I too would like to think Carla has designed some elaborate (yet highly portable) Rube Goldberg machine to deal with this contingency. Ideally the end result would be involve a cream pie to the face of everyone involved in the fight.
I’m actually hoping they don’t get stopped. I’m more worried Ethan will get the balls to stop them, but I hope he’ll have the presence of mind to realize this will heal them more than it’ll hurt them, because it’ll let them see how petty this thing is. Mostly it’ll let Amber see how petty it is.
But she’s not an evil monster. She thinks she’s broken over a fairly minor event that happened years ago–one which has been dwarfed by many events she’s encountered since then. I think her real trauma is her father and, while she is more or less aware of this, I feel like she hasn’t fully embraced the fact that he truly is the source of it. Him, his attitude, his behavior, and not his genetics. She doesn’t have the monster within, she has the monster without, and who she really needs to take down is Blaine.
Of course she’s not an evil monster. But she thinks she is.
Fighting Sal will either be a righteous triumph over evil, redeeming her previous failure to protect Ethan, which will just lock her further into her mythology. (Not likely to happen. Ethan won’t play along.)
Or it’ll be her becoming the monster attacking the innocent, again reinforcing another part.
There’s no healing in a fight.
Seriously. “Fist to Fist?” I know thinking is a foreign concept to Sal, but you think of today of all days, no matter what, she would make an effort to try not to default to being a neanderthal.
And nobody bring up any ‘spur of the moment’ crap. We’ve been seeing that she’s been drilling in her head to deescalate things no matter what today. If her default is this bad even on such a day, maybe March should witness this.
I don’t know, I’m under the impression that the one who escalated things here is Amber, not Sal. Like, sure, Sal said those words and that’s what triggered this fight but Amber dropped into a fighting stance almost immediately (before Sal even said anything), acting like Sal was going to hurt Ethan. In any case, I wouldn’t call either of these girls unthinking neanderthals… That’s kind of harsh.
It’s not clear which first moved from posturing to actually throwing a punch, but Sal’s the first one to move from airing of grievances to something that could credibly be considered a threat, and neither of them was making a move to deescalate before that.
I think it’s really easy to criticize how people with trauma react to triggers but brains and psyches are weird things that we might not ever fully understand the mechanics of and they only get weirder when you go through the kind of shit these two have been through. Sal was hoping to make amends with a person she hurt, she wasn’t planning on running into the girl who skewered her hand and that sort of trigger can throw caution and plans to the wind. People with mental illness or who are otherwise mentally unwell don’t PLAN to have episodes, its the whole point of a trigger.
I’d also be really careful about suggesting that a black person (especially one with derogatory racial stereotypes at the forefront of her story) is incapable of thought and primitive. It’s… not the best thing to imply, whether intentional or not.
There’s a buncha people who could wander in and try to break this up:
Ethan obviously, he’s right there.
Walky
Joyce wouldn’t want her friends to be fighting with each other
Ditto for Dorothy – she wouldn’t want it to distract from study time either. xD
Joe – well, he might be more upset that two girls are having a fight that he wasn’t there to see (and is not about him). xD
Danny – he’d try to protect his ex-girlfriend, but let’s face it, he’d just go and Danny it all up instead. xDDD
Ethan just picks them both up by their collars and holds them at arm’s length away from each other. As they just keep punching the air and shouting “Lemme at ’em! Lemme at ’em!”
“Dammit, hostage, how are yer so strong?” “WHO DO YOU THINK TRAINED AMAZI-GIRL? Also, Mike comes at me with a baseball bat most mornings. …also i carry several crates of transformers everywhere i go…”
And then, when the smoke clears, the sheer power of their attacks will have somehow turned Ethan to stone. Witnessing what their destructive battling has done, they will be moved to tears and remorse. Then, all of their tears will magically come together and revive Ethan to life, and everyone will celebrate and learn valuable lessons (until Amber decides to wipe everyone’s memories).
Nah Sal will battle valiantly for 10 strips but Amber will have the clear advantage ultimately leading to her victory. Afterwards Danny will show up and fight to stop Amber from killing Sal leading Amber to announce that she’s only been using 15% of her full power. At this point Danny will reveal his hat weighs 100 pounds…
Unless she’s developed a third persona, instead of merely further dissociation of the two that already existed, it is Amber. She specifically denies being Amazi-girl, and has blush stickers. And Amber is the only one tagged, but it’s possible the theoretical third persona might ALSO go by Amber.
It’s just what people with untreated ptsd caused by a single incident feel. This moment defined everything, overshadowed everything, made you the way you are. Molded you. And made everything as worse as it could possibly get. Made you into something less than a human, a broken creature who will break everything you touch.
Or so you feel until you learn that all this can be overcome. But amber hasn’t learned that yet.
To be fair, Amber isn’t saying that Sal made her, she’s saying she’s the ‘thing’ that was made that night at the gas station, that’s the event that she connects all of her troubles with.
To be fair, in this instance she is the “Thing” that her father made her into. When he chastised Amber at the gas station during Sal’s arrest, all that pent up rage, frustration and the desire to lash out became the catalyst for Amber’s schism. Sal was not responsible for this at all. She was just an outlet, not the causation. Amber has been under the influence of her father for so long that she has unfortunately lost the ability to see the forest from the trees. And Blaine (the abusive father) had basically written his daughter off (The pacifist prodigy) for years. So when he lashed out at her, he was probably thinking this would just wind up as another day at the office. He probably didn’t expect her to snap the way she did. Then again even after the incident, all he did was provoke Amber. Misery does love company after all.
Just because this personality goes by her legal name doesn’t mean she’s the “original”, that there was an oroginal single personality, or that if there was it’s still effectively in there at all…
You know, in fairness – she never says Sal made her, just that that night in the convenience store did. Sal may have been the catalyst, but it was her bongo father that actually provoked it.
Reagan’s got one appearance down already, check the tags.
(Willis is on record as saying that since Dumbing of Age is supposed to be based on our world and real-world Reagan died in 2004, he’s not going to get any appearances beyond stuff like Mary’s wall-poster.)
Keep your stance wide. Keep your body lower. As you’re moving forward, balance is the key. Right foot, left foot. Now go even faster. And as you’re moving backward, keep your eyes on me.
You mean what happened to Marcie that made her take significant throat damage?
We already know Sal turned to robbing convenience stores after trying multiple different ways to raise money for Marcie’s surgery only to end up with the pitiful amount of saved money being stolen from her by her own mother.
We may know that, but few people in-universe do. I think Mada means having other characters from in-comic find out what happened. Mind you, bit curious about what the actual accident was…
Daniel here. I think this is Amber, but Amber minus the Amazigirl anger buffer. She’s facing down 1 of the causes of her psychological trauma, the other being her dad (doesn’t deserve proper capitalization) and I’m pretty sure we all remember how THAT went when she was unleashed like this…
…actually, I’m still wondering why she wasn’t charged for that, or at least why we’ve never seen her charged for that. I mean, she was a thirteen-year-old white girl, but still, the police mostly at least *try* not to look *that* biased…
Yeah the entire matter is ENTIRELY embarrassing for the police, they’ve got plenty of motive to push it under the rug for ass-covering purposes even BEFORE the bias, not that the bias doesn’t help.
Underaged, severe psychological issues that would’ve given any shrink a field day, and freshly saved from a hostage scenario.
Procedure would have dictated that she be sent off for immediate psych tests, not formally charged. The cops would have paid a LOT more attention to Blaine and all the cops who allowed Amber such easy access to both the knife and Sal.
Indiana is why – the pigs try a little harder to not look that biased in some places, but Indiana? Indiana they can get away with looking that biased, so they do.
They’ve met before when Amber was Amber. IIRC she even played Sal in Mario Kart or Smash or something, but from a safe distance.
This is the first time Sal’s realized who she is – in every sense. Sal is confronting her directly, and so Amber’s response is very different than before.
If Sal wasn’t reeling from raw emotion right now (and was in the right frame of mind to not want to fight the chick that crippled her hand) this wouldn’t be a confrontation. It might be Amber verbally lashing out or running away again, or Amazi-Girl assuming direct control, but this wasn’t an unavoidable outcome.
Which is exactly why Amber was so worried about Sal coming across Ethan talking to her and realizing the truth.
Yeah, Amber usually puts distance between herself and Sal, either by becoming Amazigirl, literally running away, or hiding under the privacy chairs. This is a confrontation she can’t easily run from, so her “flight” has turned to “fight”.
She stabbed her, Stalked her, and now she’s hooking up with her brother. That is a lot to take in all at once especially at a time when Sal is fuming over Marcie, especially that last part she’s probably wrapping her head around it wondering if Ambers only dating Walky to get to her or if she just that obsess. Though we all know that’s not the case but in context for sal this still looks pretty bad.
So should we call this Feud even when this is over or does Amber owe Sal retribution?
Amber owes sal an apology is what she owes her. More than one honestly but at this point a single I’m Sorry I Fucked Up I Was Wrong would be a goddamn lightyear of progress
The difference is, nothing Sal did to Amber was personal (hell, Ethan was the one who got taken hostage). Everything Amber did to Sal (stabbing, stalking, lying) was an action directed at her specifically and very, very personal.
That’s not how Amber sees it, and it doesn’t matter. To her, that incident was the catalyst to her downward spiral, and Sal is a crystal clear representation of it.
It’s now about how it was done, it’s how it was received.
I know it’s not how Amber sees it, but it does matter for the purposes of representation of justice in this comic (insofar as Willis is interested in that).
I’m not arguing which is worse, just saying there’s a significant difference between having a bystander caught in your splashback and actively nursing a vendetta against someone.
Don’t think they’re saying that one is better than the other. Just that there’s a difference between the two of them and the intent behind their actions.
Sal wasn’t specifically targeting anyone, but Amber was specifically targeting Sal. Sal didn’t intend to harm Amber, but Amber absolutely intended to harm Sal. There’s not necessarily a judgement being made by saying this.
But yes, there is certainly an argument to be made about whether explicitly wanting to cause harm to one person is morally worse compared to harming someone incidentally as splashback for something else. Or is hurting someone intentionally better than incidentally?
Amber’s not in a mental position that allows her to apologize when someone is angrily confronting her – that was her entire personality when she was being emotionally abused, and she’s violently opposed to ever returning to that mindset now.
We’ve already seen that Sal’s generally more balanced. Sal should be the one apologizing to Amber first (she did start the whole thing after all, even if Amber’s actions were worse)… unfortunately, Ethan didn’t prep Sal for this, and her realizations are all hitting her like a ton of bricks to the face at once. She’s too pissed in the moment to think things through clearly.
yknow what, I bet Sal woulda been way easier to apologize to Sal first if she didn’t realize she was also the girl who’s been stalking and harassing for reasons she never understood at this point.
Like, Separately I bet she could do fine. Oh that’s the girl that stabbed me? Well I’m kinda sore about that but I can still reel it in, maybe deescalate. Oh that’s Amazi-girl? well we know how that’s been working out. But with everything just flying in at once, and Amber making things actively worse with literally every damn sentence she says.
I feel like Sal would’ve been able to start a proper dialogue had Amber just been the girl that stabbed her. I don’t know if she would immediately be able to find it in her to apologize for her part, or if she would be able to see that Amber was terrified and in a bad place when it happened, but I also couldn’t fault her for that. It was an incredibly muddy situation where both parties had been wronged, but they might have been able to work it out. Maybe.
But yeah, with the extra revelations about Amazi-Girl and everything that’s happened since they’ve been at college together, it definitely feels very manipulative and deceptive on Amber’s part to hide that revelation and at that point, Amber’s wronged Sal much more than Sal ever wronged her. And considering that Amber’s immediately gone into fight mode, it doesn’t seem as though she has any of the remorse that Sal does. So with that in mind, I don’t know if Sal would be able to apologize to Amber.
For the hand stabbing or the Stalking? If it’s the Stalking then I’m confused since I thought they reconciled for the harassment at that rally. If it’s the hole stabbing thing then maybe we can revisit the whole “psychologically scarring her” thing and call that even. Or if it’s neither those things and we’re talking about her possibly getting the idea that she’s getting involved with her brother just to get a rise out of her then we can just chalk that up as a misunderstanding.
In Sal situation yeah I’d be a bit mad to but again keep in mind context, Amber didn’t really come looking to start anything with Sal and neither did Sal herself. All that happened was that sell made a discovery while she was in a day long rage and after finding all of this out she’s finally lashing out at someone she can actually blame.
