*More like dozens willing to watch someone else punch Sal, but none with the guts to try. “Let’s you and him fight” is the unacknowledged true mantra of these and most other mobs. See the speech Mark Twain put in Col. Sherburn’s mouth in “Huckleberry Finn” for, as always, the best example.
“What do we want?”
“NOW!”
“When do we want it?”
“RACE CONDITIONS!”
(If you think this is about skin color, you’re not a computer scientist. Probably one in 20 people will actually get it, but I’ll hit Post Comment anyway.)
The problem is that too many people in this crowd will have neo-con-current-events attitudes. They probably assume that anyone with deadlocks is engaged in illegal operations, especially wearing those threads. They’re unfortunately too variably synchronized in their global world view.
…. this would be in the same way that the Conquistadors “civilized” the Aztecs, but compressed down into about 20 minutes, and probably without the rampant pandemic?
1) “Gentlemen” is a specific subset of people. It refers to a certain amount of apparent refinement, often the result of noble blood (or rather the training that goes with it). Striving for a gender-neutral version is like saying “fire fighter”, “police officer” or “mail carrier”, and you wouldn’t just call those “people”, would you?
2) “People” most emphatically does not equal “humans”. Humans are a type of people (so far, the only legally recognized such type, and it seems they will remain as such for the foreseeable future), but being human is not a prerequisite of being a person. Elves, orcs and dwarves may be fictional, but everyone still calls them “people”. Humanity is not a prerequisite for personhood.
Of course, you can’t forget about the Amazi-Scrapbook! It’s right next to the Amazi-Shark spray, it has pictures of all the villains she’s thwarted with a heart on every picture
“Amazi-Girl calling Dick Tracy! Come in Tracy!”
“Tracy here, Amazi-Girl! Report your progress!”
“Case is proceeding on schedule! Anticipate completing punch list!”
“Good work, Amazi-Girl!”
This has been a test of the emergency flashback system. Had this been a real flashback, the characters would have tilted their heads to the left like JD when he’s daydreaming.
You read the mouse-over text? This is a modern inscenation with multiple parallel timelines and cliff hangers. The next timeline/cliffhanger will feature Monkey Master almost toppling over the edge because a spider has weaved a web on Dorothy’s cupboard fixed to him and a number of insects are getting caught, symbolizing Monkey Master’s awful powers.
Amazi-Girl delaying the fight to handle other stuff: a classic move out of DBZ when Goku fought the Ginyu Force! Or possibly Zapp Brannigan’s Big Book of War! ^_^
My favorite ever example of that was from a Flash comic in the 90s where he and Pied Piper almost fight, and a boy from the crowd cheers them on.
Young Boy: This is gonna be neat!
Flash: Neat?
Pied Piper: Neat?!
Boy: Sure. You guys are gonna fight now, right? On account of you really like each other, but a supervillain made you misunderstand so now you gotta fight. So you’re gonna fight for about an hour, then realize that you’ve got a common enemy and be life-long friends. Pretty neat!
Flash: …Boy, do I feel predictable.
Piper: Let’s cut to the part where we team up, okay?
There’s another one during the DC One Million crossover, where Future-Batman appears and randomly attacks Nightwing because he thinks that’s the proper etiquette.
Who was elected by a majority of conservative voters.
Ever since Ronald Regan’s “”southern strategy””, racism has been especially strongly correlated with the Republican Party. There is a reason why Trump appeals to the current Republican base. Trying to No True Scotsman your way out of associating with him is also a big part of how things got so bad in the first place, so instead of squinting at people for making “”generalizations”” about conservatives, maybe consider a long hard look at the state of the GOP.
Um, no. A majority of Republican primary voters actually voted against Trump. But, because their votes were split among several candidates, Trump won with a plurality. As for the state of the GOP, that state is “toast”. Between stupid tactics and failure to live up to any consistent principles, Rep leadership has thoroughly alienated much of their base. Whether Trump wins or loses, the party is in for some major changes, assuming it doesn’t collapse altogether. Lucky for me, I’m not a Republican, so I can watch the train wreck with a certain equanimity.
Uh, a majority of Republican voters voted against *EVERYONE* in their primaries. When you have 5 real candidates, that is exactly what happens. Not only did trump have a plurality, Trump and Cruz (Who is just as evil, just in service to a different variety of evil) easily pulled a majority. They’re what Conservative means in the USA.
Li is basically correct. This sort of ZOMG NOT ME from conservatives is how the situation deteriorated. Conservatives chose to embrace racism and then not quietly downplay it. They leaned into that shit. They have gleefully embraced nostalgia for an era that never happened. And then, SHOCKINGLY, they embraced an actual, factual, fascist. WHAT A SURPRISE.
Also, as someone who would be better described as Green Party in a world where we didn’t have the two-party system we do right now, I think the slight of hand between “conservative” and “Republican” is… well.
I want to believe the crowd isn’t quite racist enough to initiate violence against Sal if AG won’t, but the shit they’re shouting in panel 2 is considerably more aggressive than before, so I’m not bursting with confidence.
I imagine a few of them might be violent enough (whether they’re individually racist or not… it’s a mob fervor thing at this point) to try to restrain Sal so she doesn’t “try to escape”, and maybe to hold her in place while AG hits her. If Sal fights back, the rest of the crowd could join in to perform some flavor of “citizen’s arrest” or whatever on the “violent thug”.
… if there IS going to be a gun making an appearance (and not in the hands or holster of a cop), it will be at this point.
Yeah, in a riled-up crowd like this, there’s a couple threshholds that need to be broken to get to full out violence. Like how it takes slightly more energy to heat something above the melting point than it does to get there.
Since the crowd’s interest is divided between Amazi-Girl fans wanting to see her beat someone up, racists wanting to see Sal get beat up, and racist Amazi-Girl fans wanting to see her beat up Sal specifically, it’s really hard to say what will happen if a punch gets thrown by either of them.
If they start fighting, the crowd winning the fight might actually go worse for Sal than losing it. The crowd will almost certainly attack her then, unless a LOT more security shows up. Even if she takes a dive or just gives herself up, they might try to get a few shots in themselves.
Probably the best thing to do at this point is for security (by which I mean Marcie) to escort Sal outside, away from the mob.
Sal will grumble, since she’s fed up with Amazi-Girl. The crowd will grumble since they’ll be cheated of the beat down, but they’re less likely to start anything if security’s taking the thug away.
More likely, Sal goes after AG and gets involved in whatever hijinks ensue.
Don’t know about “more likely”. Marcie by now is pretty pissed at Sal, and Amazigirl putting Sal on hold may be just what it takes for Marcie to cancel the fight.
The whole thing feels on a knife edge with everyone just waiting for the first punch. Once it becomes obvious that AG isn’t going to throw it and she’s going after some white guy instead, both of them will be under attack, but won’t suffer physical damage until one of the crowd decides to be “brave” and “show one of them” themselves.
Which, ironically enough, is a good thing, because it means AG is backing off her paranoid Sal represents the ultimate evil belief structure and is no longer escalating the crowd against Sal. It doesn’t erase what she did, but it’s the first positive step she’s done in a while and a sign that AG is starting to sort out her shit now with the shock of the crowd’s approval and the larger threat of Ryan.
I thought it was her phone. She had the presence of mind to get a picture first. So even if Ryan gets away this time too, at least she has a picture of him. The strip today is deeply satisfying.
It made the phones too thick. As shown by the popularity of the iPhone 6 and 6+ series and Samsung’s Galaxy and Galaxy Note phones, people want devices with really big screens and fantastic battery life but expect the phone makers to keep building them them thinner and thinner. All of the current ‘flagship’ phones (iPhone 6S and 6S+, Galaxy S7, or the Galaxy Note 7 — the one with the pocket-warmer app) are less than 1/3-inch thick.
Do they really want thinner phones, though, or is it that all the big name makers have decided thinner is better? I’ve never heard anyone say they wanted a thin phone and heard more than a few people lamenting the loss of the slide out keyboard (but then, my sample size is relatively small).
You’re not alone, the only person I know obsessed with thinness is my brother v- the kind of guy who would stand out at a midnight release for a phone (not an iphone though. Cause he has ‘ principles’)
I would jump the hell on a smartphone with a physical keyboard that didn’t have a geriatric OS.
droid 4 is long in tooth but will suppost latest os if running CM, which is what im typing on now. i will take a real keyboard over responsiveness any day. i upgraded to this from a D3 last year when mine finally died after 3 years of love. miss the extended battery i put in it, making it walkytalky thick, but it lasted days and i carry a man purse neways.
But then how do you punch the moral monster who made the moral calculus ap that’s weighted to make his many moral monstrosities marked more moral and so manipulate mores?
I think the crowd might be scaring her out of it. The things the mob are saying are probably thoughts she’s had about Sal that now sound really messed up.
Hearing your thoughts out loud is usually a pretty effective way of finding out you’re being a dick.
Well, I didn’t see this coming. It looks like Amber’s getting confirmation that this is indeed Ryan, instead of jumping immediately to the violence.
Maybe there’s hope for her yet.
…of course, on the downside, the only people she could get confirmation from have all gone to bed. I doubt Joyce is going to be happy to be woken up by the sight of Scarface on her phone.
Why not text the photo with a text that says, the attempted rapist we reported a month or so ago has shown up. Here’s a photo, please come quickly. The file should have a matching description.
Except being pulled down by her cape by her “archenemy” she was stalking. And a racist crowd egging her on.
…And her boyfriend wanting her to lay low for a while. And her dad coming back. And taking on Sal the first time. And what she’d do after she stopped ToeDad’s car.
It’s almost certainly Dorothy. She’s the only person who both knows what Ryan looks like, and knows AG’s secret identity (and therefore can’t learn it by noticing she and Amber have the same phone number)
Did she? No. Of course not. AG was there, so Amber couldn’t have been. But how hard would it be to sell “I heard through the rumor mill yada yada yada is this the guy?”
She’d also potentially have to explain what she’s doing at a DeSanto rally. Not to mention the potential complications if it hits the newspaper that Amazi-Girl was at said rally, snapped a picture of some guy, and then went and beat up Ryan (considering she’s standing in a crowd of people that happens to include http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/daisy/).
It is worth nothing that we did NOT see Dorothy in the gone-to-bed page ending the previous chapter. The last we saw Dorothy, she was saying she’s going to study for a bit before bed.
When you’re as heavy of a sleeper as I am, it doesn’t matter how close your phone is. My phone alarm never wakes me up, even when I sleep with it on my pillow.
Hopefully getting snapped out of her fixation on Sal will end up having a lasting effect, and she doesn’t jump right back into it after Ryan’s no longer a distraction from it.
I… don’t think Sal is a passing obsession for her. She might get distracted for the rest of the night, though. Maybe long enough for Marcie to get her out of there.
I know that, but being yanked out of something like that (which she couldn’t do on her own) has the potential to cause or at least allow her to reevaluate what the hell she’s doing.
Kinda like how getting woken up from a dream lets you remember more of it than if you just woke up naturally after it finished. The jarring shift makes the preceding irrationality easier to notice.
I feel that if Amber had all his happen, for her to start crying at the prospect of fighting Sal, try to deescalate the crowd and then give up on fighting Sal so she can pursue Ryan, then we have to have some advancement in the Sal/Amber plotline. I don’t think it’s just being put on hold for a bit so Ryan can be punched in the face. Stuff will go down.
Personal revenge? The score is already severely tilted. Amber put a knife through Sal’s hand, and Sal saved her life. All Sal is doing to Amber is holding a mirror to her. And Amber does not like what she sees.
Sal was indirectly a cause for a whole lot of negative things in Amber’s life or more accurately perhaps, Sal happened to be present at a significant tipping point. Blaine is the real cause and as far as I know the only real cause.
I am so happy Amber? (Amazi-girl according to the tags?) decided to go after the rapist than her own personal vendetta, this is a good sign of a shift in her priorities methinks
Sal is not being the most rational here goading Amazi-girl to punch her, but honestly she has reason to be riled up, having a crowd all but baying for her blood and calling her a thug
Marcie seems to be observing for now but I wish she’d drag Sal away in earnest
Well, Sal was fairly compliant. Though it looks like her history with are new favorite dickchessed asshole is FAR more extensive than I expected. Those last few flashback panels…eeYIKES! This is why I could never be a parent: I’d have gotten my kid expelled and I’d have been arrested for defending her and her friend tooth and nail against that bigoted administrator. Just cause a kid’s “good” doesn’t mean they can’t ever do wrong. That just…URGH! Really gets under my skin >~.</
Well, Sal was fairly compliant. Though it looks like her history with our new favorite dickchessed asshole is FAR more extensive than I expected. Those last few flashback panels…eeYIKES! This is why I could never be a parent: I’d have gotten my kid expelled and I’d have been arrested for defending her and her friend tooth and nail against that bigoted administrator. Just cause a kid’s “good” doesn’t mean they can’t ever do wrong. That just…URGH! Really gets under my skin. FUCK HIS SHIT UP AMAZIGIRL! >.</
(sorry for double posting, last one was missing that last line XD )
Despite much speculation in the comments during the flashback, Ryan (also known as Gashface) isn’t Leland. Elementary school bully isn’t our attempted rapist.
I don’t think ‘Ryan’ ever actually mentioned his name to Joyce. Willis has simply tagged him ‘Ryan’ – that’s how WE know his name. For all we know, it’s an alias.
I’ll accept your apology. You did nothing wrong, aside from not fully reading the comments from the past few days, like that’s a crime or something. It’s also 1,000+ comments, so who’s got time for that?
Amazing to me how many people have brought up this possibilty. Like there couldn’t possibly two white brunettish/blonde? assholes in all of Indiana. Leland must have gotten plastic surgery on that upturned nose to rape under a pseudonym
Nothing except for expanding on the characterization of one of the confrontations protagonists. I imagine similar memories go through Sal’s mind everytime she has to stand up for herself or her friends when it seems no one else will.
AG has been stalking Sal for days, if not weeks, openly antagonizes her and does little to contradict Sal’s assumption that the harrassment is racially motivated (the conversation in the parking lot where AG claimmed she used laws as an excuse to harrass Sal). Now they finally have the confrontation in front of a crowd of people literally cheering AG on. Why wouldn’t she remember yet another injustice where no one was actually on her side and she had to take matters into her own hands, damn the consequence, to get any sembalance of satisfation/justice.
Sorry if it sounds unduly confrontational. I iust really enjoy Willis’s characterization techniques and plotting choices. He knows what he’s doing.
I think it served to give us a much greater understanding of Sal’s position and thoughts in this specific situation, as well as both with the amazi-girl confrontations and in general.
I think it’s quite easy. If I wasn’t specifically looking for them, I wouldn’t notice their noses at all. They do have the same basic hairstyle, and that hairstyle has always meant Ryan before now. And hairstyle has always been distinctive until now. It’s part of their silhouette, which is how we instinctively recognize cartoon characters.
As for the connection, I thought it was that Sal saw Ryan, and he looks enough like Leland that it reminded her of him. That’s why she got this specific flashback.
It definitely looked like they both saw Ryan, not just AG. And nothing else seems the same about these two situations, other than them both being bigotry-related. Something had to trigger the flashback.
I don’t agree that “no one is on her side” is similar enough. Surely she’s had that be the case many times in her life–unfortunately.
Ryan’s hair is exactly SP!Ethan’s or Leslie’s. It’s the same perfectly round shape with the bangs I give nearly everyone. Leland’s haircut is NOT perfectly round. There are bumps all over it, and it hangs heavily in the back in pointy tufts.
By tomorrow there will be a Wikipedia page devoted to DoA hairstyles, plus a separate wiki and elsewhere 300 images of Rule 34 artwork of just DoA hair doing unspeakable things! 🙂
And don’t forget the black bangs!
That’s how I’ve always noticed Ryan.
Well, and the massive, hideous scar. But that’s besides the point.
…and the nose. But I guess I can’t blame people for not noticing that Leland has an obnoxiously oval nose and Ryan doesn’t.
Seriously people, that freakin’ nose!
Every character should have a hairstyle such that they can be recognized even in silhouette. Like the Futurama folks.
Of course, by now most will need their initials in their silhouette, but hey….
I’ve been wanting SOME sort of self-reference to joke about for weeks now, but all the inside jokes I’ve had with my friends tended towards being something THEY did…
Ten points to those who get it!
This isn’t a superhero movie where all evil has to be condensed into one character that is overcome at the end, making the world good again.
David Willis’ potential for coming up with hateable characters is only limited by the amount of evil cackling Maggy is willing to tolerate emanating from his drawing cave.
makes sense. AG’s been following her, Sal’s prepped for a fight, crowd cheering on the fight, Sal’s angry, and AG seems angry, and then…AG’s walking away and taking a picture with her phone saying basically “later, something came up.”
Ummmm…ok? It’d throw me if I were in Sal’s place. (as a reader I know what’s up, Sal lacks that context.)
Well, they’re siblings. They grew up together. That they should have similar mannerisms and vocabulary is not surprising. Sal’s had a thin veneer of Tennessee mannerisms laid over her base Indiana upbringing, but it’s all in there.
Funny how Amber gets to just walk away after getting this crowd riled up calling for Sal’s death, but Sal’s the unreasonable one for being peeved about it.
Go fuck your fair. Amber had been stalking Sal all fucking day. She doesn’t just get to wash her hands of it when inevitably this turns into a violent confrontation.
Amber didn’t (intentionally) rile up the crowd, but if they do start escalate further, it is absolutely on her to try to calm them down or distract them.
Thankfully, it seems possible the racists in the crowd are too cowardly to actually initiate violence on their own, and might just grumble in disappointment.
I’d feel better about that possibility if the other security guard were standing between Sal and AG rather than of to the side behind Marcie, but he’s still in a position where its possible he was ready to try and break them up if they did start fighting.
No, you’re right. That wasn’t her intent. She only intended to wait until she caught Sal jaywalking at three in the morning so she could use that as an excuse to attack Sal for talking to her boyfriend. With intentions as benign as those it’s puzzling how the situation turned so sour so quickly.
I completely agree that stalking Sal was awful and Amazi-Girl was just waiting for an excuse to beat her up.
I’m just a little confused because while Amazi-Girl showing up is obviously what set the crowd off, it sounded like you were blaming her for the fact that racist assholes in the crowd saw her and a black girl scowling at each other and started calling for violence.
She definitely bears at least SOME responsibility there, even if she didn’t intend for the crowd to react this way to seeing her confront Sal, she has at least some power to deescalate the situation, and therefor the responsibility to do so.
But that last bit is not so incredibly clear-cut and obvious to warrant how you’re snapping at people.
Amber bears full responsibility for her own actions and how they created this situation.
It’s not like “Oh, I was just on my way to visit from friends. Slipped on a banana peel and whoops, now there’s an angry mob surrounding surrounding a passing acquaintance. The acquaintance is quite upset with me now, which strikes me as unreasonable, since this is an understandable accident that could happen to anybody.”
It is incredibly convenient for Amber that she now gets to casually walk away from this scene, where if Sal leaves she’ll be escorted by security. Yet Amber is acting as if Sal’s indignation is ridiculous.
I’m pretty sure the absurdity of Amber’s reaction in the last panel is the joke.
Not getting escorted by security away from the racist crowd really doesn’t sound like a dire consequence. It’s not like they have the authority to do anything more than that, and all that means is Sal has to quit hanging out with Marcie early. Even if the crowd calms the fuck down and security lets her stay, I can’t imagine she’d be inclined to do so after this.
I am just trying to understand what you’re getting at. Until now, you were too busy snarking at people to elaborate on.
And yeah, I agree. Even if security keeps Sal safe, and even if Amber is going after an attempted rapist right now, just up and leaving Sal in this situation is a shitty thing to do.
She’s not actually gone yet, though. I’m hopeful she’ll at least realize the situation she’s put Sal in, and hopefully figure out a way to both chase after Ryan AND reduce the danger to Sal. But if she can’t do both, Sal is definitely the right choice.
It still seems entirely reasonable to not be so optimistic that Amber will do the right thing there (or as close as can be managed, given the damage already done)
Your description of this comic is completely ridiculous. This is not what’s happening at all.
First off, Amber is not in this comic. Second, Amazi-Girl is not walking away. She’s doing something on her phone, and says she’ll be back with Sal in a minute. Third, while stalking Sal is wrong, that does not make AG remotely responsible for the racist crowd. Fourth, AG is not following Sal for talking to her boyfriend, but due to a traumatic experience in her childhood. Fifth, not a single person has called Sal unreasonable for being peeved.
And, yes, Chris’s comment is reasonable. They are saying that, as far as the crowd knows, Amazi-Girl isn’t the bad guy here. They assumed you were upset at the crowd, since that would at least make sense. Instead, you’re upset at “Amber.”
The way you are attacking people is making it very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt. You are already doing the same patter that we’ve seen against Carla and Becky. You claim stuff that isn’t happening, you disrespect the minority group they are part of (by pretending that Amber and Amazi-Girl are the same), and you lash out at everyone who disagrees with you.
Please stop spoiling for a fight and take a step back.
Right, of course, none of this is Amber. It’s all her alter-ego countess boochie flagrante. How could I neglect to acknowledge that when this is all over, she’s gonna take off her mask and be absolved of all responsibility for any of this, while Sal’s gonna continue going to school with the people in this mob. Clearly that makes everything better.
AG is absolutely responsible for riling the racist crowd, you jackass. She settled in for the fight she wanted from the start in a damn trump rally. She might be ignorant about what her actions would cause, but her actions caused them. To her credit, whether she understands the gravity of the situation or not, she did try and calm them down, and I’m glad for that. But her actions still caused this, both stalking and not fleeing.
