268

Garaged
Posted on July 17, 2021 by David M Willis

268 thoughts on “Garaged”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    OH THANK FUCK

    *wipes brow with handkerchief over “garaged”*

    1. Reltzik

      … wait, is it in a garage for storage, or is it in a garage for five months of repairs?

      1. Clif

        In either case, Sal is mature for putting for putting her bike in storage while we know Asher is still giving Jennifer rides to class on his. You’d almost think Jennifer is an unreliable narrator.

        1. Clif

          Oh wait. That’s Asher talking. Well, we know he’s an unreliable narrator.

        2. Jamie

          No, that’s Jennifer talking.

          A: I’ve found an honest woman.
          J: “Found”?
          A: You know what I mean.
          J: Sal knows what I mean, too!

          Also, I don’t see Asher calling people nerds. That’s a Jennifer-ism.

      2. Wizard

        Storage. Anything that needs five months of repairs would be written off as a total loss. Considering it’s Indiana, putting the bike in storage for the worst winter months makes sense; Sal’s living in a dorm, so she certainly doesn’t have a garage. And I wouldn’t really want my bike sitting outside through that, even with a cover.

        1. Norah

          Wizard, I think you’re the first person who’s suggested non-sinister reasons for Sal garaging her bike! At least that I’ve seen.

        2. Needfuldoer

          Objection! Five months isn’t that outrageous when they’re do-it-yourself repairs. As evidence, I present the pile of barbecue grill and car parts in my backyard.

        3. Disastroid

          Please tell me you’re building a grillmobile.

        4. Needfuldoer

          At this point, it’s more like that time Homer tried to build a barbecue.

          If only it would stop raining every day and a half, so I could paint the stupid thing and put it back together!

        5. He Who Abides

          “Le Grille? What the hell is that?”

        6. Reltzik

          MOST people would write it off as a total loss.

          But Sal’s stubborn and doesn’t like following the crowd.

    2. Demoted Oblivious

      Damn you Willis! Did nobody send you the memo?

      Verbing nouns weirds language!

  2. BBCC

    Okay, so garaged – why? We know Sal doesn’t want to talk about it so either that’s not really what happened or there’s more to it than that.

    Asher ….I wanna be happy he’s quitting smoking but I’m still not sure how much this is legit. I’m wondering if he’s also using his relationship with Jennifer for the sake of being (or at least seeming) like he’s in a better place. We know Jennifer’s got some things about herself she’s being unhealthily dishonest with herself about (she’s shoved herself back in the closet for one).

    The way he’s talking though seems very …fake happy to me. “Honest woman” seems like he could like Jennifer because she’s not mob but it feels like such a condescending way to say it. Acting like not riding a motorcycle is a sign of maturity, complimenting her on her ‘nerd friends’ (which…feels backhandedly so).

    Raidah seems nice here. Granted, she usually is unless you’re someone she dislikes (Sarah, Joyce).

    1. Regalli

      Yeah, there’s something REALLY fakey about Asher’s little monologue here.

      (And honestly, I’m not sure Asher would be privy to whatever happened to Sal’s motorcycle. Given Walky wasn’t, there’s decent odds Jennifer doesn’t know. With all this ‘we’re totally mature now and we’ll never have problems again!’ I could see him making assumptions. Like the assumption Sal’s okay with him telling all of this info about her to people she doesn’t know.)

      (Also, seriously Asher and Jennifer: Let Sal tell your friends about herself while she’s present.)

      Agreed re: Raidah. We also saw her when Sarah first met her being pleasant and nice enough.

      1. BBCC

        Uh huh. There’s just something….off in the way Asher’s talking. I’m not sure what’s up but I don’t think I like it.

        Raidah was nice to Joyce too until she started sniffing around Jacob. I have no trouble believing she’s trying to be genuinely nice to Sal.

        1. Regalli

          Well, this seems relevant for one. I think he and Jennifer might actually be mutually pretending their pasts are 100% in the past, totally, never coming up ever again.

          https://youtu.be/YeGQXqqvvAY

          But also, bit of a condescending vibe here, especially with how little they’ve let Sal actually talk about herself in this introduction.

        2. BBCC

          That show has some surprisingly relevant songs tbh.

          I think you’re bang on. They’re definitely in Team Not Thinking About it Super Hard.

        3. Regalli

          Also relevant, on people thinking ‘garaging’ means ‘Linda wasn’t involved’: https://youtu.be/P_dSwkjbXqA

      2. Jenn

        I’m not sure Asher would be privy to whatever happened to Sal’s motorcycle. Given Walky wasn’t, there’s decent odds Jennifer doesn’t know.

        In case anyone else forgot where Walky implied he didn’t know what happened to Sal’s motorcycle.

    2. Sirksome

      You don’t actually trust Asher to know anything about what happened to Sal’s motorcycle beyond a blind assumption do you? I know I don’t. The bike could’ve been a transformer that had to go back to cybertron for all he would know. Which is to say I’m not reading too much into him thinking it’s “garaged”.

      1. BBCC

        Yeah, I’m putting my guess on either euphemism or assumption. Unless things have changed drastically, there’s almost no way Asher knows what’s up with her motorcycle, but Walky doesn’t.

        1. Pilgrim

          Assumption or presumption? It’s a very presumptuous assumption in any case.

      2. BarerMender

        Asher’s from the same neighborhood as Sal, and probably not as oblivious as Walky. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for word to get around.

        1. BBCC

          Walky’s not nearly as oblivious as he once was with Sal. I think if Sal was upset about something (as ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ implies) or it was public enough for word to get around, I think he’d know.

      3. Regalli

        … Okay I know you weren’t saying that seriously but Sal’s motorcycle actually does look a bit like Prime Arcee.

        Also, I could see Prime Arcee and Sal clicking reasonably well.

        In other words, as far as crack headcanons go this is actually oddly plausible. Dude literally wrote Beast Wars fanfiction in Shortpacked the one time.

        1. He Who Abides

          Ultra Mammoth, right?

        2. Regalli

          It was indeed!

