Leather Jackets are one of those things that has contextual coolness. If you’re cool, the jacket’s cool. If you ain’t cool, then the jacket ain’t either.
An acolyte of the Monks of Cool is taken by a senior monk for his final test. He is brought to a cave containing every conceivable item of apparel, and asked “Which outfit is the coolest”.
I once went on a multi-year quest to find an affordable (read: dirt cheap, like a couple bucks) secondhand black leather trench coat (like Scully wears on the X-files!). Had to be secondhand, so I wouldn’t feel bad about wearing the leather, as I was vegan at the time.
After about six years of searching to no avail, across two continents (I wasn’t traveling just to look for the jacket — just looking AS I was traveling), I finally gave up. The moment I gave up and resigned myself to never getting my secondhand black leather trench coats, a friend pulled up with a pickup truck full of black leather jackets. She said, “I just found all these leather jackets in the trash out behind the thrift shop. Anyone want one?”
For the rest of that year, I wore two black leather trench coats at the same time, everywhere I went.
…Not saying any of this made any particular sense! Just that sometimes you have to give up attachment to “coolness” for the “coolness” to find you by itself.
Just as Sal is doing, shedding the mystique of her “cool kid costume”.
…I wonder whether her taking the gloves off and answering the ensuing questions has anything to do with the events that broke Amber and Walky up.
Making a leather jacket requires murdering and flaying another living creature. In that sense, leather jackets were always simultaneously and paradoxically both uncool and extremely badass.
trivia!
in french, “cow hide” (peau de vache) is an insult for a vicious, spiteful person who abuses their authority and gets off on being a heartless bully.
typically used to complain about one’s boss.
Actually between Carla’s roller skating and not knowing what’s on the floor of a highly trafficked common area it takes a bit of guts to commit to bare feet. I’d at least be wearing socks at all times if I didn’t have shoes. Who knows what the f you’re stepping in.
We’ve seen Walky walking through the floors munching chips. If stray food and crumbs is the least you have to worry about, you would still risk stepping in something sticky. Speaking of sticky, Mary once sprayed glue on the floor. Also girls walk right from the dorms to the showers and vice-versa so damp floors are also highly likely. Now is when I note we’ve never seen a janitor on this floor ever nor mention of any regular cleaning service.
Yeah, but that’s a bit like claiming that toilets don’t exist in Star Trek – just because something quintessentially mundane and uninteresting is never depicted in a given fiction doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or never happens.
Unless the school is horrifically underfunded, it is likely someone vacuums the common areas weekly. The way in which Sierra displays true courage with her bare feet is she is willing to enter the dorm rooms of her neighbors. Most of them are freshmen, and it is common (though not universal) for college kids in their first year to respond to the sudden lack of parental supervision by becoming utter slobs. I knew people in college who literally did not vacuum their dorm room floor a single time all year.
YEAH idk, maybe watch where the heck you’re walking if you don’t want random glass to jab your foot? Like, pay the barest amount of attention while traveling? So that maybe you don’t wind up getting literally injured?
other than being in the showers, i don’t think there was an issue about the rooms/hallways for her to not put on shoes or sal’s room was close enough to walk to without needing to put on shoes/socks
Sal and Joyce share a half-bath. She’s coming in the hall door though, so probably still coming back from Dorothy’s – which I believe is canonically 30 steps away.
It’s a dorm hallway, every thing is close. Except for the mysterious rooms at the far end of the hall, which take advantage of forced perception tricks to be farther away.
Okay. So, my mom is a lawyer. She’s a pretty fun person, though, not all serious like some lawyer stereotypes. And she loves Halloween.
One year, she got invited to some lawyer networking party, and it was on October 30th. The invitation described it as Halloween-themed and said something like “Costumes welcome/encouraged/whatever.” My mom had decided on her costume for that year and already had everything for it, so she got ready in it that day and went to meet up with her boss at the networking party.
No one else was in costume. And my mom…was dressed as Gene Simmons. From Kiss. Full face makeup, a wig, an inflatable guitar. The place they were at had a bunch of Halloween decorations up, but no costumes. Except for my mom, Gene Simmons.
Naw, her career was fine. She just didn’t network much at that one event because when they offered her a name tag, she said something like, “You think I want people to know who I am?”
She was pretty embarrassed initially, but she was laughing about it by the time she got home.
Wednesday Addams had the best take on a costume. Just wear your regular clothes.