And no, Chris is just doing more covering of the crowd. Nobody knows she ‘attacked’ Amazi-girl. They ‘know’ she’s a criminal thug, tho. This is just the damn text.
Ah, and Gangler, Amber does seem to have DID. She is actually, factually not responsible for her actions as AG. That’s how mental illness works. We shouldn’t be angry that she is sick.
I”m pretty sure “I disguise myself and run around committing violent crimes, then take off my disguise and tell people that wasn’t me” isn’t usually how mental illness works. That sounds more like a calculated attempt to evade the law, but maybe someday she’ll get an actual doctor involved and we’ll hear more on that subject.
Yes, conveniently she was Amber when she attacked Blaine in costume, so when Dorothy asked Amazigirl “Did you do that”she was able to blame her other persona, allowing both Amber and Amazigirl to avoid any consequences for that.
If it’s not intentional how she’s doing this it’s a hell of a coincidence.
It’s like it’s a story or something. A fictional enterprise, wherein coincidences actually do happen with an eerie level of frequency.
The one I was thinkign was when Amazi-girl flipped out at Danny over talking to Sal tho. The one where she doesn’t have her mask, and is both tagged Amazi-girl, and outright refuses to behave like Amber.
She’s had some monologues on the differences, too. Like, yes, Amber is ultimately holding up a lot of shitty things, but this is a thing that is real. You can see which alter is in based on the tags. Occasionally it’s both.
Like, none of this changes that what she’s doing is fucked up, or that she needs to stop. But she is actually sick.
A story is a story and a pattern of behavior is still a pattern of behavior.
If the way she structures her so called personalities weren’t calculated and voluntary, then they wouldn’t conspicuously continue to work in her favor at every opportunity.
Considering we have literally seen Amber rapidly and involuntarily switch personas in response to seeing Sal twice now, I think it’s fair to say it’s legit.
Like, if you’re sick of Amber, that’s fair, but acting like her being mentally ill is just a convenient excuse is kinda terrible.
Involuntary nothing. Amber has a huge grudge on Sal, so upon seeing her she just happens to switch to her violent personality, who conveniently has her own costume and can enact her grudge on Sal without anything being tied back to her. A grudge, mind you, that Amazigirl maintains even though if Amazigirl truly is her own person, Sal has never done anything to her except save her life that one time. If Amazigirl truly is a separate and distinct entity, then she should have no beef with Sal, who only ever traumatized Amber.
Maybe if Amber wanted to fuck Sal up but she couldn’t stop herself from switching to Amazigirl who thinks Sal is awesome, we’d have more of a case here, but as is it seems like Amazigirl mostly only exists to further Amber’s goals.
She “happens” to switch personas because seeing Sal causes Amber to experience PTSD over the night of the robbery. It’s happened like four times now. Amber can’t be near her without having panic attacks, and now it’s escalated to the point where she automatically shifts to Amazi-Girl to cope with the stress of Sal’s presence, and the memories she evokes.
Amazi-Girl isn’t a person living in Amber’s head, she’s a dissociative personality brought about by Amber’s coping mechanisms for her past trauma.
Yes, yes, of course she’s a coping strategy and all that. But if you’re going to argue that Amber isn’t responsible for the actions of Amazigirl because they’re not the same people, that implies a bit more than that.
When Amber shifts personas into Amazi-Girl, she ceases to be Amber. She takes on a new set of rules and behaviours that are fitting to the Amazi-Girl alter.
Now whether Amber is responsible for the consequences of her actions as Amazi-Girl, well of course. If she gets arrested for her actions as Amazi-Girl it’s still Amber who gets institutionalized. That’s like saying Billie wasn’t responsible for driving into a tree because she was drunk, but when we see Amber burst into tears for almost swearing at Danny while Amazi-Girl gets in his face and screams at length about he’s a failure of a partner, I think it’s safe to say there’s some level of difference in how both alters approach things.
She’s talked for example about how she decided to create Amazigirl as a productive outlet for her aggression, in hopes that this would help her avoid becoming like her father.
It’s not like Amazigirl just sprouted into existence fully formed and started demanding they go beat people up periodically against Amber’s wishes.
I’d actually argue that Amber isn’t responsible for the actions of Amazi-girl. Billie voluntarily got drunk. Amber did not choose to have DID
Like yeah, Amber’s the one who gets institutionalized (HAHAHAHAHAHA that’s funny pretending we do that. She’d be in prison if the police did anything), but not actually being in a proper state of mind does tend to limit responsibility. At least, in some personal sense.
And hon, I don’t know what to tell you. You wanted proof of it happening when it wasn’t convenient. I just told you: Amazi-girl dismantled her relationship. Amber did not actually want that. She cares for Danny. Willis seems to be strongly implying this is the case. What do you want, besides the implicit blessing of the narrative. 5 doctors? Like, “oh, what a coincidence” no shit. It’s a story. Danny and Amber having the same compsci course is also a coincidence.
Oh yeah, and as far as inconveniences: the relationship being WITH AMAZI-GIRL. That was kinda super inconvenient.
Again, Amazigirl didn’t ruin her relationship with Danny. They’re the same people, acting on the same trauma. It’s not like Amber was totally cool with Danny hanging out with Sal and Amazigirl forced the issue there.
Metatext aside, it is exactly like that. It never came up before that moment.
Metatext included, most of the time (Nearly all of it) when Amber’s tagged with Sal, she flees, rather than getting aggressive. She’s scared. Amazi-girl isn’t.
Because she has to. Because she’s freaking out and can’t be Amber because Amber is weak and terrified and stabs people in the hand. She has to let Amazi-Girl take the reins because Amazi-Girl is strong and confident and is everything Amber can never be.
She doesn’t have to do shit. It’s just how she chooses to cope with the situation. She has an obligation to figure out a better way to do this. One that doesn’t entail terrorizing people who frankly have their own shit to deal with. Not like she’s the only traumatized person on campus.
Yes, she does have to shift personas. That’s how that shit works, dude. She has panic attacks and has to stop being Amber until she sorts it out.
The punching? No, she has to cut that shit out. It’s not the fun superhero thing it was for the first few years of the comic anymore, but acting like Amber can just decide to not respond to trauma in her set coping mechanism is goshdarned sillybuns.
I genuinely have no idea what you’re trying to do anymore.
Amber is suffering from some major dissociative tendencies. Also her vigilante actions are wrong and she needs to stop, or be stopped. Saying “Amber has DID and does things for X reason” doesn’t mean I’m trying to give her a by on stalking Sal.
Gangler: At this point, no one is saying Amber/Amazi-Girl’s behavior isn’t horrible or that she should not be held responsible for her actions as either identity.
But this is not something she is faking. This is not a calculated act to escape consequences (though obviously the mask is). This is not something she has control of. Not anymore. She is not well. PTSD, parental abuse, and DID each can have a variety of effects on a person on their own. None are things which prevent a person from living a normal, happy life without running around in a mask beating people up.
But as you’ve noticed, Amber is not coping with them in a healthy manner.. She’s doing harm to others, and to herself as well.
You sound like you’re arguing that Amber is not in full control of her own actions, and thus cannot be held responsible for them.
Amber has a coping mechanism. Some people respond to this sort of thing by sleeping it off, or engaging in substance abuse, or using some sort of artistic outlet for their feelings, or self harming or any number of other things. Amber happens to cope by “becoming” Amazigirl, who she’s ensured is equipped to commit various violent crimes without it being tied back to her. This is a conscious choice. These crimes are premeditated. She is in full control of her own actions.
No, she fled to a rooftop. Or into a tree, the other time.
I mean, if your sole argument is “it’s super convenient”, how does that account for the metatext? Or the fact that she ruined. Her. God. Damned. Relationship? It is /not/ convenient.
Or just maybe Amber/Amazigirl is truly amazing and in spite of having major emotional issues with Sal wasn’t willing to let things get out of control. And maybe we should cheer that she’s texting Joyce or Dorothy to get confirmation that this is really Ryan.
Amazigirl is stalking Sal, but she is missing critical information about the way that Sal has changed. Based on what she knows and has experienced, this is not an unreasonable thing to do. But no, let’s confuse multiple roles with multiple personalities and call her crazy. And racist too while we’re at it. And sure, stalking someone is always wrong. Let’s go arrest all the police that have “stalked” those who they thought were up to no good.
Yay, Amazigirl! Be the Amazing person you are, catch Ryan and give Joyce closure so that she no longer has to fear. And maybe someday you won’t need the Amazigirl role as a crutch. And all that will be left is the amazing Amber.
Clif, almost none of that is relevant to the issue being discussed.
Also, how is not trusting the cops (who probably would not have been able to do anything at that point, even if they wanted to) in any way comparable to “vigilantism”?
I like Amber, but she is not in a healthy place right now. She needs help. Not knowing that Sal has changed does NOT excuse stalking, harassment, or assault. Running around in a costume attempting to fight crime is not something healthy, well-adjusted people do.
Oh hey, someone who’s pretending I won’t just ding Sal for at least nominal acceptance of that, nice. Like I didn’t just ding Jacob and Dotty for being Amazi-girl’s fan.
Anyway, Amazi-girl isn’t amazing. Not much to tell you there. I mean, she just savagely beat a dude today in a way that exactly no bystander thought was necessary. I ain’t cheering shit, though I am relieved she may finally stop fucking harrassing Sal. And none of that matters. Sal doesn’t have to have changed. Amber got her revenge before Sal left the parking lot. Then Sal served her fucking debt to society. Neither Amber nor Amazi-girl deserves more here. Okay, yes, actually, Amazi-girl is still a violent vigilante, and they /both/ have committed battery, one multiple times (Remember when Amber stabbed Sal’s fucking hand while Sal was in custody? That’s fucking battery, and with a deadly weapon, not self defense.)
Yes, stalking people is always wrong when a citizen does it. There is never a good REAL reason to stalk someone. But if there were, waiting for them to finally break one of your rules so you could attack them, because you fucking hate this person, wouldn’t be it. But you know, White People are really obsessed with pretending everything AG did is okay. Because HOLY FUCK WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
The police have very limited rights to do it, and ideally would then only be able to do it with oversight. And yes, the police that have done so illegally should be arrested. Well done, you have divined a goal of mine. Do you mistakenly think that I do not believe the cops are fucked up and should be reformed too or something?
Oh, and yeah, the shit she’s done wrt Sal is still fucking racist. Unequal enforcement of the law on a black girl is going to be fucking racist. I know White People seem to have a problem with that, but yanno, too fucking bad. Maybe if they want it not to be racist, they can fix the society they benefit from.
No. Stalking is a violent crime. Sal defended herself against the inevitable. This is legal, but more to the point, actually just. There is no ‘fair’ where we pretend reasonable people wouldn’t fear for their safety.
Amber/AG was stalking Sal. Since when is stalking someone not threatening to the object of obsession? What was she supposed to do, when AG was literally hovering over her and breathing down her back? Stalking is a violation of another person’s being and rights.
Amber is very much allowed to do that, as we can plainly see. Sal on the other hand is now left with with angry mob situation to deal with whether she likes it or not.
Don’t worry about Sal and the Mob. In a very short time, they’re going to be trying to lynch Amazi-Girl for attacking one of their volunteers. That’s the thing about mobs: any blood will do so long as it’s ‘other’.
“Aren’t people allowed to decide that they were wrong all along and just walk away?”
This only works if you walk away before you do any harm. If she had walked away after Sal first grabbed her cape and accused her of creeping on her, that would’ve been fine. At this point though she has brought a lot of undue attention on Sal*, and an entire crowd essentially thinks Sal’s a criminal. Harm has been done, so she has an obligation to defuse that, or at least try, before she leaves. Her final line in this strip only implies that there’s a bigger fish, and doesn’t remove the suspicion she cast on her.
*I 100% agree with Gangler in that Amazi-Girl’s status as a violent vigilante and her past run-ins with Sal make her stalking of Sal the entire impetus for this situation. Thus she bears responsibility for the situation.
Honestly, walking away might be the best way to defuse the situation. Before she saw Ryan, she’d started to try to protest and neither the crowd nor Sal were having any part of it. Understandably in Sal’s case.
She bears responsibility, but I’m not at all sure what she could do that might work.
Yeah, this strip oddly seems to look like it’s trying to make Sal seem to be acting irrationally for being ready to face amazigirl in a “look she’s being silly amazigirl would never do that” Even tho that’s like..what she came to do. She got distracted by the rapist but Sal has every right to be on guard when someone who knowingly goes around beating people up has been stalking her.
Haha, man, I’m going to assume that the sound effect in the first panel of today’s comic is not supposed to be a carryover from the last panel of yesterday’s comic. In my day, they didn’t teach neck-breaking until at least the fifth grade…
Wow, that was some seriously effective de-escalation. Somehow I think they will have a hard time mustering the will for a serious fight next time they meet.
He, I kinda hope they will have some sort of badass competition instead.
While we don’t really know how close her actual policies are to the crap she feeds her constituents, I do kinda hope that Roz’s plans to influence Robin’s political platform will be successful.
Learning about the racists at her own rally calling for violence against a black girl, and discovering she’s into ladies seem like a couple things that could lead to some stances shifting a bit. Or just no longer pandering to bigots to get reelected.
If nothing else, Leslie could only be a good influence on her.
Yeah. It’s such a dehumanizing experience to be friends or romantically with someone who could care less about the welfare of people of your identity/heritage. Because it usually means, by extension, they don’t think that much of you, and you end up caring more about them than they care about you.
I’m hopeful that this will not prove to be the case, or at the very least, it will quickly stop being the case, after Leslie and/or Roz show Robin the fallout of her lip-service to shitty people.
Robin and Leslie were broken up before Robin did the YouTube thing. Specifically, she broke up with Robin so that Robin could DO the thing ON the YouTube video. Just not, y’know, YouTubed.
Right, it’s been a while obviously. Point is she didn’t treat Leslie right a lot of the time, but in the end Leslie was pretty happy with the family life they carved out with eachother.
I wouldn’t say Robin was “Worth Leslie’s Time” in either universe, but sometimes there’s more to these things than that.
If it’s cool for me to ask (since this is a mistake I have also previously made), was it a deliberate choice to have Robin and Leslie separate so that Robin could have sex with a man, rather than for Leslie to “allow” it within the confines of their relationship as a one-time thing?
I ask because that storyline was interesting to me in that I interpreted it as hitting upon the common stereotype of bisexuality of us inevitably cheating on our partners with one of a different gender, and as strange as this may sound coming from me, I really do believe that storyline to be the high point for Shortpacked! and found it in-character for Robin to completely accidentally do something that catastrophically terrible, and her entire arc of eventually forgiving herself and being ready to move on from Leslie, and Leslie forgiving her on her own time, was an incredible exploration of the idea of a relationship ending due to that fundamental breach in trust, and where both partners would go from there.
As Leo points out to Leslie near the end of the comic, Leslie is a pretty traditional person, which extends to her feelings on monogamy. I don’t think it’s in Leslie’s character to have an open relationship like that. She wants to get married to one person and have a singular relationship with them until the end of time. That’s her romantic ideal.
I also chafe a little at how that story, in retrospect, played in the general neighborhood of the stereotype of bisexuality as impetus for people to be unsatisfied with the one parter. My attempt, at the time, was to poke more at Robin’s extreme reluctance at being labeled Not Straight. She saw herself as Straight But With An Exception (eventually, and only after some hard prodding from an undead Ronald Reagan), but she still wanted to consider herself “Normal,” despite all this creeping evidence to the contrary. And so my aim was to show Robin’s internalized homophobia ruin everything she already had which made her happy. And after a while, after Robin had repaired herself a bit and picked up the pieces and grown in the knowledge of this and other problem areas, she was always to be returned to Leslie a better person. By the end of the strip, Robin was describing herself as queer, which I think is a more accurate label given the people like her who I know and how they self-identify.
SP!Leslie, though, is purposefully written a little biphobic, given that one conversation on the matter with Drew. Her insecurity in Robin’s dedicated love for her is a flaw that isn’t ever addressed head-on, I don’t recall.
Thank you for that. It was an illuminating read and it’s always great to get a deeper insight into some of your favourite characters, especially with that last bit about Leslie’s small amounts of biphobia and her line to Drew about how it must be so easy to be able to fall in love with a “socially acceptable” partner and how it showcased some of the prejudice bi folks can face in the queer community.
If it means anything coming from me, I believe there is validity in showing a bi character chafing under the idea of never having sex with a partner of a particular gender. It’s not a problem for me, I’m content knowing that I’ll be with one person, but there are some folks for whom it is a priority and like all forms of bi representation, it’s something that deserved to be shown as much as having a bi character falling for one person and being completely satisfied with that.
Looking back in hindsight knowing that I’m bi, I genuinely do believe Robin to be one of the best bi characters in webcomics, warts and all. In particular, while she was always going to get back with Leslie (and she better have!), I adored how you wrote her relationship with Joe as something that she took genuine validation in. That she was okay with falling for a man and being with him after her relationship with Leslie had ended, and that if things had worked out differently and she stayed with him, Robin could have been happy with that.
It’s not clear if Dorothy really saw Ryan either. She arrived after Sarah hit him with the bat. Then AG arrived and Ryan got away in the confusion. Sarah gave AG a description, but AG have to contact Sarah as Amber ’cause it’s Amber’s phone.
I should have stressed the “really”. I was thinking her attention was focused on Joyce, then AG, not the guy on the floor. But I was forgetting how detail oriented Dorothy is. She probably could provide the best description of anyone there, even from a glance at him.
(And it’s the strip before the one linked above. Damn detail orientation -OCD- ).
Even if Dorothy didn’t get a good look at Ryan, she’s AG’s main if not only contact with the people who could confirm his identity, Joyce and Sarah. So even if Dorothy can’t confirm it herself, she’s the best way to get confirmation from those who can.
im glad amazi-girls backing down to go after ryan, it just doesnt make much sense to me. wasnt aware “rational” was in her playbook when it came to sal
and with a violent mob backing her too! there are so many ways this couldve gone worse and im not really sure why it didnt
I feel like she would prioritize Ryan, but still at least be flustered by Sal. Amazi-Girl is better at dealing with her than Amber, but she still doesn’t like her.
Also, she should probably do something about the crowd if their racism (and the idea of being associated with it) bothers her more than Sal. She can’t just walk away to have the crowd accost Sal after riling them all up.
Amber/Amazi-Girl has a lot of different priorities here that aren’t mutually exclusive and should all still be in effect in her mind. Hopefully we get more of that as things go on.
Amber hasn’t been in this scene at all. Amazi-Girl is the one who’s been stalking Sal. It’s not at all clear that Amazi-Girl recognizes Sal is innocent, though she did seem to be thrown by the way the crowd jumped in to cheer her on to beat Sal up, so she may be coming to some form of revelation.
Ryan hasn’t affected who’s in control here at all though. It’s been all Amazi-Girl.
Meanwhile, in the flashback cliffhanger, I bet Sal’s choke hold leads to Leland doing something similar to Marcie, except he does permanent damage to her throat. Just so I can say I called it, if I did.
Noted, but I assume the choke hold was just to lead to the school authority coming down hard on the non-rich, non-white girl for doing no worse than Leland did. And Sal learns not to trust authorities. “Schools teach us valuable lessons”.
Her adrenaline was up, she was primed to go, and possibly end it all, given the nature of the people at the rally. I’d say “she doesn’t seem the type”, but I’m betting someone here would find that to be offensive. Wanting the pain and injustice of the world to just be over with, that I get.
Man, so many little things going on in the second panel, Sal wanting it done; Marcie worried about what happening to Sal; AG completely blocking out what going on around her to focus on Ryan, sending his picture to someone to get confirmation; people both happy and concerned about the fight they think is about to happen; and woof, calling for death?
Then, fight over, and everyone seeming dumbfounded as to why, the people near Ryan wondering why AG’s looking their way; Beef seemingly disappointed by the lack of fight; Marcie still holding back Sal, ’cause she still wants the fight.
‘Slink, slink, maybe I should be going.’ Yes Ryan, you should be. At minimum to rehabilitation classes, or whatever it’s called. Prison, if needed. And not so he can get raped. No one deserves that, even as a ‘karmic punishment’, I find it just desensitises us to how bad it is, or something like that.
Picturing Bale Batman saying AG’s line? Quite funny, imo. Onlookers surprised that AG found something more important than Sal to beat on, which I shudder to wonder what they would consider worse that ‘thug face’ there. Marcie no longer needing to restrain Sal, since ‘stupefied’ tends to do a good job of that.
Now starts the theories on who, or whom, AG is contacting. It may be a bit too much for Joyce. Sarah seems sturdy enough to handle a picture of Ryan popping up. Though it begs the question, who has “AmaziGirl’s” phone number? And not Amber’s? I’m going to go with Dorothy. She know the identity of AG, and if she saw Ryan at the party, can make an ID for AG.
Though next would follow the legality of AG taking down Ryan. Could probably state something like citizen’s arrest or the like, but save that for another day.
Indiana state law doesn’t call it citizen’s arrest that I saw, but it is allowed in this case. AG has probable cause to believe Ryan committed a felony, and that’s all that’s required under Indiana law to hold him until the police get there. (Or, you know, leave him tied up at the police station with a sign hanging from around his neck.)
….. okay, I know you said another day, but the comic posts in the evening here and it’s now midnight…. well no, it’s 11…. look, it’s past midnight SOMEWHERE. So nyeh.
It may be a good thing Marcie and the other security people are there. Otherwise, this crowd might go after Sal now themselves. And for no reason other than mob mentality. Sal’s tough but I doubt she could handle that many.