I’m not trying to say there’s ” violence on both sides” when it comes to their history because when you rack it all up Sal now has more to be angry about than Amber. But I don’t think everyone should go as far to make Amber the straight up bad guy here, unless we’re just going with our bias and we’re picking favorites now are we?
She should apologize for All Of Those Things because none of those happened in a vacuum, they all compound one another, and regardless of Amber’s point of view the things she is actively doing and saying right now is shitty.
Each one of those things are a isolated incident, one being connected to the first but with them working through it with Amber/Amazi-girl admitting to Sal she was wrong and the last one being a misunderstanding.
As far as what she’s currently saying and doing is that she’s saying ” hey if we’re doing this then let’s keep this between you and me, also I’m not who you think I’m right now.” As for what she’s doing right now it seems to me she’s getting into a fight that again she didn’t pick (This time that is) She’s not doing a lot to calm things down but last I still checked Amber spent most her time trying to avoid Sal.
It’s really upsetting me how misdirected Amber’s anger is here compared to how justified Sal is in being mad at Amber. The ideal outcome of course is someone/something stopping this fight, but if it does end up an actual contest it would be hard to stomach if Amber got the better of Sal.
Amber’s recovery from emotional abuse has involved changing her default response to confrontation from “cower and submit” to “fight back hard”. She’s definitely in the wrong here, but she’s too much of a mental mess to be in the right. We’ve already seen that she can barely handle facing Sal, even when Sal just thinks of her as “that weirdo gal”. This time she can’t just run off while Sal ignores her.
Anybody gonna get that phone? Because I fricken CALLED IT!!!!
Thank you Amber and Sal, just when people thought you two would have acted like adults and be mature about this, you both basically did exactly what I thought you would.
Sal hasn’t had a second to think things through with a clear head or she wouldn’t be doing this.
Amber is incapable of even looking at Sal without a “fight or flight” response. And now that Sal knows who she is, flight doesn’t seem to be an option anymore.
I also hope it stops before Amber tries to seriously hurt Sal, because I can totally see Sal having a small win, eg knocking Amber down, and getting attacked as she walks away.
Marcie just left, so probably not her… Danny I don’t think could, Carla I’m not sure would know how to respond and might just film it, Walky would be showing a LOT of sudden character development to get involved…
I think Marcie would be interesting (maybe she would get some insight into what’s actually happening), but Ethan would make more sense. Jason would be interesting too, but I don’t think he’d be in this building (unless actually seeking out Sal)
I don’t think Marcie would get more insight. I think it’s gonna be Marcie because Marcie has the highest potential for drama. Here’s Sal going off to try to prove that she’s made nice with Ethan, and instead running in to Amber, who is a source of trauma (a trauma that cuts both ways). Sal sees Amber and puts two and two together: Amber = the girl who stabbed her = Amazigirl. Marcie just sees Sal starting ANOTHER fight right after she promised she was getting better. Poor Sal. 🙁
Yeah, I suspect this. The closest she might get to more insight is noticing Sal has her scar exposed. She might put two and two together (re: the stabbing, not Amber theoretically = AG) and drag Sal away but after that, I still suspect the riot act.
I more meant that she might overhear some of it, than just see the fight (and with Amber, I think there could be a lot more talking as it goes on).
After thinking of it last minute and typing it there, I’m kind of hoping for Jason, though maybe it’s mostly because I’m not rooting for Walky and Ethan just seems like a given.
(if it’s Ethan, I’d like him to push them apart before either of them manages to touch the other)
Amber has signaled that she wants to win, but Sal is merely triggering a longtime grudge, and may only wish to fight. I too hope it’s broken up before someone gets seriously hurt, and I wish Amber would actually listen to what Ethan has been trying to tell her.
Carla? That’s a dark horse pick. I’m guessing Ethan will at least try. Walky was last seen right inside that building possibly with Dorothy still near by. I’d assume Marcie and Malaya could be gone but maybe their waiting around for Sal’s proof? Danny could in theory be close too. Other than that who knows……I’m guessing Robin! This is her key to re-election!
I’m not sure anyone will, but those who might do it successfully:
Ethan, because I think he’s the only one who could get through to Amber at this point. We’ve seen that Sal can be stopped, that time Marcie stepped in between her and Malaya, but Marcie was friends with both of them. If she tried to step in between these two, Amber would just see it as reinforcement. Ethan stepping in, however, would distract Amber — “Wait, I’m protecting you this time, what are you doing putting yourself in danger?”
Second possibility is Danny, again because they both know him and that might be enough to get through to them.
Third possibility is someone tries, and things get messed up enough that Amazi-Girl makes an appearance.
IMO, there’s only two characters who could reasonably stop this fight without it seeming like Willis pulled them out of nowhere:
1) Amazi-Girl tries to hijack Amber’s body as she’s winding up for the first punch. Amber falls to her knees, holding her head, yelling for AG to “Get out!!” of her head. Ethan and Sal stare at her, then each other, then back at her as Amber and AG berate each other.
2) Ethan steps in between them just in time to catch a couple of punches. Neither punch hurt much as Sal & Amber manage to ‘pull’ the worst of their punches, but it is enough to knock him down. Ethan then gets a front row seat as both combatants have a nervous breakdown in front of him (Sal for catching someone else in her splashback damage, Amber for realizing that this time she is responsible for putting Ethan in Jeopardy).
Hmm. I wonder if Linda would express actual parental concern if she came face to face with the person who stabbed her daughter in the hand. Or would it be ‘crap, she’s a white girl. Are her parents rich? Could they sue? Sally why do you continue to bring dishonour onto our family?’.
Man this sucks, fuck off Amber. I was so hoping Sal woulda just, I dunno, not given in to her anger or burst into tears or something like that. Something that’d break Amber’s bullshit mythology she’s built around that moment. Now she’s gonna end this shit feeling both justified and even more self-hatey than before without ever acknowledging just how much she fucked up this whole situation and Sal’s just gonna get all the repercussions because she didn’t do the right thing and de-escalate even though her anger is way more justified in the moment.
Seriously though. Even worse is regardless of whether she wins or not this won’t bring her any satisfaction or prove anything. So you beat up the girl you stabbed, stalked, and mislead. So what? You’ve kind of only proven you’re really as horrible as you think you are.
It doesn’t help Sal either. Only confirming she truly is the hoodlum people label her as, that no matter how hard she works things will always get worse, and possibly even that Marcie’s right to avoid her. Because this is fucking splashback!
Disappointing. Although I guess technically they still haven’t actually started fighting yet. Still hope.
Man, it had never occurred to me to see how sad sal’s whole situation is. Sal was built up to be this stereotypical terrible person but as the story progressed i just feel more sad for Sal than i do amber. While it’s still a sad situation for amber, sal was amber’s victim in many more ways. Mike wasn’t too far off the mark.
Good job proving yourself Sal. Good job… not being entirely insane Amber (reminder that she is literally a violent psychopath who views herself as separate individuals and uses one to literally run around hurting people she feels deserves it).
I mean google defines it as a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. But I understand that word has some general ableist connotations, so for that, I apologize for using it. I would still argue she’s psychotic as her ability to distinguish reality from not is in serious question.
I’m not sure psychopath is the right word. Psychopaths are characterized by shallow feelings and an inability to empathize. Amber is crazy but psychopath may not be the right word.
Which is what I think they’re trying to do, given their sentence “I would still argue she’s psychotic as her bility to distinguish reality from not is in serious question.”
Honestly, though, I am of the mind that taking away our generic words for “something is not right mentally with this person” does more harm than good. I’m firmly against non-psychiatrist/psychologists attempting to assign actual mental health diagnoses/labels to people based on observation, and with zero training in the matter. Heck, I’m even mostly against mental health professionals ascribing labels to people outside of an actual professional relationship with a patient (i.e. based on news stories, etc.). By taking away all generic colloquial terms for “this person has something going on mentally”, you’re basically forcing laypeople to attempt to use precise, technical definitions that they aren’t qualified to assign. I think that causes far more problems than the fact that ‘crazy’ gets used fairly indiscriminately to mean anything from psychosis to psychopathy to ‘I do not agree with that person’. It’s a grab bag word and leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but it’s not inherently insulting in of itself.
Note timestamps and who’s talking… that comment you quote was posted by someone other than who I was replying to and after my comment had been posted.
As for terminology, I agree with Norah, and I feel that being conscious of word choice isn’t a bad thing. “Crazy” as a generic term is not without judgment and history, and the way it gets used does harm people. I believe the stigma around some mental illnesses is getting better, but for some, like ones Amber seems to have, it’s still going strong. I think language is a part of that, and I care more about the people suffering than other people’s desire to keep using rhe same words when there are others available.
I also recognize that some people know all this and disagree, and I’m not expecting to convince them. However, there are a lot of people who haven’t thought about using these terms, and I hope they at least take some time to consider them before going on to do whatever they choose.
Ideally, you want to use something that is both fairly value-neutral and doesn’t make a layman diagnosis. “Mentally ill” works.
Speaking as someone diagnosed with a kind of “buzz-wordy” diagnosis, though, the largely well-meaning people who play amateur psychiatrist without training have caused me much more direct trouble than the idiots who are just being a bit rude about mental illness. At best it means you have to spend time explaining to people how what they misread on wikipedia isn’t a good representation, at worst people start ascribing a bunch of nonsense to you without you being given a chance to set them straight.
That’s fair, and I definitely wasn’t suggesting that people try to diagnose and act as experts on others mental health when that’s not their job. Just that there are options other than doing that and calling (often dismissing people as) “crazy.”
Actually, what I think we need is something that isn’t value-neutral and doesn’t make a layman diagnosis.
About 90% time when people use “crazy” they’re not actually talking about any defined kind of mental illness – more just that the person is being irrational, which we all are from time to time. That can’t be fixed by switching to “mentally ill”. Might be best to stick with crazy for that kind of thing and not use it for actual mental illness. Change the connotations of crazy. Might be easier than getting another term without links to mental illness into widespread use.
It’s somewhat different in Amber’s case here: Here part of what we want to say is that Amber is dangerous because of her mental illness, which is true, but do it without implying that everyone with mental illness is dangerous. She’s dangerous because of the particulars of her problems. Even our layman’s diagnosis (PTSD & DID) doesn’t really help, since those don’t necessarily mean someone’s dangerous.
You’re discounting that we would be right to avoid Amber for being some kind of crazy. The word has negative connotations for good reasons. She is dangerously, unpredictably violent. She is unreasonable. She is what people mean when they call someone else crazy.
The important thing isn’t the social consequence of the word, people will just use ‘mentally ill’ as an insult the way they use ‘autistic’ in place of ‘retarded’ now. The important thing is the utility of the word for the one that uses it. The only reason those insults work is because of tribalism, itself the root of mans greatest evils.
“Crazy” lumps in violent people– who may or may not have mental illnesses– with people talking to themselves on the street corner, harming no one, from what I’ve seen from people’s use of it.
There is definitely another factor of wider social education that should happen; I think many people, though, are becoming more aware around the issue of mental illness, and hopefully that means “mentally ill” won’t become an equivalent to “crazy,” “psycho,” etc. as widely or quickly as it might. I know that people will absolutely still do it– I work with middle schoolers, some of the most creative insult hurlers in the world. And I agree that how words are used is significant even if the words themselves are different; still, I’d rather be called “mentally ill” than “crazy” for my thoughts and actions, much as I’d rather be called “transgender” than “tr*nny” even though people will use both as insults now.
Whereas I would definitely prefer ‘crazy’, because to me it implies less judgement than ‘mentally ill’ specifically BECAUSE it is also used for transient, non-mental-health behaviors, etc. It’s nobody’s business but my doctor’s whether I have an actual mental illness, and I’d prefer for people not to speculate on that. They’re free to describe my behaviors however they’d like.
As for the person mumbling to themselves on the street corner…sure, odds are they are harmless, but you don’t know that. Which is kind of the point of labelling something as ‘crazy’ – often all it means is “this person is behaving in a way that I did not predict and therefore I do not know what they may do next,” which is perfectly true of the street-corner mumbler. There’s a reason that psychiatrists all have tales of being assaulted by patients, and it’s not because the patients are all violent sociopaths or that the psychiatrists aren’t able to read cues, it’s because many patients are responding in unpredictable ways or to cues that others don’t know about…and even trained psychiatrists can’t always tell when someone is going to lash out.
Sure, ‘crazy’ can also just be used to mean “they aren’t acting in the way I want them to”, but I don’t think we fix anything by having people use “mentally ill” to say that other than further blurring the distinction.
I would still point out that there are words besides “mentally ill” and “crazy” that can be used in some of the situations you’re describing. I think “mentally ill” is best here when describing a fictional character who we’ve seen struggle in the way Amber has.
