129

De-escalate
Posted on October 28, 2018 by David M Willis

129 thoughts on “De-escalate”

  1. lilyliv

    She’s so proud of herself. I’m grinning so hard.

    1. lilyliv

      …So is Ethan in my avatar, I guess.

    2. Golddragon

      Cripes, the relief on her face is tangible. It’s gonna suck to see what happens when she tries this on Amber, though…

      1. Stu

        Honestly, I’m reading that less as relief and more as “Stressed the fuck out and hoping that this might get Marcie to interact with me a bit more so I can vent a bit”

    3. BenRG

      Yeah, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen her so happy!

      1. Clif

        Victory is where you find it.

  2. butts

    well at least they’re talking again

    …fuck whoops

    1. ProfessorDetective

      At least they are interacting again.

      1. Clif

        It’s a good sign.

    2. Jimi

      This comment wasn’t about butts! I demand a refund.

  3. Doctor_Who

    Marcie is dubious. This is like the time Sal claimed that she was abducted by aliens, or that she didn’t cry watching Inside Out OR Toy Story 3.

    1. Mr D

      I didn’t cry but then again, when I first watched those movies I was at the emotional dead age that is being between 17 and 24. Too old to get emotional, too young to feel too empathic. Also, I was just starting out with the psyche pills, so it took a while.

      Now, if I first watched those movies NOW, at 27? I’d likely tear up a bit.

    2. Zach

      Toy Story 3 was to toy story 2 what Jimmy Neutron was to Chicken Little: a shameless, lazy photo copy with a color swap. Toy Story 2 though, that has Sally’s Song!

      1. MatthewTheLucky

        What?

      2. Delicious Taffy

        The Jimmy Neutron movie came out in 2001. Chicken Little came out in 2005. Sally’s Song was in The Nightmare Before Christmas, not Toy Story 2.

        I hope you’re just being ornery.

      3. Khyrin

        So… The toys sliding into the incinerator, saying their last goodbyes does nothing for you?

      4. Mr. Bulmbin

        I think you got the terms backwards, there. Chicken Little is, compared to the Jimmy Neutron movie, at least, pretty soulless, relying almost exclusively on pop-culture references for any emotional connection. This, combined with the above fact that it came out four years later . . .

    3. BBCC

      I liked both but cried at neither.

      Nice It’s Walky reference btw.

      1. Joshua Kronengold

        Wow. DId you manage to avoid crying in the first 10 minutes of Up?

        1. BBCC

          Yup. I haven’t cried at fiction (beyond sometimes tearing up) since I saw Bridge to Terabithia when I was younger.

        2. Keulen

          I think one of the few moments in movies that makes me cry is the scene in The Land Before Time when Littlefoot’s mother dies.

        3. BBCC

          That franchise was my childhood.

        4. Ghostforge

          I recently tried to torture the players I DM for by making them kill a dino specifically meant to remind them of both Littlefoot’s mom, and Goat-mom from Undertale. I designed the encounter in such a way, that all obvious options were horrible and ended with at least the dino dying, if not the entire forest in the Knock-off big valley it was trapped in. I say tried, because they managed to concoct a shrink potion in order to save the thing. the best laid plans…

        5. Mr D

          I legit teared up at the end of Logan.

          Might have something to do with my personal problems with my old man and shit tho.

  4. LeslieBean4Shizzle

    Speaking of Marcie… yay Marcie!
    And yeah, Sal really should have taken a selfie with Ethan.

  5. Well_Played

    That’ll make for a weird moment with Amber.

    1. Bobcat

      Red panels, red panels everywhere!

      1. Needfuldoer

        And you get a red panel! And YOU get a red panel!

        1. Willinwoods

          *pats on roof* Wait til you see how many red panels you can fit into this li’l beauty!

      2. BBCC

        I still wanna see if the stabbing’s another red panel for Sal. We know Marcie’s accident was but I still wanna know about the stabbing.

  6. meep

    What is the sign that
    Marcie uses mean?