Such a common-sense resolution to the “does AG know what Ryan looks like” question that I’m almost disappointed. Mostly in myself for not guessing what the resolution would be.
Ten years later and poor Marcie is still trying to hold back Sal from fighting people. No wonder she has such muscular arms.
That look of surprise on Sal’s face at the end makes me realize that she’s never seen AG speak calmly until now. I wonder if Sal’s been assuming that stammering with rage was just AG’s natural state.
The only interaction Sal’s had with AG where AG didn’t threaten or try to attack her was after catching her when she fell off that car. And even then, she screamed angrily at Sal for saving her live. And that was because she clearly couldn’t have managed it.
She just suddenly dropped what was obviously a huge obsession for her like flipping a switch. Understandably, Sal is feeling a bit of whiplash
So i had a thought about a villain name for Ryan. Scar face sounds too cool and asshole just seems too simple. What about appendix? Appendixes nonchalantly go about their day until one day they escalate their destructive capabilities and need to be removed immediately because they are simply toxic (for the sake of the metaphor, re-read but replace Appendixes with Rapists).
-Pulled all-nighter
-Fell asleep at ~4 PM
-Woke up at ~1 AM
-Is super happy because it means I didn’t have to WAIT until MIDNIGHT for the strip! It’s almost like I got it early, except I proved myself wrong when I thought I couldn’t screw up my sleep schedule any further!
I haven’t had a sleeping schedule quite that bad in a while. My messed up sleeping schedules more recently have been something more like 6am bedtime and 2pm morning.
Well, two days before a trip halfway up the coast to visit my best friend for a week I decided to stay up until 5 while trying to get some writing done, and woke up at noon. The day before the trip, same thing. Then I had a car ride for 14 hours, didn’t exactly help fix it. Then I had five or six days of staying up until 3 playing Super Smash Brothers Melee or finally getting around to seeing Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool with aforementioned best friend. Then another car ride.
A month or two later, I haven’t had a good schedule since. Even though I’ve been trying to remedy it recently I’ve just been getting worse. If I try to go to sleep at 12:15 (because let’s face it- I’d never go to bed BEFORE reading DoA) I end up lying awake for at least two hours.
Good news is it is somewhat fun trying to make sure I don’t wake up my dog when I grab a soda or whatever. Friggin’ James Bond theme playing in my head, making sure I avoid that one creaky step on the staircase…
Basically, what Amazi-Girl is saying: “Oh, for heaven’s sake, woman! Get over yourself! Something important is happening right now!”
I strongly suspect that Sal’s self-image may have just taken a hit! 😉
So, does this mean that Amazi-Girl has got over her Sal = evil hump? Well, that remains to be seen but we do know that she regards her responsibility to Joyce is far more important to her than her grudge against Sal.
I’m sure Sal would love for AG to stop regarding her as important and stop stalking her, but at the moment, with the angry mob and all, it’s pretty reasonable for her to be annoyed AG started shit then just…walked away.
I don’t buy that Sal was provoked entirely by Amazi-Girl’s actions. From the start of this arc, she’s seemed slightly OOC to me. I’ve got the feeling something is up that made Amazi-Girl’s amateur Batman routine just a little too much to tolerate right now. Maybe it’s what’s been happening with Billie left her dangling on her last frayed nerve or something.
Amazi-Girl has a very specific narrative for this. Sal can’t be a person, just a concept to overcome, and she has to be justified in fighting her in revenge for “taking” so much from her.
She stalks Sal all day, almost certainly under the pretense of “just making sure” and then Sal hits her first, so now Amazi-Girl is completely morally vindicated in beating the shit out of Sal like she’s wanted to do this whole time, complete with a crowd cheering her on and treating Sal like subhuman scum.
So the narrative is broken. She doesn’t want to be the symbol for a pack of racist thugs and she has to apprehend Ryan, because that’s more important.
Wait wait wait wait wait. Is Sydney Yus the illegitimate daughter of Galasso? Just read the megapost, one panel where she wants to send a bill to congress than reacts to her aides words in the next panel. The nose, the hairline, the expression of a conquers wrath, looking down with an evil smile in the panel before, its uncanny
like, I doubt that DoA will end up in an actual vigilante murder… but what else could AG be thinking? not like she can go to the police, dragging him by the collar – there’s a pretty specific warrant out for a caped crusader re Blaine.
Y’know, the odd thing is that AG didn’t start anything, at least not here and now. Sal is responding to a sense of resentment against Amazi-Girl’s obsession with her that has been building for a while. However (and I think that this is only serving to tick Sal off even more) what she didn’t do, at least in this occasion, was hurl any accusations or punches except something about Danny that, if you took away the costume, would make me think I’m seeing two freshman argue about a guy because they’re in a romantic triangle.
Amazi-Girl didn’t really start anything in this current scene except by her reputation. The mob saw her and someone who ticked enough of their ‘evildoer’ boxes and ran with it. Before she saw Ryan, I think that Amazi-Girl was trying to find a way to de-escalate. Now she’s going to try to grab him and, as he’s a campaign worker, it may turn the mob against her.
I didn’t. I made it clear in the early part of my post that Sal was provoked by Amazi-Girl’s past actions.
The point is, though, that the mob know nothing of this so they are responding solely to their own perceptions of what is happening with this confrontation and that, at least in this case, Amazi-Girl wasn’t doing much in the way of provocation or escalation. I just find it odd and I wonder where Willis is planning to take this sudden shift in who is the person driving the aggresion and confrontaoitn.
While I agree that Amber didn’t intentionally cause the situation, Sal wouldn’t be in it if AG hadn’t been stalking her and looking for a fight.
That, plus the fact that she has sway over at least some of the crowd does make me feel that if she just left Sal with the crowd as is, it would be irresponsible of her at the very least. They’re not violent now, but the potential is high
I want Ryan caught and beaten up as much as the next person, but I gotta admit that just dashing off without at least making sure the crowd isn’t going to get ugly would be a shittier thing to do than letting Ryan get away.
Though I don’t actually think AG has sway over any of the crowd. The crowd’s reacting to the situation. That she can rile them up doesn’t mean she can calm them down.
Let me guess, you were the kid in the car holding their finger a millimeter from their sibling’s nose going “Iiiiiiii’m not touching yoooooooooou,” then yelling for mom when they smacked your hand away.
Not even. The law legitimately wouldn’t recognize ‘I’M NOT TOUCHING YOUUUU”. The law /does/ recognize stalking. So people are turning a blind eye on a violent crime because the victim is a black girl and obviously the white girl isn’t responsible.
My take on it is: white, mostly neo-con crowd see a white vigilante doing “justice” on a black girl and they come to the vigilante’s aid.
I think Amazigirl has realized that this isn’t a good scene, that her stalking of Sal can be seen as racist and she appears to be doing her best to wriggle out of it. It’s probably a good sign for Amazigirl.
I liked super-hero comics and the Robin Hood myths when I was younger but now? Not so much. The police may be a bunch of bastards but at least it isn’t the Armalite warlord/vile monarchist system that libertarianism leads us towards.
The security team should be sacked. Not Marcie, but I suspect she’d be the one to carry the can.
I really doubt she’s figured out that her stalking is racist or is motivated by that. Caped White Girl Power Trip has not demonstrated any real understanding of racial politics, after all. But she has figured out she’s gotten a crowd violent at Sal.
I reject totally any suggestion that AG’s behaviour has a racial component. Sal could be any colour of the rainbow and she’s react towards her in the same way.
Agreed. As far as AG’s own behavior goes. I also agree with Lailah that she’s got no understanding of racial politics. I wouldn’t be surprised if she understood that racism is why the crowd was so easily turned on Sal and that’s why she was so bothered by it.
I don’t think her stalking is racist or that she’s realized how much it looks like that to Sal.
Her motivations do not. Fucking. Matter. She is playing pseudo law enforcer to Sal. She is doing so disproportionately, and in stark contrast to the fact that if either of them should be in trouble with the law, it should be motherfucking Amber. She’s the one who’s the violent vigilante. She’s the one who committed battery with a deadly fucking weapon. But here she is, still disproportionately trying to enforce the fucking law on Sal. She should be turning herself in.
Her motivation is to get back at the archnemesis she’s built up in her head. But her actions are racist, because they disproportionately bring up racist power structures on black people.
What I said, that had our brave defenders of the white race riled up, is that she’s not motivated to stop the racist effects of her actions, because she is not cognizant of that. But she /does/ realize that her actions are having an unintended effect, and at least may move to try to rein that in, even if she does not actually understand why it is important.
“I really doubt she’s figured out that her stalking is racist or is motivated by that.”
That is your sentence. That sentence says that you believe she is motivated by racism. That component of what you said is what people took disagreement with (understandably, because saying so is a massively disrespectful statement in the light of the fact Amber clearly has untreated PTSD due to a legitimately traumatic incident involving Sal which is the obvious motivation for all Amber’s subsequent creepy and obsessive dumbfuckery).
If that’s not what you meant by that statement that’s great but please don’t go off at people for being “brave defenders of the white race” for taking issue with what comes across as a really shitty, shallow and dismissive understanding of trauma and PTSD.
Oh yeah, I’ve spent the last two weeks watching people deny Amber’s actions are racist, but NOW they’re just totally cognizant of the effects of PTSD. They’re just really worried for survivors. Okay. Except no. I’ve watched this asshattery for the last week. From the exact. Same. Fucking. People.
Ok, apologies. I haven’t been following this that closely.
Context: I’m a survivor of a sexual assault committed by a ciswoman and have had a huge number of people portray my survivor behaviour as misogynist. The left has a massive problem with only supporting victims and victim behaviour if their perpetrators fit in a nice convenient straight-white-cis-male “oppressor space” and pretty much treading on anyone who’s victimised by people who happen to themselves be part of a marginalised demographic.
At first glance this basically read like the same thing except replacing “misogyny” with “racism”, and consequentially pushed a LOT of my buttons. Sorry if there’s more to it.
I don’t mean this as an ableist comment in the slightest, but it’s possible to have a mental health disorder AND be racist/do racist things. Amber’s actions have racist undertones to them, whether we like it or not because that’s the society that we (and by extension Amber, since the setting is clearly influenced by current events) live in. There are also numerous panels that indicate the racial component of her beef with Sal, her stalking Sal, etc. So I’m not sure how anyone could read that and say, “There’s no racial implications whatsoever.”
So i quite understand that Lailah is getting heated about it, because it is quite common, in any medium that discusses race, for people to come out of the woodwork and claim that race influences nothing whatsoever in society, that it can’t exist in that medium because Hitler and/or members of the Klan are not present, and obviously a social structure that is based heavily in white supremacy only allows for such extreme types, while if you read any legitimate piece of literature about it, reveals that not to be the case. It feels like you deny the experience of people of that identity, by rationalizing away, or saying “well she didn’t mean it, so if Sal does end up getting beat up by the crowd it’s not that bad.”
It’s a pretty simple situation. Amber/AG’s actions have racial implications. Sal is only being verbally threatened and harassed by the crowd because of Amber/AG, and Amber/AG stalking and harassing her only fuels their racist ideals. Even Amber/AG herself is not exempt from the radicalized hierarchy, because nobody is born and grows up in a social vacuum, especially in America of all places.
In fact, in response to the people claiming it’s because she has PTSD, it’s totally ableist and just strange to claim that mental health disorders like PTSD are the only reason a person would do/say anything racist. And it’s also illogical to claim that that person’s behaviour does not affect others, which is a huge part of Amber’s story arc: her being able to exist outside of her mind and realize the effects that she has on herself and others, which she can’t do on her own.
Yeah, as much as I want Amber to get help and get and handle on herself again, she’s still responsible for her actions even if we can see and understand how she got this far over the edge.
Her PTSD might excuse her actions during a panic attack, but the rest of the time, she’s lucid enough to be held accountable for her actions.
I definitely want to see her get help to get well, but I also want her to atone for her actions, and acknowledge how she’s been persecuting Sal, and the racial component to it.
Because even though we know race wasn’t THE reason for her actions, it was in there. And if nothing else, if Sal were white, Amber would not have been able to do most of the things she’d done to Sal. We don’t know what if any consequences there were for Amber for stabbing Sal, but I’m sure they’d have been greater. Sal would have been able to go the cops when Amber first attacked her in the parking lot, and she probably would have trusted the system enough to actually do so. The crowd here may still have called for a fight, but they’d LOT less likely to jump in themselves.
Even though she didn’t make the world that way, and was likely unaware she was using those advantages at all, when she sees it, she should feel just as ashamed as when she realized her anger towards Sal was just as unjustified and hateful as that of the crowd of bigots shouting for violence.
I really want these two to end up on at least relatively friendly terms, but forgiving Amber at this point (or any point in the future, really) would be extremely charitable of Sal.
No, nobody’s claimed ‘she isn’t racist, she just has PTSD.’ I mean yeah, it wouldn’t make a racist action not be racist, but what actually happened is that I said Amber’s not trying to stop her racist actions because they’re racist. I really doubt she understands how what she’s doing is playing into that, even given a crowd behind her. Someone with PTSD is conflating the folks saying Amber didn’t do something racist, with folks who are just concerned with PTSD. Which would be a much better world than the one we actually have.
I completely agree though. I really hope AG will start seeing not just the obvious consequences, but the underlying grossness of her actions.
Especially since the differences in how Amber and Sal’s lives have played out (with respect to their seeking extra-judicial justice / vengeance) are almost exclusively caused by race. Change nothing else about them, and their roles here would be reversed.
I thought that look over her shoulder in one of her panels was that realization. You are correct in that it’s the realisation that she’s gotten a crowd mad at Sal.
The underlying cultural politics are still a distant framework to her.
It’s like I’m in some weird twilight zone where stalking people until you find an excuse to viciously assault them is some totally benign and harmless act.
Damn millennial vigilantes, always on their “Supervillain Go” apps instead of apprehending the criminals in front of them. Look up from the phone, youngster! Join the rest of us in the REAL world!
We have seen though. She specifically said to herself while no one was around that she was after Sal. Also: stalking someone who had nothing to do with Ryan is a really weird way to find Ryan.
I think the way she didn’t spot Ryan until the crowd snapped her out of her MUST-FIGHT-SAL trance kinda implies that she might have found him a lot sooner if she hadn’t been obsessing about Sal this whole time.
We already did see. You’re just blinding yourself because you desperately will not allow yourself to come to the easy conclusion. She sat on the awning thing above the roof watching Sal plotting revenge. That was tonight. She followed Sal. And now she’s following Ryan, who she’s clearly shocked to see at all? God almighty, where are you buying your pitchforks? Because they must be industrial strength to move all that straw.
I just think that, if AG really was stalking Sal, she would never have let her guard down long enough for Sal to grab her cape and pull her to the ground.
Personally, I think she was distracted, searching for Ryan and didn’t even realize Sal was below her. But, only Willis knows for sure.
Whoa, does Amber handle this kind of stress well! I expected she’d go for crowd control, trying to explain things to the shouting mob. Instead, she focuses on what’s most important: trying to bring a true criminal to justice. And she just walks away from the mob & their angry demands!
I mean, we saw her try to deescalate the crowd earlier.
Like, she’s owning this, I think. She’s recognizing that the crowd is acting in support of her, and she’s completely not okay with it and is trying to get them to settle down. If one of them actually did make a move on Sal I don’t think it’s possible that Amber would intervene here.
She could try making a big show of being chummy with Sal so that the non-bigots in the crowd would lose interest in seeing her get beat up, or distract everyone by signing autographs or posing for pictures with people.
But would Sal go for it? At this point, I don’t think she’d buy it. Why would she? I’d freak out if the creep that had been stalking me suddenly started being chummy.
Except that since she bears much of the responsibility for the mob in the first place it’s not actually that admirable an action (not a terrible one but not worthy to being lauded). Now a few things the individuals in the mob absolutely are responsible for their actions but this doesn’t remove AG’s responsibility either. Also AG has significant Behavioral Health issues and wether or not she can, or should be, held morally or legally culpable for her actions is not obvious here. I tend to fall on the side of compassion in almost all cases but that’s neither here not there. Also as her actions (stalking most likely it’s possible she was pursuing Ryan but unlikely and even if so she has been stalking Sal and has assaulted her friends so it’s not an unreasonable conclusion for Sal to reach) bear some responsibility for creating the situation with the crowd she therefore has a responsibility to defuse that situation as much as she can. Even at the cost of allowing Ryan to escape. I really need to paragraph better.
‘letting ryan escape’? She doesn’t really have a choice, or at least not a real one. She can’t actually apprehend him, but even if she did, what are the police going to do? They already don’t believe rape is real. Even if they did, the courts don’t.
I’m not really interested in some super level of fault. I’m not mad at Amber here. But her actions are still the reason this shit is happening.
And this idiotic grasp for straws can be ignored. She is not here for Ryan. You do not have that kind of jump cut because someone EXPECTED to see someone.
I agree. If she’d been looking for Ryan, there would at been at least one panel showing the crowd before she spotted him, to at least hint that she’d been looking for him. Instead, the hate-filled shouts from the crowd behind her cause her to look back at them, and only then does she notice Ryan among the people behind her.
It doesn’t at all read like “oh right, that’s what I was here for”, so much as “oh hell, a mistake I might actually be able to fix“. Maybe even “hey, someone who actually deserves to get beat up”, though I’m not confident she’s that aware of how far in the wrong she’s been just yet.
Amazi-Girl has priorities on who to punch, and I’m glad to see that Sal isn’t first. And I think she sort-of defused the situation by confusing the hell out of everyone, including Sal.
Request for Readers’ Opinion:
Did the sound of Amber photographing Ryan snap Sal out of her flashback? I’m just trying to imagine how a director would have done this if it was an animated or live action show.
I don’t mean to sidetrack things, Fart Captor, but this is the comment I was looking at when I clicked on your name…… and why the hell did you make me look at that thing from August 14th. My eyes won’t stop leaking.
I was referring to the post on this blog (of yours I’m assuming) and yeah, as pointless as it is, the link was supposed to point to the comment I was replying to…. not sure why I felt the need to do that though.
Oh man, I didn’t notice Sal’s little “okey dokey” the first time I read the strip and the last panel just got so much better.
I’m glad Amazi-Girl seems to be reacting to Ryan in a calm and hopefully productive manner, but if she’s gonna be waiting for a text back to confirm Ryan’s identity, what’s she gonna do while she waits? She’ll probably end up having to physically restrain him somehow, if only to prevent him from escaping…
I’m still expecting the crowd to object and strongly to her attempting a Section 4-a-2 on Ryan because he’s a campaign staffer and party member in good repute (so much like Leyland, in his own way). I strongly suspect that Amazi-Girl and Sal are going to find themselves in the profoundly uncomfortable position of having to fight their way out of Dodge together and are going to end up sitting on a rooftop somewhere in an awkward silence, trying to work out what they’re supposed to do or say next.
Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. I’m wondering if maybe they just “settle” for beating the hell out of him and call it a night, but then that still leaves him out there. If he’s back I think that means we’re tying up this loose end.
Unless they find some very specific proof, they can’t do legally do anything to Ryan.
They’ve got Joyce and Sarah (plus who knows how many others) as eyewitnesses. All they need to do is deliver him to the cops.
Of course, that’s where the “He’s a good guy”, “He’d never do this”, “It was a moment of madness”, “She was asking for it” and “He’s already been punished enough” (the scar) brigades will kick in and he walks. That’s the point where Amazi-Girl gets to understand Sal’s point of view of the ‘proper authorities’.
The worst part about that is that while we know from the narrative that restraining him is correct she actually doesn’t until she has confirmation (I’ll ignore the entire vigilante thing for the moment this story doesn’t appear to be based in our world) to do so would not be ethically defensible on her part. So really she should (normative judgment yay!) focus on defusing the situation regarding Sal which to be fair focusing on Ryan has at least begun that process.
So Sal asks Marcie to let go of her. She’s said at other points that Marcie is the one that prevents her from being physically aggressive with people.
I realised the other day, I don’t think it is Marcie /physically/ preventing these things (Though she might be holding Sal at points, I’m guessing it isn’t a firm enough hold to actually prevent anything).
Rather, I think she’s respecting Marcie’s wishes. I think she respects them 1) Because Marcie is her friend, but also 2) Over the years I think a pattern has emerged where Marcie pays the consequences for Sal’s behavior.
For instance, with Leland, in the meeting with Sal’s parents the problem was Marcie. I’m guessing that then when Sal retaliated, Marcie was the one at risk (ESPECIALLY if she’s undocumented, her family risks a lot if they go to authorities). Even now, Marcie is at risk (though Sal is as well) in the sense that if Marcie is seen as helping a friend in a fight or whatever, she could lose her job – a job that she needs.
Sal learned to not act on anger for Marcie’s sake. Just like Jocelyne has advised Joyce to be careful on acting on anger for Becky’s sake.
I mean, Sal is barely able to hold herself back here, but she is. She is letting Marcie direct if and when she responds. And I think Sal will probably continue to do so, unless she believes she and/or Marcie are in immediate (and major) danger. (at which point Sal might respond regardless of Marcie’s directions)
Mmhm, I’d figured the same thing. Even without Joyce or Amazigirl as contrast it seemed the right call for her narrative. And Sal’s also said, variously, that Marcie’s always right about this.
Yeah. The point I made about sal’s impression of Amazi-Girl going into the toedad sequence was not so much to contrast with sal, but to give further weight to the idea that a lot of what Amazi is doing through now is stuff that Sal went through in the past.