I also think “crazy” gets used in so many ways that, no, I am not at all suggesting we replace as a blanket with “mentally ill.” Some of our disagreement seems to be that I am talking about when the subject being discussed is, in fact, related to the person’s mental health. I do also think that there are better words than “crazy” to use in other situations– for example, if someone says something bigoted, you might call them, you know, “bigoted.” But that’s not really the use of the term that’s being discussed in this case.
Amber’s mentally ill. She needs help, and while she should be held accountable for her actions… she doesn’t have DID for fun. (At this point she’s pretty separate from AG (see panel 1).)
Yeah….
They both feel justifiable anger and aren’t considering that they need to just take this major life-traumatizing shit …. And just let it go.
Seriously, they’re just fucking each other up more and more.
If they could just see a decent therapist…
Maybe just ….
Not feel a grudge against someone that …
I believe Sal has said she’s seen therapists before. So while we don’t see her going to one, she’s been there before. It’s just while she was under her mother’s care, and trust me when I say parents can control the narrative of a therapy session.
I’d push back on seeing both their sense of anger as equivalent. Sal’s is a “you did these horrible things to me”-anger, and she’s objectively right, Amber did do those things. While Amber’s anger is just… anger, and she’s decided to make Sal a convenient target for it because of the association Sal has for her to that night at the convenience store. It’s less about anything Sal did to her, which imo would be justified anger, and more because Sal was there at a time things broke inside her brain.
I’d agree here. Sal is a trigger for Amber, but isn’t who she’s mad at. Her anger stems from her father’s abuse and her own self-loathing, which is directed back at Sal as a source of trauma. Granted, she does have a reason to be angry with Sal (For pulling a knife and threatening a friend), but that’s not WHY she’s angry.
Yeah, I’d say that Sal’s anger is more objectively justified. With these current revelations, from Sal’s POV there’s a certain deception on the part of Amber. For Sal, who doesn’t know about the Amber/AG split, it looks so incredibly manipulative on Amber’s part to stalk and obsess over and fight with Sal before becoming begrudging allies with her as AG, and then to become Mario Kart buddies with her as Amber and getting close to Walky, all the while hiding the knowledge of their shared past. And upon confrontation, Amber immediately puts up her fists and gets into a fighting stance, as if Sal’s the monster here.
Amber’s not even explaining herself, she’s just directing the blame on Sal for the convenience store and incident and brushes it all off as working through anger issues.
“more because Sal was there at a time things broke inside her brain”
Which of course was pure coincidence and had absolutely nothing to do with Sal’s presence or actions. Her brain just broke.
Look, I agree with a lot of the criticism of Amber here, but some of it seems to go so far as to deny her trauma or that there’s any justification for it. (Mind you, I’m always happy to dump much of that blame on Blaine, though some seem to ignore even that.)
Ahh, yeah, that’s why I phrased Sal’s anger as “objectively justified”. It’s more rational. There’s a very straight line from the things that Amber has directly done things to Sal over the course of their time at college here together that have led to Sal’s anger at this moment. Amber’s anger isn’t entirely rational and not all of her actions have justification, but she does have that trauma and trauma isn’t always rational. Most of her trauma comes from Blaine, but she directs a lot of her anger at Sal.
This may be an unpopular viewpoint, but my opinion of Amber has steadily been going down for the past month or so, and my opinion of Sal has been improving.
I’m not going to say that what Sal did was right. It DEFINITELY wasn’t. But she’s trying to fix her mistakes and move on the best she can, even though she keeps messing up.
(PLEASE don’t take this the wrong way, I know firsthand how awful PTSD is) I feel like Amber isn’t as sympathetic in this situation. Ethan was the one who was held at knifepoint, not Amber. I would understand if Ethan had massive trauma to deal with. I’m not disregarding the trauma she did face due to her dad, but that should be directed at her dad, not at Sal.
So, yeah. That concludes my likely-very-unpopular opinion. I do feel like I’m being insensitive even by having that opinion, but I don’t know anyone else IRL who reads this comic and I wanted to share it.
Yeah, I at least give Lux credit for trying to be understanding and fair to both of them. Personally what I see is that this confrontation composes of a misunderstanding, one incident that should be resolved already, and another incident I never got resolved and has been bubbling under the surface for three years now. But all in all I just see two people who are just angry ( justifiably so) and are taking it out on each other.
Totally agree with you. The last few chapters, not just this one, have done a good job of making Sal more sympathetic and Amber less so. And I think that’s the point. That it’s not a cut-and-dry, heroes and villains kind of story. The girl who held up a liquor store can be more sympathetic than the other girl who was a victim of the holdup.
Which is kind of funny, because when we actually focused on the robbery in the flashback, it seemed like opinion was turning against Sal, even as we learned more of the reasons she’d done it.
I’m not really fond of the implied “Ethan could be traumatized, but since he’s not, Amber has no right to be.”
Trauma doesn’t care about rights. Trauma just is. People react differently to events. Amber’s brain isn’t going to wait and see how Ethan recovers before it lays down its own damage.
Yeah, that basically summed up why I feel bad about having that opinion. I know trauma basically just happens and it doesn’t follow any particular reasoning.
Also, historically, Sal doesn’t do too well in fights. Will she lose, and amber will somehow feel vindicated. Just to be clear, amber is NOT in the right here.
I would argue that by Amber putting up her fists immediately upon Sal’s revelation and confrontation of her, that Amber is in fact picking a fight or at the very least, assuming one’s about to come. Even her words about directing anger away from good people assumes that Sal’s the one about to get violent. Sal just confirmed a brawl was brewin’.
No she didn’t. She froze at the sight of Sal, and it wasn’t until Sal scowled and took off her glove that Amber took a defensive posture to “protect” Ethan.
That’s a fist in the third panel. It’s part of a defensive pose that started on the last page and doesn’t move into a fighting stance until after the glove is taken off, but Amber is still in a defensive pose assuming there is going to be violence.
Is Sal bad in a fight? She’s been beating down thugs just as easily as Amber. The only fight she “lost” was against Malaya and it wasn’t really even a fight.
Plus, she and Malaya got interrupted just before Sal decked her. we don’t know how that would have ended because Marcie got in there pretty much immediately and broke them up.
According to Sal she’s never lost a (presumably uninterrupted) fight.
Yes, sodium pentothal a general anaesthetic. There’s a whole MASH episode where Father Mulcahy exchanged a case of Winchester’s wine with some black market traders to get the camp’s stolen supply back. Charles insisted on going along and breaking the typical arrangement. Hijinks ensued.
Amber strikes me as the type who would vehemently refuse mental help because “a monster like [her] doesn’t deserve help” or “[she’s] too broken to fix…” Or some other lame edgy line like that
Well, I guess this will move quicker than if they’d fought using Dragonball Z tactics (Pictures 3 months of comics with Sal & Amber growling at each other with increasingly constipated faces).
On a more serious note, panel 2 is very worrying in terms of Amber’s mental state. It seems like she’s saying that the Amizi Girl alt persona has gone from being a coping mechanism to being the only persona that deserves to survive. I hope I’m reading that wrong.
I know I’m not supposed to take sides because they’re both very complex characters with tragic backstories that explain why they are the way they are, that they’re both messed up and that they both need therapy rather than condemnation, but honestly… I’m rooting for Sal here. I don’t want them to fight, by the way, but it seems inevitable at this point.
Try as I might I find it very hard to be sympathetic to Amber. It’s probably the resistance I built up to superheroes with tragic backstories in the 90s.
I dunno, because from her perspective, Amber has been basically picking fights with her every chance she gets? Amber is definitely responsible for things getting this bad more than Sal is, though Sal is still responsible.
So, neither of them are officially into women. But it IScollege.
(Fight almost starts – then they realize it’s the wrong place, wrong time. This could get them both tossed out of school.
They agree to rehash this later.
Later, they meet outside, just off campus, thinking they’re alone. As they again prepare to throw the first punch, a voice shouts “WAIT!”
They turn.
A skeezy-looking guy is standing there. He says “It looks like you two have a problem with each other. You also look like college students. You also don’t look like you’re particularly wealthy. I have a proposal for you.”
As they both turn and advance toward the skeezy guy, he says “Please, don’t hurt me. I’m not going to force you to do anything, but I can offer you a significant bit of money.”
They take another step toward him, with malice aforethought.
“We’re talking several thousand dollars.”
They pause. Sal is the first to speak. “What would ya want fer that?”
To no one’s surprise, the guy is a porn producer who happened to be wandering through town. He proposes a cage match between them, unscripted except that they must tear each other’s clothes off during the fight, and that they must have sex at the end.
The scowls return, and they again advance menacingly.
“Ok, ok. No sex required. Same pay. All you have to do is be naked by the end of the fight.”
Sal thinks about Marcie, and says “Fuck it. I’ll do it if she will.”
To no one’s surprise, Amber is FAR more reluctant. “First I’m going to kick your ass, then I’m going to kick her ass.” The guy doubles the offer. Amber advances another step. The guy doubles it again, more out of terror than desire to make it happen at this point. Amber does a bit of quick head math, and realizes just exactly how much that amount of money would help her. “Absolutely NO sex. And she’s gonna bleed.” “Sure. No sex. Just don’t hurt me.”
Details are worked out, a crew and location are arranged – it’s porn, that pretty much means as soon as the crew and cameras can show up – and the match begins.
Sal and Amber are, as it turns out, pretty evenly matched. Most punches are blocked, some connect, both are bleeding, and with the relatively flimsy costumes they’ve been provided, they’re both very naked and exhausted after fighting for nearly an hour.
And then something odd happens. The energy they’ve expended, the nudity, the intensity of everything… They look into each others’ eyes. The producer realizes what’s going on, and says quietly “If you do, I’ll double the money”. They don’t hear him. The sexual energy has taken over. They’ve forgotten the cameras, the crew, the producer. They’ve even forgotten they’re straight. Proceed to bow chicka wow wow.)
Ok. There’s the skeeziest ship I could come up with for this. Anybody got a worse one?
It was for a long time. They’ve been fully split since the Ryan stabbing.
We’ve seen Amber wake up surprised by skinned knuckles and AG reports on social media. I think she even commented on it to Danny. Less evidence for AG, since we haven’t seen as much of her, but at the start of her last appearance, she seemed to not know that Amber had thrown the mask away.
And of course Amber says right in this strip “We’re not currently on speaking terms.”
I feel like this underestimates Amber a bit, I think she can promise to not try stab or stock Sal again. As for Sal’s brother though she probably can’t apologize for that because I can see her going right back to deep throating Walky if they can get past this incident.
Maybe this is what they need to clear the air and start over. I give them both the opportunity to finally move forward and start to actually heal a little bit.
I have sympathy for Amber, but after the last couple of chapters I don’t have much patience for her. She already -knows- Sal isn’t the horrible monster she mythologized her as, but when actually confronted by the terrible ways she’s treated Sal, she still chooses to fall back on that mythology and push the interaction towards a fight instead of taking responsibility for her actions and apologizing. It’s frustrating… I don’t like to see Sal take the bait either, but since she’s angry about things that actually happened (and pretty recently too), I can’t blame her as much.
Actually there’s legitimate reason to believe Amber doesn’t know Sal’s a good person. Amazi-girl’s the one who has talked to Sal, interacted with Sal, partnered with Sal. Amber’s been actively avoiding her. going so far as to even switch persona’s on the fly mask free when Sal is near. The most Amber has done is play Sal in Mario Kart. Since her complete split with her alter ego she might not even know they’ve partnered together more than once. When confronted by Danny about her hanging out with Sal she was unsure and visibly worried about it. Amber can only believe the mythology because like most people she hasn’t given Sal a chance. Also I guess she really wants to know if she can beat Sal in a fight so whatever rational let’s her do that takes precedent, especially since Amber has actively given up on doing the right thing just to spite Amazi-girl.
My prediction: no blows will be landed. Just as no one dies. And for the same reason. A fist fight in a campus building, witnessed by a bunch of people, with cops called in – both of them being suspended or expelled. So no fight, no cops, no expulsions.
Why would the cops start caring at this point, tbh? Amazi-girl should have multiple charges of assault against her by now, and at least a few times Sal has been sidekicking it up with her as well.
So, this is going down one of several ways in it’s finality. Either, they end up best buds that are tighter than a rusted hinge or…mortal enemies. Frankly I gots no clue which it’ll be.
I know the conversation head moved on past the topic of who might break up the fight. But if it gets back to it, I’ll vote for Jacob AND Joe doing it together. I think they might be the only two that nought be physically capable of doing it. And that gives us the bonus of roping sarah in.