    1. Mr D

      “Bullshit”

      (Just guessing)

      1. Bruceski

        I believe “bullshit” is two forearms hand to elbow, one making the bull’s horns and the other plopping out the back.

      2. TheKelliestKelly

        No, bullshit is signed with the arms folded on top of each other in front of the torso. The non dominant hand is on top in a Y shape (the pinky and thumb extended with other fingers folded – kinda like metal horns) and with the dominant hand open, palm down you wave the fingers.

        I don’t know what sign Marcie is using but it does not look like bullshit to me. If it is, it is conveyed differently than Willis has drawn it in the past, a variant of the sign, or I’m just not recognizing it from this perspective

        Here’s a link to when he drew Bullshit
        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/bullshit-2/

        I really wish I knew the sign in this strip too. Bullshit was a good guess tho

        1. Deanatay

          I’m guessing the sign is ‘de-escalate’ – Willis has a custom of titling his strips with Marcie’s most significant sign. He even mentioned it in one of the alt-texts.

          It’s probably signed sarcastically, since Sal got that she doesn’t believe her.

        2. All-Purpose Guru

          My cousin does this one while snapping the fingers of the dominant hand.

    2. David M Willis

      It’s “believe.”

      She’s probabably in the middle of saying something like “nope, don’t believe it”

      1. pablo360

        “probably”

        1. Ryek Hvek

          Marcie was stuttertering

        2. MatsuoTanuki

          DBZA!Krillin: “If some one with one arm does sign language, is that an accent or a speech impediment?”

        3. BlackCatGodess

          The majority of signs in ASL were designed to be done one handed so…non-regional diction?

        4. MatsuoTanuki

          *cue “The More You Know!” star and rainbow*

    3. Arianod

      “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen”

    4. Ivy

      “Pics or it didn’t happen”

  7. ShinyNeen

    S’been 24 hours and I’m still hung up on how expressive Sal is in panels 4+5. And then framing those panels with Marcie’s initial expression and then reaction… I like that touch.

  8. shadowcell

    plot twist: reinvigorated by the reminder that he cheated death, Ethan decides to make sure the Beast Wars character wins the poll by resorting to open terrorism

    1. Doctor_Who

      He starts an political movement called the Pollcepticons. Their motto is “Beast Through Tyranny”.

  9. Antonio Tyler

    As someone who used to have a terrible temper, her pride in de-escalating a stressful made me tear up TBH.

  10. Mr D

    panel 4-5 Sal looks so emotional.
    Panel 4 she looks drained.
    Panel 5 looks like she is about to break, look at the mouth.

  11. Roger

    personally, as incredulous as the situation may be, it’s just so completely unbelievable that there’s no way Sal would have made that up

  12. tirachokko

    Oh Sal

  13. Regalli

    … So are we actually going to get that selfie, or do we need to bribe Willis first?

    … Would adding a knife make the painfully awkward moment better or worse?

    1. showler

      Halloween costume?

  14. DailyBrad

    Good on you, Sal, both for de-escalation and confronting your past, AND for trying to mend things with Marcie pro-actively.

    I get Marcie’s hesitation, given how obviously, they’ve got a lot of history together, but Sal definitely doesn’t seem like someone who lies often at all, so incredulous as she may be, I don’t think Marcie would think Sal would make it up wholesale.

  15. Stephen Bierce

    Kodachro~o~ome!
    They give us those nice bright colors
    They give us the greens of summers
    Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day
    I got a Nikon camera
    I love to take a photograph
    So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away    …

  16. BBCC

    We’re sorry, BBCC is unable to comment, because between Sal being fucking adorable, Marcie returning and the two of them actually talking, this strip killed her.

    In lieu of flowers, consider donating and/or boosting the gofundme for the Tree of Life synagogue and vote in any future elections: https://www.gofundme.com/tree-of-life-synagogue-shooting

    1. woobie

      Already voted.

  17. Regalli

    For us I mean. It would definitely make the moment worse for them. But also I figure deliberately asking for the knife means we won’t be surprised by it.