          Also there was that whole bit where Robin lost her reelection campaign by lobbying for Dinobot to be inducted into the Transformers Hall of Fame that climaxed in the cast reenacting Code of Hero. (And also, Dinobot won.) That’s at least fanfic-adjacent.

    3. WanderingLynx

      THIS THIS THIS THIS. There’s something so fake and gross about all of this. And Sal is expected to take it in stride as they talk all over her in that “aw how cute you’re growing up” that’s so pretentious? Y I K E S .

      I’m still worried about Sal’s motorcycle btw. It’s likely #Something to do with her mom happened. OR maybe she sold it for Marcie’s sake? But… “Garaged” doesn’t mean shit coming from this dude. I doubt Asher knows something not even Walky does, but hey! Doesn’t it make for a nice assumption that totally reassures his own narrative?

      Seems like Jennifer Billingsworth finally found the best narcissistic reflection she could be attracted to.

      1. WanderingLynx

        …. Ok, seems I messed up that Blockquote T_T Sorry. I had been trying to address your third paragraph in specific :’)

      2. BBCC

        If anything’s gonna get the ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ response, it’d be something wrong with Marcie.

        1. WanderingLynx

          Marcie deserves good things, goddammit, and I’m not from the USA but I do know about the state of healthcare and the cash of a motorcycle wouldn’t be enough to cover any kind of surgery for her.

          But maybe what she had + the interest rates (Linda likely put that in the bank) plus selling the bike as a “promise” so her horrible mother will give her the money… That might?

        2. Geneseepaws

          I don’t think that there is enough “Good” in Linda to allow some gesture from Sal to look anything like “Magnanimous.”

        3. BBCC

          Might not help her old throat injury but she could have had something else go wrong in the meantime. Missed a pay check and needed rent money, an accident at roller derby that meant she needed to go to the ER (even a quick fix can cost a lot in the US is my understanding), etc.

      3. PB

        You perfectly summed up what’s been bothering me about this.

        1. WanderingLynx

          Jennifer can’t do a relationship without codependency, but before that arises she first must think of the other person as an equal… And for this to happen, the other person has to be a mirror in some way.

          I never trusted Asher but they’re both enabling each other in their “look how normal (but cool!) we are, aren’t we all glad silly childhood things are no more?” which makes me go OH GOD OH NO THERE’S TWO OF THEM. What an awful ship.

    4. Rabid Rabbit

      I can honestly imagine Asher as going through a motivational speaking phase — as in, one of those “Tell yourself you’re great ten times a day and you’ll end up being great” things. I’m doing fine. I’m not in the mob anymore. I’m growing up. Everything’s great. If I tell myself (and others) this often enough, maybe I’ll even believe it, and maybe it’ll even be true.

      I’ve never been in a witness protection program, but I imagine thinking like that helps you learn your new identity, and if Asher has left the mob, I can see why he might resort to this.

    5. showler

      Let’s be honest. Thinking about quitting smoking is just continuing smoking.

  3. ANeM

    “I don’t do crimes anymore, not after I got everyone kidnapped and Mike killed.”

    1. AGV

      That defo wasn’t on him

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        I mean, an axle will turn without grease, but even a shot od wd40 will smooth things out for a sec.

      2. WanderingLynx

        Asher didn’t think twice of the lives Blaine would be risking, nor the likelihood someone ended killed, until Blaine had made so many mistakes the only solution was to silence him to cover his own ass. “Not On Him” only from a certain angle. Certainly blasé enough about human lives that aren’t his.

        1. Regalli

          Asher almost certainly didn’t know what Blaine’s revenge would actually entail, or that it would include half a dozen completely unrelated bystanders. And also an accomplice recently released on bail that Blaine paid in his own name. Furthermore, he was threatened. Given the amount of money he stole from Gramps, quite possibly with his life. We don’t know how much Gramps forgives if it’s family. It’s still a circumstance Asher’s only in due to a terrible life choice (don’t steal from the mob, kid,) and one where he had to ignore some moral reservations he clearly pretended to have if nothing else (since Blaine assured him this wasn’t for revenge and no one had to get hurt,) but to our knowledge Asher isn’t a stone-cold supervillain, just a kid with seriously poor decisionmaking and even poorer options. (That said: it is POSSIBLE that, since we didn’t see who Asher was texting that first ‘it’s done’, he could have gone straight to the mob/Lester, spilled about this situation, and they decided to let Blaine sign his own death warrant and Asher should just go along with it and let it all play out. If so, that is ice cold and definite disregard for lives. But that seems overly complicated and there’s no real indication Blaine let on more than the minimum about his plan. Asher was needed to pull the fire alarm and nothing more. Since he wasn’t arrested, he wasn’t even one of the Masked Goons in the house.)

          Mike was also killed in a totally separate incident, after Blaine had found Asher to blackmail him but before the kidnapping. (At least as far as we know right now, but implication is it was the head injury and coma.) And that incident wasn’t planned, it happened because Ross escaped the Evil Dad Motel Lair to stalk Becky and Mike tried to draw attention away from the party by shouting Blaine’s dirty laundry and hoping AG would step in. That one actually, genuinely had nothing to do with Asher.

          Like, I still don’t trust him, he definitely asked to at least be notified at Blaine’s death, and he’s therefore clearly way more involved and way more complicit in shady shit than I’d want anyone in the cast to be around except Blaine (rest in go fuck yourself, Mob Dad,) but he probably didn’t know all that much. Since Blaine was a money stooge, too, not a beatdown guy, Asher may not have realized the guy was murderously violent. And seriously, I sorely doubt Asher ACTUALLY called the hit himself. Lester wouldn’t do that for the grandkid Gramps is angry at without express approval from the boss, and Blaine did PLENTY to justify that hit. Asher just got signed up for the mailing list.

        2. HeatherJean

          Yep. Who knows who Asher was texting. Maybe he was texting the FBI because he’s an undercover informant, and “it’s done” refers to faking Blaine’s death so that he, too, could tell the FBI what he knows about the mob. And wind up in Witness Protection, likely with Mike. Hilarity Ensues.