Hmm… if they do fight, and Amber wins handily, then for any awkward “I was just trying to get into the building” bystanders it’ll be the cool badass on campus getting trounced by what seems to be a bookish nerd. Sal could actually lose the “so cool“ mystique that she seems to want to get rid of … which might ease things with Malaya … bizarrely, if Amber viciously pummels Sal here, it might be the most positive impact she’s had on Sal’s life so far :Tc
this is going to be like a jr high school fight …..thell get a few good smacks in and realize oh wow this dosent help and start talking ….. and end up friends
Except they’re not middle schoolers, they’re adult women who’ve both fought with and against each other in the past, and who both have laid some serious beat-downs on other adults.
Unless someone pulls them apart, they stand a very good chance of giving each other an excessive beating, particularly since they don’t know about each others’ fucked-up parents starting this shit and each thinks the other was solely and 100% responsible for how they acted, while they know their own motivations were outside that black-and-white realm.
Amber got taken hostage and she is supposed to apologise? What is wrong with you people?
Lets be clear: If Amber had stabbed Sal to death there’s a 99/100 chance she’d have been let off on ground of temporary insanity. If you go into a shop and hold people hostage with a deadly weapon you sacrifce all rights you have to complain about your treatment.
Fuck, Sal is such a Mary Sue (Everyone loves her, anyone who doesn’t love her is the problem, perfectly beautiful, cool, great fighter, cool bike she could never afford, smart but works hard for it, pulls off superhuman feats) but it seems even you dingbats agree that she is perfect and without flaw.
Are you sure you read the comments? Maybe you need to read again, your reading comprehension doesn’t seem to work.
No one here says that Sal is perfect or without flaws. Sal’s flaws get brought up plenty, especially during the flashback sequence where her parents’ mistreatment was brought to the forefront, but people couldn’t stop talking about how Sal deserved it and that her parents were right to treat her Mexican friend as a future liability.
And no, if Amber had murdered Sal in front of two police officers after they had apprehended her, there is no way that she would have been able to have gotten off scot-free. Amber did not get taken hostage, Ethan did. And regardless, that would not justify any of Amber’s behavior at college five years after the fact, after Sal had already been sent away to deal with the consequences of her actions. Nothing Sal has done justifies what she has had to deal with since coming to college, the stalking, the assaults, the manipulations, none of it. You can in fact be sympathetic for both characters here.
Also, just the past week or so, I’ve seen 3 or 4 people suggest Amber doing violence to Sal was really a positive thing for Sal or would be a positive for her. It’s starting to get eyebrow raising.
What?! Sal’s legitimately crippled for life! What a positive net gain for her! Not mad at you BBCC, but that’s so ridiculous I think I got whiplash from rearing back in shock.
Also: Getting real sick of the classist attitude (not just here in the comments, but in general) about what poor people “can” afford.
You don’t know where Sal got the bike, or the money for her bike. Maybe between her mom stealing her money and her knocking over the gas station, she got better at hiding her money. Her “friends” cut her in for being a lookout at a robbery – maybe they cut her in for other stuff, too. Maybe she got a job on the side, or got an adult to buy her scratch-offs and won a few hundred here and there. Maybe there was more than just losing her virginity playing Apples-to-Apples going on behind the closed doors at the boarding school. Maybe she made a friend/acquaintance there who gave it to her second-hand for one reason or another. There are LOTS of ways she could have and afford the bike.
How she got the bike is a legitimate mystery though. I’d like to know how. Even if optimistically Linda gave Sal back her money and for whatever reason Marcie didn’t need or want it, that was only like 700 bucks I think? Not sure what was quoted, but a motorcycle’s like 10k at least. I assume she didn’t buy it used since she’s revealed she got a free Rutten brand jacket, which sounds like one of those floor deals like buy a car get a free iphone things. So it’s probably new off the lot. So 10 to 20k maybe? Something significant happened to Sal between her arrest at 13 and now. I really want to know what it is.
Yeah, I forgot about the jacket. The only way that can come by used is if the owner gave her the jacket that came with it but that seems like a stretch.
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more like fist to face, face to fist tho?
Cheek to cheek.
Face to foot style! How you like it?
Pay him no mind. We deliberately trained him badly. As a joke.
I bleed, making me the victor!
Fist to FAAAAAAAAAACE!
Femurs to face. You know, mix it up a little.
A$$ to mouth. You know. Mix it up a little.
What goes from one to the other there is pretty mixed up already
….How are they suddenly outside?
m8, when did you think they were inside?
Whoops, my bad,they were in front of the building, the angle just flipped for drama trees.
These trees came here to see a fight.
So uh…
Odds on Walky stumbling in on all this?
I’m hoping Carla appears, and stops their fight with some device of her own design.
A bucket of water would do
I too would like to think Carla has designed some elaborate (yet highly portable) Rube Goldberg machine to deal with this contingency. Ideally the end result would be involve a cream pie to the face of everyone involved in the fight.
AND Carla. Just so she doesn’t stop being the center of attention.
I’m actually hoping they don’t get stopped. I’m more worried Ethan will get the balls to stop them, but I hope he’ll have the presence of mind to realize this will heal them more than it’ll hurt them, because it’ll let them see how petty this thing is. Mostly it’ll let Amber see how petty it is.
It’ll help Amber realize how much of an evil monster she is, which is not at all what she needs.
But she’s not an evil monster. She thinks she’s broken over a fairly minor event that happened years ago–one which has been dwarfed by many events she’s encountered since then. I think her real trauma is her father and, while she is more or less aware of this, I feel like she hasn’t fully embraced the fact that he truly is the source of it. Him, his attitude, his behavior, and not his genetics. She doesn’t have the monster within, she has the monster without, and who she really needs to take down is Blaine.
Of course she’s not an evil monster. But she thinks she is.
Fighting Sal will either be a righteous triumph over evil, redeeming her previous failure to protect Ethan, which will just lock her further into her mythology. (Not likely to happen. Ethan won’t play along.)
Or it’ll be her becoming the monster attacking the innocent, again reinforcing another part.
There’s no healing in a fight.
Talking to Sal on the other hand …
Betting on Marcy, honestly.
Seriously. “Fist to Fist?” I know thinking is a foreign concept to Sal, but you think of today of all days, no matter what, she would make an effort to try not to default to being a neanderthal.
And nobody bring up any ‘spur of the moment’ crap. We’ve been seeing that she’s been drilling in her head to deescalate things no matter what today. If her default is this bad even on such a day, maybe March should witness this.
I don’t know, I’m under the impression that the one who escalated things here is Amber, not Sal. Like, sure, Sal said those words and that’s what triggered this fight but Amber dropped into a fighting stance almost immediately (before Sal even said anything), acting like Sal was going to hurt Ethan. In any case, I wouldn’t call either of these girls unthinking neanderthals… That’s kind of harsh.
It’s not clear which first moved from posturing to actually throwing a punch, but Sal’s the first one to move from airing of grievances to something that could credibly be considered a threat, and neither of them was making a move to deescalate before that.
In this case I think it takes two to escalate- they’ve both got some serious baggage and we’d only be arguing over who’s garbage-fire is worse.
I think it’s really easy to criticize how people with trauma react to triggers but brains and psyches are weird things that we might not ever fully understand the mechanics of and they only get weirder when you go through the kind of shit these two have been through. Sal was hoping to make amends with a person she hurt, she wasn’t planning on running into the girl who skewered her hand and that sort of trigger can throw caution and plans to the wind. People with mental illness or who are otherwise mentally unwell don’t PLAN to have episodes, its the whole point of a trigger.
I’d also be really careful about suggesting that a black person (especially one with derogatory racial stereotypes at the forefront of her story) is incapable of thought and primitive. It’s… not the best thing to imply, whether intentional or not.
Yeah, I figure M+M stroll become as well.
There’s a buncha people who could wander in and try to break this up:
Ethan obviously, he’s right there.
Walky
Joyce wouldn’t want her friends to be fighting with each other
Ditto for Dorothy – she wouldn’t want it to distract from study time either. xD
Joe – well, he might be more upset that two girls are having a fight that he wasn’t there to see (and is not about him). xD
Danny – he’d try to protect his ex-girlfriend, but let’s face it, he’d just go and Danny it all up instead. xDDD
Prediction: Amber will be victorious but Walky will stumble across his new gf having beaten up his sister and will not be happy about it.
Ethan just picks them both up by their collars and holds them at arm’s length away from each other. As they just keep punching the air and shouting “Lemme at ’em! Lemme at ’em!”
I mean uh…he’s totally tall enough haha
It would be amazing if Ethan is secretly really good at dealing with violent fights because he’s pulled people apart brawling over toys before.
This needs to happen. Stat!
I know Ethan is well-built, but I don’t think he’s physically prepared for this.
I don’t think he’s mentally prepared for this.
I’m definitely hoping Ethan does something like that.
I was scrolling down just to see if anyone else was thinking the same thing.
i’m not dissapointed! ^^
“Dammit, hostage, how are yer so strong?” “WHO DO YOU THINK TRAINED AMAZI-GIRL? Also, Mike comes at me with a baseball bat most mornings. …also i carry several crates of transformers everywhere i go…”
… All right, but if Amber starts yelling, “I’mma SPLAT ‘er! SPLAT ‘er!”, I’m leaving.
Ready…
FIGHT!
Man. I wanna see this gone through but I KNOW Ethan is tots gonna step in
He’s gonna step right in!….Literally, and get two fists, one for each side of his face.
And then, when the smoke clears, the sheer power of their attacks will have somehow turned Ethan to stone. Witnessing what their destructive battling has done, they will be moved to tears and remorse. Then, all of their tears will magically come together and revive Ethan to life, and everyone will celebrate and learn valuable lessons (until Amber decides to wipe everyone’s memories).
Is this the ending to the first Pokemon movie?…It is isn’t it?
Yes it is
Vigilantes aren’t supposed to fight…. not like this.
Said nurse Joy-ce
But super-heroes are.
Fight each other, then team up to beat the real bad guy. How many comics follow that plot?
Nah Sal will battle valiantly for 10 strips but Amber will have the clear advantage ultimately leading to her victory. Afterwards Danny will show up and fight to stop Amber from killing Sal leading Amber to announce that she’s only been using 15% of her full power. At this point Danny will reveal his hat weighs 100 pounds…
Sal = Goku
Amber = Vegeta
Danny = Krillin
……Really Amber?! She didn’t make you. She barely makes friends.
This ain’t Amber either.
I’m not sure I understand? How is it not Amber?
Tags and cheek color say it’s Amber.
Unless she’s developed a third persona, instead of merely further dissociation of the two that already existed, it is Amber. She specifically denies being Amazi-girl, and has blush stickers. And Amber is the only one tagged, but it’s possible the theoretical third persona might ALSO go by Amber.
Seems to be a third entity, red background amber.
“Other Amber”, we have to be consistent when multiple characters have the same name.
Remember that Amber thinks she’s a monster
It’s just what people with untreated ptsd caused by a single incident feel. This moment defined everything, overshadowed everything, made you the way you are. Molded you. And made everything as worse as it could possibly get. Made you into something less than a human, a broken creature who will break everything you touch.
Or so you feel until you learn that all this can be overcome. But amber hasn’t learned that yet.
To be fair, Amber isn’t saying that Sal made her, she’s saying she’s the ‘thing’ that was made that night at the gas station, that’s the event that she connects all of her troubles with.
TL;DR she think she’s Batman
To be fair, in this instance she is the “Thing” that her father made her into. When he chastised Amber at the gas station during Sal’s arrest, all that pent up rage, frustration and the desire to lash out became the catalyst for Amber’s schism. Sal was not responsible for this at all. She was just an outlet, not the causation. Amber has been under the influence of her father for so long that she has unfortunately lost the ability to see the forest from the trees. And Blaine (the abusive father) had basically written his daughter off (The pacifist prodigy) for years. So when he lashed out at her, he was probably thinking this would just wind up as another day at the office. He probably didn’t expect her to snap the way she did. Then again even after the incident, all he did was provoke Amber. Misery does love company after all.
This, right here, is what I think as well. Well done synopsis. ‘Amber’ keeps blaming Sal, when Sal didn’t make her, Blaine did.
Just because this personality goes by her legal name doesn’t mean she’s the “original”, that there was an oroginal single personality, or that if there was it’s still effectively in there at all…
Also “the thing created that night in a gas station convenience store” is a very cumbersome tag.
You know, in fairness – she never says Sal made her, just that that night in the convenience store did. Sal may have been the catalyst, but it was her bongo father that actually provoked it.