    1. Clif

      Here, have a cell phone.

  18. Kyrik Michalowski

    Does anyone know what Marcie is signing in the last panel? My knowledge of ASL is basically non-existent.

    1. 10LettersIsTooLong

      It looks basically like, “Pics or it didn’t happen”, but I’ve been squinting at it for twenty minutes and I’m just not positive what I’m looking at.

    2. Sam

      Willis has responded to an above comment saying it is ‘believe’ as in part of a sentence for ‘I don’t believe that’ or something similar.

      1. 10LettersIsTooLong

        Ah! I couldn’t see what was happening near the stair-rail so I zeroed-in on the upper motion which is “photograph” or part of it

  19. Bagge

    Awwww. Sal is just so PROUD! Well done, Sal. Well done indeed.

    But don’bt be so hard on yourself. You have de-escalated at least two times with Amazi-girl.

    1. BBCC

      “Don’t be so hard on yourself”

      Does not compute. Sal.exe is rejecting this input.

      1. Regalli

        But taking on unnecessary guilt is what Sal does best!

        (Someone help her. Please. She needs cocoa and blankies stretching across time.)

        1. BBCC

          Sal’s always struck me as having issues with guilt. Some because of actual terrible shit she’s done (robbery) and some because emotional abuse is a hell of a trip.

    2. Deanatay

      Has she? When?

      1. Bagge

        Here
        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/beforesunrise/

        1. Bagge

          and here
          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/prove/

        2. Bagge

          And you might want to count this as well
          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/yerself/

    3. BigDogLittleCat

      Don’t forget all her conversations with Danny, almost pleading with him to talk down AG.

      Sal is in many ways the calmest and most rational one in the bunch. The problem is, when she does snap she’s much more likely to resort to violence than anyone else. She doesn’t want to be violent, but if you bring it to her, she’s not afraid of it, and that makes her even scarier.

      So she ends up saddled with this image of

  20. Darkoneko

    lol. I can imagine her coming up to Ethan again with “err, mah friend did’n believ’ me”

  21. WateryBabe

    It’s super pixelated and doesn’t indicate whether the arm is rising or falling, but I think Marcie is making an emphatic chopping motion, to cut off Sal’s words.

  22. Derek

    I’m getting somewhat annoyed at Marcie, not because she’s keeping Sal at a distance (she has a right to be annoyed) but because she Sal’s best friend and as far as we’ve know she hasn’t bothered to talk about the incident that made her angry.
    It’s not entirely a misunderstanding, but it’s not as much of Sal’s fault as Marcie thinks

    1. Sam

      Sal might have been fighting for the right reasons, but for Marcie that doesn’t really change things. The problem isn’t motivations. It is her escalation of situations and Sal not keeping her word, which Sal knows already I’m pretty sure.

      1. Regalli

        Also, regardless of circumstances, getting your friend fired from her job* is kind of a big deal. At least tell her up front ‘that intern there roofied a friend, we know this for certain, what do we do with this’. (Things were actually relatively under control and within some semblance of protocol until Marcie’s higher up sided with AG and then AG saw Gashface. Marcie seemed upset Sal dragged AG out and escalated it, but she also seemed aware of the fact that deescalating a stalker is pretty damn hard.)

        * That she knows is morally degrading but is taking to pay the rent so that she can room with a bunch of other people in a crappy apartment to be close to you, and you know all this as well. No matter how noble the reasons, Marcie has to care about keeping this job at least enough to make the mental calculus, so a little acknowledgement that she was putting Marcie in a really bad situation with everything would have helped a lot.

        1. BBCC

          Thankfully Marcie has her regular job, but yeah, I’m guessing security would have paid more.

        2. Axel

          Did she get fired?

        3. BBCC

          Almost certainly, yeah.

    2. DailyBrad

      It’s been like 2 weeks, tops, hasn’t it? So, I get that she’s wanted space, even if she and Sal miss one another.

      1. BBCC

        About 11 days, yeah.