After she rescues Amazi, Sal says she’s familiar with what drives Amazi, that it is what drove her years ago. While Sal has seen Amazi in a bad light (due to her stalking Sal), I think in that moment Sal may have actually been referring to the fact that violently fighting for justice sometimes costs those who you are trying to protect. She was seeing that Amazi was trying to do good, but Sal knew, from her own life experience, that such behavior has unintended consequences. Consequences that other people, not just the vigilantes themselves, have to face.
So I’m not sure how weird this is to say, but I’m kinda glad that Amber got to have the last word here?
Like, even when Amber saved Becky’s life that was still followed up with Sal going “eat it, nerd”, so I like that we can have Sal end this strip with a dorky “okey dokey.”
It doesn’t make Sal wrong, it doesn’t somehow make all of Amber’s actions remotely justified let alone for the fact that Sal’s in this situation now due to Amazi-Girl being turned into a symbol for a pack of racist thugs, but IDK. I like that we get a scene where Amber gets to have the cool last line. This entire sequence from the last chapter on has been great for having Amber reclaim some of her better traits instead of just being a violent jerk and I’m glad to see her be a good person again.
We left this cliffhanger with AG/Amber fighting for control. Amber wants/needs to fight Sal. Amazi-Girl has a different agenda and wants justice, order and clarity. The two have been dangerously mixed lately, with AG going off to attack people for minor crimes to satisfy Amer’s anger.
Now she faced a choice. Get the resolution that Amber needs with Sal, at any cost. Even if the cognitive dissonance was getting extreme. Or keep AG’s promise to Joyce (and to herself) that she would track down the rapist that got away due to her grandstanding.
She got evidence, a photo that she can show Joyce for confirmation. Then she turned from Amber’s obsession and followed AG’s nemesis, the Joe Chill who got away due to her. This is a yuuuuuge moment for the two of them, with AG reasserting control and setting priorities. Amber must be screaming for release.
After she deals with Ryan, she/they needs to recognize this moment and come back to it. It can help her restore BALANCE to her life but living more as the proud AG and less as the crippled and damaged Amber who wants to hurt Sal (again!) to pay her back, mainly because that is what Blaine continues to tell her to do.
Love the long term parallel. Sal’s eyes in Balance were a lot like Amber’s when she was smiling in the dark behind Sal in the hallway. The happy release of anger in violence. Something Sal learned not to do, but that Amber learned to do.
I don’t think its at all that simple. Both AG and Amber have problems. Some of the more violent moments seem to consistently be Amber (even with the mask on), but stalking and harassing Sal has been entirely AG. She’s even mentioned how the whole reason she wants to re-create the confrontation with Sal is for AG make up for Amber’s weakness.
I disagree, pretty strongly. I don’t think there’s been any sign in this confrontation of Amber and Amazi-Girl fighting for control. The tags have been consistently AG, there’ve been no cheek blushes, none of the usual signs of Amber. Amazi-Girl was stalking Sal. Amazi-Girl was in control. Amazi-Girl wanted the fight with Sal, but wanted some justification for it. It was Amazi-Girl who was creeped out by the crowd joining it. It was also Amazi-Girl who saw Ryan and chose to neglect Sal to go after him – possibly partly as an excuse to not do what the creepy crowd wanted, realizing to some extent the problems there.
It may also be important to note that Amber was planning on hiding in her room all day writing fanfic until Sal spoke outside her door and we saw Amazi-Girl peering through.
I want this to end with AG mentioning to Sal that that’s the guy that attacked Joyce, then we have a superhero team-up of the two of them working together to run him down.
For some reason this made me imagine Sal tearing off her clothes (not like that, Slipshine readers!) Superman-style to reveal the motorcycle jacket underneath, followed by an oddly Power Rangers watch/Anime transformation sequence-style cigarette lighting, with her motorcycle and helmet appearing in front of her.
So many are expecting the AG&Sal team up, that I’m beginning to think Willis is leading us on only to distract us from the real plan.
We need to remember to watch the other hand of Master Magician Willis, not the moving hand or puffs of smoke.
Joyce will suddenly appear and punch Ryan with her good arm. He will fly clear across the room only to be caught by Sal? (Sal’s had practice at catching flying bodies.) No. Too obviously satisfying.
“Hey you remember that covenwince store you robbed a few years back? I was there and it scared me for life. Combined with my abusive father, I retreated into my own little world of superheroes and comics, resulting in the coping mechanism of a severed identity.”
…But of course, God forbid antone actually act sensible in this comic.
PS does nobody noTice how it’s implied that sal snapped that guys neck?
Panel 2: “Thug”, yeah, there’s no doubt whatsoever that there’s a considerable element of racism in how the crowd is responding to this conflict and Sal sees it instantly. She’s fluent in dogwhistle and she’s got a history of not just bowing down to those and “knowing her place” and she’s riled up to her max from the crowd and the stalker all coming together at once.
She’s brave and she’s angry, rightfully so, really. Cause that “authoritarian shill”, line? Yeah, that’s what AG has shown her so far. Going out of her way to harass her in Walmart parking lots, viewing her as a villain when she’s saved her life, believing her criminal history labels her as worthless forever. Hell, AG straight up told her she just uses laws as an excuse to harass people back when she was trying to pick a fight the first time: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/curbstompings/
Sal hasn’t gotten to see the AG every one else gets to see yet. Only the AG that has perfectly embodied a racist harasser, just looking for an excuse to hurt her. And here, with AG letting go of that paranoia in the wake of the threat of Ryan, she just might get to see it finally. And that means that the doors of communication might be being opened.
Panel 6: Or maybe not, though that seems to have de-escalated things with Sal pretty quick, so Sal might be cottoning on to things being out of place and be looking to help soon.
Rest of comic: Oh, no, Ryan noticed the attention and is slipping out nonchalantly, that’s bad. And it’s gonna go bad for AG when the crowd notices she’s dropping going after the “thug” they want her to attack to go after an “upstanding” white man in a campaign t-shirt instead. This is gonna go so so bad.
What, really? I mean, yeah, there’s an element of racism going on here, but this is also likely a tough-on-crime crowd, and rape is one of the BIG felonies. Surely a right-wing, anti-crime crowd would not go so far as to defend or shield a rapist just because he’s a white son of a pastor college student who they know as being on their team, right?
Of course not. They’d never defend an actual rapist. But then an upstanding son of a pastor like that would never be an actual rapist, right? So Amazi-Girl must be wrong about him. She’s just some crazy vigilante anyway.
On some level, I just blatantly don’t really want communication. I mean, it’s where the narrative’s going, and it’ll probably be good in spite of that, but it’d be sort of fucking satisfying if Amber could just work past her bullshit without actually needing any interaction with Sal. Sal just does not owe her that trouble and it just doesn’t get validated enough in fiction. You usually don’t see it unless someone crosses the pale like Blaine or Toedad.
Like, I don’t actually want Amber to be stuck with that shit. And like I said, the narrative is clearly going that way, given that she’s blowing her support structure away and Sal is legit well equipped for this conversation. But if she could work it through with like, literally any other character besides the one she wronged, that’d be great.
Sorry, Lailah, but I need Amber/Sal roller derby friendshipping.
Need.
forsrstho, I think there is genuine validity in Amber recognizing on her own that her grudge is pointless, that she can’t pursue Sal for their shared history, that she has personally harmed Sal and escaped from legal repercussions (health not so much, natch), and deciding to drop it without ever really learning who Sal is and getting help. It would be an interesting way for that to go, even outside the inherent interest in such a swerve.
Damn. I was excited for them to team up, if only briefly, but that’s a really good point.
I figured they wouldn’t end up being friends, but a truce seems likely at least. Even a truce feels like it’d be one-sided now, since Amber/AG is the entire reason a truce is needed.
Ryan is kind of going to be Ambers “get out of consequences for my fucked up actions” free card, isn’t he? After all rapist > violent stalker in the evil hierarchy, so she’ll probably end up excusing her actions or being venerated for them because they resulted in her taking him down by sheer random luck.
And because Willis isn’t going to lock her up for the rest of the comic. Nor do I really care whether Amber faces consequences for her fucked up actions. She doesn’t need consequences. She needs help. If the consequences lead to help, great. If she gets help without those consequences, also great. If she can sort herself out, she can try to make it up to Sal. Or, as I expect to happen one way or another, that’ll be part of getting her started on sorting herself out.
As for what consequences would really be likely – nice white boy who’s called a rapist without any evidence by the crazy vigilante who attacks him trumps pretty much anything else around. He gets sympathy. Amber gets locked up – possibly in the psycho ward with little effective treatment, more likely in the general population with no real treatment. Sal gets ignored at best. Locked up if she does damn near anything.
Well, I guess I’m not the only one who feels sick looking at the mob mentality going on here. I really fear for Sal, and I hope that Amazigirl can realise that the racial aspect going on in this particular instance makes this not the right time to get her vengeance…
Loading ...
“But I want a buncha punchin’ NAOOOW”
“CAN IT, you NIT!”
I want the whole world (to punch me)?
Don’t care how I want it NAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW
This somehow leads to Sal singing a song and falling down a garbage chute.
I’d much rather see her turn into a huge blueberry, to be featured in the next Slipshine.
Blueberries for Sal?
(Blueberries OF Sal??)
*cue about a dozen other people there willing to punch Sal*
*More like dozens willing to watch someone else punch Sal, but none with the guts to try. “Let’s you and him fight” is the unacknowledged true mantra of these and most other mobs. See the speech Mark Twain put in Col. Sherburn’s mouth in “Huckleberry Finn” for, as always, the best example.
“What do we want?”
“NOW!”
“When do we want it?”
“RACE CONDITIONS!”
(If you think this is about skin color, you’re not a computer scientist. Probably one in 20 people will actually get it, but I’ll hit Post Comment anyway.)
Hahahaha. I wasn’t sure if I was willing to believe that was the joke I thought it was at first.
I what you did there see.
The problem is that too many people in this crowd will have neo-con-current-events attitudes. They probably assume that anyone with deadlocks is engaged in illegal operations, especially wearing those threads. They’re unfortunately too variably synchronized in their global world view.
…. in other words, fork the forking forkers.
oh jeez I’m dyin’ :’-D
oh, good grief. :’-D
I laughed. 😀
Logic circuit designers also know about race conditions..
Close enough 😛
For some reason, I read this as “I want a buncha puddin’.” Three in the morning is a maaaaaaaaagical time~
For what it’s worth I thought the same thing at 12:05 in the morning.
Nice to see them be somewhat civil
I hope AG will “civilize” Ryan soon enough.
…. this would be in the same way that the Conquistadors “civilized” the Aztecs, but compressed down into about 20 minutes, and probably without the rampant pandemic?
Maybe a “civic” citizen’s arrest?
“and probably without the rampant pandemic?”
Sounds like you’re doing it wrong. :X
To be fair, I think including the rampant pandemic in just 20 minutes would be a pretty impressive feat.
Considering Sal’s only one person and not an entire civilization, it need be neither rampant nor a pandemic, and 20 minutes is more than enough.
Sal? I was pretty sure we were talking about Ryan? or at least I was…
To-may-to…
…po-tah-to.
Fistacuffs at midnight, like proper [Insert Gender-Neutral Old-Timey Term Synonymous with Gentlemen].
Gentlefolk?
Sure.
“I dealth with him in the time honored fashion.”
“Duel at sundown?”
“Cobra down the pants! And it was closer to three in the afternoon…”
“They shove a living snake up your @$$!”
“WRONG. … but very creative!”
Well…see this comment suddenly makes me glad the G’ould aren’t real and didn’t use that route if they were.
“I’ve got your cobra down the pants RIGHT HERE!”
Sorry, haven’t had my anti-snark meds this morning.
People?
Go away, otherkin.
Two things:
1) “Gentlemen” is a specific subset of people. It refers to a certain amount of apparent refinement, often the result of noble blood (or rather the training that goes with it). Striving for a gender-neutral version is like saying “fire fighter”, “police officer” or “mail carrier”, and you wouldn’t just call those “people”, would you?
2) “People” most emphatically does not equal “humans”. Humans are a type of people (so far, the only legally recognized such type, and it seems they will remain as such for the foreseeable future), but being human is not a prerequisite of being a person. Elves, orcs and dwarves may be fictional, but everyone still calls them “people”. Humanity is not a prerequisite for personhood.
Thank you for expanding.
I thought my comment about a reasonable discussion was going to be a joke. And then this.. O.o
“Can’t you see I’m busy? Stop following me, it’s like your obsessed or something.”
…Someone’s shouting, “Kill her!”
Like, maybe we all just need to calm down.
it is a very white political rally
I missed that, wonder what was being said in the balloon to the left of that one.
“Show her who’s boss” and then a word that looks like it starts with a Y. Not sure what that would be.
Based on the letters shown, I’d guess “Show her who’s boss” and then a last word I can’t identify.
It’s probably, “YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” or something like that.
Personally, my mind went to “Yeehaw!” and I’m going to hold onto that.
That would be surprisingly appropriate for Indiana.
So Winhelm is at the Rally?
YOLO!
Wow. I hadn’t noticed untill i saw your comment.
Same. Holy shit.
Both Sal and Amazi-Girl would do well to walk away.
Wanna know what’s an even better obvious addition to that?
Since this is clearly a Republican rally, chances are there’s at least a couple open-carry activists.
Wouldn’t be shocked if one of them was the guy yelling at the costumed white chick to kill the not-costumed black one.
Amazi Girl has a schedule on who to punch and when to punch them.
There’s a name and a time next to it, she’s very efficient.
amzi-memo keeper, amzi-schedule, and the amazi-note pad are located next to the amazi-grappaling hook on her utility belt.
Of course, you can’t forget about the Amazi-Scrapbook! It’s right next to the Amazi-Shark spray, it has pictures of all the villains she’s thwarted with a heart on every picture
X’s and O’s with the supery of the supervillians?
So she really is like Batman where he adds the word “bat” to everything except in her case, it’s “amazi”.
the amazi-rang, the amazi-cave, the amazi-dog
People in this rally would do well remember is amazi-girl, not pro-nazi-girl.
She could use an amazi-dog. Maybe one of those dogs they have in some vets’ hospitals.
Her crowning achievement was the creation of the Amazi-maze, her very own twisted version of the Batcave.
..it really is quite remarkable how messy gamers can let their rooms get. >.>
Batman does have the Giant Lighted Lucite Map of Gotham City.
“I’m making time for fighting
I’m clearing time for hitting
We’ll meet and I will beat you
Our schedules permitting.”
“I’m making time for fighting
I’m clearing time for hitting
We will meet, and on you I’ll beat,
So long as our schedules are permitting.”
Flows better, see if you like that version. 🙂
No messing with Dethklok lyrics. *Releases Hellhounds*
You could say she’s a…
*shades*
… punchclock hero.
Get out
GOT STAAAHS IN HUH AAAAHS
“Amazi-Girl calling Dick Tracy! Come in Tracy!”
“Tracy here, Amazi-Girl! Report your progress!”
“Case is proceeding on schedule! Anticipate completing punch list!”
“Good work, Amazi-Girl!”
The flashback was only a drill?
This has been a test of the emergency flashback system. Had this been a real flashback, the characters would have tilted their heads to the left like JD when he’s daydreaming.
And had this been an emergency flashback, it would have been accompanied by red panels.
You read the mouse-over text? This is a modern inscenation with multiple parallel timelines and cliff hangers. The next timeline/cliffhanger will feature Monkey Master almost toppling over the edge because a spider has weaved a web on Dorothy’s cupboard fixed to him and a number of insects are getting caught, symbolizing Monkey Master’s awful powers.
Smooth move Amazi-Girl; now I see why you’re so amazing!
Amazi-Girl delaying the fight to handle other stuff: a classic move out of DBZ when Goku fought the Ginyu Force! Or possibly Zapp Brannigan’s Big Book of War! ^_^
Initiate Roundabout.exe
Diiiiioooooo!
sup
Come on and fight already, then you can team up. That’s how superhero comics have taught me it works.
My favorite ever example of that was from a Flash comic in the 90s where he and Pied Piper almost fight, and a boy from the crowd cheers them on.
Young Boy: This is gonna be neat!
Flash: Neat?
Pied Piper: Neat?!
Boy: Sure. You guys are gonna fight now, right? On account of you really like each other, but a supervillain made you misunderstand so now you gotta fight. So you’re gonna fight for about an hour, then realize that you’ve got a common enemy and be life-long friends. Pretty neat!
Flash: …Boy, do I feel predictable.
Piper: Let’s cut to the part where we team up, okay?
That is something that happened for real? That fudging amazing!
Yep, in this issue. Looks like I was wrong about the date, it was late 80s.
Here ya go, the exact comic page:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/Greenygal/a-31-14.jpg
I loved Wally and Piper’s friendship. Oh, DC, why you gotta ruin good things?
DC is as DC does.
There’s another one during the DC One Million crossover, where Future-Batman appears and randomly attacks Nightwing because he thinks that’s the proper etiquette.
Defeat Means Friendship.
Seemed to work that way in Dragonball and sequels.
[Insert ‘Martha Joke’ Here]
i love sals face in the last panel
Sal always has a great range, imo.
So I can let out that held breath, AG made the right choice of target.
…and then take it right back in again because hello this crowd still wants Sal to fucking die :c
And yet people wonder why I’m terrified of conservatives.
Like, seriously, people have said this on camera at Trump rallies.
Not many conservatives at Trump rallies. Trump isn’t a conservative, he’s an authoritarian populist. (Well, that and an invincibly ignorant blowhard.)
Who was elected by a majority of conservative voters.
Ever since Ronald Regan’s “”southern strategy””, racism has been especially strongly correlated with the Republican Party. There is a reason why Trump appeals to the current Republican base. Trying to No True Scotsman your way out of associating with him is also a big part of how things got so bad in the first place, so instead of squinting at people for making “”generalizations”” about conservatives, maybe consider a long hard look at the state of the GOP.
Um, no. A majority of Republican primary voters actually voted against Trump. But, because their votes were split among several candidates, Trump won with a plurality. As for the state of the GOP, that state is “toast”. Between stupid tactics and failure to live up to any consistent principles, Rep leadership has thoroughly alienated much of their base. Whether Trump wins or loses, the party is in for some major changes, assuming it doesn’t collapse altogether. Lucky for me, I’m not a Republican, so I can watch the train wreck with a certain equanimity.
Uh, a majority of Republican voters voted against *EVERYONE* in their primaries. When you have 5 real candidates, that is exactly what happens. Not only did trump have a plurality, Trump and Cruz (Who is just as evil, just in service to a different variety of evil) easily pulled a majority. They’re what Conservative means in the USA.
Li is basically correct. This sort of ZOMG NOT ME from conservatives is how the situation deteriorated. Conservatives chose to embrace racism and then not quietly downplay it. They leaned into that shit. They have gleefully embraced nostalgia for an era that never happened. And then, SHOCKINGLY, they embraced an actual, factual, fascist. WHAT A SURPRISE.
Yep, all of this.
Also, as someone who would be better described as Green Party in a world where we didn’t have the two-party system we do right now, I think the slight of hand between “conservative” and “Republican” is… well.
Put this way: Ron Paul is different from Trump, but he’s not actually that much better.
Trump is in no way, shape or form a populist. We all know what part part of the population he cares the most for, as he’s mentioned it many times.
Historically, populists have regularly played up both racial and class divisions. So, Trump is very much in the populist tradition.
And now begins the thrice delayed game of “are the security people really this bad at their jobs?”
Good for A.G. she walked away. Temporarily, but she just saved Sal’s ass, or tried to anyway.
I want to believe the crowd isn’t quite racist enough to initiate violence against Sal if AG won’t, but the shit they’re shouting in panel 2 is considerably more aggressive than before, so I’m not bursting with confidence.
I imagine a few of them might be violent enough (whether they’re individually racist or not… it’s a mob fervor thing at this point) to try to restrain Sal so she doesn’t “try to escape”, and maybe to hold her in place while AG hits her. If Sal fights back, the rest of the crowd could join in to perform some flavor of “citizen’s arrest” or whatever on the “violent thug”.
… if there IS going to be a gun making an appearance (and not in the hands or holster of a cop), it will be at this point.
Yeah, in a riled-up crowd like this, there’s a couple threshholds that need to be broken to get to full out violence. Like how it takes slightly more energy to heat something above the melting point than it does to get there.
Since the crowd’s interest is divided between Amazi-Girl fans wanting to see her beat someone up, racists wanting to see Sal get beat up, and racist Amazi-Girl fans wanting to see her beat up Sal specifically, it’s really hard to say what will happen if a punch gets thrown by either of them.
If they start fighting, the crowd winning the fight might actually go worse for Sal than losing it. The crowd will almost certainly attack her then, unless a LOT more security shows up. Even if she takes a dive or just gives herself up, they might try to get a few shots in themselves.
Probably the best thing to do at this point is for security (by which I mean Marcie) to escort Sal outside, away from the mob.
Sal will grumble, since she’s fed up with Amazi-Girl. The crowd will grumble since they’ll be cheated of the beat down, but they’re less likely to start anything if security’s taking the thug away.
More likely, Sal goes after AG and gets involved in whatever hijinks ensue.
Don’t know about “more likely”. Marcie by now is pretty pissed at Sal, and Amazigirl putting Sal on hold may be just what it takes for Marcie to cancel the fight.
More likely because superhero-team up!
Dramatically better than Sal being safely shuffled off stage.
The whole thing feels on a knife edge with everyone just waiting for the first punch. Once it becomes obvious that AG isn’t going to throw it and she’s going after some white guy instead, both of them will be under attack, but won’t suffer physical damage until one of the crowd decides to be “brave” and “show one of them” themselves.