Then, if anyone asks, just tell them “I’m a homicidal maniac. We look just like everyone else.”
after a few years (not that i really go to ‘parties’) i just got lazy. i wouldn’t be against it but i wouldn’t spend too much money on something i’d only wear once a year, maybe a nice wig or so but other than that i’d rather just chill with friends. some ppl just don’t care but it makes sense for some ppl around their age range to still be super into dressing up or being ‘meh’ about halloween
As I got older, the less effort went into costumes. The last one I dressed up for, I wore a simple cardboard sign on my chest, labelled: ” I love ceilings” in black marker.
But the pun made me grin! Reminds me of my last “Halloween party” – a pub social with the linguistics department (for context). I dressed in black and made a necklace with a black-and-white recycling sign and the words *angry sleeping* above it…
…to be “colorless green ideas sleep furiously” (something Noam Chomsky wrote to make the point that grammaticality and logic can be separate).
Oddly, it wasn’t the nerdiest costume there! Another person went as a phonology joke that I didn’t understand. It involved some sort of table chart.
I’m finding that as I get older, I’ve gotten very lazy about dressing up for Halloween. If I can come up with something quickly and cheaply I might dress up, otherwise it’s too much hassle and I won’t bother.
There’s layers to this too, though. Not only does Julia Gray dress like Sal, but she also dresses like Joyce, sans vest. Julia Gray is literally Joyce dressed up to look more like Sal, but deep down, if you strip away the shades, the jacket, and the gloves, she does dress pretty much exactly like Joyce.
i feel like maybe other than some tweets, it’s mostly something on tumblr so it wouldn’t be too common unless you were using tumblr as your main ‘social media’
So did I, and while I eventually got the gist, Know Your Meme‘s initial definition of “used similarly to terms such as Glup Shitto and Scrimblo Bimblo” was…less than informative. [smiling sweatdrop emoji]
is this a setup for a payoff down the line? because this gets no response out of me, which is really really rare for one of these strips. no emotions evoked, it just feels tacked on. If it doesn’t pay off down the line, I’m going to be surprised at the writing actually disappointing me in this comic for once.
I mean, disappointing me in a “this is not the standard I am accustomed to” way, not in the “my favorite character of three different comics has died and this universe lacks means to resurrect him” way.
seems joyce is just making the rounds for everyone that she’s invited/sarah allows to be at any of their parties, i don’t remember if sal mentioned in particular about if she had a good or bad halloween but i assume we’ll see another strip with her next or changing to another pair or joyce talking to someone else
This got me in a different way, I’m left wondering why Sal, who is coolness embodied, cannot allow herself to be anything to anybody, must divest herself of anything and everything that people might even think of her? Even people who, in the scheme of things, matter so little. That’s a valid fight, but one that seems so big, too big. It could deplete one’s energy, to what end?
“like me” other than them owning the same pair of shoes, it just looks like sal’s wearing a shirt and pants/jeans/the pretty ‘standard’/basic default outfit one would draw on a chara
Of course Joyce isn’t consciously aware that she’s entirely writing an idealized wish fulfillment self insert, so why would she be aware she’s basing her character’s look entirely on her cool friend. It’ll be so awkward when she consumes her like, third piece of writing ever and figures out what she’s doing.
If Jennifer were eavesdropping on this conversation, she might say “Oh, you deny wanting to borrow a sweatervest, in the same way you deny being Amazi-girl!”
These two should make out. They’re both single at this point and there’s gonna be a party. Nobody would blink, it’s just something that happens at parties.
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“ah ain’t gonna stealies yer Original tha Character Copyrite YOUUUUU”
Oh noes. Sonic fans….
Is that… is that a Joyce sonic?
Did Joyce just make leather jackets uncool? We;;, they had a good run.
Leather Jackets are one of those things that has contextual coolness. If you’re cool, the jacket’s cool. If you ain’t cool, then the jacket ain’t either.
Sometimes jackets are magical, is the thing.
I like Sir Terry Pratchett’s take on this.
An acolyte of the Monks of Cool is taken by a senior monk for his final test. He is brought to a cave containing every conceivable item of apparel, and asked “Which outfit is the coolest”.
The correct answer: “Whichever one I put on.”
Which just proves I’m less cool than that monk, as I was considering outfits.
I once went on a multi-year quest to find an affordable (read: dirt cheap, like a couple bucks) secondhand black leather trench coat (like Scully wears on the X-files!). Had to be secondhand, so I wouldn’t feel bad about wearing the leather, as I was vegan at the time.