  23. AnvilPro

    Aww, Marcie doesn’t believe Sal. That’s sad, I’m sad.

  24. Deanatay

    In the end, Sal. you gotta be you for you. You can’t de-escalate just to get Marcie’s approval. You gotta do it for yourself.

    Same with us. We are all very proud of you. But, that can’t be the reason you do it.

  25. Keulen

    Would Sal getting a selfie with Ethan convince Marcie anyway? Does Marcie even know what “the kid Sal grabbed in the convenience store” looked like?

    1. Keulen

      Also, am I the only one who imagines Sal sounding kinda like Applejack when she talks? And why are all my sentences questions?

      1. Zatar

        You aren’t the only one.

      2. Smooti

        IIRC the voice actress for Applejack based her accent off of Dolly Parton, who’s from Tennessee, so I guess it’d be accurate.

  26. zappata15

    Sal if you get pics do it with Ethan remember Amber and forgive her for the knife incident.

    1. BigDogLittleCat

      My money says Sal doesn’t need to forgive Amber because Sal believes it’s all her fault.
      One of the most interesting things about Sal is that while she is open and upfront about having a record, she hides her scar, even from herself. She doesn’t even take the gloves off when she goes to sleep.

  27. Catman

    Daawwww Sal’s so proud of herself

    anyway, I call Gravroulette

    1. Catman

      Heh. Happy Dorothy.

      1. Catman

        I think I prefer malaya for some reason

        1. Catman

          But good to know I can be Sal when I want to

  28. Catman

    Last one

    1. Catman

      woops

  29. BenRG

    I’m thinking that Marcie is basically saying : “Pics or STFU”.

    In more detail, she’s expressing her scepticism that Sal is able to really fix any of her problems at all, only avoid them. Although this isn’t without justification, it seems a bit mean given Sal’s mood and makes me wonder if there can’t be any real healing between them, that Sal’s issues have finally driven them apart.

  30. Tawdry Quirks

    Plot twist: Marcie’s skepticism is over Sal wearing the Rutten jacket, and not the de-escalation.

  31. SpaceshipPilot

    Aw, I was hoping for more Thethan. (Ethad?)

  32. CJ

    Yeah, a selfie with ” this is the girl who stabbed me after the convenience store robbery” is totally the thing to do.

    1. Dean

      Sal holding a knife, Ethan with an arm raised to jokingly ward it off, both totally smiling…

      1. JBento

        50 thousand likes in the first 2 minutes.

  33. Emily

    And Marcie continues to become increasingly unlikable.

    1. BenRG

      FWIW, Sal has given her some reason to doubt that she’d ever change her ways.

      1. Emily

        It’s worth nothing.

  34. Doopyboop

    I’m gonna be devil’s advocate here for Marcie, I don’t blame her for still being upset. The latest flashbacks have helped me understand her point of view. We don’t know exactly what happened, but we know Sal feels responsible and her immediate response was to promise to stop fighting. She seems to have forgotten this promise, although she definitely remembered the money promise. I dunno, if I had a friend who had a habit/character trait/did SOMETHING that was correlated with me being permanently disabled, and they promised to stop doing that thing, only to continue doing that thing repeatedly with me constantly holding her back…? I’d get pretty sick of it too. Because the message becomes “I could die next time and you will STILL keep doing this shit, what’s it gonna take?” and that’s a sad feeling.

    However, Marcie definitely shouldn’t have just let Malaya talk shit about Sal the way she did. That was crummy. I know you had feelings for her Marcie, but that’s rude as hell. Especially since Malaya wasn’t talking shit about how Sal picks fights but how she’s ‘fake’ which Marcie knows firsthand isn’t true. I hope these two have a good discussion about their issues and come through the other side better for it.

    1. BBCC

      I don’t think she needs a devil’s advocate. I think it’s natural to still be upset and to have a hard time believing something that Sal and Ethan made up and de-escalated in such a short time.

  35. Guest42

    Amber won’t be an issue, she Views Sal as her sidekick.