I’m pretty sure she walked away because of that guy with the scar on his face. Remember the comic with Joyce vs Rapey Party Guy?
[Insert Snarky Captain Obvious Joke Here]
Praise be Lord Obvious !
Well, obviously.
Duh.
Oh! Thank you! I couldn’t place scar guy.
Nah, she is clearly projecting the crowds behavior on to Sal, who only said one aggressive thing.
Yeah, she really saved Sal from the horrible situation she put her in with her constant harassment.
Which, ironically enough, is a good thing, because it means AG is backing off her paranoid Sal represents the ultimate evil belief structure and is no longer escalating the crowd against Sal. It doesn’t erase what she did, but it’s the first positive step she’s done in a while and a sign that AG is starting to sort out her shit now with the shock of the crowd’s approval and the larger threat of Ryan.
Ryan seems to have realized that he’s been singled out for special attention.
Also, I’m curious about why she’s pulling out her DS. The phone I understand, but why the DS?
I’m fairly certain her phone has a keyboard
It’s her phone.
She probably thought she hit her StreetPass limit.
…never mind, that’s a phone.
I thought it was her phone. She had the presence of mind to get a picture first. So even if Ryan gets away this time too, at least she has a picture of him. The strip today is deeply satisfying.
Will Sal follow her?
Likely to send it to someone for verifying it’s the right person.
…wonder how she’d justify using Amber’s phone on the spot.
Oh. likely Dorothy then, since she knows.
Yeah, I kept thinking that was her DS too, but its a smart phones that has a keyboard that slides out from the back.
It is her phone. It has a slide out physical keyboard. Plus pretty sure her DS is red, not blue.
I was SO SAD when my slide out keyboard phone finally died. Why did such a useful innovation go out of style, dammit?
Right? I can only type at half speed on my smartphone keyboard, and even THAT is because I have that neat little “slide for words” feature
It made the phones too thick. As shown by the popularity of the iPhone 6 and 6+ series and Samsung’s Galaxy and Galaxy Note phones, people want devices with really big screens and fantastic battery life but expect the phone makers to keep building them them thinner and thinner. All of the current ‘flagship’ phones (iPhone 6S and 6S+, Galaxy S7, or the Galaxy Note 7 — the one with the pocket-warmer app) are less than 1/3-inch thick.
Do they really want thinner phones, though, or is it that all the big name makers have decided thinner is better? I’ve never heard anyone say they wanted a thin phone and heard more than a few people lamenting the loss of the slide out keyboard (but then, my sample size is relatively small).
You’re not alone, the only person I know obsessed with thinness is my brother v- the kind of guy who would stand out at a midnight release for a phone (not an iphone though. Cause he has ‘ principles’)
I would jump the hell on a smartphone with a physical keyboard that didn’t have a geriatric OS.
droid 4 is long in tooth but will suppost latest os if running CM, which is what im typing on now. i will take a real keyboard over responsiveness any day. i upgraded to this from a D3 last year when mine finally died after 3 years of love. miss the extended battery i put in it, making it walkytalky thick, but it lasted days and i carry a man purse neways.
bring back the slider!
It looks like she snapped a picture.
Oo! Get him! Get him!
Amazi-Girl for the win!
Ryan would remember AG from the party where he used the distraction of her arrival to get away.
And it looks like he realizes that Amazi-Girl has made the connection and he’s trying to get outta Dodge without attracting any more attention.
Although he doesn’t have too much to fear from A-G. It’s Slammin’ Sarah and her Louisville Slugger that he needs to worry about.
What if she’s actually calling the cops?
She sees a really important Clifairy.
That’s a Pokemon, right? I’m making a Pokemon Go joke, yes?
AG wanted to use simple math to figure out who is morally punchable and who isn’t. Good thing she brought a calculator for the unexpected calculus.
Considering what the gallery is yelling out, it may be needed to just count the number of punches to be dolled out.
But then how do you punch the moral monster who made the moral calculus ap that’s weighted to make his many moral monstrosities marked more moral and so manipulate mores?
Today’s philosophy term paper is brought to you by the letter ‘M’!
Even the Caged Demonwolf would be impressed.
At least she has the frame of mind to focus on what matters and not on her revenge trip.
I think the crowd might be scaring her out of it. The things the mob are saying are probably thoughts she’s had about Sal that now sound really messed up.
Hearing your thoughts out loud is usually a pretty effective way of finding out you’re being a dick.
so much truth here
Oh, boy….I hope this goes okay.
Well, I didn’t see this coming. It looks like Amber’s getting confirmation that this is indeed Ryan, instead of jumping immediately to the violence.
Maybe there’s hope for her yet.
…of course, on the downside, the only people she could get confirmation from have all gone to bed. I doubt Joyce is going to be happy to be woken up by the sight of Scarface on her phone.
I really hope she didn’t ask joyce.
Nah, she’s more friendly with Dorothy, and Dorothy remembers the night better.
That’d be my inclination too.
Why not text the photo with a text that says, the attempted rapist we reported a month or so ago has shown up. Here’s a photo, please come quickly. The file should have a matching description.
Nobody reported anything tho
Details, details….
I’m GUESSING that Amber/AG collectively have sufficeint understanding of traumatic flashbacks and support networks to know to contact Dorothy instead.
… and already planned that out ahead of time, because AG is prepared for everything.
“… because AG is prepared for everything.”
+1
Except being pulled down by her cape by her “archenemy” she was stalking. And a racist crowd egging her on.
…And her boyfriend wanting her to lay low for a while. And her dad coming back. And taking on Sal the first time. And what she’d do after she stopped ToeDad’s car.
I think you’ve mistaken her for Batman. :p
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/broad/
Context, and all that.
As a non sequitur aside,
https://youtu.be/uP1e9crgTWU?t=1066
“Sir, a kiss.”
Sorry, I’m not sure I heard that correctly?
We’ll find out tomorrow?
It’s almost certainly Dorothy. She’s the only person who both knows what Ryan looks like, and knows AG’s secret identity (and therefore can’t learn it by noticing she and Amber have the same phone number)
…and then we have someone using logic to answer that question.
Could be Sarah. It wouldn’t be that hard to spin a reason for having Amber ask about it. … though yeah, Dorothy’s the more reasonable candidate.
…. we’ll also be saying that in 20 comic-time years when she runs for office against Sen. Desanto.
I… don’t think “Amber” actually had any connection to that incident, though. I’m not really sure and could totally be wrong, however.
Did she? No. Of course not. AG was there, so Amber couldn’t have been. But how hard would it be to sell “I heard through the rumor mill yada yada yada is this the guy?”
Hard enough. And Dorothy was the one who called Amazi-Girl in to chase after Ross when she kidnapped Becky.
Why contact someone who has expressed she does not trust you when there’s a known friendly you can call?
^ ah, ..yeah that. ^
Fair enough, but Dorothy’s both a safer and easier choice.
She’d also potentially have to explain what she’s doing at a DeSanto rally. Not to mention the potential complications if it hits the newspaper that Amazi-Girl was at said rally, snapped a picture of some guy, and then went and beat up Ryan (considering she’s standing in a crowd of people that happens to include http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/daisy/).
In Amazimode, Amber’s phone number is suppressed.
It is worth nothing that we did NOT see Dorothy in the gone-to-bed page ending the previous chapter. The last we saw Dorothy, she was saying she’s going to study for a bit before bed.
Even if she’s asleep, she lives in a dorm. It’s not like her phone can even BE far enough away that getting a call won’t wake her up
Ahahaha, that is very true.
When you’re as heavy of a sleeper as I am, it doesn’t matter how close your phone is. My phone alarm never wakes me up, even when I sleep with it on my pillow.
Turning away from your opponent to deal with another matter is a power move.
Way to prioritize, AG: Attempted rapists before vigilantes.
More like before personal revenge.
Yes that you said. Good sign her mind isn’t THAT clouded.
Hopefully getting snapped out of her fixation on Sal will end up having a lasting effect, and she doesn’t jump right back into it after Ryan’s no longer a distraction from it.
I… don’t think Sal is a passing obsession for her. She might get distracted for the rest of the night, though. Maybe long enough for Marcie to get her out of there.
I know that, but being yanked out of something like that (which she couldn’t do on her own) has the potential to cause or at least allow her to reevaluate what the hell she’s doing.
Kinda like how getting woken up from a dream lets you remember more of it than if you just woke up naturally after it finished. The jarring shift makes the preceding irrationality easier to notice.
I feel that if Amber had all his happen, for her to start crying at the prospect of fighting Sal, try to deescalate the crowd and then give up on fighting Sal so she can pursue Ryan, then we have to have some advancement in the Sal/Amber plotline. I don’t think it’s just being put on hold for a bit so Ryan can be punched in the face. Stuff will go down.
Against vigilantes would just be punching herself wouldn’t it?
But the real question is who would ask why she was punching herself?
Personal revenge? The score is already severely tilted. Amber put a knife through Sal’s hand, and Sal saved her life. All Sal is doing to Amber is holding a mirror to her. And Amber does not like what she sees.
Sal was indirectly a cause for a whole lot of negative things in Amber’s life or more accurately perhaps, Sal happened to be present at a significant tipping point. Blaine is the real cause and as far as I know the only real cause.
It’s still personal revenge, it’s just kind of misguided and misdirected.
I am so happy Amber? (Amazi-girl according to the tags?) decided to go after the rapist than her own personal vendetta, this is a good sign of a shift in her priorities methinks
Sal is not being the most rational here goading Amazi-girl to punch her, but honestly she has reason to be riled up, having a crowd all but baying for her blood and calling her a thug
Marcie seems to be observing for now but I wish she’d drag Sal away in earnest
They’re not “all but baying” they’re straight up baying for her blood.
Yeah, note the partially cut off “KILL HER” at the top of panel 2.
Hopefully their attention follows AG, and leaving will draw it away from Sal, rather than leaving her in the middle of an riled-up mob.
Given her expression in the last panel, I’d say the shock of Amazi-Girl snapping out of it also snapped Sal out of it.
Well, Sal was fairly compliant. Though it looks like her history with are new favorite dickchessed asshole is FAR more extensive than I expected. Those last few flashback panels…eeYIKES! This is why I could never be a parent: I’d have gotten my kid expelled and I’d have been arrested for defending her and her friend tooth and nail against that bigoted administrator. Just cause a kid’s “good” doesn’t mean they can’t ever do wrong. That just…URGH! Really gets under my skin >~.</
Well, Sal was fairly compliant. Though it looks like her history with our new favorite dickchessed asshole is FAR more extensive than I expected. Those last few flashback panels…eeYIKES! This is why I could never be a parent: I’d have gotten my kid expelled and I’d have been arrested for defending her and her friend tooth and nail against that bigoted administrator. Just cause a kid’s “good” doesn’t mean they can’t ever do wrong. That just…URGH! Really gets under my skin. FUCK HIS SHIT UP AMAZIGIRL! >.</
(sorry for double posting, last one was missing that last line XD )
Despite much speculation in the comments during the flashback, Ryan (also known as Gashface) isn’t Leland. Elementary school bully isn’t our attempted rapist.
Oh damn, I think scumbag is realizing what’s up. I hope AG gets confirmation before he can make a break for it.
While I’d love to see Sal and amber go it this is quite an amusing strip and the look on Sal in the last panel is priceless
Oh my God.. could Leland be Ryan with his name changed? Umm.. this might be far fetched, I can’t imagine why he would change his name..
For raping purposes? That seems plausible. But word of Willis says no.
I don’t think ‘Ryan’ ever actually mentioned his name to Joyce. Willis has simply tagged him ‘Ryan’ – that’s how WE know his name. For all we know, it’s an alias.
Nope, different people. I’d recommend hiding before other people start yelling at you.
Oh dear *hides*
It feels like a few first-time or rarely-do commenters choose that to be their comment for the last few days. It gets uglier with each passing day.
Yeah, It’s a good way to get your head bitten off right now.
Well.. sorry. I sometimes end up putting my foot in my mouth. Mr. Willis did say that they were different people. I totally forgot.
I’ll accept your apology. You did nothing wrong, aside from not fully reading the comments from the past few days, like that’s a crime or something. It’s also 1,000+ comments, so who’s got time for that?
I always read the whole thread before I comment. That’s why I never look foolish.
…
what?
:'(
………………………………..
* Golgo 13 intensifies *
oi! btw, I looked at your site… the link on your name..
So I told them I was going to do a show in Yelton, and they said, “Wear the fox hat!”
What about it? Sorry to disappoint, I do not hack foxes, just old video games. ^^;
That most recent post on there was quite interesting. Despite being two years old….
… oh uh. Oops.
I should probably not bother with that anymore, I’m basically unhireable. 😛
The Great Willis has said no multiple times.
Amazing to me how many people have brought up this possibilty. Like there couldn’t possibly two white brunettish/blonde? assholes in all of Indiana. Leland must have gotten plastic surgery on that upturned nose to rape under a pseudonym
its the timing. the flashback has seemingly nothing to do with the scene it interrupted, so people are looking for a connection
Amazi-girl and Sal have a mutual hatred of white men who act like assholes. That is the connection. Nothing more.
Nothing except for expanding on the characterization of one of the confrontations protagonists. I imagine similar memories go through Sal’s mind everytime she has to stand up for herself or her friends when it seems no one else will.
AG has been stalking Sal for days, if not weeks, openly antagonizes her and does little to contradict Sal’s assumption that the harrassment is racially motivated (the conversation in the parking lot where AG claimmed she used laws as an excuse to harrass Sal). Now they finally have the confrontation in front of a crowd of people literally cheering AG on. Why wouldn’t she remember yet another injustice where no one was actually on her side and she had to take matters into her own hands, damn the consequence, to get any sembalance of satisfation/justice.
Sorry if it sounds unduly confrontational. I iust really enjoy Willis’s characterization techniques and plotting choices. He knows what he’s doing.
I think it served to give us a much greater understanding of Sal’s position and thoughts in this specific situation, as well as both with the amazi-girl confrontations and in general.
I think it specifically was showing how Sal and Amber are actually a lot alike.
At the very least, they have a similar craving for justice, with a side of vengeance.
I think it’s quite easy. If I wasn’t specifically looking for them, I wouldn’t notice their noses at all. They do have the same basic hairstyle, and that hairstyle has always meant Ryan before now. And hairstyle has always been distinctive until now. It’s part of their silhouette, which is how we instinctively recognize cartoon characters.
As for the connection, I thought it was that Sal saw Ryan, and he looks enough like Leland that it reminded her of him. That’s why she got this specific flashback.
It definitely looked like they both saw Ryan, not just AG. And nothing else seems the same about these two situations, other than them both being bigotry-related. Something had to trigger the flashback.
I don’t agree that “no one is on her side” is similar enough. Surely she’s had that be the case many times in her life–unfortunately.
“that hairstyle has always meant ryan before now”
Ryan’s hair is exactly SP!Ethan’s or Leslie’s. It’s the same perfectly round shape with the bangs I give nearly everyone. Leland’s haircut is NOT perfectly round. There are bumps all over it, and it hangs heavily in the back in pointy tufts.
can i just say i appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to school us on the intricacies of the DoA haircuts
By tomorrow there will be a Wikipedia page devoted to DoA hairstyles, plus a separate wiki and elsewhere 300 images of Rule 34 artwork of just DoA hair doing unspeakable things! 🙂
And don’t forget the black bangs!
That’s how I’ve always noticed Ryan.
Well, and the massive, hideous scar. But that’s besides the point.
…and the nose. But I guess I can’t blame people for not noticing that Leland has an obnoxiously oval nose and Ryan doesn’t.
Seriously people, that freakin’ nose!
Yes but he grew up. 🙂
Every character should have a hairstyle such that they can be recognized even in silhouette. Like the Futurama folks.
Of course, by now most will need their initials in their silhouette, but hey….
I’m glad Orion told ya first, I might have snapped if I wasn’t really tired right now and I don’t like snapping at people ;-;
Just thought I’d note, I very much support and approve the official title change.
As do I. I wonder if anyone else will get it.
I’ve been wanting SOME sort of self-reference to joke about for weeks now, but all the inside jokes I’ve had with my friends tended towards being something THEY did…
Ten points to those who get it!
Who weren’t part of the conversation.
This isn’t a superhero movie where all evil has to be condensed into one character that is overcome at the end, making the world good again.
David Willis’ potential for coming up with hateable characters is only limited by the amount of evil cackling Maggy is willing to tolerate emanating from his drawing cave.
“Okey dokey”? Doesn’t seem Sal’s style. She must be totally bewildered by what AG’s doing.
(I’m well enough to type again, but I’m not sure I’m making sense yet.)
I don’t think she was expecting a reply. Especially not one so direct.
makes sense. AG’s been following her, Sal’s prepped for a fight, crowd cheering on the fight, Sal’s angry, and AG seems angry, and then…AG’s walking away and taking a picture with her phone saying basically “later, something came up.”
Ummmm…ok? It’d throw me if I were in Sal’s place. (as a reader I know what’s up, Sal lacks that context.)
She talks like Walky when she’s confused or caught off-guard.
….
I have a hundred half-formed theories about mystical twin connections and whatnot, but nothing I can articulate well enough to present.
It does sound Walky-ish. Though it’s probably not any more mystical than the fact that they grew up together.
Does this mean that inside, Sal is more like Walky? Could there be a Dorothy equivalent boy somewhere that could tame that bad girl?
That explanation is simultaneously the most likely and the most boring.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Reality?????
Yes! My reality is awesome and has literally pink marmosets!
But would you want to live there?
Well, they’re siblings. They grew up together. That they should have similar mannerisms and vocabulary is not surprising. Sal’s had a thin veneer of Tennessee mannerisms laid over her base Indiana upbringing, but it’s all in there.
ok, that was hilarious.
Funny how Amber gets to just walk away after getting this crowd riled up calling for Sal’s death, but Sal’s the unreasonable one for being peeved about it.
To be fair Sal attacked Amber first and then used more threatening language, at least that’s all that the crowd would have seen
Go fuck your fair. Amber had been stalking Sal all fucking day. She doesn’t just get to wash her hands of it when inevitably this turns into a violent confrontation.
Amber didn’t (intentionally) rile up the crowd, but if they do start escalate further, it is absolutely on her to try to calm them down or distract them.
Thankfully, it seems possible the racists in the crowd are too cowardly to actually initiate violence on their own, and might just grumble in disappointment.
I’d feel better about that possibility if the other security guard were standing between Sal and AG rather than of to the side behind Marcie, but he’s still in a position where its possible he was ready to try and break them up if they did start fighting.
No, you’re right. That wasn’t her intent. She only intended to wait until she caught Sal jaywalking at three in the morning so she could use that as an excuse to attack Sal for talking to her boyfriend. With intentions as benign as those it’s puzzling how the situation turned so sour so quickly.
I completely agree that stalking Sal was awful and Amazi-Girl was just waiting for an excuse to beat her up.
I’m just a little confused because while Amazi-Girl showing up is obviously what set the crowd off, it sounded like you were blaming her for the fact that racist assholes in the crowd saw her and a black girl scowling at each other and started calling for violence.
She definitely bears at least SOME responsibility there, even if she didn’t intend for the crowd to react this way to seeing her confront Sal, she has at least some power to deescalate the situation, and therefor the responsibility to do so.
But that last bit is not so incredibly clear-cut and obvious to warrant how you’re snapping at people.
Amber bears full responsibility for her own actions and how they created this situation.
It’s not like “Oh, I was just on my way to visit from friends. Slipped on a banana peel and whoops, now there’s an angry mob surrounding surrounding a passing acquaintance. The acquaintance is quite upset with me now, which strikes me as unreasonable, since this is an understandable accident that could happen to anybody.”
It is incredibly convenient for Amber that she now gets to casually walk away from this scene, where if Sal leaves she’ll be escorted by security. Yet Amber is acting as if Sal’s indignation is ridiculous.
Seeeconded. Seriously. White-privilege-a-palooza here.
I’m pretty sure the absurdity of Amber’s reaction in the last panel is the joke.
Not getting escorted by security away from the racist crowd really doesn’t sound like a dire consequence. It’s not like they have the authority to do anything more than that, and all that means is Sal has to quit hanging out with Marcie early. Even if the crowd calms the fuck down and security lets her stay, I can’t imagine she’d be inclined to do so after this.
@Fart Captor
Now you’re just being willfully obtuse. The security isn’t the injustice. The need for it is. Sal is in danger right now.
I am just trying to understand what you’re getting at. Until now, you were too busy snarking at people to elaborate on.
And yeah, I agree. Even if security keeps Sal safe, and even if Amber is going after an attempted rapist right now, just up and leaving Sal in this situation is a shitty thing to do.
She’s not actually gone yet, though. I’m hopeful she’ll at least realize the situation she’s put Sal in, and hopefully figure out a way to both chase after Ryan AND reduce the danger to Sal. But if she can’t do both, Sal is definitely the right choice.
It still seems entirely reasonable to not be so optimistic that Amber will do the right thing there (or as close as can be managed, given the damage already done)
Your description of this comic is completely ridiculous. This is not what’s happening at all.
First off, Amber is not in this comic. Second, Amazi-Girl is not walking away. She’s doing something on her phone, and says she’ll be back with Sal in a minute. Third, while stalking Sal is wrong, that does not make AG remotely responsible for the racist crowd. Fourth, AG is not following Sal for talking to her boyfriend, but due to a traumatic experience in her childhood. Fifth, not a single person has called Sal unreasonable for being peeved.