  4. Jabberwocky

    Haha I fucking hate these people

    1. Jabberwocky

      Like it’s kind of funny for how toxic Ruth and Billie’s relationship started out, Ruth really ended up bringing out the best in her. Take that away and she’s back to being one of the most awful insufferable characters in the strip.

      1. Schpoonman

        I think you just said it better than I ever could, thank you.

      2. Regalli

        Pretty much. I don’t need her and Ruth to get back together, but I am definitely looking forward to Jennifer’s 100% Normal Girl act to implode (y’know, again) so we can see her be something other than the perfect Popular Girl facade again.

        1. Twig the Troll

          Saaaaame.

        2. WanderingLynx

          I wanted them to get back together for a hot second, but it’s clear by now Jennifer has learned nothing and Ruth, while struggling, deserves better. Even if that “better” is a skinny, bratty submissive of a Brit.

          Billie/Ruth is dead, long live [Ruth/Jason, Daisy/Ruth, Booster/Ruth – literally anything else lmao.]

  5. RassilonTDavros

    1. Curious what “Garaged” means/is-a-euphemism for

    2. Sal is a massive dork and it is glorious

    1. Schpoonman

      Presumably the motorcycle isn’t gone entirely, just not an active presence in Sal’s life.

      I get it, motorcycles are stupid dangerous. On the other foot Asher and Jennifer can fuck right off and motorcycles are also super cool.

      Seriously, if this were a more genuine “Those things are monster dangerous, we’re glad you’re not risking your life additionally,” it would be one thing, but it’s suuuch toxic “We’re pretending the past isn’t a factor hahaha aren’t we so happy?” facade that it’s worse than if they hadn’t mentioned the motorcycle at all.

      1. WanderingLynx

        Even worse considering Asher rides a motorcycle too, mob girlfriend hugging him from behind and all

        1. Schpoonman

          Oh, wow, I hadn’t even considered that. What assholes.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Yeah, vocally he’s all “Good on you for ditching the bike, how mature!”, But he’s doing fuckin’ Akira slides all over campus, so he may as well vomit instead because at least that can be funny instead of just annoying.

      2. Lee

        I’ve actually been beginning to wonder if her not riding the bike is because the end of last semester was traumatic for her, too. And she is clearly supportive of Amazigirl channeling her pain elsewhere, but the bike was involved in the vigilantism and the attack to an extent.

        1. BBCC

          ^ This could be it too.

    2. woobie

      Maybe the motorcycle is just put away until spring.

      1. He Who Abides

        Only two things I expect Wise-Guy Jr. here to know about Sal’s bike are jack and shit.

  6. ADLegend21

    panel one and I want them to get hit with a brick

  7. Sirksome

    Another comic featuring Asher, another comment about how I don’t trust him. He also seems more untrustworthy this strip than usual. Or maybe just more annoying.

    1. WanderingLynx

      It’s a wordcount thing

    2. Keulen

      Same. The more I see Asher and the more he talks, the less I trust him. It kinda sounds to me like he’s trying to convince himself that he’s maturing when I’m not so sure he actually is.

      1. Thag Simmons

        He and Jen have that in common

    3. Eldritchy

      He is not helping his cause with the “Don’t do crime comment”

  8. Wagstaff

    *plays “Green Tambourine” from Recess: School’s Out on Voxola PR-76*

  9. Taigan

    Whoa! She took Danny’s advice about her singing?

    1. WanderingLynx

      … This is a great catch. Danny was likely crucial for Sal to embrace this and even declare it her major. And also it has to mean something changed between Sal and Marcie.

      Super looking forward to this.

      1. BBCC

        Maybe Sal’s finally accepting that her guilt’s been unnecessary and holding her back and Marcie wouldn’t want her to stop and won’t hold it against her?

        Pfffft hahahahaahaha, yeah, right. Sal giving up some of her guilt issues. I kill me.

        1. Regalli

          Look, SOMEONE needs to have made actual, not an illusion formed from just enough therapy to hide and their preexisting tendencies towards masking issues and reinvention, longterm progress over the timeskip. I am more than happy for that person to have been Sal. (AG also seems to be in a better place, and her and Amber to be on better terms, but Mike’s death has clearly done a number on Amber and we’ve only seen AG in one scene post-skip so I’m hesitant to say for sure.)

          I guess Malaya also figured out some Gender Stuff, that’s good, but given the extra trauma everyone else got, we need ALL THE WINS we can finagle out of Willis.

        2. BBCC

          Oh, she’s definitely made progress. I just haven’t seen evidence she’s made progress on her guilt issues specifically.

        3. WanderingLynx

          There’s hints she’s made more progress than she likes to let on, and some pretty major moments that also show Sal is dragging herself kicking and screaming into a better place. We don’t know what happened but her picking up music again to the point she’s now majoring in it has to be out of something positive.

          The Willis is a cruel master, but a fair one.

        4. BBCC

          Oh, she’s grown plenty, she just sucks with guilt issues. Not uncommon among kids with emotionally abusive parents, LINDA.

        5. WanderingLynx

          Blaine, Toedad, and Clint were the Unholy Trinity of Male Parental Figures, only one last member standing.

          Carol and Linda, though? That’s a goddamn competition that’s still on, and despite the religious abuse from the former, I’m still not sure on who’d win first place. Linda is vile. Linda saw an hospitalized child with a life-changing injury, watched her daughter toil away to help her, and waited until the end to inform her daughter she’d keep that cash because Sally didn’t know spending it on an “illegal alien” might make her look “like a hoodlum.”

        6. Wagstaff

          Yeah, and once all three are dead, the evil-utionists will use the combined power of all their souls to freeze The Son.

          ## SARCASTIC PROPHECY SELF-CHECK COMPLETE ##

  10. Lux

    I don’t know WHAT this reminds me of but there isn’t a vibrant enough red to describe the flags I’m seeing.