And wow, I need to read all the comments first, because that point was made in this very sub-thread already.
please be a cut away tomorrow
tomorrow, ninja rick kills another spider
Soggies May Rule
NEVER
Dab dab dab?
seeing people dab would be cool
Someone from another comic eating cereal.
…how did Steve get in here?!?
It will be Reagan’s first appearance in DoA, won’t it?
Reagan’s got one appearance down already, check the tags.
(Willis is on record as saying that since Dumbing of Age is supposed to be based on our world and real-world Reagan died in 2004, he’s not going to get any appearances beyond stuff like Mary’s wall-poster.)
I like to think Ninja Rick exists in the DoA-verse as part of the IU groundskeeping staff. We just never see him, because he’s a ninja.
Walky snacking on chicken nuggets.
Tomorrow, Danny playing ukelele somewhere
*semi-ironically plays the Kenny Loggins/Steve Perry duet “Don’t Fight It” on the hacked Muzak*
Today’s strip is sponsored by ROSEGIRL outerwear. Not yet makers of the official Amazi-Girl cosplay hoodie, but they could if Willis wanted them to.
OOPS. ROSEGAL, not “Rosegirl”. Still not used to this new monitor.
Well, that went about as well as expected…
Sadly.
Keep your stance wide. Keep your body lower. As you’re moving forward, balance is the key. Right foot, left foot. Now go even faster. And as you’re moving backward, keep your eyes on me.
Couldn’t figure out where that was from, then the Google-Fu Daniel the Human taught me led me to this…
https://youtu.be/pJEM4_MrXzE
IT TOOK ME TOO LLONG TO REALIZE THIS WAS SU
I’m a bit ashamed to admit that as soon as I read “Keep your stance wide”, I was singing the rest.
Scratch that, I’m not ashamed at all. XD
Same.
I then proceeded to sing the entire rest of the song lmao
Put it this way; if Ethan doesn’t step in and Walky doesn’t happen to wander by, my money’s on Marcie getting involved.
And then maybe the rest of the cast will finally get to hear why Sal held up that store to begin with.
You mean what happened to Marcie that made her take significant throat damage?
We already know Sal turned to robbing convenience stores after trying multiple different ways to raise money for Marcie’s surgery only to end up with the pitiful amount of saved money being stolen from her by her own mother.
We know it. No one in-universe aside from Sal and Marcie (and maybe Sals family, if she told them, but I kinda doubt it) knows.
We may know that, but few people in-universe do. I think Mada means having other characters from in-comic find out what happened. Mind you, bit curious about what the actual accident was…
Wait… Sal’s mom did WHAT?!
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/losses/
I bet the make-up sex will be incredible.
Well, duh.
That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
In every meaning of the word.
Insert Yes’ Roundabout.
To Be Continued…
help how do i upvote a post
Well, that went better than expected.
Top 10 anime fight scenes?
She’s the thing created that night… are we seeing the third alter or is that a dumb question?
Neither.
Amazi-girl, Amber, and Dark!Amber maybe?
Daniel here. I think this is Amber, but Amber minus the Amazigirl anger buffer. She’s facing down 1 of the causes of her psychological trauma, the other being her dad (doesn’t deserve proper capitalization) and I’m pretty sure we all remember how THAT went when she was unleashed like this…
… damn you Willis
…actually, I’m still wondering why she wasn’t charged for that, or at least why we’ve never seen her charged for that. I mean, she was a thirteen-year-old white girl, but still, the police mostly at least *try* not to look *that* biased…
Do they, though?
You try explaining to the police chief how a 15 year old girl got her hands on the assault weapon after you already confiscated it.
Yeah the entire matter is ENTIRELY embarrassing for the police, they’ve got plenty of motive to push it under the rug for ass-covering purposes even BEFORE the bias, not that the bias doesn’t help.
Bunglers, they’re complete bunglers.
Underaged, severe psychological issues that would’ve given any shrink a field day, and freshly saved from a hostage scenario.
Procedure would have dictated that she be sent off for immediate psych tests, not formally charged. The cops would have paid a LOT more attention to Blaine and all the cops who allowed Amber such easy access to both the knife and Sal.
Some of us think her father (and his Korean mafia connections) had something to do with Amber not being charged.
Indiana is why – the pigs try a little harder to not look that biased in some places, but Indiana? Indiana they can get away with looking that biased, so they do.
Do we know she wasn’t charged?
We know she didn’t go to jail. We also know Sal didn’t go to jail for the robbery.
I would say that this escalated quickly…but it was kinda on the cards when they met up when Amber was in the right persona.
…my gravatar is completely wrong for this situation.
They’ve met before when Amber was Amber. IIRC she even played Sal in Mario Kart or Smash or something, but from a safe distance.
This is the first time Sal’s realized who she is – in every sense. Sal is confronting her directly, and so Amber’s response is very different than before.
If Sal wasn’t reeling from raw emotion right now (and was in the right frame of mind to not want to fight the chick that crippled her hand) this wouldn’t be a confrontation. It might be Amber verbally lashing out or running away again, or Amazi-Girl assuming direct control, but this wasn’t an unavoidable outcome.
Which is exactly why Amber was so worried about Sal coming across Ethan talking to her and realizing the truth.
Yeah, Amber usually puts distance between herself and Sal, either by becoming Amazigirl, literally running away, or hiding under the privacy chairs. This is a confrontation she can’t easily run from, so her “flight” has turned to “fight”.
Plus the change in the relationship between her and Amazi-Girl means that Amazi-Girl isn’t protecting Sal from Amber any more.
I was just thinking, it escalated slower than expected.
DE-ESCALATE, SAL!
That’s far less likely than Danny being assertive.
Marcie being critical, however? Very likely.
She stabbed her, Stalked her, and now she’s hooking up with her brother. That is a lot to take in all at once especially at a time when Sal is fuming over Marcie, especially that last part she’s probably wrapping her head around it wondering if Ambers only dating Walky to get to her or if she just that obsess. Though we all know that’s not the case but in context for sal this still looks pretty bad.
So should we call this Feud even when this is over or does Amber owe Sal retribution?
Amber owes sal an apology is what she owes her. More than one honestly but at this point a single I’m Sorry I Fucked Up I Was Wrong would be a goddamn lightyear of progress
They’re still caught up in what the other person did to them.
Amber doesn’t care about Sal’s reasons or that she got hurt. She only cares that Sal took Ethan hostage and that she awoke something violent in Amber.
Sal doesn’t care about Amber’s potential trauma. She only cares that Amber stabbed her in the hand while she was restrained.
To both of them, they’re each justified in why they’re angry.
The difference is, nothing Sal did to Amber was personal (hell, Ethan was the one who got taken hostage). Everything Amber did to Sal (stabbing, stalking, lying) was an action directed at her specifically and very, very personal.
That’s not how Amber sees it, and it doesn’t matter. To her, that incident was the catalyst to her downward spiral, and Sal is a crystal clear representation of it.
It’s now about how it was done, it’s how it was received.
I know it’s not how Amber sees it, but it does matter for the purposes of representation of justice in this comic (insofar as Willis is interested in that).
Because telling a taut story is less important that checking off the representations and causes.
What do you mean by personal, because I screwed you over for reasons unrelated to you and didn’t care about you at all makes it worse.
I’m not arguing which is worse, just saying there’s a significant difference between having a bystander caught in your splashback and actively nursing a vendetta against someone.
Just be clear, you’re saying hurting an uninvolved bystander is better than nursing a vendetta against someone who’s already hurt you?
Once you’re engaging in armed robbery, no matter how noble and relatable your motives, splashback is inevitable.
Well yeah, but not really my point.
Don’t think they’re saying that one is better than the other. Just that there’s a difference between the two of them and the intent behind their actions.
Sal wasn’t specifically targeting anyone, but Amber was specifically targeting Sal. Sal didn’t intend to harm Amber, but Amber absolutely intended to harm Sal. There’s not necessarily a judgement being made by saying this.
But yes, there is certainly an argument to be made about whether explicitly wanting to cause harm to one person is morally worse compared to harming someone incidentally as splashback for something else. Or is hurting someone intentionally better than incidentally?
Amber’s not in a mental position that allows her to apologize when someone is angrily confronting her – that was her entire personality when she was being emotionally abused, and she’s violently opposed to ever returning to that mindset now.
We’ve already seen that Sal’s generally more balanced. Sal should be the one apologizing to Amber first (she did start the whole thing after all, even if Amber’s actions were worse)… unfortunately, Ethan didn’t prep Sal for this, and her realizations are all hitting her like a ton of bricks to the face at once. She’s too pissed in the moment to think things through clearly.
yknow what, I bet Sal woulda been way easier to apologize to Sal first if she didn’t realize she was also the girl who’s been stalking and harassing for reasons she never understood at this point.
Like, Separately I bet she could do fine. Oh that’s the girl that stabbed me? Well I’m kinda sore about that but I can still reel it in, maybe deescalate. Oh that’s Amazi-girl? well we know how that’s been working out. But with everything just flying in at once, and Amber making things actively worse with literally every damn sentence she says.
I feel like Sal would’ve been able to start a proper dialogue had Amber just been the girl that stabbed her. I don’t know if she would immediately be able to find it in her to apologize for her part, or if she would be able to see that Amber was terrified and in a bad place when it happened, but I also couldn’t fault her for that. It was an incredibly muddy situation where both parties had been wronged, but they might have been able to work it out. Maybe.
But yeah, with the extra revelations about Amazi-Girl and everything that’s happened since they’ve been at college together, it definitely feels very manipulative and deceptive on Amber’s part to hide that revelation and at that point, Amber’s wronged Sal much more than Sal ever wronged her. And considering that Amber’s immediately gone into fight mode, it doesn’t seem as though she has any of the remorse that Sal does. So with that in mind, I don’t know if Sal would be able to apologize to Amber.
For the hand stabbing or the Stalking? If it’s the Stalking then I’m confused since I thought they reconciled for the harassment at that rally. If it’s the hole stabbing thing then maybe we can revisit the whole “psychologically scarring her” thing and call that even. Or if it’s neither those things and we’re talking about her possibly getting the idea that she’s getting involved with her brother just to get a rise out of her then we can just chalk that up as a misunderstanding.
In Sal situation yeah I’d be a bit mad to but again keep in mind context, Amber didn’t really come looking to start anything with Sal and neither did Sal herself. All that happened was that sell made a discovery while she was in a day long rage and after finding all of this out she’s finally lashing out at someone she can actually blame.
I’m not trying to say there’s ” violence on both sides” when it comes to their history because when you rack it all up Sal now has more to be angry about than Amber. But I don’t think everyone should go as far to make Amber the straight up bad guy here, unless we’re just going with our bias and we’re picking favorites now are we?
She should apologize for All Of Those Things because none of those happened in a vacuum, they all compound one another, and regardless of Amber’s point of view the things she is actively doing and saying right now is shitty.
Each one of those things are a isolated incident, one being connected to the first but with them working through it with Amber/Amazi-girl admitting to Sal she was wrong and the last one being a misunderstanding.
As far as what she’s currently saying and doing is that she’s saying ” hey if we’re doing this then let’s keep this between you and me, also I’m not who you think I’m right now.” As for what she’s doing right now it seems to me she’s getting into a fight that again she didn’t pick (This time that is) She’s not doing a lot to calm things down but last I still checked Amber spent most her time trying to avoid Sal.
Nothing will ever make this feud even. That’s not how feuds work.
“Right now, I’ve got two women, two women with a gut full of anger. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… aggressive negotiating times here!”
It’s really upsetting me how misdirected Amber’s anger is here compared to how justified Sal is in being mad at Amber. The ideal outcome of course is someone/something stopping this fight, but if it does end up an actual contest it would be hard to stomach if Amber got the better of Sal.
Amber’s recovery from emotional abuse has involved changing her default response to confrontation from “cower and submit” to “fight back hard”. She’s definitely in the wrong here, but she’s too much of a mental mess to be in the right. We’ve already seen that she can barely handle facing Sal, even when Sal just thinks of her as “that weirdo gal”. This time she can’t just run off while Sal ignores her.
Anybody gonna get that phone? Because I fricken CALLED IT!!!!
Thank you Amber and Sal, just when people thought you two would have acted like adults and be mature about this, you both basically did exactly what I thought you would.
Sal hasn’t had a second to think things through with a clear head or she wouldn’t be doing this.
Amber is incapable of even looking at Sal without a “fight or flight” response. And now that Sal knows who she is, flight doesn’t seem to be an option anymore.
CALLED IT! is such a mature response, though.
So is one-upmanship by pointing it out. Nya-nya-nya, nya-NYA.