And, yes, Chris’s comment is reasonable. They are saying that, as far as the crowd knows, Amazi-Girl isn’t the bad guy here. They assumed you were upset at the crowd, since that would at least make sense. Instead, you’re upset at “Amber.”
The way you are attacking people is making it very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt. You are already doing the same patter that we’ve seen against Carla and Becky. You claim stuff that isn’t happening, you disrespect the minority group they are part of (by pretending that Amber and Amazi-Girl are the same), and you lash out at everyone who disagrees with you.
Please stop spoiling for a fight and take a step back.
The above comment is to Ganger. Probably should have realized that there would wind up being a lot of posts in between.
@trikly
Right, of course, none of this is Amber. It’s all her alter-ego countess boochie flagrante. How could I neglect to acknowledge that when this is all over, she’s gonna take off her mask and be absolved of all responsibility for any of this, while Sal’s gonna continue going to school with the people in this mob. Clearly that makes everything better.
AG is absolutely responsible for riling the racist crowd, you jackass. She settled in for the fight she wanted from the start in a damn trump rally. She might be ignorant about what her actions would cause, but her actions caused them. To her credit, whether she understands the gravity of the situation or not, she did try and calm them down, and I’m glad for that. But her actions still caused this, both stalking and not fleeing.
And no, Chris is just doing more covering of the crowd. Nobody knows she ‘attacked’ Amazi-girl. They ‘know’ she’s a criminal thug, tho. This is just the damn text.
Ah, and Gangler, Amber does seem to have DID. She is actually, factually not responsible for her actions as AG. That’s how mental illness works. We shouldn’t be angry that she is sick.
@Lailah
I”m pretty sure “I disguise myself and run around committing violent crimes, then take off my disguise and tell people that wasn’t me” isn’t usually how mental illness works. That sounds more like a calculated attempt to evade the law, but maybe someday she’ll get an actual doctor involved and we’ll hear more on that subject.
She’s been Amazi-Girl without the mask. It’s probably some variant of DID.
@Lailah
Yes, conveniently she was Amber when she attacked Blaine in costume, so when Dorothy asked Amazigirl “Did you do that”she was able to blame her other persona, allowing both Amber and Amazigirl to avoid any consequences for that.
If it’s not intentional how she’s doing this it’s a hell of a coincidence.
It’s like it’s a story or something. A fictional enterprise, wherein coincidences actually do happen with an eerie level of frequency.
The one I was thinkign was when Amazi-girl flipped out at Danny over talking to Sal tho. The one where she doesn’t have her mask, and is both tagged Amazi-girl, and outright refuses to behave like Amber.
She’s had some monologues on the differences, too. Like, yes, Amber is ultimately holding up a lot of shitty things, but this is a thing that is real. You can see which alter is in based on the tags. Occasionally it’s both.
Like, none of this changes that what she’s doing is fucked up, or that she needs to stop. But she is actually sick.
A story is a story and a pattern of behavior is still a pattern of behavior.
If the way she structures her so called personalities weren’t calculated and voluntary, then they wouldn’t conspicuously continue to work in her favor at every opportunity.
Considering we have literally seen Amber rapidly and involuntarily switch personas in response to seeing Sal twice now, I think it’s fair to say it’s legit.
Like, if you’re sick of Amber, that’s fair, but acting like her being mentally ill is just a convenient excuse is kinda terrible.
Involuntary nothing. Amber has a huge grudge on Sal, so upon seeing her she just happens to switch to her violent personality, who conveniently has her own costume and can enact her grudge on Sal without anything being tied back to her. A grudge, mind you, that Amazigirl maintains even though if Amazigirl truly is her own person, Sal has never done anything to her except save her life that one time. If Amazigirl truly is a separate and distinct entity, then she should have no beef with Sal, who only ever traumatized Amber.
Maybe if Amber wanted to fuck Sal up but she couldn’t stop herself from switching to Amazigirl who thinks Sal is awesome, we’d have more of a case here, but as is it seems like Amazigirl mostly only exists to further Amber’s goals.
She “happens” to switch personas because seeing Sal causes Amber to experience PTSD over the night of the robbery. It’s happened like four times now. Amber can’t be near her without having panic attacks, and now it’s escalated to the point where she automatically shifts to Amazi-Girl to cope with the stress of Sal’s presence, and the memories she evokes.
Amazi-Girl isn’t a person living in Amber’s head, she’s a dissociative personality brought about by Amber’s coping mechanisms for her past trauma.
Yes, yes, of course she’s a coping strategy and all that. But if you’re going to argue that Amber isn’t responsible for the actions of Amazigirl because they’re not the same people, that implies a bit more than that.
When Amber shifts personas into Amazi-Girl, she ceases to be Amber. She takes on a new set of rules and behaviours that are fitting to the Amazi-Girl alter.
Now whether Amber is responsible for the consequences of her actions as Amazi-Girl, well of course. If she gets arrested for her actions as Amazi-Girl it’s still Amber who gets institutionalized. That’s like saying Billie wasn’t responsible for driving into a tree because she was drunk, but when we see Amber burst into tears for almost swearing at Danny while Amazi-Girl gets in his face and screams at length about he’s a failure of a partner, I think it’s safe to say there’s some level of difference in how both alters approach things.
Like when they ruined her relationship.
New rules and behaviors that Amber decided on.
She’s talked for example about how she decided to create Amazigirl as a productive outlet for her aggression, in hopes that this would help her avoid becoming like her father.
It’s not like Amazigirl just sprouted into existence fully formed and started demanding they go beat people up periodically against Amber’s wishes.
I’d actually argue that Amber isn’t responsible for the actions of Amazi-girl. Billie voluntarily got drunk. Amber did not choose to have DID
Like yeah, Amber’s the one who gets institutionalized (HAHAHAHAHAHA that’s funny pretending we do that. She’d be in prison if the police did anything), but not actually being in a proper state of mind does tend to limit responsibility. At least, in some personal sense.
And hon, I don’t know what to tell you. You wanted proof of it happening when it wasn’t convenient. I just told you: Amazi-girl dismantled her relationship. Amber did not actually want that. She cares for Danny. Willis seems to be strongly implying this is the case. What do you want, besides the implicit blessing of the narrative. 5 doctors? Like, “oh, what a coincidence” no shit. It’s a story. Danny and Amber having the same compsci course is also a coincidence.
Oh yeah, and as far as inconveniences: the relationship being WITH AMAZI-GIRL. That was kinda super inconvenient.
Again, Amazigirl didn’t ruin her relationship with Danny. They’re the same people, acting on the same trauma. It’s not like Amber was totally cool with Danny hanging out with Sal and Amazigirl forced the issue there.
Metatext aside, it is exactly like that. It never came up before that moment.
Metatext included, most of the time (Nearly all of it) when Amber’s tagged with Sal, she flees, rather than getting aggressive. She’s scared. Amazi-girl isn’t.
Amber runs alright. Runs straight to her dresser, changes, and comes back to enact her violent fantasies with impunity.
Because she has to. Because she’s freaking out and can’t be Amber because Amber is weak and terrified and stabs people in the hand. She has to let Amazi-Girl take the reins because Amazi-Girl is strong and confident and is everything Amber can never be.
She doesn’t have to do shit. It’s just how she chooses to cope with the situation. She has an obligation to figure out a better way to do this. One that doesn’t entail terrorizing people who frankly have their own shit to deal with. Not like she’s the only traumatized person on campus.
Yes, she does have to shift personas. That’s how that shit works, dude. She has panic attacks and has to stop being Amber until she sorts it out.
The punching? No, she has to cut that shit out. It’s not the fun superhero thing it was for the first few years of the comic anymore, but acting like Amber can just decide to not respond to trauma in her set coping mechanism is goshdarned sillybuns.
Can you imagine if every student who had a panic attack became a stalker for the next few days? What would that look like?
I genuinely have no idea what you’re trying to do anymore.
Amber is suffering from some major dissociative tendencies. Also her vigilante actions are wrong and she needs to stop, or be stopped. Saying “Amber has DID and does things for X reason” doesn’t mean I’m trying to give her a by on stalking Sal.
Gangler: At this point, no one is saying Amber/Amazi-Girl’s behavior isn’t horrible or that she should not be held responsible for her actions as either identity.
But this is not something she is faking. This is not a calculated act to escape consequences (though obviously the mask is). This is not something she has control of. Not anymore. She is not well. PTSD, parental abuse, and DID each can have a variety of effects on a person on their own. None are things which prevent a person from living a normal, happy life without running around in a mask beating people up.
But as you’ve noticed, Amber is not coping with them in a healthy manner.. She’s doing harm to others, and to herself as well.
You sound like you’re arguing that Amber is not in full control of her own actions, and thus cannot be held responsible for them.
Amber has a coping mechanism. Some people respond to this sort of thing by sleeping it off, or engaging in substance abuse, or using some sort of artistic outlet for their feelings, or self harming or any number of other things. Amber happens to cope by “becoming” Amazigirl, who she’s ensured is equipped to commit various violent crimes without it being tied back to her. This is a conscious choice. These crimes are premeditated. She is in full control of her own actions.
No, she fled to a rooftop. Or into a tree, the other time.
I mean, if your sole argument is “it’s super convenient”, how does that account for the metatext? Or the fact that she ruined. Her. God. Damned. Relationship? It is /not/ convenient.
Or just maybe Amber/Amazigirl is truly amazing and in spite of having major emotional issues with Sal wasn’t willing to let things get out of control. And maybe we should cheer that she’s texting Joyce or Dorothy to get confirmation that this is really Ryan.
Amazigirl is stalking Sal, but she is missing critical information about the way that Sal has changed. Based on what she knows and has experienced, this is not an unreasonable thing to do. But no, let’s confuse multiple roles with multiple personalities and call her crazy. And racist too while we’re at it. And sure, stalking someone is always wrong. Let’s go arrest all the police that have “stalked” those who they thought were up to no good.
Yay, Amazigirl! Be the Amazing person you are, catch Ryan and give Joyce closure so that she no longer has to fear. And maybe someday you won’t need the Amazigirl role as a crutch. And all that will be left is the amazing Amber.
Or wait. It must be okay when the cops do it, but not when some vigilante like Amazigirl does it to Sal. Because Sal would never ever consider being a vigilante and taking the law into her own hands. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/assault/
Opps. Wrong link. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/law/
Clif, almost none of that is relevant to the issue being discussed.
Also, how is not trusting the cops (who probably would not have been able to do anything at that point, even if they wanted to) in any way comparable to “vigilantism”?
I like Amber, but she is not in a healthy place right now. She needs help. Not knowing that Sal has changed does NOT excuse stalking, harassment, or assault. Running around in a costume attempting to fight crime is not something healthy, well-adjusted people do.
Oh hey, someone who’s pretending I won’t just ding Sal for at least nominal acceptance of that, nice. Like I didn’t just ding Jacob and Dotty for being Amazi-girl’s fan.
Anyway, Amazi-girl isn’t amazing. Not much to tell you there. I mean, she just savagely beat a dude today in a way that exactly no bystander thought was necessary. I ain’t cheering shit, though I am relieved she may finally stop fucking harrassing Sal. And none of that matters. Sal doesn’t have to have changed. Amber got her revenge before Sal left the parking lot. Then Sal served her fucking debt to society. Neither Amber nor Amazi-girl deserves more here. Okay, yes, actually, Amazi-girl is still a violent vigilante, and they /both/ have committed battery, one multiple times (Remember when Amber stabbed Sal’s fucking hand while Sal was in custody? That’s fucking battery, and with a deadly weapon, not self defense.)
Yes, stalking people is always wrong when a citizen does it. There is never a good REAL reason to stalk someone. But if there were, waiting for them to finally break one of your rules so you could attack them, because you fucking hate this person, wouldn’t be it. But you know, White People are really obsessed with pretending everything AG did is okay. Because HOLY FUCK WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
The police have very limited rights to do it, and ideally would then only be able to do it with oversight. And yes, the police that have done so illegally should be arrested. Well done, you have divined a goal of mine. Do you mistakenly think that I do not believe the cops are fucked up and should be reformed too or something?
Oh, and yeah, the shit she’s done wrt Sal is still fucking racist. Unequal enforcement of the law on a black girl is going to be fucking racist. I know White People seem to have a problem with that, but yanno, too fucking bad. Maybe if they want it not to be racist, they can fix the society they benefit from.
“Go fuck your fair” is the best response I’ve ever seen to that kind of sentiment.
Fair is not always right. It’s the reason why “separate but equal” doesn’t exist as a law anymore.
Well, you know… and the whole thing where “separate but equal” was a thinly veiled excuse for anything but…
Her stalking, mind you, had a threat of violence to it beyond what would already be implicit, because Amber has already attacked Sal previously.
Nah, this is all Sal’s Fault. She should’ve waited so Amber could single out her and her friends alone at night again. *eyeroll*
No. Stalking is a violent crime. Sal defended herself against the inevitable. This is legal, but more to the point, actually just. There is no ‘fair’ where we pretend reasonable people wouldn’t fear for their safety.
Amber/AG was stalking Sal. Since when is stalking someone not threatening to the object of obsession? What was she supposed to do, when AG was literally hovering over her and breathing down her back? Stalking is a violation of another person’s being and rights.
Well she did see someone matching the description of, at minimum, an attempted rapist. The narrative cuts her some slack there.
Sal should be thrilled that her community protector is keeping the streets safe for everybody else.
I’m having difficulty telling if you’re fired up over a racist mob, or just trolling.
Aren’t people allowed to decide that they were wrong all along and just walk away?
Amber is very much allowed to do that, as we can plainly see. Sal on the other hand is now left with with angry mob situation to deal with whether she likes it or not.
Don’t worry about Sal and the Mob. In a very short time, they’re going to be trying to lynch Amazi-Girl for attacking one of their volunteers. That’s the thing about mobs: any blood will do so long as it’s ‘other’.
I’m sure it’s real easy to just not worry about the mob when you’re surrounded by people calling for your death.
“Aren’t people allowed to decide that they were wrong all along and just walk away?”
This only works if you walk away before you do any harm. If she had walked away after Sal first grabbed her cape and accused her of creeping on her, that would’ve been fine. At this point though she has brought a lot of undue attention on Sal*, and an entire crowd essentially thinks Sal’s a criminal. Harm has been done, so she has an obligation to defuse that, or at least try, before she leaves. Her final line in this strip only implies that there’s a bigger fish, and doesn’t remove the suspicion she cast on her.
*I 100% agree with Gangler in that Amazi-Girl’s status as a violent vigilante and her past run-ins with Sal make her stalking of Sal the entire impetus for this situation. Thus she bears responsibility for the situation.
Honestly, walking away might be the best way to defuse the situation. Before she saw Ryan, she’d started to try to protest and neither the crowd nor Sal were having any part of it. Understandably in Sal’s case.
She bears responsibility, but I’m not at all sure what she could do that might work.
Mobs are a really nasty subject. It isn’t always clear what’ll start one nor is it easy to deal with or reason with one once they’ve started.
This is a political rally. In American politics, if you’re wrong and you realize it you double-down to solidify the base.
Yeah, this strip oddly seems to look like it’s trying to make Sal seem to be acting irrationally for being ready to face amazigirl in a “look she’s being silly amazigirl would never do that” Even tho that’s like..what she came to do. She got distracted by the rapist but Sal has every right to be on guard when someone who knowingly goes around beating people up has been stalking her.
Please don’t confuse the strip with an interpretation of the strip. Oddly enough the strip has no volition. Willis on the other hand …
The cliffhanger is not progressing.
The alt text is lies. LIES.
We’re still hanging from the damn cliff, we’ve just inched to the left a bit.
It is progressing, it’s just going out with a whimper instead of a bang.
Keep watching.
Haha, man, I’m going to assume that the sound effect in the first panel of today’s comic is not supposed to be a carryover from the last panel of yesterday’s comic. In my day, they didn’t teach neck-breaking until at least the fifth grade…
I think it’s a phone camera shutter sound
Yes, but there’s no way that’s a coincidence. Especially if we never see Leland again.
Not that he’s actually dead, its just an excellent transition
So then what was that crackling sound I heard?
“Did Leland just… die?”
“You know, it was really unclear.”
nice
Wow, that was some seriously effective de-escalation. Somehow I think they will have a hard time mustering the will for a serious fight next time they meet.
He, I kinda hope they will have some sort of badass competition instead.
Wait, does Sal know about the incident?
Yup.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/assault/
She had a constructive little heart to heart with Walky about it here
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/foranybody/
Yes, but she never saw Ryan.
Thanks.
She knows about it, but not about it.
I mean she heard about, but doesn’t know Ryan.
Yes. She encouraged not involving the cops.
Yes. Because the drugs were out of Joyce’s system and college rapists do not generally draw the attention of the police.
Yes, yes. Very dramatic.
But what about Leslie? Will she get laiiiiiiiiiid?
Probably not until after the rally.
Unless this crowd here is the one Robin is presumably delivering some kind of speech to and Amazi-Girl keeps them REALLY distracted
Oh boy, wouldn’t that be fun. 😀
/NOT SARCASM
Tumblr?
Let’s be honest: This version of Robin is really not worth Leslie’s time.
And still, Leslie is here…
While we don’t really know how close her actual policies are to the crap she feeds her constituents, I do kinda hope that Roz’s plans to influence Robin’s political platform will be successful.
Learning about the racists at her own rally calling for violence against a black girl, and discovering she’s into ladies seem like a couple things that could lead to some stances shifting a bit. Or just no longer pandering to bigots to get reelected.
If nothing else, Leslie could only be a good influence on her.
Yeah, but even if Robin’s actual views differ from the one’s she’s peddling to her constituents, she’s equally culpable for their results.
And, as a result, still not worth Leslie’s time.
Doesn’t actually mean anything because the heart/lady parts want/s what it/they want/s, but still…
Yeah. It’s such a dehumanizing experience to be friends or romantically with someone who could care less about the welfare of people of your identity/heritage. Because it usually means, by extension, they don’t think that much of you, and you end up caring more about them than they care about you.
I’m hopeful that this will not prove to be the case, or at the very least, it will quickly stop being the case, after Leslie and/or Roz show Robin the fallout of her lip-service to shitty people.
Neither was the old Robin, but she made Leslie happy anyway, and really that’s what counts at the end of it all.
You know, when she wasn’t serially neglecting Leslie, or cheating on Leslie and uploading it to youtube at least.
Robin and Leslie were broken up before Robin did the YouTube thing. Specifically, she broke up with Robin so that Robin could DO the thing ON the YouTube video. Just not, y’know, YouTubed.
Right, it’s been a while obviously. Point is she didn’t treat Leslie right a lot of the time, but in the end Leslie was pretty happy with the family life they carved out with eachother.
I wouldn’t say Robin was “Worth Leslie’s Time” in either universe, but sometimes there’s more to these things than that.
If it’s cool for me to ask (since this is a mistake I have also previously made), was it a deliberate choice to have Robin and Leslie separate so that Robin could have sex with a man, rather than for Leslie to “allow” it within the confines of their relationship as a one-time thing?
I ask because that storyline was interesting to me in that I interpreted it as hitting upon the common stereotype of bisexuality of us inevitably cheating on our partners with one of a different gender, and as strange as this may sound coming from me, I really do believe that storyline to be the high point for Shortpacked! and found it in-character for Robin to completely accidentally do something that catastrophically terrible, and her entire arc of eventually forgiving herself and being ready to move on from Leslie, and Leslie forgiving her on her own time, was an incredible exploration of the idea of a relationship ending due to that fundamental breach in trust, and where both partners would go from there.
As Leo points out to Leslie near the end of the comic, Leslie is a pretty traditional person, which extends to her feelings on monogamy. I don’t think it’s in Leslie’s character to have an open relationship like that. She wants to get married to one person and have a singular relationship with them until the end of time. That’s her romantic ideal.
I also chafe a little at how that story, in retrospect, played in the general neighborhood of the stereotype of bisexuality as impetus for people to be unsatisfied with the one parter. My attempt, at the time, was to poke more at Robin’s extreme reluctance at being labeled Not Straight. She saw herself as Straight But With An Exception (eventually, and only after some hard prodding from an undead Ronald Reagan), but she still wanted to consider herself “Normal,” despite all this creeping evidence to the contrary. And so my aim was to show Robin’s internalized homophobia ruin everything she already had which made her happy. And after a while, after Robin had repaired herself a bit and picked up the pieces and grown in the knowledge of this and other problem areas, she was always to be returned to Leslie a better person. By the end of the strip, Robin was describing herself as queer, which I think is a more accurate label given the people like her who I know and how they self-identify.
SP!Leslie, though, is purposefully written a little biphobic, given that one conversation on the matter with Drew. Her insecurity in Robin’s dedicated love for her is a flaw that isn’t ever addressed head-on, I don’t recall.
Thank you for that. It was an illuminating read and it’s always great to get a deeper insight into some of your favourite characters, especially with that last bit about Leslie’s small amounts of biphobia and her line to Drew about how it must be so easy to be able to fall in love with a “socially acceptable” partner and how it showcased some of the prejudice bi folks can face in the queer community.
If it means anything coming from me, I believe there is validity in showing a bi character chafing under the idea of never having sex with a partner of a particular gender. It’s not a problem for me, I’m content knowing that I’ll be with one person, but there are some folks for whom it is a priority and like all forms of bi representation, it’s something that deserved to be shown as much as having a bi character falling for one person and being completely satisfied with that.