    1. Nayann Martinelli

      This is what comes to my mind

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83byvBR-4os

    2. Regalli

      I’m thinking one of those massive red flags theater companies use for
      1) Productions of Les Miserables, and
      2) Parodies of Les Miserables, which are occasionally written into the script (as in, say, Urinetown,) and then added in via improv about once every four productiond otherwise.

      They’re usually roughly the height of the performer waving it and waved VERY dramatically, for maximum effect.

    3. Keulen

      More red flags than a communist parade here.

  11. I am Nothing

    It’d seem I actually woke up before a strip airs for once…

    1. Wagstaff

      Huh…. you live in Asia or something?

      1. I am Nothing

        Haha, nope; I live in the UK – It’s currently 5 AM.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          Lies! Deceiver! The timestamp clearly says 12:17 am. The earth is an obliged cuboid. Have a ciesta g.o.a.t.s!

        2. I am Nothing

          One day, all of our lives will be synchronised under a single timezone.

          What is a drop of rain, compared to the storm? What is a thought, compared to the mind? A single voice, to a magnificent chorus?

          Our unity is full of wonder which your tiny individualism cannot even conceive.

        3. Wagstaff

          Somebody call Hallmark! We just found the slogans to plaster on their new line of greeting cards and bumper stickers!

  12. Nayann Martinelli

    Wow, what a couple of a**hats. The fact that Sal hasn’t flipped them off shows she has a lot of willpower.

    1. Wagstaff

      Either that or she wants to get a better scope on just how toxic they are.

      1. I am Nothing

        In that case, they should play Monopoly.

        1. Nayann Martinelli

          I recommend that to all my enemies. Sal should, too.

        2. Wagstaff

          Wonder what piece Sal would wanna play…. do any sets have motorcycle pieces?

        3. I am Nothing

          More importantly, who’d pick the thumbtack?

        4. Wagstaff

          Wait, isn’t that a thimble? Or did you have to replace a piece in your set?

        5. I am Nothing

          AH, that’s right; thimble, not thumbtack.

          Thumbtacks are painful.

        6. Geneseepaws

          I’ll take the shoe if you will hand Jennifer the thumbtack.

        7. Deanatay

          Jam the thumbtack into her hand? On it.

        8. Wagstaff

          Whatever the case, I’m stuck between the Top Hat and the Steam Boat myself!

        9. Radiance

          I cannot under any circumstances condone the phrase “they should play Monopoly”.

          Then again, “go play Monopoly” would make a good G-rated substitute for “go fuck yourself”.

        10. Demoted Oblivious

          I prefer “Good For You”. It both matches abbreviationaly, can be delivered with similar emphasis, and to any witnesses it can’t be construed as an insult.

        11. He Who Abides

          I recommend Commander. You learn who’s a toxic cock-rock very quickly when you play Commander.

        12. Wagstaff

          Is that a board game or a video game?

        13. He Who Abides

          Multiplayer format for Magic: the Gathering.

        14. Needfuldoer

          Monopoly works just fine if you follow the written rules. The problem starts when you don’t bother auctioning the properties people land on but don’t buy. That makes it take forever to build monopolies, houses, and hotels, while everyone slowly accumulates wealth by passing GO and winning second place in beauty contests.

    2. Thag Simmons

      I don’t think that’s really a proportionate response. They’re being annoying, not malicious

  13. JessWitt

    I used to live in Asia and the strip would come up at 3 or 4 pm.

    1. Wagstaff

      So I am Nothing Asia lives in or west of Western Asia….

      1. Wagstaff

        Typos. Are. The. Worse.

        1. JessWitt

          I got the idea anyway. ?

        2. Lingo

          …Was that intentional?

        3. Demoted Oblivious

          No, that was international. But now its fading into local obscurity.

        4. Clif

          Have a spare Internet.

  14. McMuffin

    I detest Asher and Billie together

    1. JessWitt

      Malaya sees the couple: “Fakey! Double Fakey!”

  15. Sirksome

    It’s really weird to me that Asher thinks the main cast Sal hangs with are nerds. I know the term “nerd” isn’t really an insult anymore but comparitively dude is like a B list character at best, hanging around with a bunch of third stringers. Carl hasn’t even has a single line in what is his first appearance in almost 10 YEARS! Jennifer is the most relevant one in that group.

    1. Spencer

      I think that’s Jennifer calling them nerds.

      1. Sirksome

        It’s Asher. The line “Sal knows what I mean too” is a contiuayion of jis response to Jennifer “You know what I mean.”

    2. Mancuso

      Carl turned into “Carld” for yesterday’s ep and is now invisible in addition to mute, so if I recall well from when I was this age back around the Cambrian explosion, I’m diagnosing sudden-onset crush on Sal. Not saying I’m shipping “Sarld”, just, y’know.

    3. Lingo

      Well Jennifer thinks nearly everyone in that dorm are nerds, but particularly Amber.

    4. Rabid Rabbit

      Everyone is the hero of their own story.

      Asher is not aware that he’s a B character, because he’s only a B character because the comic doesn’t focus on him.

  16. EAG46

    Why is Sal fighting so hard against being seen as “good”? Being the constant rebel can get old after a while, you know. [Caveat: I come from a long line of nerds.]

    1. WanderingLynx

      Sal is fighting really hard to be good. But approval coming from these people has to feel like an insult.

      1. Wagstaff

        She probably just wants to get a more accurate scope on their toxicity.

        For her to think that approval from them is actually WORTH anything is out of the question.

        1. WanderingLynx

          I think there’s several motivations for her going to McNutt on the first place. Curiosity is one (and Billie and Asher indeed knew each other beforehand, oh god); maybe wanting to convince herself she really should see what the deal was with Asher to kill whatever attraction there could be… Then there was the “holy shit, they’re awful” freezing/pausing response…

          But by now she’s stayed for so long and said so little I do think she’s just letting these horrible people carelessly reveal how horrible they are for learning purposes. She’s far smarter than others think and Linda Walkerton likes Jennifer better than her. Curiosity has turned into Reconnaissance.