I don’t blame her at all but I hoped Sal would avoid this
I also hope it stops before Amber tries to seriously hurt Sal, because I can totally see Sal having a small win, eg knocking Amber down, and getting attacked as she walks away.
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!
Mortal Wombat!
Welp, this’ll be fun.
I’m betting they’ll get broken up before one clearly wins or loses. So who wants to bet who it’ll be? I’ve heard
– Ethan
– Marcie
– Walky
– Carla
– Danny
– Write in candidate.
I’m going for the outside shot and say Malaya.
Amazi-Girl?
Marcie just left, so probably not her… Danny I don’t think could, Carla I’m not sure would know how to respond and might just film it, Walky would be showing a LOT of sudden character development to get involved…
My vote goes Ethan, I guess?
I think Marcie would be interesting (maybe she would get some insight into what’s actually happening), but Ethan would make more sense. Jason would be interesting too, but I don’t think he’d be in this building (unless actually seeking out Sal)
I don’t think Marcie would get more insight. I think it’s gonna be Marcie because Marcie has the highest potential for drama. Here’s Sal going off to try to prove that she’s made nice with Ethan, and instead running in to Amber, who is a source of trauma (a trauma that cuts both ways). Sal sees Amber and puts two and two together: Amber = the girl who stabbed her = Amazigirl. Marcie just sees Sal starting ANOTHER fight right after she promised she was getting better. Poor Sal. 🙁
Yeah, I suspect this. The closest she might get to more insight is noticing Sal has her scar exposed. She might put two and two together (re: the stabbing, not Amber theoretically = AG) and drag Sal away but after that, I still suspect the riot act.
I more meant that she might overhear some of it, than just see the fight (and with Amber, I think there could be a lot more talking as it goes on).
After thinking of it last minute and typing it there, I’m kind of hoping for Jason, though maybe it’s mostly because I’m not rooting for Walky and Ethan just seems like a given.
(if it’s Ethan, I’d like him to push them apart before either of them manages to touch the other)
Amber has signaled that she wants to win, but Sal is merely triggering a longtime grudge, and may only wish to fight. I too hope it’s broken up before someone gets seriously hurt, and I wish Amber would actually listen to what Ethan has been trying to tell her.
Carla? That’s a dark horse pick. I’m guessing Ethan will at least try. Walky was last seen right inside that building possibly with Dorothy still near by. I’d assume Marcie and Malaya could be gone but maybe their waiting around for Sal’s proof? Danny could in theory be close too. Other than that who knows……I’m guessing Robin! This is her key to re-election!
Clearly it’s going to be Mindy.
Mike.
Write-in your own reason. (I’m going to say part of his Ethan-seduction scheme.)
More seriously, Asma.
Amber’s Dad?
I think it’s still too soon for him to risk coming back on campus.
It’s going to be Dorothy and she’ll have overheard the bit about Amber smooching Sal’s brother.
I’m not sure anyone will, but those who might do it successfully:
Ethan, because I think he’s the only one who could get through to Amber at this point. We’ve seen that Sal can be stopped, that time Marcie stepped in between her and Malaya, but Marcie was friends with both of them. If she tried to step in between these two, Amber would just see it as reinforcement. Ethan stepping in, however, would distract Amber — “Wait, I’m protecting you this time, what are you doing putting yourself in danger?”
Second possibility is Danny, again because they both know him and that might be enough to get through to them.
Third possibility is someone tries, and things get messed up enough that Amazi-Girl makes an appearance.
Ethan tries and gets clobbered in the process – adding more guilt, but bringing a quick halt to the fight.
IMO, there’s only two characters who could reasonably stop this fight without it seeming like Willis pulled them out of nowhere:
1) Amazi-Girl tries to hijack Amber’s body as she’s winding up for the first punch. Amber falls to her knees, holding her head, yelling for AG to “Get out!!” of her head. Ethan and Sal stare at her, then each other, then back at her as Amber and AG berate each other.
2) Ethan steps in between them just in time to catch a couple of punches. Neither punch hurt much as Sal & Amber manage to ‘pull’ the worst of their punches, but it is enough to knock him down. Ethan then gets a front row seat as both combatants have a nervous breakdown in front of him (Sal for catching someone else in her splashback damage, Amber for realizing that this time she is responsible for putting Ethan in Jeopardy).
Man expense is killing me I wonder how this is going to go down…. oh wait a minute I forgot about PATREON. Well off to the next strip I go.
No, no, Sal. His name is Ethan, not Jesus
I thought his name was Apples. Although “The adventures of Jesus and Wonderbread” does have a ring to it.
Hmm. I wonder if Linda would express actual parental concern if she came face to face with the person who stabbed her daughter in the hand. Or would it be ‘crap, she’s a white girl. Are her parents rich? Could they sue? Sally why do you continue to bring dishonour onto our family?’.
Damn it Sal. This ain’t de-escalating at all.
If I recall the building exterior, there are stairs down to the street level. So if they take it outside to street fight, that would be de-escalation.
Man this sucks, fuck off Amber. I was so hoping Sal woulda just, I dunno, not given in to her anger or burst into tears or something like that. Something that’d break Amber’s bullshit mythology she’s built around that moment. Now she’s gonna end this shit feeling both justified and even more self-hatey than before without ever acknowledging just how much she fucked up this whole situation and Sal’s just gonna get all the repercussions because she didn’t do the right thing and de-escalate even though her anger is way more justified in the moment.
Honestly fuck Amber’s mythology great job sounding like a badass while you make the situation worse than it ever possibly could have dipshit
Seriously though. Even worse is regardless of whether she wins or not this won’t bring her any satisfaction or prove anything. So you beat up the girl you stabbed, stalked, and mislead. So what? You’ve kind of only proven you’re really as horrible as you think you are.
It doesn’t help Sal either. Only confirming she truly is the hoodlum people label her as, that no matter how hard she works things will always get worse, and possibly even that Marcie’s right to avoid her. Because this is fucking splashback!
Disappointing. Although I guess technically they still haven’t actually started fighting yet. Still hope.
Man, it had never occurred to me to see how sad sal’s whole situation is. Sal was built up to be this stereotypical terrible person but as the story progressed i just feel more sad for Sal than i do amber. While it’s still a sad situation for amber, sal was amber’s victim in many more ways. Mike wasn’t too far off the mark.
what did mike say? what strip was that?
Probably referring to when Mike compared Amber to Blaine.
These are my thoughts exactly, but I had no idea how to express them. Thanks!
Didn’t Sal have the whole knife-in-hand thing coming?
She really didn’t deserve to get stabbed in the hand when she had already been disarmed and taken into custody.
She was disarmed and restrained. So… no, she didn’t.
From the reader’s standpoint, since Amber was a tormented psychological mess, yeah, it was definitely coming.
Was it deserved, though? Dude, even Blaine was like “wtf”, and he’s pretty firmly in the camp of giving back double the shit you’re given.
Good job proving yourself Sal. Good job… not being entirely insane Amber (reminder that she is literally a violent psychopath who views herself as separate individuals and uses one to literally run around hurting people she feels deserves it).
Um, I don’t think you know the definition of the word “psychopath”.
I mean google defines it as a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. But I understand that word has some general ableist connotations, so for that, I apologize for using it. I would still argue she’s psychotic as her ability to distinguish reality from not is in serious question.
Apparently google doesn’t know the definition either. Or at least your google, mine says nothing of the kind.
You also apparently haven’t been paying much attention to the comic or to the relationship between Amber and Amazi-Girl.
I’m not sure psychopath is the right word. Psychopaths are characterized by shallow feelings and an inability to empathize. Amber is crazy but psychopath may not be the right word.
“Crazy” isn’t a great word either.
The connotation of dangerous and irrational is pretty well spot on here.
Psychotic is a better word than psychopath. Blaine’s far closer to a psychopath than the way Amber’s acting here.
Psychotic is only better if you’re specifically talking about Amber as experiencing psychosis.
Which is what I think they’re trying to do, given their sentence “I would still argue she’s psychotic as her bility to distinguish reality from not is in serious question.”
Honestly, though, I am of the mind that taking away our generic words for “something is not right mentally with this person” does more harm than good. I’m firmly against non-psychiatrist/psychologists attempting to assign actual mental health diagnoses/labels to people based on observation, and with zero training in the matter. Heck, I’m even mostly against mental health professionals ascribing labels to people outside of an actual professional relationship with a patient (i.e. based on news stories, etc.). By taking away all generic colloquial terms for “this person has something going on mentally”, you’re basically forcing laypeople to attempt to use precise, technical definitions that they aren’t qualified to assign. I think that causes far more problems than the fact that ‘crazy’ gets used fairly indiscriminately to mean anything from psychosis to psychopathy to ‘I do not agree with that person’. It’s a grab bag word and leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but it’s not inherently insulting in of itself.
“Mentally ill” is the best term
What a “Mentally ill” thing to say.
No, I’m not serious. But my point is that any term can be abused.
Note timestamps and who’s talking… that comment you quote was posted by someone other than who I was replying to and after my comment had been posted.
As for terminology, I agree with Norah, and I feel that being conscious of word choice isn’t a bad thing. “Crazy” as a generic term is not without judgment and history, and the way it gets used does harm people. I believe the stigma around some mental illnesses is getting better, but for some, like ones Amber seems to have, it’s still going strong. I think language is a part of that, and I care more about the people suffering than other people’s desire to keep using rhe same words when there are others available.
I also recognize that some people know all this and disagree, and I’m not expecting to convince them. However, there are a lot of people who haven’t thought about using these terms, and I hope they at least take some time to consider them before going on to do whatever they choose.
Ideally, you want to use something that is both fairly value-neutral and doesn’t make a layman diagnosis. “Mentally ill” works.
Speaking as someone diagnosed with a kind of “buzz-wordy” diagnosis, though, the largely well-meaning people who play amateur psychiatrist without training have caused me much more direct trouble than the idiots who are just being a bit rude about mental illness. At best it means you have to spend time explaining to people how what they misread on wikipedia isn’t a good representation, at worst people start ascribing a bunch of nonsense to you without you being given a chance to set them straight.
That’s just my experience, though.
That’s fair, and I definitely wasn’t suggesting that people try to diagnose and act as experts on others mental health when that’s not their job. Just that there are options other than doing that and calling (often dismissing people as) “crazy.”
Actually, what I think we need is something that isn’t value-neutral and doesn’t make a layman diagnosis.
About 90% time when people use “crazy” they’re not actually talking about any defined kind of mental illness – more just that the person is being irrational, which we all are from time to time. That can’t be fixed by switching to “mentally ill”. Might be best to stick with crazy for that kind of thing and not use it for actual mental illness. Change the connotations of crazy. Might be easier than getting another term without links to mental illness into widespread use.
It’s somewhat different in Amber’s case here: Here part of what we want to say is that Amber is dangerous because of her mental illness, which is true, but do it without implying that everyone with mental illness is dangerous. She’s dangerous because of the particulars of her problems. Even our layman’s diagnosis (PTSD & DID) doesn’t really help, since those don’t necessarily mean someone’s dangerous.
You’re discounting that we would be right to avoid Amber for being some kind of crazy. The word has negative connotations for good reasons. She is dangerously, unpredictably violent. She is unreasonable. She is what people mean when they call someone else crazy.
The important thing isn’t the social consequence of the word, people will just use ‘mentally ill’ as an insult the way they use ‘autistic’ in place of ‘retarded’ now. The important thing is the utility of the word for the one that uses it. The only reason those insults work is because of tribalism, itself the root of mans greatest evils.
“Crazy” lumps in violent people– who may or may not have mental illnesses– with people talking to themselves on the street corner, harming no one, from what I’ve seen from people’s use of it.
There is definitely another factor of wider social education that should happen; I think many people, though, are becoming more aware around the issue of mental illness, and hopefully that means “mentally ill” won’t become an equivalent to “crazy,” “psycho,” etc. as widely or quickly as it might. I know that people will absolutely still do it– I work with middle schoolers, some of the most creative insult hurlers in the world. And I agree that how words are used is significant even if the words themselves are different; still, I’d rather be called “mentally ill” than “crazy” for my thoughts and actions, much as I’d rather be called “transgender” than “tr*nny” even though people will use both as insults now.
Whereas I would definitely prefer ‘crazy’, because to me it implies less judgement than ‘mentally ill’ specifically BECAUSE it is also used for transient, non-mental-health behaviors, etc. It’s nobody’s business but my doctor’s whether I have an actual mental illness, and I’d prefer for people not to speculate on that. They’re free to describe my behaviors however they’d like.