After about six years of searching to no avail, across two continents (I wasn’t traveling just to look for the jacket — just looking AS I was traveling), I finally gave up. The moment I gave up and resigned myself to never getting my secondhand black leather trench coats, a friend pulled up with a pickup truck full of black leather jackets. She said, “I just found all these leather jackets in the trash out behind the thrift shop. Anyone want one?”
For the rest of that year, I wore two black leather trench coats at the same time, everywhere I went.
…Not saying any of this made any particular sense! Just that sometimes you have to give up attachment to “coolness” for the “coolness” to find you by itself.
Just as Sal is doing, shedding the mystique of her “cool kid costume”.
…I wonder whether her taking the gloves off and answering the ensuing questions has anything to do with the events that broke Amber and Walky up.
Black leather jackets are the uniform of men over 55. That’s how we recognize each other.
Making a leather jacket requires murdering and flaying another living creature. In that sense, leather jackets were always simultaneously and paradoxically both uncool and extremely badass.
I only make my leather gear out of cows that were assholes.
(Not cow assholes; those get made into hot dogs.)
trivia!
in french, “cow hide” (peau de vache) is an insult for a vicious, spiteful person who abuses their authority and gets off on being a heartless bully.
typically used to complain about one’s boss.
[Nathan Explosion] Brutal.
A cool leather jacket isn’t doing its job, jackets keep you warm!
Good ones also keep asphalt from abrading your epidermis in a motorcycle accident. All the gear, every ride! Nobody wants to be a meat crayon!
“Meat crayon” is maybe the most vivid and scary description for getting motorbiked to hell and back.
I heard “road lipstick” and it was just as nightmarish, also convinced me to avoid convertibles.
Motorbiking to Hell and back sounds badass.
Just remember ATGATT.
Is that a DNA sequence? 🔬 🧬 😃
All
The
Gear,
All
The
Time
It bugs me so much when I see people on motorcycles without helmets, or in flip-flops or something. Just no!
even the gloves. sal character development summarized in three panels
especially the gloves
Good catch. You have a sharp eye.
Sal’s character arc speedrun any%
She’s dressed as the girl with the spider tattoo. That’s Sal’s OC for the girl with dragon tattoo movie.
Man, I’m so used to the post-timeskip designs that between Sal’s hair and Joyce’s lack of glasses it almost feels like we’re back in the Walkyverse.
Well Long Tall Sally
She’s built for speed, she got
Everything that Uncle John need, oh baby
Yeah baby, woo baby
Havin’ me some fun tonight, yeah
I literally just had a Predator marathon this weekend and that song has been stuck firmly in my head.
Joyce-
Why are you shoeless?
…because Rapunzel was shoeless in Tangled?
I don’t know. Why are you looking at her feet? 😐
Actually between Carla’s roller skating and not knowing what’s on the floor of a highly trafficked common area it takes a bit of guts to commit to bare feet. I’d at least be wearing socks at all times if I didn’t have shoes. Who knows what the f you’re stepping in.
Sierra is the bravest soul.
She is the Chosen One
Sierra also has the bravest soles.
I bet the ground isn’t as disgusting as common touch surfaces like doorknobs and shopping cart handles.
BrOkEn GlAsS and dOg PoOp aren’t the ever-present hazards everyone seems to think they are. Just… pay attention and walk around?
We’ve seen Walky walking through the floors munching chips. If stray food and crumbs is the least you have to worry about, you would still risk stepping in something sticky. Speaking of sticky, Mary once sprayed glue on the floor. Also girls walk right from the dorms to the showers and vice-versa so damp floors are also highly likely. Now is when I note we’ve never seen a janitor on this floor ever nor mention of any regular cleaning service.
That’s still more “ick factor” than actually dangerous.
Yeah, but that’s a bit like claiming that toilets don’t exist in Star Trek – just because something quintessentially mundane and uninteresting is never depicted in a given fiction doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or never happens.
Unless the school is horrifically underfunded, it is likely someone vacuums the common areas weekly. The way in which Sierra displays true courage with her bare feet is she is willing to enter the dorm rooms of her neighbors. Most of them are freshmen, and it is common (though not universal) for college kids in their first year to respond to the sudden lack of parental supervision by becoming utter slobs. I knew people in college who literally did not vacuum their dorm room floor a single time all year.
YEAH idk, maybe watch where the heck you’re walking if you don’t want random glass to jab your foot? Like, pay the barest amount of attention while traveling? So that maybe you don’t wind up getting literally injured?
other than being in the showers, i don’t think there was an issue about the rooms/hallways for her to not put on shoes or sal’s room was close enough to walk to without needing to put on shoes/socks
I seem to recall they’re next door to each other?