        2. Wagstaff

          Besides research directions or opportunities for experiment, reconnaissance is perhaps one of the best products of curiosity, at least for Sal’s sake.

          And why would Linda like Jennifer/Billy (whatever) better than her? Is Jennifer/Billy’s (whatever) fasaud THAT effective, or is something else at play?

        3. WanderingLynx

          Jennifer was Walky’s childhood friend (until HS, at least), and she was the feminine, charming, white-passing little girl Linda Walkerton always yearned to have in a daughter.

          There’s also confirmed via Word-Of-Willis that racism/colorism was at play: She may have married a biracial black man (though Charles being a total doormat might have been a factor) but she was always biased against Sal, who looked “blacker” than Walky because of her curly hair. Her headstrong personality, tomboy tendencies, and the fact she befriended a poor Latina girl, daughter of undocumented migrant, were also things that made Linda furious; claiming they made Sal look “like a hoodlum”.

          Basically, Linda Walkerton has three children attending Indiana University. In one of the streets, she sent all three of them care packages: A big box full of stuff for Walky, another big one for Billie (with homemade cookies!)… And an envelope with a note for Sal and some giftcards – Which she used only now, months later, to “purchase” the bicycle from Danny :’)

          The only good thing here is that at least this horrible wretch of a mother has been setting herself up for total No Contact from Sal and now also Walky as soon as they’re financially independent.

        4. Wagstaff

          So the best thing Linda can offer Sal is Salutary Neglect, huh?

          I don’t suppose there’s some plant deep in our precious rainforest that can UNcure color-blindness… If not, give not alms to Linda, and those like her who beg. Eliminate the cause of their existence.

          And to think that U.S. History class is full of “useless facts”….

        5. WanderingLynx

          Nothing in history class is useless ;3 I’ll go on a Wiki run now before sleep (yes I know) but first, because of the Rainforest Plant comment… Infodump?

          Ayahuasca trips (and anything involving DMT, though Psilocybin has a similar effect) have, as one of their virtues, the ability to make a person feel connected to humankind as a whole, to the bigger organism that is this planet, and many other experiences people might feel inclined to call “religious”. My own trip (psilocybe cubensis shrooms thrown at an atheist mind) was still tightly tied to empathy: It filled me with an intense awareness of others as I looked down at the city lights – That there were stories everywhere, and that every lit window had people with families and lives, who loved, hated, gathered for comfort, held birthday parties. (And I saw fractals in the trees, and the sky!) It gave me back some needed will to live, and intensified an already-held need to help bring a better society.

          The thing is, like with any trip, you bring yourself with you and the people who truly seek and take these experiences seriously are because they know there’s Something they need to change for the better. Chemistry alone doesn’t do anything. There’s plenty of tech bros doing shrooms and peyote for fun or productivity enhancement, and this doesn’t mean Silicon Valley is a place of enlightenment.

          So no, I’m afraid Ayahuasca can’t cure racism unless the racist themself is taking it to help unroot it from their mind. And… They don’t quite do that much.

        6. Wagstaff

          That was one of the most beautiful things anyone has ever written here!

          *sniffs and tears up a little*

          It’s such a coincidence that JUST yesterday I had some equally intense, insightful brain blasts into the nature of life, epistemology and consciousness after I had taken some cannabis in my coffee. While I didn’t experience any external hallucinations, I DID experience some internal continuous geometry, as well as some intense bodily euphoria layer.

          And by the way, “spiritual” is that which is used to describe anyone who knows and acts on their values. Being religious and being spiritual are therefore not mutually inexclusive.

        7. eh, whatever

          Also, trees are fractal (up to a point).

        8. Wagstaff

          “…I’m afraid Ayahuasca can’t cure racism unless the racist themself is taking it to help unroot it from their mind. And… They don’t quite do that much.

          Hmmmm….. in the search for potential surrogates for toxicity, perhaps we should not focus exclusively on games.

  17. Spencer

    Aight time to talk about Raidah.

    I know we hate her, of course we do, there’s a few reasons for that and one of those (her treatment of Dina) is pretty cut and dry, but there’s some other stuff I want to talk about.

    It is extremely, extremely easy for us as readers to hate Raidah, because we primarily view her through the viewpoint of a sympathetic and likable protagonist such as Sarah. We know Sarah did the right thing in helping Dana (maybe, because last word on Dana was that, last Raidah checked, she wasn’t recovering at all) but Raidah sure as hell doesn’t, and from there Raidah spends X amount of time sniping at Sarah until Sarah punches her in the face (an action we approve of because we like Sarah, but is also An Actual Crime) before the two decide to just stay out of each other’s way. Raidah actually has the complete and total opportunity to fuck Sarah’s life up right here in revenge for Dana, and she doesn’t even seem to think of it as an option.

    And then Jacob happens.

    I don’t feel this gets dwelt on enough, but the reason Raidah has reentered the plot in any kind of antagonistic capacity is because she was dating Sarah, and Sarah decided to send Joyce as a homewrecker to squash it on the grounds that Raidah doesn’t deserve Jacob, a plan so immoral Joe of all people, while he was deliberately backsliding into his old habits, told Sarah how fucked up it was. Literally no negative consequence came of this so far (hint hint) and both Sarah and Joyce just never talk about it, but a relationship that, by all indicators, Raidah enjoyed (and there’s a more complex conversation about how that relationship was hinted to be something Jacob was doing out of obligation and an even simpler conversation about how Jesus H. Christ that does not excuse Joyce being a complete nob about it), that’s over because Sarah and Joyce did something to fuck it up.

    To be concise, we’ve got a character who, to them, has every reason to hate Sarah for destroying the life of a close friend who reached out to her. The most revenge Raidah has seemingly taken was calling Sarah a bongo at one point in a strip from the first year of the comic before eventually deciding to let it go after being actually punched in the face. The only reason Raidah has any reason to be near Sarah now is because Sarah and Joyce got her boyfriend to break up with her.