As for the person mumbling to themselves on the street corner…sure, odds are they are harmless, but you don’t know that. Which is kind of the point of labelling something as ‘crazy’ – often all it means is “this person is behaving in a way that I did not predict and therefore I do not know what they may do next,” which is perfectly true of the street-corner mumbler. There’s a reason that psychiatrists all have tales of being assaulted by patients, and it’s not because the patients are all violent sociopaths or that the psychiatrists aren’t able to read cues, it’s because many patients are responding in unpredictable ways or to cues that others don’t know about…and even trained psychiatrists can’t always tell when someone is going to lash out.
Sure, ‘crazy’ can also just be used to mean “they aren’t acting in the way I want them to”, but I don’t think we fix anything by having people use “mentally ill” to say that other than further blurring the distinction.
I would still point out that there are words besides “mentally ill” and “crazy” that can be used in some of the situations you’re describing. I think “mentally ill” is best here when describing a fictional character who we’ve seen struggle in the way Amber has.
I also think “crazy” gets used in so many ways that, no, I am not at all suggesting we replace as a blanket with “mentally ill.” Some of our disagreement seems to be that I am talking about when the subject being discussed is, in fact, related to the person’s mental health. I do also think that there are better words than “crazy” to use in other situations– for example, if someone says something bigoted, you might call them, you know, “bigoted.” But that’s not really the use of the term that’s being discussed in this case.
Amber’s mentally ill. She needs help, and while she should be held accountable for her actions… she doesn’t have DID for fun. (At this point she’s pretty separate from AG (see panel 1).)
Ooh. I know what to play for this.
*plays Going Down on the hacked muzak*
Why is there a second tag? I thought I had it that time. Dang it.
Yeah….
They both feel justifiable anger and aren’t considering that they need to just take this major life-traumatizing shit …. And just let it go.
Seriously, they’re just fucking each other up more and more.
If they could just see a decent therapist…
Maybe just ….
Not feel a grudge against someone that …
Yeah.
This fight was always gonna happen.
Haven’t you heard? There are no therapists in comics…it actually explains a lot now that I think about it.
What about Harley Quinn?
I believe Sal has said she’s seen therapists before. So while we don’t see her going to one, she’s been there before. It’s just while she was under her mother’s care, and trust me when I say parents can control the narrative of a therapy session.
There is a counselor at the campus. Dorothy went there after the stabbing. I think he /she counts as a therapist.
Yes
Plus Ruth actually being treated by a psychiatrist and Billie’s supposed to be getting help too, though she’s blowing it all.
All through the campus medical facilities.
I’d push back on seeing both their sense of anger as equivalent. Sal’s is a “you did these horrible things to me”-anger, and she’s objectively right, Amber did do those things. While Amber’s anger is just… anger, and she’s decided to make Sal a convenient target for it because of the association Sal has for her to that night at the convenience store. It’s less about anything Sal did to her, which imo would be justified anger, and more because Sal was there at a time things broke inside her brain.
I’d agree here. Sal is a trigger for Amber, but isn’t who she’s mad at. Her anger stems from her father’s abuse and her own self-loathing, which is directed back at Sal as a source of trauma. Granted, she does have a reason to be angry with Sal (For pulling a knife and threatening a friend), but that’s not WHY she’s angry.
Yeah, I’d say that Sal’s anger is more objectively justified. With these current revelations, from Sal’s POV there’s a certain deception on the part of Amber. For Sal, who doesn’t know about the Amber/AG split, it looks so incredibly manipulative on Amber’s part to stalk and obsess over and fight with Sal before becoming begrudging allies with her as AG, and then to become Mario Kart buddies with her as Amber and getting close to Walky, all the while hiding the knowledge of their shared past. And upon confrontation, Amber immediately puts up her fists and gets into a fighting stance, as if Sal’s the monster here.
Amber’s not even explaining herself, she’s just directing the blame on Sal for the convenience store and incident and brushes it all off as working through anger issues.
“more because Sal was there at a time things broke inside her brain”
Which of course was pure coincidence and had absolutely nothing to do with Sal’s presence or actions. Her brain just broke.
Look, I agree with a lot of the criticism of Amber here, but some of it seems to go so far as to deny her trauma or that there’s any justification for it. (Mind you, I’m always happy to dump much of that blame on Blaine, though some seem to ignore even that.)
Ahh, yeah, that’s why I phrased Sal’s anger as “objectively justified”. It’s more rational. There’s a very straight line from the things that Amber has directly done things to Sal over the course of their time at college here together that have led to Sal’s anger at this moment. Amber’s anger isn’t entirely rational and not all of her actions have justification, but she does have that trauma and trauma isn’t always rational. Most of her trauma comes from Blaine, but she directs a lot of her anger at Sal.
I mean…. holding a knife to your friend’s throqt qualifies a justofication for anger in my book.
FIGHT FIGGHT FIGHT FIGHT F9GHT FIGHT FIGHT
amber finds this situation… unacceptable
I doubt we’re actually going to see them fight. I’m guessing Willis is doing the ol’ bait-and-switch here.
I really hope so. This fight won’t be good for either of them.
Of course any number of ways it gets stopped could be bad too.
Amber has clearly been watching more anime than Sal.
Shouldn’t THIS be the end of a book?
Or the end of the whole series… because why leave a big dramatic question resolved?
LOL! Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if the next strip skipped ahead two weeks!
You assume we’ve been building up to this confrontation and not the dramatic fallout that results from the confrontation.
Ah. Someone who pays attention.
That went well
Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3qcj2MzPYc
I don’t think anyone’s said this yet, so I will:
This may be an unpopular viewpoint, but my opinion of Amber has steadily been going down for the past month or so, and my opinion of Sal has been improving.
I’m not going to say that what Sal did was right. It DEFINITELY wasn’t. But she’s trying to fix her mistakes and move on the best she can, even though she keeps messing up.
(PLEASE don’t take this the wrong way, I know firsthand how awful PTSD is) I feel like Amber isn’t as sympathetic in this situation. Ethan was the one who was held at knifepoint, not Amber. I would understand if Ethan had massive trauma to deal with. I’m not disregarding the trauma she did face due to her dad, but that should be directed at her dad, not at Sal.
So, yeah. That concludes my likely-very-unpopular opinion. I do feel like I’m being insensitive even by having that opinion, but I don’t know anyone else IRL who reads this comic and I wanted to share it.
I honestly don’t know why you think that’s such an unpopular opinion? It seems like a fairly common one?
Sure, some people probably disagree, but that’s because people hold a number of different opinions on this; yours is hardly “out there.”
Yeah, I at least give Lux credit for trying to be understanding and fair to both of them. Personally what I see is that this confrontation composes of a misunderstanding, one incident that should be resolved already, and another incident I never got resolved and has been bubbling under the surface for three years now. But all in all I just see two people who are just angry ( justifiably so) and are taking it out on each other.
Totally agree with you. The last few chapters, not just this one, have done a good job of making Sal more sympathetic and Amber less so. And I think that’s the point. That it’s not a cut-and-dry, heroes and villains kind of story. The girl who held up a liquor store can be more sympathetic than the other girl who was a victim of the holdup.
Which is kind of funny, because when we actually focused on the robbery in the flashback, it seemed like opinion was turning against Sal, even as we learned more of the reasons she’d done it.
I’m not really fond of the implied “Ethan could be traumatized, but since he’s not, Amber has no right to be.”
Trauma doesn’t care about rights. Trauma just is. People react differently to events. Amber’s brain isn’t going to wait and see how Ethan recovers before it lays down its own damage.
Yeah, that basically summed up why I feel bad about having that opinion. I know trauma basically just happens and it doesn’t follow any particular reasoning.
🤦♀️
😂👌
Jesus christ amber. Get it together.
Also, historically, Sal doesn’t do too well in fights. Will she lose, and amber will somehow feel vindicated. Just to be clear, amber is NOT in the right here.
Sal has the full right to be mad but Ambers not the one picking a fight…. well she’s not the de-escalating it either but still.
I would argue that by Amber putting up her fists immediately upon Sal’s revelation and confrontation of her, that Amber is in fact picking a fight or at the very least, assuming one’s about to come. Even her words about directing anger away from good people assumes that Sal’s the one about to get violent. Sal just confirmed a brawl was brewin’.
Well in the last panel you can’t really tell who’s throwing the first punch. But in the end does it really matter?
Yea, Amber imediately raised her fists at the sight of Sal, she’s the one instigating the fight at that point.
No she didn’t. She froze at the sight of Sal, and it wasn’t until Sal scowled and took off her glove that Amber took a defensive posture to “protect” Ethan.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/knows/
That’s a fist in the third panel. It’s part of a defensive pose that started on the last page and doesn’t move into a fighting stance until after the glove is taken off, but Amber is still in a defensive pose assuming there is going to be violence.
Is Sal bad in a fight? She’s been beating down thugs just as easily as Amber. The only fight she “lost” was against Malaya and it wasn’t really even a fight.
Plus, she and Malaya got interrupted just before Sal decked her. we don’t know how that would have ended because Marcie got in there pretty much immediately and broke them up.
According to Sal she’s never lost a (presumably uninterrupted) fight.
….at least they are talking?
…that is good?
“Smoochin’ on my brother”… Is Sal quoting Home Alone 2??
Thanks for this. Can’t unhear.
“Get down on your knees and tell me you love me!”
Tim Curry Voice: “We LOVE you!”
Seems appropriate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOy6hqzfsAs
You DID hold a knife to her friend’s throat, Sal.
I mean.
Also, Amber, I don’t think she gets you and your AG situation and she won’t at this time.
I just.
Welp. I just want someone to stop this.
I want context over cocoa and hugs.
Like ,I don’t CARE if the last panel looks like Smash bros like fuck SOMEONE DO SOMETHING
Spike the hot chocolate and add a therapist as mediator and it might help.
The problem is getting Sal (and Amber for that matter) to willingly speak to a therapist.
Would spiking the hot chocolate with sodium pentothal help?
Is that even a real thing?
Yes, sodium pentothal a general anaesthetic. There’s a whole MASH episode where Father Mulcahy exchanged a case of Winchester’s wine with some black market traders to get the camp’s stolen supply back. Charles insisted on going along and breaking the typical arrangement. Hijinks ensued.
Amber strikes me as the type who would vehemently refuse mental help because “a monster like [her] doesn’t deserve help” or “[she’s] too broken to fix…” Or some other lame edgy line like that
She’s pretty much said that. Except it’s not a “lame edgy line”, it’s how she really views herself.
She needs a therapist to get her to the point where she can accept therapy.
I know, but the way she says these things is like, she knows she’s a comic character but thinks its a batman comic or something
Or like a shitty YA love interest
In fairness, she is a comic character and she does have mad near-batman level skills which we have seen.
Being sincere doesn’t stop one from being edgy.
My hope was the booze would make them feel more talkative.
It’s on like Donkey Kong!
Boy was I wrong about thinking Sal wasn’t going to pick a fight yesterday LOL
So Amber thinks that SHE is the split personality now?
Yes
I’m just waiting for tomorrow’s strip to have something interrupt them in the most anticlimactic way possible. Ethan *is* there as well after all.
Maybe Amber will smack some arrogance out of Sal and Sal will knock some perspective into Amber
Maybe they just need Joe to happen along and say “now kiss”
All that’d do would send Joe searching for a first aid kit and some ice.
Well, I guess this will move quicker than if they’d fought using Dragonball Z tactics (Pictures 3 months of comics with Sal & Amber growling at each other with increasingly constipated faces).
On a more serious note, panel 2 is very worrying in terms of Amber’s mental state. It seems like she’s saying that the Amizi Girl alt persona has gone from being a coping mechanism to being the only persona that deserves to survive. I hope I’m reading that wrong.
She’s had Amazi-Girl cast as the Golden Alter and her as the monster she keeps in check for a long time now.
She’s wrong of course.
feel!
You made me feel!
You made me feel like a natural woman….
I know I’m not supposed to take sides because they’re both very complex characters with tragic backstories that explain why they are the way they are, that they’re both messed up and that they both need therapy rather than condemnation, but honestly… I’m rooting for Sal here. I don’t want them to fight, by the way, but it seems inevitable at this point.
Try as I might I find it very hard to be sympathetic to Amber. It’s probably the resistance I built up to superheroes with tragic backstories in the 90s.
“I’m rooting for Sal here”
Why?
I dunno, because from her perspective, Amber has been basically picking fights with her every chance she gets? Amber is definitely responsible for things getting this bad more than Sal is, though Sal is still responsible.
The thing is that the thing that really has Sal ticked off and ready to fight is her problems with Marcy. And that really isn’t Amber’s fault.