Sal and Joyce share a half-bath. She’s coming in the hall door though, so probably still coming back from Dorothy’s – which I believe is canonically 30 steps away.
It’s a dorm hallway, every thing is close. Except for the mysterious rooms at the far end of the hall, which take advantage of forced perception tricks to be farther away.
I’m really enjoying these strip with Joyce being happy, its nice and long may it continue
I used to be a lot more into dressing up than I am now, but I’m still in the “gotta do something for Halloween” camp.
My mom…has some stories about her own Halloween dressing up experiences, from which she has only sort of learned.
Well you can’t end the story like that
Okay. So, my mom is a lawyer. She’s a pretty fun person, though, not all serious like some lawyer stereotypes. And she loves Halloween.
One year, she got invited to some lawyer networking party, and it was on October 30th. The invitation described it as Halloween-themed and said something like “Costumes welcome/encouraged/whatever.” My mom had decided on her costume for that year and already had everything for it, so she got ready in it that day and went to meet up with her boss at the networking party.
No one else was in costume. And my mom…was dressed as Gene Simmons. From Kiss. Full face makeup, a wig, an inflatable guitar. The place they were at had a bunch of Halloween decorations up, but no costumes. Except for my mom, Gene Simmons.
Wow. Just. Wow. She must have felt really hung out to dry there, huh? 😕
Ok, Serzly, yur Mom is rocking it. Long may she reign.
Your mom sounds cool, hope it didn’t affect her career
Naw, her career was fine. She just didn’t network much at that one event because when they offered her a name tag, she said something like, “You think I want people to know who I am?”
She was pretty embarrassed initially, but she was laughing about it by the time she got home.
Best way to handle it
so… most lawyers are in fact all boring and serious like the lawyer stereotype?
According to my mom, yes.
I’m curious, how much you take her word for it?
About the stereotype, I mean?
According to Rachel Bloom, too
tell us a story!
I mostly just wear my not-very-accurate replica Tom Baker scarf and call it a day.
Wednesday Addams had the best take on a costume. Just wear your regular clothes.
Then, if anyone asks, just tell them “I’m a homicidal maniac. We look just like everyone else.”
I know it’s a Thing, but I’m suddenly really hating how blue everything is. And it’s gonna be like this the whole storyline!
Da ba dee da ba di
Julia is Sal confirmed. Joyce had no choice but to stan.
Or is it that Julia is Joyce as Sal because she stanned so hard?
I’ve decided this means Joyce subconsciously ships Sal/Dorothy.
She’s subconsciously envious of the already existing triad and this her first tentative step to creating one of her own.
I hate when people act too cool to dress up in a costume
Same, but I also recognize that some people just aren’t into it and it doesn’t have anything to do with looking down on people for dressing up.
after a few years (not that i really go to ‘parties’) i just got lazy. i wouldn’t be against it but i wouldn’t spend too much money on something i’d only wear once a year, maybe a nice wig or so but other than that i’d rather just chill with friends. some ppl just don’t care but it makes sense for some ppl around their age range to still be super into dressing up or being ‘meh’ about halloween
As I got older, the less effort went into costumes. The last one I dressed up for, I wore a simple cardboard sign on my chest, labelled: ” I love ceilings” in black marker.
That is correct, I went as a ceiling fan.
But the pun made me grin! Reminds me of my last “Halloween party” – a pub social with the linguistics department (for context). I dressed in black and made a necklace with a black-and-white recycling sign and the words *angry sleeping* above it…
…to be “colorless green ideas sleep furiously” (something Noam Chomsky wrote to make the point that grammaticality and logic can be separate).
Oddly, it wasn’t the nerdiest costume there! Another person went as a phonology joke that I didn’t understand. It involved some sort of table chart.
I’m finding that as I get older, I’ve gotten very lazy about dressing up for Halloween. If I can come up with something quickly and cheaply I might dress up, otherwise it’s too much hassle and I won’t bother.
What about acting too cool as a cover for being too self-conscious, does that count?
How about too self-conscious to even fake being cool about it?
That’s getting dangerously close to “not going to the party at all” territory.
[I’m in this photo and I don’t like it dot png]
Why am I not surprised that Joyce’s OC dresses like the coolest girl she knows? XD I love her and Sal’s friendship.