    Dumbing of Age at its core is a comic about the people we are beneath the mask, and I don’t think Raidah would have even the significance she does now if she was just going to be Mean Girls the entire time. Her dynamic is essentially just a more grey version of Rachel and Ruth, where Rachel is Completely Right to hate Ruth and could spend the rest of the series standing off in the corner flipping the bird in her direction with zero moral questions, and over the years we’ve gotten hints about what’s ticking in her noggin such as a shared past with Ruth, rueful lines about how people never change, that redemption is a story, and that everyone has to live with their mistakes, and finally Booster pulling out of her that the reason she’s incredibly aggro in Ruth’s direction is guilt for standing by and letting Ruth be as much of an asshole as she was. That’s not exactly a character study, but it’s something, and if Raidah’s going to keep showing up her turn will come as well.

    In short: Let the comic happen, y’all.

    1. Wagstaff

      Ooooo! It’s been a while since I’ve seen a whole essay like this!

      Unfortunately, I do not currently have the sobriety to grade it. Damn, why did I have to drink my harder lemonade TONIGHT?

      1. WanderingLynx

        Cheers, mate. If you enjoyed it boozed, come back tomorrow and you’ll get to experience it twice ^^

        @Spencer: Bravo. I’ll be very happy to keep on hating her the whole way tbh, but Raidah being tied to the Drama Missile with those other two (and the random dude) makes a ton of sense, and Willis is an amazing writer. I trust the story 8D

        1. Wagstaff

          The only thing I thankfully remember about Raidah was a vibrant vest she wore, which would look much better on Joyce or any other character for that matter.

    2. Huehuetotl

      I don’t hate Raidah.

    3. Sirksome

      I don’t hate Raidah either. I actually think she gog fucked pretty herd by Joyce and Jacob and now that you mention it to a lesser extent Sarah for masterminding the whole thing…….but I do think she sucks

      You don’t just sweep that Dina incident under the rug. Giving her the benefit of doubt on that she’s ignorant on how to treat people and needs to check her biases. That puts her at a 5/10 for me. Not bad but not great. Mike was probsbly objectively worse than she has ever been, maybe even Amber.

      1. Spencer

        Her condescension towards Dina was very obviously not swept under the rug, there is the part where I referred to it as a pretty cut and dry reason to hate her.

        One of the most frustrating realities of living with ASD is that I don’t know how to hold people as accountable as I’d like to when it comes to blatant misunderstanding of development disorders. No one’ll give you shit for walking around with a broken arm but you tell them your brain’s titled the wrong way and it’s the goddamned end of the world, and the script’s been written so hard that I’m the asshole when I get angry about it. Shit sucks, and it sucked back when the R word was getting liberally thrown around with no punishment. It still is, mind, but you at least need to couch it. You’re not allowed to scream it out loud anymore.

        Characters in this comic don’t really ever engage in outright bigotry unless they’re Joyce and have an entire character arc devoted to getting over it, or are the actual villains. I think there is, on some level, a necessity for showing that perfectly likable and sympathetic people can hold super fucked up thoughts on important topics, and that comes into conflict with the reality that a lot of the commentariat is mad at Becky because she took Dina’s being ace as the actual doom of their relationship.

        I don’t know how to weigh that because back in the day when I got too invested (‘entitled’ is probably a more honest descriptor) about subject matter close to my heart, I did, in fact, lose my goddamn mind about it over and over, and even if my own feelings have changed I don’t think I get to deny anyone else the right to feel them for themselves.

    4. BBCC

      Pretty much this.

      She hasn’t really done anything in this appearance so far. I’m okay with that.

      1. Regalli

        Yep. She works better as a character who has some serious unexamined biases and a deep streak of spite, but one who CAN be perfectly sociable when it suits her as opposed to, say, Mary.

        1. BBCC

          Agreed. She’s a jerk and she has some unexamined (though not super uncommon) biases with regards to class and disability, but she has a limit with the most blatant examples. Plus, as you said, spite streak a mile deep. BUT she can be perfectly pleasant. Until you piss her off (or, with Dina, she sticks her foot deeeeeeep in her throat and her head up her ass).

        2. Icalasari

          Oh god I just realized that Mary will likely be how Joyce gets outed to her family as an atheist

    5. Schpoonman

      Okay, look, I agree 110% that there’s more to Raidah than we’ve seen and unless this is a tremendous red herring we may see more of a reckoning for the Jacob/Joyce collision than we saw earlier.

      But what’s this shit about Rachel being justified keeping Ruth in range? She doesn’t want anything to do with Ruth, fine, what we’ve seen of Ruth pre-character development is pretty awful, but she absolutely needs to part ways, not continue to stay in the same dormitory as Ruth and take shots at her.

      1. WanderingLynx

        …… Oh man. I was so wrapped in my “yep. Yep. Yep, Raidah sucks, agreed on all accounts” that I let that slip.

        Ruth pre-character development may look pretty awful, and nobody can be forced into forgiving anyone even if they become better people afterwards, but Rachel most definitely should’ve done her best to get transferred instead of staying there to stew and lash out. She had two years to do that before Ruth started being an RA. Telling the suicidal girl returning from the hospital that she’ll always be evil made me seethe.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          On top of that, it’s not really feasible for Ruth to be the one to move, since her stupid grandpa has her there for his own reasons and she couldn’t even move after the hospital situation. If Rachel has such a grudge, she can either remove herself from the situation or she can shut up about it and move on. I don’t know the backstory, so maybe she’s 200% justified in hating Ruth and she obviously isn’t remotely obligated to forgive her, but hanging around in a position she knows isn’t going to improve just to badger Ruth at every opportunity is shit.

        2. Rabid Rabbit

          On the one hand, the fact Malaya managed to get transferred does make it seem obvious that Rachel could have done the same.

          On the other hand, we still don’t know exactly what happened, and it’s entirely plausible that Rachel doesn’t see why she should be the one who has to move. It seems… iffy to claim that she’s only hanging around to badger Ruth. I mean, it’s not blaming the victim, exactly, but it does have uncomfortable echoes of “Why don’t you just leave?”