Except it is, because Marcie’s mad at Sal and Amazigirl for getting her fired, and that happened before Amber stopped being Amazigirl.
So, neither of them are officially into women. But it IScollege.
(Fight almost starts – then they realize it’s the wrong place, wrong time. This could get them both tossed out of school.
They agree to rehash this later.
Later, they meet outside, just off campus, thinking they’re alone. As they again prepare to throw the first punch, a voice shouts “WAIT!”
They turn.
A skeezy-looking guy is standing there. He says “It looks like you two have a problem with each other. You also look like college students. You also don’t look like you’re particularly wealthy. I have a proposal for you.”
As they both turn and advance toward the skeezy guy, he says “Please, don’t hurt me. I’m not going to force you to do anything, but I can offer you a significant bit of money.”
They take another step toward him, with malice aforethought.
“We’re talking several thousand dollars.”
They pause. Sal is the first to speak. “What would ya want fer that?”
To no one’s surprise, the guy is a porn producer who happened to be wandering through town. He proposes a cage match between them, unscripted except that they must tear each other’s clothes off during the fight, and that they must have sex at the end.
The scowls return, and they again advance menacingly.
“Ok, ok. No sex required. Same pay. All you have to do is be naked by the end of the fight.”
Sal thinks about Marcie, and says “Fuck it. I’ll do it if she will.”
To no one’s surprise, Amber is FAR more reluctant. “First I’m going to kick your ass, then I’m going to kick her ass.” The guy doubles the offer. Amber advances another step. The guy doubles it again, more out of terror than desire to make it happen at this point. Amber does a bit of quick head math, and realizes just exactly how much that amount of money would help her. “Absolutely NO sex. And she’s gonna bleed.” “Sure. No sex. Just don’t hurt me.”
Details are worked out, a crew and location are arranged – it’s porn, that pretty much means as soon as the crew and cameras can show up – and the match begins.
Sal and Amber are, as it turns out, pretty evenly matched. Most punches are blocked, some connect, both are bleeding, and with the relatively flimsy costumes they’ve been provided, they’re both very naked and exhausted after fighting for nearly an hour.
And then something odd happens. The energy they’ve expended, the nudity, the intensity of everything… They look into each others’ eyes. The producer realizes what’s going on, and says quietly “If you do, I’ll double the money”. They don’t hear him. The sexual energy has taken over. They’ve forgotten the cameras, the crew, the producer. They’ve even forgotten they’re straight. Proceed to bow chicka wow wow.)
Ok. There’s the skeeziest ship I could come up with for this. Anybody got a worse one?
“Anybody got a worse one?”
Well Blaine and Todedad could turn up and start whacking each other off…
*starts playing Final Fantasy boss fight music*
Which theme? Force Your Way could work. Or maybe Apocalypsis Noctis?
Force Your Way WAS the track I was thinking of. XD *high-fives*
That is not how de-escalating works!
But honestly, fair enough.
Here’s what’s bugging me: however this comes out, Amazi-girl won’t know it happened and won’t understand that Sal is now her enemy.
I’ve always thought it was more emotional compartmentalization than actual splitting to the point they don’t share memories.
It was for a long time. They’ve been fully split since the Ryan stabbing.
We’ve seen Amber wake up surprised by skinned knuckles and AG reports on social media. I think she even commented on it to Danny. Less evidence for AG, since we haven’t seen as much of her, but at the start of her last appearance, she seemed to not know that Amber had thrown the mask away.
And of course Amber says right in this strip “We’re not currently on speaking terms.”
Oh, I thought that was a reference to Sal. As in, “you’re on speaking terms with AG, not me.”
Real cathartic, Ethan.
What did he think was going to happen? Even if didn’t know Sal, he should know Amber enough to realize that she wasn’t going to act reasonably.
Just wanted to note for those hoping Amber would or will apologize for her actions…well
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/creeping/
Probably not. The attitude she’s adopted since stabbing Ryan is very troubling.
I feel like this underestimates Amber a bit, I think she can promise to not try stab or stock Sal again. As for Sal’s brother though she probably can’t apologize for that because I can see her going right back to deep throating Walky if they can get past this incident.
I used to like Amber as a character, but that was a long time ago. I just hope she gets help eventually.
> the thing made in a truck stop restroom
CRAAAWLING IN MY SKIIIIIN
Maybe this is what they need to clear the air and start over. I give them both the opportunity to finally move forward and start to actually heal a little bit.
I have sympathy for Amber, but after the last couple of chapters I don’t have much patience for her. She already -knows- Sal isn’t the horrible monster she mythologized her as, but when actually confronted by the terrible ways she’s treated Sal, she still chooses to fall back on that mythology and push the interaction towards a fight instead of taking responsibility for her actions and apologizing. It’s frustrating… I don’t like to see Sal take the bait either, but since she’s angry about things that actually happened (and pretty recently too), I can’t blame her as much.
Actually there’s legitimate reason to believe Amber doesn’t know Sal’s a good person. Amazi-girl’s the one who has talked to Sal, interacted with Sal, partnered with Sal. Amber’s been actively avoiding her. going so far as to even switch persona’s on the fly mask free when Sal is near. The most Amber has done is play Sal in Mario Kart. Since her complete split with her alter ego she might not even know they’ve partnered together more than once. When confronted by Danny about her hanging out with Sal she was unsure and visibly worried about it. Amber can only believe the mythology because like most people she hasn’t given Sal a chance. Also I guess she really wants to know if she can beat Sal in a fight so whatever rational let’s her do that takes precedent, especially since Amber has actively given up on doing the right thing just to spite Amazi-girl.
That’s a really good sum up for a lot of feelings about Amber, actually-I have a lot of sympathy for her, but I’m running real low on patience.
My prediction: no blows will be landed. Just as no one dies. And for the same reason. A fist fight in a campus building, witnessed by a bunch of people, with cops called in – both of them being suspended or expelled. So no fight, no cops, no expulsions.
Why would the cops start caring at this point, tbh? Amazi-girl should have multiple charges of assault against her by now, and at least a few times Sal has been sidekicking it up with her as well.
Or you know, a fight, but no cops called and thus no expulsions.
So, this is going down one of several ways in it’s finality. Either, they end up best buds that are tighter than a rusted hinge or…mortal enemies. Frankly I gots no clue which it’ll be.
Someone really, really stupid is gonna try and get between them, aren’t they? Just dunno who…
And… they unclench their fists and hug it out!
AG’s going to be really sad when she finds out that Amber’s alienated her “sidekick”.
Marcie’s right
I WAKE UP AT 9:30 AM ON A SATURDAY MORNING AND FIND HUNDREDS OF COMMENTS ALREADY. HOW
Ah, and there’s the red background.
A strange train of random association left me wondering: What is the Dumbiverse status of Sodomuffin?
Seeing as her status is “doesn’t exist” even in Shortpacked!…
I think you’re doing de-escalation wrong, Sal.
I know the conversation head moved on past the topic of who might break up the fight. But if it gets back to it, I’ll vote for Jacob AND Joe doing it together. I think they might be the only two that nought be physically capable of doing it. And that gives us the bonus of roping sarah in.
Oops. MIGHT be capable. Damned autocorrupt.
Man, I hope Ethan stops this :C
Unbeknownst to them Walky has been watching from the sidelines, pulls a Lars and steps in heroically to stop the fight.
Hmm… if they do fight, and Amber wins handily, then for any awkward “I was just trying to get into the building” bystanders it’ll be the cool badass on campus getting trounced by what seems to be a bookish nerd. Sal could actually lose the “so cool“ mystique that she seems to want to get rid of … which might ease things with Malaya … bizarrely, if Amber viciously pummels Sal here, it might be the most positive impact she’s had on Sal’s life so far :Tc
bookish nerd. Are you referring to the bookish stabby Macstabby nerd? Amber has her own rep.
Ethan: guys this is really not the way to settle your anger issues
Oddly enough, now that this fits all the comic superhero fight templates, I am very much on board.
Are you referring to the comic superhero fight templates just waiting to be subverted?
this is going to be like a jr high school fight …..thell get a few good smacks in and realize oh wow this dosent help and start talking ….. and end up friends
Except they’re not middle schoolers, they’re adult women who’ve both fought with and against each other in the past, and who both have laid some serious beat-downs on other adults.
Unless someone pulls them apart, they stand a very good chance of giving each other an excessive beating, particularly since they don’t know about each others’ fucked-up parents starting this shit and each thinks the other was solely and 100% responsible for how they acted, while they know their own motivations were outside that black-and-white realm.
*Reads comments*
Amber got taken hostage and she is supposed to apologise? What is wrong with you people?
Lets be clear: If Amber had stabbed Sal to death there’s a 99/100 chance she’d have been let off on ground of temporary insanity. If you go into a shop and hold people hostage with a deadly weapon you sacrifce all rights you have to complain about your treatment.
Fuck, Sal is such a Mary Sue (Everyone loves her, anyone who doesn’t love her is the problem, perfectly beautiful, cool, great fighter, cool bike she could never afford, smart but works hard for it, pulls off superhuman feats) but it seems even you dingbats agree that she is perfect and without flaw.
That’s some impressive temporary insanity on Amber’s part, to still be going half a decade later. And some fantastic misreading on your part.
Yikes.
Their age really does need to be taken into account. Regardless of what Sal did, she was as much a victim as Amber was.
Are you sure you read the comments? Maybe you need to read again, your reading comprehension doesn’t seem to work.
No one here says that Sal is perfect or without flaws. Sal’s flaws get brought up plenty, especially during the flashback sequence where her parents’ mistreatment was brought to the forefront, but people couldn’t stop talking about how Sal deserved it and that her parents were right to treat her Mexican friend as a future liability.
And no, if Amber had murdered Sal in front of two police officers after they had apprehended her, there is no way that she would have been able to have gotten off scot-free. Amber did not get taken hostage, Ethan did. And regardless, that would not justify any of Amber’s behavior at college five years after the fact, after Sal had already been sent away to deal with the consequences of her actions. Nothing Sal has done justifies what she has had to deal with since coming to college, the stalking, the assaults, the manipulations, none of it. You can in fact be sympathetic for both characters here.
Also, just the past week or so, I’ve seen 3 or 4 people suggest Amber doing violence to Sal was really a positive thing for Sal or would be a positive for her. It’s starting to get eyebrow raising.
What?! Sal’s legitimately crippled for life! What a positive net gain for her! Not mad at you BBCC, but that’s so ridiculous I think I got whiplash from rearing back in shock.
Oh, I don’t blame you, I’m reeling right there with you.
Also: Getting real sick of the classist attitude (not just here in the comments, but in general) about what poor people “can” afford.
You don’t know where Sal got the bike, or the money for her bike. Maybe between her mom stealing her money and her knocking over the gas station, she got better at hiding her money. Her “friends” cut her in for being a lookout at a robbery – maybe they cut her in for other stuff, too. Maybe she got a job on the side, or got an adult to buy her scratch-offs and won a few hundred here and there. Maybe there was more than just losing her virginity playing Apples-to-Apples going on behind the closed doors at the boarding school. Maybe she made a friend/acquaintance there who gave it to her second-hand for one reason or another. There are LOTS of ways she could have and afford the bike.
Maybe she found the bike somewhere someone was selling it used like kajiji.
How she got the bike is a legitimate mystery though. I’d like to know how. Even if optimistically Linda gave Sal back her money and for whatever reason Marcie didn’t need or want it, that was only like 700 bucks I think? Not sure what was quoted, but a motorcycle’s like 10k at least. I assume she didn’t buy it used since she’s revealed she got a free Rutten brand jacket, which sounds like one of those floor deals like buy a car get a free iphone things. So it’s probably new off the lot. So 10 to 20k maybe? Something significant happened to Sal between her arrest at 13 and now. I really want to know what it is.
Yeah, I forgot about the jacket. The only way that can come by used is if the owner gave her the jacket that came with it but that seems like a stretch.
man i should throw you in the spam folder just for using the term mary sue unironically
🙁 but sal didn’t create you, blaine did. they were both just kids caught up in the damage done by abusive parenting. tbf, they still are.
CAN’T ESCAPE FROM CROSSING FATE
READYYYYY…
Quick! Someone whip up SC6 CASes!
HA is going to be SO UPSET he didn’t exist in this universe to see this.
God its so easy to dislike amber…soooo easy
Talk like a person and not a lame batman rip off damn it
Theeeeres the punchline, I knew it was coming!
Yeah when you put it that way, alongside with all off Amber psychotic tendencies, yeah, it’s quite fucked up.