    Anyone know what Marcie is signing? Is it “yeah, pull the other one?”

    1. SpaceshipPilot

      Amazi-Girl does. They’re not the same person anymore.

  36. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

    The Ethan/Thad ship may have been on Willis’ mind for a while! I looked through Thad’s tags and it appears he may have held hands with another boy besides Ethan, which I believe may have been foreshadowing for Ethad: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/crushed/

    It’s not immediately evident from the picture whether they actually were holding hands or not. But they were walking side by side, with Thad farther away, and yet you can see Thad’s left sleeve but not the guy’s right arm, so either the other boy’s arm was in a very strange position or his arm and Thad’s were crossed, which only makes sense if they were holding hands.

    This handholding occurs in the background of a comic in which Ethan is in the foreground. The guy in question was tagged as Evan, which is just “Ethan” with a “v” instead of a “th”, and that’s the only time that Evan has appeared. Handholding is the way Thad revealed his romantic feelings for Ethan, so if you were to foreshadow Ethad, it would make sense to do it through handholding. Further, the title of the strip is “Crushed”, which could be a hint that Thad would eventually have a crush on Ethan.

    QED, there is substantial (okay, fine, a little bit of somewhat convincing) evidence that “Crushed was foreshadowing for Ethad.

    1. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

      *Crushed” (last paragraph)

      1. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

        (also, i’m pretty sure i used QED wrong)

    2. BBCC

      We see Evan a little bit in Patreon canon. He seems very popular with the gay and multi-spec guys on his floor. So even if he and Thad were holding hands, they might not be exclusive.

    3. thejeff

      And that was like yesterday and just a bit after Mike had talked about Evan, so if anything it wasn’t foreshadowing, but an apparently clue that they weren’t available.

    4. ShinyNeen

      There’s something to be said for Ethan/Thad being an old, failed (is that the right word?) ship from back in Shortpacked!. I’m willing to bet that Willis has considering using DoA to give Ethan/Thad another shot at least a few times over the years. Yay, alternate continuities!

  37. Micki

    Yay Sal. <3

  38. abysswatcher1993

    Marcie: *In sign language* “You can’t just feel bad every time you do something bad! You have to do better!”

    Sal: “Marcie, I am not a bitter horse with criminal tendencies.”

    Joyce: “Who is ready to party!”

  39. BenRG

    I was looking at the last panel of this strip again and suddenly visualised a supremely uncomfortably-posed selfie of a grinning Sal with Ethan and Amber (the latter in the middle of a flashback/blackout).

  40. MatsuoTanuki

    They are talking, this is progress. Now if she could just find out that Malaya had sex with Joe, meaning she is at worst not into girls and at best not interested in Marcie, so she’ll dump her girl crush on that self-absorbed tart, that would be great.

    1. Rabid Rabbit

      She was there, she knows: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/shrug/

      1. MatsuoTanuki

        Huh. Either I missed that strip or plain forgot about it. I don’t know what to make of her lack of a reaction though, knowing Willis she could just be deep in denial. If not, and she HAS moved on, then yay, one less thing to create friction between her and Sal.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Or she thinks Malaya is bisexual. They exist.

        2. MatsuoTanuki

          Very true.

    2. timemonkey

      How does having sex with Joe mean she wouldn’t be open to Marcie? Marcie’s never made a move so Malaya has no reason to factor her into her romantic choices yet.

      1. MatsuoTanuki

        Infiltrating a Life Art class as a nude model seems like a pretty big “move” to me…

        1. Rabid Rabbit

          If you’re able to stay still, they’re also easy money, and we know Marcie needs all the money she can get, so it’s easily explained as not a move at all.

  41. Tam

    “But I don’t want a selfie”
    “WE ARE TAKING A SELFIE”

  42. C.T Phipps

    I totally think we need a Halloween alternate universe slasher movie with this cast.

  43. Roborat

    How does Marcie manage to avoid whacking herself on the back of the head with the skateboard carried like that?

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