          And, to be fair, as far as we know Rachel doesn’t know anything about Gramps, and therefore no reason to give Ruth points for that. And if you don’t know the details, but only knew that Gramps pulled some strings and that’s why Ruth’s still there, it wouldn’t be an unreasonable reaction to think of Ruth as a privileged bongo who can get away with anything because of her family.

          None of which is to say that Rachel doesn’t treat Ruth horribly. But until we know exactly what happened the year they roomed together… (I honestly wonder if the idea that no one can get better isn’t something Ruth taught her in the first place.)

        3. Delicious Taffy

          Oh, I definitely agreed that we shouldn’t out it all on Rachel. Ruth sucked a lot at first and still isn’t excellent. I also agree that Rachel shouldn’t Have To be the one to leave the situation. It’s just that, after Ruth’s breakdown, she still got to keep her RA position and stay, so it’s pretty obvious she’s not gonna be the one to leave, and one of them probably should, so by the process of elimination, that’d leave Rachel. Again, she’s definitely not obligated to in any way, I just think it’d be healthier for all involved parties not to continue a no-win living situation like this. Ruth can improve without Rachel telling her she can’t, and Rachel can breathe without being constantly reminded of whatever it was that Ruth did to her. Neither of them benefits from being around the other, is what I’m saying.

        4. Spencer

          Rachel shouldn’t need to be the bigger person to a tyrannical bully, and also other stuff has happened that shed light on what’s motivating her behaviour. It ain’t that binary.

          Let me put it this way: if Ruth wasn’t a main character, if we hadn’t seen everything of what makes Ruth tick, would you care that Rachel is an ass to her? How sympathetic would we be if Rachel and Ruth swapped panel time and we knew more about the former?

        5. Delicious Taffy

          I haven’t said Rachel should be the bigger person, I’ve said it’s a shit situation all the way around and neither of them is getting anything out of it. The only out I can see is Rachel moving dorms, because Ruth is firmly entrenched in this one on account of Sir. If she doesn’t want to interact with Ruth, she’s got the agency to at least give her the cold shoulder and not attend group meetings seemingly for the sole purpose of laying on the same old rant she does every time.

        6. Spencer

          Rachel doesn’t know a thing about Ruth’s grandpa

          Ruth’s grandpa doesn’t suddenly make it okay that Ruth was a shithead

          Rachel shouldn’t have to move to accommodate a protagonist on the grounds of “the protagonist is more sympathetic because their larger amount of panel time means we like them more.”

          If Ruth didn’t want “the same old rant” she probably shouldn’t have been a terrible no good bastard person.

        7. Spencer

          Exactly.

          We saw everything that happened to Ruth, we saw Clint drag her back into her job by threatening Howard and then terrorizing her for good measure, and we saw that a lot of Ruth’s worst actions were coming from misplaced aggression at Billie for being an alcoholic that she had the hots for, and she wasn’t sure which part bothered her more.

          None of this happened in front of Rachel, so all she sees is:

          – Her old roommate with whom she has a shared past that has yet to be explored is an asshole RA.

          – This asshole RA laser focuses on one student under her care.

          – Ruth has started sleeping with this student she has been physically abusing.

          – Ruth walks back into the room and says “sorry I got caught but I’ll be nicer”, so Rachel launches into a speech that might as well have “THIS IS COMING FROM A DARK PLACE” plastered behind her in glittering neon about the nature of redemption and how people never change.

        8. Regalli

          I do think that a big feature in my judgment of that particular moment is that Rachel very much knew Ruth was suicidal and had been just released from the hospital.

          I assume Rachel would not have desired Ruth self-harming or killing herself after that discussion. I assume Rachel doesn’t have enough experience with antidepressants and recovery to know that was a very real risk. But even if it’s coming from a dark place, what she was saying was DANGEROUS, and she had the context that Ruth’s mental state was risky.

        9. Spencer

          I think that’s true, but I also think it’s also something reliant on how we the audience know exactly what’s going on in Ruth’s head and how bad she had gotten.

          Like, if Ruth hadn’t gotten her job back, would Rachel had said anything? Rachel is the one to tell Chloe that Ruth is suicidal and sleeping with Billie, but then the next time Rachel and Ruth talk it seems to imply that Rachel thought Ruth would have been relieved of duty for at least one of those, and she makes it pretty pointed before she goes off on one that Ruth didn’t face the consequences.

        10. Regalli

          I mean, I just have a basic understanding of how antidepressants and the like work – she was probably on absurdly strong, very possibly short-term stuff to get her out of the catatonia, but that just left her capable of functioning while not feeling anything. That can actually be more dangerous than the period Carla found her in, because frequently people lack the drive to make a specific plan and act on it in the very low state – it’s one of the reasons why depression meds warn that they may INCREASE suicidal thoughts, because in that early stage everything still sucks but now you have enough together to be active about it and not the passive ‘death would be nice.’

          That said, Rachel most likely NOT being privy to that knowledge just puts her in the realm of most people, especially a 20-year-old who may or may not have experienced a similar situation before. Like, reasonable she didn’t, I still know as a chronically depressed person with awareness of how my meds work that that shit she said is INCREDIBLY dangerous and judge it as ‘Oh Rachel you were playing with fire and I only hope you didn’t know enough that you would have been horrified if Ruth DID self-harm after this’. Ruth absolutely shouldn’t have been kept on as RA. Frankly, she probably could have been pushed towards a medical withdrawal for the semester and longer inpatient stay, though it is DEFINITELY for the best Ruth was not. (Inpatient is not pleasant – and that assumes there is a dedicated psychiatric hospital nearby – and obviously, Ruth’s grandfather’s home is not safe.)

        11. Spencer

          You’re kinda laying out all the reasons I find this storyline so fascinating.

          Like when Billie tore into Carla for outing Ruth’s problems to the dorm and fires back that “at least she’s gonna be alive”, to which Billie screams “her home is not safe, Carla!”

          It’s this giant mess of kids in bad situations and half formed understandings bulldozing over each other trying to do the right thing, and that is my jam.

