it right in front of Amber? Who the fuck does that?
Someone who views people they don’t care about as non-player characters.
actually that’s the one part I don’t fault Linda for.
I would also talk horribly to the person who stabbed my child
I’d probably listen to said child o’ mine if she said her and that person were cool now, instead of quadrupling down and acting like a toddler.
Well it’s Linda, the only reason she is listening to Sal is because Danny is sharing his Acceptable White Boy card with Sal.
That’s a really bleak way of putting it, and I don’t disagree at all.
Idk, if somebody hurts someone I love I don’t necessarily forgive them just because the person they hurt did, especially not within a few seconds of learning that information. My opinion would also not be improved by them participating in some kind of zany scheme intended to sow chaos in my family.
She’s not in the right but her actions are completely understandable, I think.
I’m not sure where “forgive them” is coming from, I’m certainly not advocating it. Linda can hold a grudge all she likes, it’s not illegal to be childish and narrow-minded, I’m only saying I’d try to at least take my kid’s input into consideration. Forgiveness is taken as permission to do it again by way too many people, but I’d like to think I could trust my own child who I raised to know her own business better than I do, regardless of how recently I learned it. A simple “Wait, what? Can I hear more about that?” Before verbally reducing a person to nothing, not just to their face, but in public where anyone could overhear it.
But then, I have at least some basic empathy and compassion for others. Linda really doesn’t seem to.
Well, then. Linda is certainly learning lessons–just not the ones planned for her to learn.
This is crashing and burning quite more violently than anybody could have hoped for.
Hot garbage take:
1) Linda is very transactional.
2) By hacking Walky’s grades, Amber showed that she is smart and has useful area of competence, AND that she has loyalty towards Walky. And by lying to him about it, she showed that she is willing to protect him and not hold it over his head.
3) Linda sits back for a minute, thinks about everything it (2) for a silent minute or two, and then smiles and says: “Perhaps I’ve misjudged you.”
4) Walky’s plan is even more blown up because now Linda is really starting to think that Amber is in fact worthy of Walky after all.
Nah, Linda’s got the mindset of an actual toddler. Any little slight, perceived or real, is the apocalypse and the perpetrator deserves the guillotine on the spot.
wow, the things people will say right to a person’s face…
whOOPS
plus a threat. Walky you really should have just brought Lucy
Here’s a thought that came into my head just now, not sure if anyone’s said it yet.
Can we blame Linda for Sal being at the gas station in the first place? I know, Sal went there of her own volition and all, definitely 100% a bad choice in her part, not the most advisable course of action, yadda yadda. The thing is though, I don’t think Sal would have tried robbing the place of she weren’t desperate for the money. She has a very strong sense of justice, after all. And she was only that desperate because Linda directly and unquestionably stole the money Sal had gathered to help pay Marcie’s medical bill (past or future bill, I forget which, doesn’t really matter), while berating her for even being friends with Marcie.
So, she told her kid, in no uncertain terms, “Your friend is not a valid enough human being to literally deserve a voice and your efforts to help her deserve to be punished.” No fucking wonder Sal got desperate, she was shoved into a metaphorical corner at metaphorical gunpoint, forced to either give up on Marcie or start over and keep being punished, with no upper limit on how far Linda would keep escalating over time. Of course Sal would want the most money possible in the shortest amount of time, when it’s in constant threat of being literally yanked out of her hands at a moment’s notice. It makes complete sense that she’d go for robbery, because no matter what she does, she’s going to be punished if someone finds out, and at least a cop isn’t her own mother, the person who’s supposed to keep her safe and teach her right from wrong.
I dunno, just somethin’ I thought about.
I definately blame Linda. The point isn’t that Sal will be punished. By telling Sal if you save up money for your friend I’ll just steal it from you she essentially cut of the proper channels to get her friend the money she needs.
Its important to divest ourselves of the notion that only one person can be at fault for a thing, just in general. Linda is at fault for what happened there, so is Sal, so is the American Healthcare Industry, so are the school officials who took the white boy’s side of the story over Marcie and Sal’s, so are a lot of other things.
The only real argument is about how much each party gets blame for, really.
A parent’s job is to help their child out of desperate situations, not actively push them into one. Linda can’t control the healthcare industry or cure systemic racism, but she absolutely could have done the bare minimum of letting Sal keep the money she’d saved up, maybe even helped her start a fundraiser, pretty much anything besides make it worse on purpose to soothe her own ego. Nothing comes from nowhere, and expecting a child to be The Responsible One in that scenario would be ludicrous.
I love how just by seeing Danny’s mouth you can tell that his reaction to Linda’s words is exactly the same as Sal’s. He can’t believe she’s saying something so bad about Amber right in front of her. It’s time for both of them to get up and walk away.
Better yet, wait til the food gets there, grab the whole damn pie and fold it up, and leave her with the bill.
That would be Epic!
tbh the time to walk away was when walky entered the room with amber. There was absolutely no way this was going to go well and nobody comes out ahead by staying.
Welp, looks like the plan’s going a little bit too well. I don’t think Linda’s gonna be the only one hating Amber at the end of the night.
Well no, Amber will probably survive that long. So that’s two people.
Walky wanted and expected wacky tropey sitcom hijinks (zany scheme!)
Instead, he’s getting messy real drama.
I approve.
Oh dayum, I forgot about that
Amber… I- … well the word speechless comes to mind
What sort of person uses an obscure unit of measurement like ‘leagues’ (which is defined, BTW, as the distance a person or a horse can walk in 1 hour of time – generally considered to be about 5 km or 3 miles)?
It’s an idiom.
So if my horse is named Justice …
Damn, another reason to be disappointed in Sal. Getting stabbed by a rambling nerd.
Mission Failed: Linda now knows Amber has something to offer that’s tangibly beneficial to her son’s social status. She may now start to like her.
Ok, this is exploding in a whole different direction than I though it would. At least Claymre mines have the “this side towards enemy” text.
I see Lucy’s plan is going exactly as intended
Hey, we haven’t had a DofA “blood drained from their face” in a long time. I’d like to see this on Charles, Walky, and Linda.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/personal/
So, I was looking at past comics: Do we know how Walky actually feels about Amber anymore? They stopped talking due to Halloween, but Walky always seems to be inserting himself in her life when possible, unless it will involve emotions. Is it possible he would rather be actually dating Amber rather than fake dating?
He’s made “jokes,” about polyamory a *lot*
Way to show a combination of anger and regret in a single facial expression.
She’s realizing that she’s probably really fucked up her friendship with Walky while also rightfully telling his mother off. It’s got a “Damn you…I fucked up, though.” look to it and I love that.
Amber: “…”
Amber: “…also Walky suggested a poly-threesome with the other girl you don’t like about thirty minutes ago…”
Walky: “Amber, actually, can we go back to when you talked less.”
sickos.jpg
(I read all 399 comments to make sure nobody else had already posted that, I think I might have a problem.)
A simple term search probably would have sufficed. Props for the dedication, though.
Thank you 🙂 The thought did occur to me, but so did the ‘probably’, and I couldn’t take the risk 😉
🙌MIKE’S LEGACY OF BENEVOLENT ENDS WITH CONSEQUENCES ALONG THE WAY LIVES ON👏
Consequential means?
…I missed up the syntax, probably