Looking back in hindsight knowing that I’m bi, I genuinely do believe Robin to be one of the best bi characters in webcomics, warts and all. In particular, while she was always going to get back with Leslie (and she better have!), I adored how you wrote her relationship with Joe as something that she took genuine validation in. That she was okay with falling for a man and being with him after her relationship with Leslie had ended, and that if things had worked out differently and she stayed with him, Robin could have been happy with that.
woah, things are taking quite a turn here
Amazi-Girl, now’s not the time to play Pokemon Go, geez!
Nah, that joke’s like two months away, I think.
Am I the only one who finds Beef hilarious?
I think that was his old MO.
Yes! Hero Mode Enabled!
Can’t Amazi-Girl do dsomething about Ryan, that guy who almost raped Joyce? Well, Joyce made Amazi-Girl promise she’d bring him to justice.
She never actually saw Ryan. She’s probably sending the picture to Dorothy to get confirmation that this is the right guy from Dorothy.
It’s not clear if Dorothy really saw Ryan either. She arrived after Sarah hit him with the bat. Then AG arrived and Ryan got away in the confusion. Sarah gave AG a description, but AG have to contact Sarah as Amber ’cause it’s Amber’s phone.
She did:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/assistance/
that’s Dorothy arriving on scene in panel 2, with Ryan’s head in the bottom right because he got knocked the fuck out
I should have stressed the “really”. I was thinking her attention was focused on Joyce, then AG, not the guy on the floor. But I was forgetting how detail oriented Dorothy is. She probably could provide the best description of anyone there, even from a glance at him.
(And it’s the strip before the one linked above. Damn detail orientation -OCD- ).
Even if Dorothy didn’t get a good look at Ryan, she’s AG’s main if not only contact with the people who could confirm his identity, Joyce and Sarah. So even if Dorothy can’t confirm it herself, she’s the best way to get confirmation from those who can.
Plus, as somebody else pointed out, it wouldn’t reveal anything for Dorothy to get a message from AG on Amber’s phone.
What is Amber taking a picture on? It looks like a Phone screen, but it’s got two hinged segments like a 3DS in the final panel
I heard slideout keyboard thingy.
im glad amazi-girls backing down to go after ryan, it just doesnt make much sense to me. wasnt aware “rational” was in her playbook when it came to sal
and with a violent mob backing her too! there are so many ways this couldve gone worse and im not really sure why it didnt
I feel like she would prioritize Ryan, but still at least be flustered by Sal. Amazi-Girl is better at dealing with her than Amber, but she still doesn’t like her.
Also, she should probably do something about the crowd if their racism (and the idea of being associated with it) bothers her more than Sal. She can’t just walk away to have the crowd accost Sal after riling them all up.
Amber/Amazi-Girl has a lot of different priorities here that aren’t mutually exclusive and should all still be in effect in her mind. Hopefully we get more of that as things go on.
I don’t think it is rationality so much as guilt. She considers letting Ryan get away as one of her biggest failures as AG.
Amber isn’t in control because of Ryan. Amazi-Girl is and Amazi-Girl recognizes Sal is innocent.
Amber hasn’t been in this scene at all. Amazi-Girl is the one who’s been stalking Sal. It’s not at all clear that Amazi-Girl recognizes Sal is innocent, though she did seem to be thrown by the way the crowd jumped in to cheer her on to beat Sal up, so she may be coming to some form of revelation.
Ryan hasn’t affected who’s in control here at all though. It’s been all Amazi-Girl.
Can I just say that I’m having fun finding where Beef is in each of these strips?
[Insert “Where’s the Beef” Joke Here]
Gameboy DSi? Is she trying to level up before the fight?
Grind for the permanent stat increase?
Meanwhile, in the flashback cliffhanger, I bet Sal’s choke hold leads to Leland doing something similar to Marcie, except he does permanent damage to her throat. Just so I can say I called it, if I did.
Noted, but I assume the choke hold was just to lead to the school authority coming down hard on the non-rich, non-white girl for doing no worse than Leland did. And Sal learns not to trust authorities. “Schools teach us valuable lessons”.
Don’t trust authorities is a super valuable lesson if you’re not a cis, heterosexual, white guy.
‘We were gonna fight…’
Her adrenaline was up, she was primed to go, and possibly end it all, given the nature of the people at the rally. I’d say “she doesn’t seem the type”, but I’m betting someone here would find that to be offensive. Wanting the pain and injustice of the world to just be over with, that I get.
Man, so many little things going on in the second panel, Sal wanting it done; Marcie worried about what happening to Sal; AG completely blocking out what going on around her to focus on Ryan, sending his picture to someone to get confirmation; people both happy and concerned about the fight they think is about to happen; and woof, calling for death?
Then, fight over, and everyone seeming dumbfounded as to why, the people near Ryan wondering why AG’s looking their way; Beef seemingly disappointed by the lack of fight; Marcie still holding back Sal, ’cause she still wants the fight.
‘Slink, slink, maybe I should be going.’ Yes Ryan, you should be. At minimum to rehabilitation classes, or whatever it’s called. Prison, if needed. And not so he can get raped. No one deserves that, even as a ‘karmic punishment’, I find it just desensitises us to how bad it is, or something like that.
Picturing Bale Batman saying AG’s line? Quite funny, imo. Onlookers surprised that AG found something more important than Sal to beat on, which I shudder to wonder what they would consider worse that ‘thug face’ there. Marcie no longer needing to restrain Sal, since ‘stupefied’ tends to do a good job of that.
Now starts the theories on who, or whom, AG is contacting. It may be a bit too much for Joyce. Sarah seems sturdy enough to handle a picture of Ryan popping up. Though it begs the question, who has “AmaziGirl’s” phone number? And not Amber’s? I’m going to go with Dorothy. She know the identity of AG, and if she saw Ryan at the party, can make an ID for AG.
Though next would follow the legality of AG taking down Ryan. Could probably state something like citizen’s arrest or the like, but save that for another day.
OK?
Indiana state law doesn’t call it citizen’s arrest that I saw, but it is allowed in this case. AG has probable cause to believe Ryan committed a felony, and that’s all that’s required under Indiana law to hold him until the police get there. (Or, you know, leave him tied up at the police station with a sign hanging from around his neck.)
….. okay, I know you said another day, but the comic posts in the evening here and it’s now midnight…. well no, it’s 11…. look, it’s past midnight SOMEWHERE. So nyeh.
Another day as in “a different comic’s comment section”. And it was more self-referential, anyways. Theorize away.
Amazi-Girl may have helped Joyce produce an e-fit of Ryan and she’s comparing his photo to her cloud-stored crime files.
Huh.
It may be a good thing Marcie and the other security people are there. Otherwise, this crowd might go after Sal now themselves. And for no reason other than mob mentality. Sal’s tough but I doubt she could handle that many.
Doesn’t really sound like Security’s got this terribly well under control, but it’s better than nothing for sure.
Such a common-sense resolution to the “does AG know what Ryan looks like” question that I’m almost disappointed. Mostly in myself for not guessing what the resolution would be.
No! Get Sal in on it! Super hero team up! Amazi- Girl and Thug Face team up to take down Turbo Tool
I think ‘Turbo Tool’ lends too much credence and favorable light to that guy/thing.
That was honestly the best i had. I’m not good with names if “Thug Face” hadn’t served as a good enough indicator.
I’d have suggested an alternative, if I were any better with names.
Ten years later and poor Marcie is still trying to hold back Sal from fighting people. No wonder she has such muscular arms.
That look of surprise on Sal’s face at the end makes me realize that she’s never seen AG speak calmly until now. I wonder if Sal’s been assuming that stammering with rage was just AG’s natural state.
Well, as much as ‘gravel voice’ can be calm.
The only interaction Sal’s had with AG where AG didn’t threaten or try to attack her was after catching her when she fell off that car. And even then, she screamed angrily at Sal for saving her live. And that was because she clearly couldn’t have managed it.
She just suddenly dropped what was obviously a huge obsession for her like flipping a switch. Understandably, Sal is feeling a bit of whiplash
So’s the crowd.
This is going to end up with a tag team like the MegaPowers isn’t it.
So i had a thought about a villain name for Ryan. Scar face sounds too cool and asshole just seems too simple. What about appendix? Appendixes nonchalantly go about their day until one day they escalate their destructive capabilities and need to be removed immediately because they are simply toxic (for the sake of the metaphor, re-read but replace Appendixes with Rapists).
Spiked balls.
No, AG, no. When we said were talking about seeing therapists, there wasn’t a space in that word.
*when we were talking about seeing therapists
I fail delivery forever.
I don’t go to the delivery often since I’ve decided to become a vegetarian.
Sorry, there should be a space there.
*I don’t go to the delivery of ten
I laughed.
You win an internet.
-Pulled all-nighter
-Fell asleep at ~4 PM
-Woke up at ~1 AM
-Is super happy because it means I didn’t have to WAIT until MIDNIGHT for the strip! It’s almost like I got it early, except I proved myself wrong when I thought I couldn’t screw up my sleep schedule any further!
I haven’t had a sleeping schedule quite that bad in a while. My messed up sleeping schedules more recently have been something more like 6am bedtime and 2pm morning.
Well, two days before a trip halfway up the coast to visit my best friend for a week I decided to stay up until 5 while trying to get some writing done, and woke up at noon. The day before the trip, same thing. Then I had a car ride for 14 hours, didn’t exactly help fix it. Then I had five or six days of staying up until 3 playing Super Smash Brothers Melee or finally getting around to seeing Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool with aforementioned best friend. Then another car ride.
A month or two later, I haven’t had a good schedule since. Even though I’ve been trying to remedy it recently I’ve just been getting worse. If I try to go to sleep at 12:15 (because let’s face it- I’d never go to bed BEFORE reading DoA) I end up lying awake for at least two hours.
Good news is it is somewhat fun trying to make sure I don’t wake up my dog when I grab a soda or whatever. Friggin’ James Bond theme playing in my head, making sure I avoid that one creaky step on the staircase…
This whole summer I’ve been waking up at 1AM regardless of when I go to sleep. It’s weird.
I don’t know why, but it sure does make catching the latest strip convenient.
Well… I think the mob just got diffused into awkward silence. This strange, but at least less likely to incite riotous violence, so I am ok with it.
Do the recent flashbacks show that there’s really very little difference between Sal and AG?
Current Sal is very much different. Past Sal was similar in some regards.
Basically, what Amazi-Girl is saying: “Oh, for heaven’s sake, woman! Get over yourself! Something important is happening right now!”
I strongly suspect that Sal’s self-image may have just taken a hit! 😉
So, does this mean that Amazi-Girl has got over her Sal = evil hump? Well, that remains to be seen but we do know that she regards her responsibility to Joyce is far more important to her than her grudge against Sal.
I’m sure Sal would love for AG to stop regarding her as important and stop stalking her, but at the moment, with the angry mob and all, it’s pretty reasonable for her to be annoyed AG started shit then just…walked away.
Except AG didnt.
i think Sal was justified to preemptively strike, but AG thought she was hidden.
Stalking someone is starting shit.
Well maybe things would have been fine if Sal just let Amber stalk her instead of getting all angry about it!
wait no
I don’t buy that Sal was provoked entirely by Amazi-Girl’s actions. From the start of this arc, she’s seemed slightly OOC to me. I’ve got the feeling something is up that made Amazi-Girl’s amateur Batman routine just a little too much to tolerate right now. Maybe it’s what’s been happening with Billie left her dangling on her last frayed nerve or something.
Ummmm stalking is starting shit; Sal can’t strike preemptively against AG because AG was already stalking her.
Amazi-Girl has a very specific narrative for this. Sal can’t be a person, just a concept to overcome, and she has to be justified in fighting her in revenge for “taking” so much from her.
She stalks Sal all day, almost certainly under the pretense of “just making sure” and then Sal hits her first, so now Amazi-Girl is completely morally vindicated in beating the shit out of Sal like she’s wanted to do this whole time, complete with a crowd cheering her on and treating Sal like subhuman scum.
So the narrative is broken. She doesn’t want to be the symbol for a pack of racist thugs and she has to apprehend Ryan, because that’s more important.
Well, glad to see someone still has her priorities right.
A nother time
Wait wait wait wait wait. Is Sydney Yus the illegitimate daughter of Galasso? Just read the megapost, one panel where she wants to send a bill to congress than reacts to her aides words in the next panel. The nose, the hairline, the expression of a conquers wrath, looking down with an evil smile in the panel before, its uncanny
Tsk. Now you’ve made me want to read a mini-arc story with Sydney awkwardly playing the ‘saner older sister’ to Connie.
like, I doubt that DoA will end up in an actual vigilante murder… but what else could AG be thinking? not like she can go to the police, dragging him by the collar – there’s a pretty specific warrant out for a caped crusader re Blaine.
*BITES NAILS*
No, Blaine has said it was a big guy who hospitalized him.
Blaine said that, but there were also eye-witness reports of a “caped crusader” beating him up.
Hm, right, or Dotty wouldn’t know to ask Amber about it.
Later Dorothy asked Amazi-Girl about it, who clarified that it “wasn’t her.”
Exactly, it was Amber.
Y’know, the odd thing is that AG didn’t start anything, at least not here and now. Sal is responding to a sense of resentment against Amazi-Girl’s obsession with her that has been building for a while. However (and I think that this is only serving to tick Sal off even more) what she didn’t do, at least in this occasion, was hurl any accusations or punches except something about Danny that, if you took away the costume, would make me think I’m seeing two freshman argue about a guy because they’re in a romantic triangle.
Amazi-Girl didn’t really start anything in this current scene except by her reputation. The mob saw her and someone who ticked enough of their ‘evildoer’ boxes and ran with it. Before she saw Ryan, I think that Amazi-Girl was trying to find a way to de-escalate. Now she’s going to try to grab him and, as he’s a campaign worker, it may turn the mob against her.
And, you know, by relentlessly stalking Sal with the intent to assault her, but let’s just gloss over that part.
I didn’t. I made it clear in the early part of my post that Sal was provoked by Amazi-Girl’s past actions.
The point is, though, that the mob know nothing of this so they are responding solely to their own perceptions of what is happening with this confrontation and that, at least in this case, Amazi-Girl wasn’t doing much in the way of provocation or escalation. I just find it odd and I wonder where Willis is planning to take this sudden shift in who is the person driving the aggresion and confrontaoitn.
While I agree that Amber didn’t intentionally cause the situation, Sal wouldn’t be in it if AG hadn’t been stalking her and looking for a fight.
That, plus the fact that she has sway over at least some of the crowd does make me feel that if she just left Sal with the crowd as is, it would be irresponsible of her at the very least. They’re not violent now, but the potential is high
I want Ryan caught and beaten up as much as the next person, but I gotta admit that just dashing off without at least making sure the crowd isn’t going to get ugly would be a shittier thing to do than letting Ryan get away.
Though I don’t actually think AG has sway over any of the crowd. The crowd’s reacting to the situation. That she can rile them up doesn’t mean she can calm them down.
Let me guess, you were the kid in the car holding their finger a millimeter from their sibling’s nose going “Iiiiiiii’m not touching yoooooooooou,” then yelling for mom when they smacked your hand away.
Um… No, I wasn’t. Was that an attempt at humour?
My point is AG didn’t start anything in this arc in the same way the hypothetical “I’m not touching you” child didn’t start anything.
Not even. The law legitimately wouldn’t recognize ‘I’M NOT TOUCHING YOUUUU”. The law /does/ recognize stalking. So people are turning a blind eye on a violent crime because the victim is a black girl and obviously the white girl isn’t responsible.
Agreed.
My take on it is: white, mostly neo-con crowd see a white vigilante doing “justice” on a black girl and they come to the vigilante’s aid.
I think Amazigirl has realized that this isn’t a good scene, that her stalking of Sal can be seen as racist and she appears to be doing her best to wriggle out of it. It’s probably a good sign for Amazigirl.
I liked super-hero comics and the Robin Hood myths when I was younger but now? Not so much. The police may be a bunch of bastards but at least it isn’t the Armalite warlord/vile monarchist system that libertarianism leads us towards.
The security team should be sacked. Not Marcie, but I suspect she’d be the one to carry the can.
I really doubt she’s figured out that her stalking is racist or is motivated by that. Caped White Girl Power Trip has not demonstrated any real understanding of racial politics, after all. But she has figured out she’s gotten a crowd violent at Sal.
I reject totally any suggestion that AG’s behaviour has a racial component. Sal could be any colour of the rainbow and she’s react towards her in the same way.
Agreed. As far as AG’s own behavior goes. I also agree with Lailah that she’s got no understanding of racial politics. I wouldn’t be surprised if she understood that racism is why the crowd was so easily turned on Sal and that’s why she was so bothered by it.
I don’t think her stalking is racist or that she’s realized how much it looks like that to Sal.
Can white people just fuck off forever?
Her motivations do not. Fucking. Matter. She is playing pseudo law enforcer to Sal. She is doing so disproportionately, and in stark contrast to the fact that if either of them should be in trouble with the law, it should be motherfucking Amber. She’s the one who’s the violent vigilante. She’s the one who committed battery with a deadly fucking weapon. But here she is, still disproportionately trying to enforce the fucking law on Sal. She should be turning herself in.
Her motivation is to get back at the archnemesis she’s built up in her head. But her actions are racist, because they disproportionately bring up racist power structures on black people.
What I said, that had our brave defenders of the white race riled up, is that she’s not motivated to stop the racist effects of her actions, because she is not cognizant of that. But she /does/ realize that her actions are having an unintended effect, and at least may move to try to rein that in, even if she does not actually understand why it is important.
“I really doubt she’s figured out that her stalking is racist or is motivated by that.”
That is your sentence. That sentence says that you believe she is motivated by racism. That component of what you said is what people took disagreement with (understandably, because saying so is a massively disrespectful statement in the light of the fact Amber clearly has untreated PTSD due to a legitimately traumatic incident involving Sal which is the obvious motivation for all Amber’s subsequent creepy and obsessive dumbfuckery).
If that’s not what you meant by that statement that’s great but please don’t go off at people for being “brave defenders of the white race” for taking issue with what comes across as a really shitty, shallow and dismissive understanding of trauma and PTSD.
Signed, a PTSD sufferer.
Oh yeah, I’ve spent the last two weeks watching people deny Amber’s actions are racist, but NOW they’re just totally cognizant of the effects of PTSD. They’re just really worried for survivors. Okay. Except no. I’ve watched this asshattery for the last week. From the exact. Same. Fucking. People.
Ok, apologies. I haven’t been following this that closely.
Context: I’m a survivor of a sexual assault committed by a ciswoman and have had a huge number of people portray my survivor behaviour as misogynist. The left has a massive problem with only supporting victims and victim behaviour if their perpetrators fit in a nice convenient straight-white-cis-male “oppressor space” and pretty much treading on anyone who’s victimised by people who happen to themselves be part of a marginalised demographic.
At first glance this basically read like the same thing except replacing “misogyny” with “racism”, and consequentially pushed a LOT of my buttons. Sorry if there’s more to it.
I don’t mean this as an ableist comment in the slightest, but it’s possible to have a mental health disorder AND be racist/do racist things. Amber’s actions have racist undertones to them, whether we like it or not because that’s the society that we (and by extension Amber, since the setting is clearly influenced by current events) live in. There are also numerous panels that indicate the racial component of her beef with Sal, her stalking Sal, etc. So I’m not sure how anyone could read that and say, “There’s no racial implications whatsoever.”
So i quite understand that Lailah is getting heated about it, because it is quite common, in any medium that discusses race, for people to come out of the woodwork and claim that race influences nothing whatsoever in society, that it can’t exist in that medium because Hitler and/or members of the Klan are not present, and obviously a social structure that is based heavily in white supremacy only allows for such extreme types, while if you read any legitimate piece of literature about it, reveals that not to be the case. It feels like you deny the experience of people of that identity, by rationalizing away, or saying “well she didn’t mean it, so if Sal does end up getting beat up by the crowd it’s not that bad.”
It’s a pretty simple situation. Amber/AG’s actions have racial implications. Sal is only being verbally threatened and harassed by the crowd because of Amber/AG, and Amber/AG stalking and harassing her only fuels their racist ideals. Even Amber/AG herself is not exempt from the radicalized hierarchy, because nobody is born and grows up in a social vacuum, especially in America of all places.
In fact, in response to the people claiming it’s because she has PTSD, it’s totally ableist and just strange to claim that mental health disorders like PTSD are the only reason a person would do/say anything racist. And it’s also illogical to claim that that person’s behaviour does not affect others, which is a huge part of Amber’s story arc: her being able to exist outside of her mind and realize the effects that she has on herself and others, which she can’t do on her own.
Yeah, as much as I want Amber to get help and get and handle on herself again, she’s still responsible for her actions even if we can see and understand how she got this far over the edge.
Her PTSD might excuse her actions during a panic attack, but the rest of the time, she’s lucid enough to be held accountable for her actions.
I definitely want to see her get help to get well, but I also want her to atone for her actions, and acknowledge how she’s been persecuting Sal, and the racial component to it.
Because even though we know race wasn’t THE reason for her actions, it was in there. And if nothing else, if Sal were white, Amber would not have been able to do most of the things she’d done to Sal. We don’t know what if any consequences there were for Amber for stabbing Sal, but I’m sure they’d have been greater. Sal would have been able to go the cops when Amber first attacked her in the parking lot, and she probably would have trusted the system enough to actually do so. The crowd here may still have called for a fight, but they’d LOT less likely to jump in themselves.
Even though she didn’t make the world that way, and was likely unaware she was using those advantages at all, when she sees it, she should feel just as ashamed as when she realized her anger towards Sal was just as unjustified and hateful as that of the crowd of bigots shouting for violence.
I really want these two to end up on at least relatively friendly terms, but forgiving Amber at this point (or any point in the future, really) would be extremely charitable of Sal.