There’s layers to this too, though. Not only does Julia Gray dress like Sal, but she also dresses like Joyce, sans vest. Julia Gray is literally Joyce dressed up to look more like Sal, but deep down, if you strip away the shades, the jacket, and the gloves, she does dress pretty much exactly like Joyce.
I hadn’t made the connection, but it seems….pretty obvious when pointed out! It’s adorable.
Sal’s not your blorbo, Joyce.
I had to look that up. 🙁
I’ve never been “with it”, but I still manage to be less and less so as I get older.
i feel like maybe other than some tweets, it’s mostly something on tumblr so it wouldn’t be too common unless you were using tumblr as your main ‘social media’
So did I, and while I eventually got the gist, Know Your Meme‘s initial definition of “used similarly to terms such as Glup Shitto and Scrimblo Bimblo” was…less than informative. [smiling sweatdrop emoji]
is this a setup for a payoff down the line? because this gets no response out of me, which is really really rare for one of these strips. no emotions evoked, it just feels tacked on. If it doesn’t pay off down the line, I’m going to be surprised at the writing actually disappointing me in this comic for once.
I mean, disappointing me in a “this is not the standard I am accustomed to” way, not in the “my favorite character of three different comics has died and this universe lacks means to resurrect him” way.
Sal is saying, “I refuse to be the thing you want me to be, the image you project on me, the person I am not.”
seems joyce is just making the rounds for everyone that she’s invited/sarah allows to be at any of their parties, i don’t remember if sal mentioned in particular about if she had a good or bad halloween but i assume we’ll see another strip with her next or changing to another pair or joyce talking to someone else
This got me in a different way, I’m left wondering why Sal, who is coolness embodied, cannot allow herself to be anything to anybody, must divest herself of anything and everything that people might even think of her? Even people who, in the scheme of things, matter so little. That’s a valid fight, but one that seems so big, too big. It could deplete one’s energy, to what end?
Sal taking off both of her gloves gets nothing out of you??
Now that Sal’s has removed her right glove, note how Willis includes the scar on the back of her hand.
I mean, it’s just a punchline strip. Jokes don’t always land for everyone, no need to make a big deal out of it
*is reading a week at a time, so looks ahead to the next strip* Oh no – the real payoff for this strip is tomorrow!
Only 50 more days of Halloween. Oh noes.
Then it’s only about 61 days until it’s actually Halloween.
“like me” other than them owning the same pair of shoes, it just looks like sal’s wearing a shirt and pants/jeans/the pretty ‘standard’/basic default outfit one would draw on a chara
Doesn’t Chara wear a green and yellow sweater?
They usually have a locket and knife, too, if you really want to sell it.
Who’s Chara?
The main character of Undertale.
Until proven otherwise, I’m assuming that Chara is Mike’s dead girlfriend that he’s using to mess with Charon.
The smart money is on Chara secretly being Charon’s mom.
True that! This is my new headcannon.
they were making an undertale joke, i was saying chara as short for character lol
Ah. Thanks for explaining!
Most people wear a shirt and pants.
“Who else but Shirtpants?”
O-oh C
can you b
Captain Julia for me?
If you can, and you do,
I can be your friend, too.
©️ Francis Scott Key
Sal can’t win
Careful there, your subconscious might be showing?
The day I saw Sal’s leather jacket being donned by her is the day I saw her downfall in coolness.
Of course Joyce isn’t consciously aware that she’s entirely writing an idealized wish fulfillment self insert, so why would she be aware she’s basing her character’s look entirely on her cool friend. It’ll be so awkward when she consumes her like, third piece of writing ever and figures out what she’s doing.
Sal “…why do you have an ‘oh see’ that is me ?”
Totally agree Llysfaen Sal.
Sal is Welsh?
That doesn’t make sense, Irvine Welsh published Trainspotting in the 90’s
I don’t know what that is.
That’s a pun
Sorry, Sal. You can’t actually look not sexy.
If Jennifer were eavesdropping on this conversation, she might say “Oh, you deny wanting to borrow a sweatervest, in the same way you deny being Amazi-girl!”
These two should make out. They’re both single at this point and there’s gonna be a party. Nobody would blink, it’s just something that happens at parties.
More people in general should make out, tbh.
Joyce should play mass effect
More people in general should play Mass Effect, tbh.
Ah ain’t really a dressin’up kinda gal
Yeah, of course you’re not.
She never would, but damn it would be awesome if she showed up to the party like that. Just mess with everyone’s minds.
It’s either that or go as Amazi-Girl and completely break Jennifer.