No, nobody’s claimed ‘she isn’t racist, she just has PTSD.’ I mean yeah, it wouldn’t make a racist action not be racist, but what actually happened is that I said Amber’s not trying to stop her racist actions because they’re racist. I really doubt she understands how what she’s doing is playing into that, even given a crowd behind her. Someone with PTSD is conflating the folks saying Amber didn’t do something racist, with folks who are just concerned with PTSD. Which would be a much better world than the one we actually have.
…I’d rather not?
I completely agree though. I really hope AG will start seeing not just the obvious consequences, but the underlying grossness of her actions.
Especially since the differences in how Amber and Sal’s lives have played out (with respect to their seeking extra-judicial justice / vengeance) are almost exclusively caused by race. Change nothing else about them, and their roles here would be reversed.
Good point.
I thought that look over her shoulder in one of her panels was that realization. You are correct in that it’s the realisation that she’s gotten a crowd mad at Sal.
The underlying cultural politics are still a distant framework to her.
Jesus fuck, white people. Amazi-girl started this. She stalked sal
It’s like I’m in some weird twilight zone where stalking people until you find an excuse to viciously assault them is some totally benign and harmless act.
Hey, I resemble that.
Looks like Joyce is about to get a “sorry for triggering you but is this the guy?” amazitext.
Damn millennial vigilantes, always on their “Supervillain Go” apps instead of apprehending the criminals in front of them. Look up from the phone, youngster! Join the rest of us in the REAL world!
I still think that AG was after Ryan all along, not Sal.
Then you lie to yourself.
We will see soon enough.
We have seen though. She specifically said to herself while no one was around that she was after Sal. Also: stalking someone who had nothing to do with Ryan is a really weird way to find Ryan.
I think the way she didn’t spot Ryan until the crowd snapped her out of her MUST-FIGHT-SAL trance kinda implies that she might have found him a lot sooner if she hadn’t been obsessing about Sal this whole time.
OTOH, she likely wouldn’t have been at this rally if she wasn’t stalking Sal, so wouldn’t have had the chance to spot him.
See, everything works out for the best in this best of all possible worlds. 🙂
We already did see. You’re just blinding yourself because you desperately will not allow yourself to come to the easy conclusion. She sat on the awning thing above the roof watching Sal plotting revenge. That was tonight. She followed Sal. And now she’s following Ryan, who she’s clearly shocked to see at all? God almighty, where are you buying your pitchforks? Because they must be industrial strength to move all that straw.
The one thing we do know is that she was stalking Sal.
I just think that, if AG really was stalking Sal, she would never have let her guard down long enough for Sal to grab her cape and pull her to the ground.
Personally, I think she was distracted, searching for Ryan and didn’t even realize Sal was below her. But, only Willis knows for sure.
You mean like when she let her guard down enough for Malaya to get the drop on her?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/comeatme/
She’s not Batman. She makes mistakes. One of those is stalking and harassing Sal.
Amber, for setting aside your obsession for the cause of greater good, I consider you potentially redeemable.
Whoa, does Amber handle this kind of stress well! I expected she’d go for crowd control, trying to explain things to the shouting mob. Instead, she focuses on what’s most important: trying to bring a true criminal to justice. And she just walks away from the mob & their angry demands!
And leaves Sal to deal with an angry and racist mob.
I mean, we saw her try to deescalate the crowd earlier.
Like, she’s owning this, I think. She’s recognizing that the crowd is acting in support of her, and she’s completely not okay with it and is trying to get them to settle down. If one of them actually did make a move on Sal I don’t think it’s possible that Amber would intervene here.
*I don’t think it’s impossible that Amber would intervene.
She could try making a big show of being chummy with Sal so that the non-bigots in the crowd would lose interest in seeing her get beat up, or distract everyone by signing autographs or posing for pictures with people.
But would Sal go for it? At this point, I don’t think she’d buy it. Why would she? I’d freak out if the creep that had been stalking me suddenly started being chummy.
Except that since she bears much of the responsibility for the mob in the first place it’s not actually that admirable an action (not a terrible one but not worthy to being lauded). Now a few things the individuals in the mob absolutely are responsible for their actions but this doesn’t remove AG’s responsibility either. Also AG has significant Behavioral Health issues and wether or not she can, or should be, held morally or legally culpable for her actions is not obvious here. I tend to fall on the side of compassion in almost all cases but that’s neither here not there. Also as her actions (stalking most likely it’s possible she was pursuing Ryan but unlikely and even if so she has been stalking Sal and has assaulted her friends so it’s not an unreasonable conclusion for Sal to reach) bear some responsibility for creating the situation with the crowd she therefore has a responsibility to defuse that situation as much as she can. Even at the cost of allowing Ryan to escape. I really need to paragraph better.
‘letting ryan escape’? She doesn’t really have a choice, or at least not a real one. She can’t actually apprehend him, but even if she did, what are the police going to do? They already don’t believe rape is real. Even if they did, the courts don’t.
I’m not really interested in some super level of fault. I’m not mad at Amber here. But her actions are still the reason this shit is happening.
And this idiotic grasp for straws can be ignored. She is not here for Ryan. You do not have that kind of jump cut because someone EXPECTED to see someone.
I agree. If she’d been looking for Ryan, there would at been at least one panel showing the crowd before she spotted him, to at least hint that she’d been looking for him. Instead, the hate-filled shouts from the crowd behind her cause her to look back at them, and only then does she notice Ryan among the people behind her.
It doesn’t at all read like “oh right, that’s what I was here for”, so much as “oh hell, a mistake I might actually be able to fix“. Maybe even “hey, someone who actually deserves to get beat up”, though I’m not confident she’s that aware of how far in the wrong she’s been just yet.
No.
This is completely .. wrong behaviour.
WTH leaves someone at the mercy of a riled-up mob? ffs
Amazi-Girl has priorities on who to punch, and I’m glad to see that Sal isn’t first. And I think she sort-of defused the situation by confusing the hell out of everyone, including Sal.
I hate that Ryan looks a lot like me. ~_~
Sal preffers people to take seriously a mutual punching apointment.
Request for Readers’ Opinion:
Did the sound of Amber photographing Ryan snap Sal out of her flashback? I’m just trying to imagine how a director would have done this if it was an animated or live action show.
I think that was just a narrative flashback, not something Sal was actually remembering / thinking about.
Whoops, meant to reply to BenRG‘s comment.
I don’t mean to sidetrack things, Fart Captor, but this is the comment I was looking at when I clicked on your name…… and why the hell did you make me look at that thing from August 14th. My eyes won’t stop leaking.
But those aren’t “oh no something bad happened” tears, they’re “Hank is the best dad ever” tears! Those are the good kind!
Also your link just points to the comment you were replying to and I’m very confused
I was referring to the post on this blog (of yours I’m assuming) and yeah, as pointless as it is, the link was supposed to point to the comment I was replying to…. not sure why I felt the need to do that though.
…as in that post was causing the leaking…
Oh THAT. The blog’s mine, though that art was somebody else’s that I reblogged because it’s really good. Especially paired with that day’s strip
I’d say a good 9:1 happy/sad feels ratio.
Whoops not that one this one:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/deserves/
dangit, now i’m leaking too.
Yeah, I agree, it makes for a really good combo.
Oh man, I didn’t notice Sal’s little “okey dokey” the first time I read the strip and the last panel just got so much better.
I’m glad Amazi-Girl seems to be reacting to Ryan in a calm and hopefully productive manner, but if she’s gonna be waiting for a text back to confirm Ryan’s identity, what’s she gonna do while she waits? She’ll probably end up having to physically restrain him somehow, if only to prevent him from escaping…
I’m still expecting the crowd to object and strongly to her attempting a Section 4-a-2 on Ryan because he’s a campaign staffer and party member in good repute (so much like Leyland, in his own way). I strongly suspect that Amazi-Girl and Sal are going to find themselves in the profoundly uncomfortable position of having to fight their way out of Dodge together and are going to end up sitting on a rooftop somewhere in an awkward silence, trying to work out what they’re supposed to do or say next.
Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. I’m wondering if maybe they just “settle” for beating the hell out of him and call it a night, but then that still leaves him out there. If he’s back I think that means we’re tying up this loose end.
Unless they find some very specific proof, they can’t do legally do anything to Ryan.
They’ve got Joyce and Sarah (plus who knows how many others) as eyewitnesses. All they need to do is deliver him to the cops.
Of course, that’s where the “He’s a good guy”, “He’d never do this”, “It was a moment of madness”, “She was asking for it” and “He’s already been punished enough” (the scar) brigades will kick in and he walks. That’s the point where Amazi-Girl gets to understand Sal’s point of view of the ‘proper authorities’.
There would have been a laundry list of reasons why the cops would have given Joyce and co. shit if they called the police right then and there.
Sufficed to say, I don’t think Ryan’s going to go to jail for that. Not unless he’s carrying roofies on him right now or something.
The worst part about that is that while we know from the narrative that restraining him is correct she actually doesn’t until she has confirmation (I’ll ignore the entire vigilante thing for the moment this story doesn’t appear to be based in our world) to do so would not be ethically defensible on her part. So really she should (normative judgment yay!) focus on defusing the situation regarding Sal which to be fair focusing on Ryan has at least begun that process.
So Sal asks Marcie to let go of her. She’s said at other points that Marcie is the one that prevents her from being physically aggressive with people.
I realised the other day, I don’t think it is Marcie /physically/ preventing these things (Though she might be holding Sal at points, I’m guessing it isn’t a firm enough hold to actually prevent anything).
Rather, I think she’s respecting Marcie’s wishes. I think she respects them 1) Because Marcie is her friend, but also 2) Over the years I think a pattern has emerged where Marcie pays the consequences for Sal’s behavior.
For instance, with Leland, in the meeting with Sal’s parents the problem was Marcie. I’m guessing that then when Sal retaliated, Marcie was the one at risk (ESPECIALLY if she’s undocumented, her family risks a lot if they go to authorities). Even now, Marcie is at risk (though Sal is as well) in the sense that if Marcie is seen as helping a friend in a fight or whatever, she could lose her job – a job that she needs.
When Joyce tells Sal that Amazi-Girl is trying to rescue Becky, Sal tells Joyce that Amazi escalates things, and that someone will get hurt. ( http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/escalate/ )Basically, escalation can lead to unintended consequences and the wrong people get hurt.
Sal learned to not act on anger for Marcie’s sake. Just like Jocelyne has advised Joyce to be careful on acting on anger for Becky’s sake.
I mean, Sal is barely able to hold herself back here, but she is. She is letting Marcie direct if and when she responds. And I think Sal will probably continue to do so, unless she believes she and/or Marcie are in immediate (and major) danger. (at which point Sal might respond regardless of Marcie’s directions)
Mmhm, I’d figured the same thing. Even without Joyce or Amazigirl as contrast it seemed the right call for her narrative. And Sal’s also said, variously, that Marcie’s always right about this.
Yeah. The point I made about sal’s impression of Amazi-Girl going into the toedad sequence was not so much to contrast with sal, but to give further weight to the idea that a lot of what Amazi is doing through now is stuff that Sal went through in the past.
After she rescues Amazi, Sal says she’s familiar with what drives Amazi, that it is what drove her years ago. While Sal has seen Amazi in a bad light (due to her stalking Sal), I think in that moment Sal may have actually been referring to the fact that violently fighting for justice sometimes costs those who you are trying to protect. She was seeing that Amazi was trying to do good, but Sal knew, from her own life experience, that such behavior has unintended consequences. Consequences that other people, not just the vigilantes themselves, have to face.
I think Slashface realizes he’s been recognized. He’s going to break into a run in a moment.
Which may lead to an Action Comics Moment(TM) when Amazi-Girl uses her grappler to swing-kick him.
So I’m not sure how weird this is to say, but I’m kinda glad that Amber got to have the last word here?
Like, even when Amber saved Becky’s life that was still followed up with Sal going “eat it, nerd”, so I like that we can have Sal end this strip with a dorky “okey dokey.”
It doesn’t make Sal wrong, it doesn’t somehow make all of Amber’s actions remotely justified let alone for the fact that Sal’s in this situation now due to Amazi-Girl being turned into a symbol for a pack of racist thugs, but IDK. I like that we get a scene where Amber gets to have the cool last line. This entire sequence from the last chapter on has been great for having Amber reclaim some of her better traits instead of just being a violent jerk and I’m glad to see her be a good person again.
We left this cliffhanger with AG/Amber fighting for control. Amber wants/needs to fight Sal. Amazi-Girl has a different agenda and wants justice, order and clarity. The two have been dangerously mixed lately, with AG going off to attack people for minor crimes to satisfy Amer’s anger.
Now she faced a choice. Get the resolution that Amber needs with Sal, at any cost. Even if the cognitive dissonance was getting extreme. Or keep AG’s promise to Joyce (and to herself) that she would track down the rapist that got away due to her grandstanding.
She got evidence, a photo that she can show Joyce for confirmation. Then she turned from Amber’s obsession and followed AG’s nemesis, the Joe Chill who got away due to her. This is a yuuuuuge moment for the two of them, with AG reasserting control and setting priorities. Amber must be screaming for release.
After she deals with Ryan, she/they needs to recognize this moment and come back to it. It can help her restore BALANCE to her life but living more as the proud AG and less as the crippled and damaged Amber who wants to hurt Sal (again!) to pay her back, mainly because that is what Blaine continues to tell her to do.
Love the long term parallel. Sal’s eyes in Balance were a lot like Amber’s when she was smiling in the dark behind Sal in the hallway. The happy release of anger in violence. Something Sal learned not to do, but that Amber learned to do.
100% agreed. Amber is Gollum, not Smeagol.
I don’t think its at all that simple. Both AG and Amber have problems. Some of the more violent moments seem to consistently be Amber (even with the mask on), but stalking and harassing Sal has been entirely AG. She’s even mentioned how the whole reason she wants to re-create the confrontation with Sal is for AG make up for Amber’s weakness.
I disagree, pretty strongly. I don’t think there’s been any sign in this confrontation of Amber and Amazi-Girl fighting for control. The tags have been consistently AG, there’ve been no cheek blushes, none of the usual signs of Amber. Amazi-Girl was stalking Sal. Amazi-Girl was in control. Amazi-Girl wanted the fight with Sal, but wanted some justification for it. It was Amazi-Girl who was creeped out by the crowd joining it. It was also Amazi-Girl who saw Ryan and chose to neglect Sal to go after him – possibly partly as an excuse to not do what the creepy crowd wanted, realizing to some extent the problems there.
It may also be important to note that Amber was planning on hiding in her room all day writing fanfic until Sal spoke outside her door and we saw Amazi-Girl peering through.
Damn it, Sal, Amazi-Girl only has two fists. Take a number, geez.
I want this to end with AG mentioning to Sal that that’s the guy that attacked Joyce, then we have a superhero team-up of the two of them working together to run him down.
For some reason this made me imagine Sal tearing off her clothes (not like that, Slipshine readers!) Superman-style to reveal the motorcycle jacket underneath, followed by an oddly Power Rangers watch/Anime transformation sequence-style cigarette lighting, with her motorcycle and helmet appearing in front of her.
Why not that though?
So many are expecting the AG&Sal team up, that I’m beginning to think Willis is leading us on only to distract us from the real plan.
We need to remember to watch the other hand of Master Magician Willis, not the moving hand or puffs of smoke.
Joyce will suddenly appear and punch Ryan with her good arm. He will fly clear across the room only to be caught by Sal? (Sal’s had practice at catching flying bodies.) No. Too obviously satisfying.
My ideal vision of the future:
*amazigirl corners sal privately*
“Hey you remember that covenwince store you robbed a few years back? I was there and it scared me for life. Combined with my abusive father, I retreated into my own little world of superheroes and comics, resulting in the coping mechanism of a severed identity.”
…But of course, God forbid antone actually act sensible in this comic.
PS does nobody noTice how it’s implied that sal snapped that guys neck?
omigod, teens with abuse backgrounds and ptsd don’t act sensibly!
No shit. They act realistically. (Well, maybe not the actual super-hero outfit and all, but beyond that.)
Next thing you’ll tell me that a suicidally depressed 20-something might not be receptive to outside intervention or something.
pshaw
Human beings, even well-adjusted ones, are not rational by nature. Its a thing we’re able to be, for short intervals, if we concentrate.
Even then, we’re not completely rational, and our decisions sure as hell aren’t.
Abuse victims with PTSD, acting out in a misguided attempt to “fix” a past traumatic event, are considerably less rational.
Why are you coming to a drama expecting reasonable behavior? Or really, any other fiction?
Comic Reactions:
Eee, AG’s evolving!!!!
Panel 2: “Thug”, yeah, there’s no doubt whatsoever that there’s a considerable element of racism in how the crowd is responding to this conflict and Sal sees it instantly. She’s fluent in dogwhistle and she’s got a history of not just bowing down to those and “knowing her place” and she’s riled up to her max from the crowd and the stalker all coming together at once.
She’s brave and she’s angry, rightfully so, really. Cause that “authoritarian shill”, line? Yeah, that’s what AG has shown her so far. Going out of her way to harass her in Walmart parking lots, viewing her as a villain when she’s saved her life, believing her criminal history labels her as worthless forever. Hell, AG straight up told her she just uses laws as an excuse to harass people back when she was trying to pick a fight the first time:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/curbstompings/
Sal hasn’t gotten to see the AG every one else gets to see yet. Only the AG that has perfectly embodied a racist harasser, just looking for an excuse to hurt her. And here, with AG letting go of that paranoia in the wake of the threat of Ryan, she just might get to see it finally. And that means that the doors of communication might be being opened.
Panel 6: Or maybe not, though that seems to have de-escalated things with Sal pretty quick, so Sal might be cottoning on to things being out of place and be looking to help soon.
Rest of comic: Oh, no, Ryan noticed the attention and is slipping out nonchalantly, that’s bad. And it’s gonna go bad for AG when the crowd notices she’s dropping going after the “thug” they want her to attack to go after an “upstanding” white man in a campaign t-shirt instead. This is gonna go so so bad.
What, really? I mean, yeah, there’s an element of racism going on here, but this is also likely a tough-on-crime crowd, and rape is one of the BIG felonies. Surely a right-wing, anti-crime crowd would not go so far as to defend or shield a rapist just because he’s a white son of a pastor college student who they know as being on their team, right?
[/sarcasm but holding off on /bitter]
Of course not. They’d never defend an actual rapist. But then an upstanding son of a pastor like that would never be an actual rapist, right? So Amazi-Girl must be wrong about him. She’s just some crazy vigilante anyway.
Slow clap.
On some level, I just blatantly don’t really want communication. I mean, it’s where the narrative’s going, and it’ll probably be good in spite of that, but it’d be sort of fucking satisfying if Amber could just work past her bullshit without actually needing any interaction with Sal. Sal just does not owe her that trouble and it just doesn’t get validated enough in fiction. You usually don’t see it unless someone crosses the pale like Blaine or Toedad.
Like, I don’t actually want Amber to be stuck with that shit. And like I said, the narrative is clearly going that way, given that she’s blowing her support structure away and Sal is legit well equipped for this conversation. But if she could work it through with like, literally any other character besides the one she wronged, that’d be great.
Sorry, Lailah, but I need Amber/Sal roller derby friendshipping.
Need.
forsrstho, I think there is genuine validity in Amber recognizing on her own that her grudge is pointless, that she can’t pursue Sal for their shared history, that she has personally harmed Sal and escaped from legal repercussions (health not so much, natch), and deciding to drop it without ever really learning who Sal is and getting help. It would be an interesting way for that to go, even outside the inherent interest in such a swerve.
Damn. I was excited for them to team up, if only briefly, but that’s a really good point.
I figured they wouldn’t end up being friends, but a truce seems likely at least. Even a truce feels like it’d be one-sided now, since Amber/AG is the entire reason a truce is needed.
Enjoy it if you want, it’ll probably still be good?
Gad damn it, Ryan is going to slip away in the crowd during the brief instant AG turned back to reply to Sal, isn’t he?
Since no one’s said it yet….
OH SNAP!
Ryan is kind of going to be Ambers “get out of consequences for my fucked up actions” free card, isn’t he? After all rapist > violent stalker in the evil hierarchy, so she’ll probably end up excusing her actions or being venerated for them because they resulted in her taking him down by sheer random luck.
If it makes you feel better, Amber was never going to suffer legal consequences for her actions on account of being a cartoon superhero.
And because Willis isn’t going to lock her up for the rest of the comic. Nor do I really care whether Amber faces consequences for her fucked up actions. She doesn’t need consequences. She needs help. If the consequences lead to help, great. If she gets help without those consequences, also great. If she can sort herself out, she can try to make it up to Sal. Or, as I expect to happen one way or another, that’ll be part of getting her started on sorting herself out.
As for what consequences would really be likely – nice white boy who’s called a rapist without any evidence by the crazy vigilante who attacks him trumps pretty much anything else around. He gets sympathy. Amber gets locked up – possibly in the psycho ward with little effective treatment, more likely in the general population with no real treatment. Sal gets ignored at best. Locked up if she does damn near anything.
Maybe Slashface will escape AG, only to run smack into Dorothy. Who will lose her ambitious composure and punch him into next week.
glad that she’s at least got enough rationality left to be hesitating this much
Reverse pudding hair! Is Ryan Chloe’s evil opposite?
Well, I guess I’m not the only one who feels sick looking at the mob mentality going on here. I really fear for Sal, and I hope that Amazigirl can realise that the racial aspect going on in this particular instance makes this not the right time to get her vengeance…