        12. Regalli

          Absolutely! I may think Rachel made the wrong move in saying that to Ruth just post-discharge, but I can see WHY she did so. But, just as Rachel points out Ruth had to live with the harm she caused regardless of why she did it, Rachel’s intent doesn’t change the fact that what she said was dangerous to Ruth – someone she KNEW was in a bad place mentally – or anyone else in the room who found it triggering. (I’m not saying it was Rachel’s fault Amber proceeded to stab a rapist within an inch of his life within the hour, or that she should have known the other people in the room would be splash damage, but. She said things recklessly and in a really dark place. Those things reinforced AMBER’S pre-existing belief that she was the villain and always would be, and that influenced Amber when she had a knife later because she was not Amazi-Girl. And it continued to influence her later, because stabbing him repeatedly ‘proved’ to herself she was the villain. Totally unforeseeable! Not a thing Rachel would have considered a risk even if she knew a thing about Amber! Not a thing that Rachel was at all responsible for, whereas it would have been arguable if Ruth proceeded to hurt herself from what Rachel said. But nonetheless, Rachel’s words likely had an impact there. Amber was present for that moment for a reason.)

          The ‘multiple characters with understandable viewpoints and motivations bulldozing over each other’ is very much my jam as well. One of my favorite things about the comic that our cast includes a decent number of main characters who do come into conflict with each other like this, and that even most of the kid antagonists have a point or sympathetic motivations. (I really want to see Dana check in again someday and if the Carla-Ruth scenario was meant to be a parallel.) Except for Mary, and really, Mary’s as much a representation of societal bigotry as she is a character in her own right.

      2. Spencer

        Okay I’ll be more clear: We only like Ruth because she’s a main character, and the reason Rachel (and relevant to this strip, Raidah) are hated is because they aren’t the viewpoint characters, Ruth and Sarah are, and Ruth and Sarah have had story justifications for their actions that Rachel and Raidah don’t know about.

        Or, if the answer were as simple as “Rachel should transfer and Ruth never needs to be held accountable on any level for being a horrible asshole to her dorm” then why hasn’t that happened yet? Why is Rachel here at all if there was just an easy out?

        1. Schpoonman

          Hey, don’t strawman “Ruth never needs to be held accountable,” please and fucking thank you. Last I checked no one had an issue with Ruth getting fired or receiving comeuppance for her behavior, but Rachel apparently staying in Ruth’s orbit at least the year after they’ve stopped rooming together (if for whatever reason they roomed for two years) waiting specifically for Ruth to “fall” before she said anything about Ruth’s behavior.

          Ruth never does get out “I don’t want to be here,” when she gets back from the hospital, but Rachel also doesn’t really give Ruth much room to explain herself before she starts spewing her “redemption is a story” garbage.

    6. Rabid Rabbit

      OK, I know it’s just a typo, but I absolutely love imagining the version of Sarah’s backstory where she and Raidah were dating.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        That’s a hell of a twist. It would also make Raidah’s perceived betrayal by Sarah that much more harsh.

    7. thejeff

      We only saw the tag end of it, but it’s heavily implied that those first couple appearances of Raidah (and her clique) bullying Sarah were the pattern for the rest of her first year. Not just once calling her a bongo, but months of retribution. What led up to that punch can even be read as Raidah trying to pull Sarah’s new friends away to keep her isolated and miserable.
      The comment to Dina is her most obvious bad point, but nearly everything we see from her is awful, even if more subtle. We see her classism. We see her manipulation of Jacob, her mean girl approach to Joyce.
      Maybe she’s got depths to make her more sympathetic, but like Mary she’s keeping them well hidden.

      And I think that makes the Jacob arc better. Joyce (and Sarah) were wrong there, not because Raidah was really a great person and a great match for Jacob, but because trying to break them up was wrong regardless.

      1. Spencer

        Is it? Because she shows up in exactly two strips before the facepunch. One is establishing her relationship with Sarah, the other is calling her a bongo while passing her by. It seems like jumping to conclusions to suggest that these were sustained. Furthermore, she was hanging out with Joyce at the mall when Sarah shows up, and Sarah is, to Raidah, the person who ruined Dana’s life, and the conversation barely gets a word in before Sarah grabs Joyce, Raidah grabs Joyce, and then Sarah clocks her.

        Otherwise, calling her “manipulative” of Jacob feels like finding the most deliberately worst interpretation of their relationship. There was exactly one strip where she talked about how Jacob “needs” her to impress his brother, and again, that could mean a lot of shit. We don’t even know what Jacob meant to Raidah herself yet, and Jacob himself clearly valued that relationship to some degree. He sure as hell liked talking about how interesting it was learning about Raidah’s faith.

        Also she was a “mean girl” to Joyce because Joyce was actually factually trying to steal her boyfriend.

        1. thejeff

          Yes, Joyce was completely in the wrong there, as I’ve said many times, but how Raidah reacted to it was the key for what it showed us about her character. She could have called Joyce out. She could have talked to Jacob about it. She could have just dumped him when she saw he was responding. Like she implied in that chat she had with him earlier about not being jealous.
          Instead she dove into the deliberate undermining and smearing campaign we saw at the lunch.

          And yes, she shows up in two strips before the facepunch, both of them bullying Sarah. We don’t see more than that because the extended part was all last year. It’s strongly implied. You could read it as “no interactions between the end of the flashback and this semester when she started in on Sarah out of the blue”, but that makes no sense to me.

        2. Regalli

          Yeah, people don’t typically ignore someone for approximately nine months and then suddenly at the start of the next year start drive-by bongo comments and going out of their way to do the ‘is this seat taken? Of course it isn’t, no one likes you’ routine in the dining hall. Sarah didn’t initiate either of those interactions, it was Raidah going out of her way to interact with Sarah. Like TheJeff says about how Raidah COULD have responded to Jacob being overly-friendly with someone who was clearly interested, Raidah also could have chosen to stay the hell out of Sarah’s way (as she told Sarah to do at the end of the flashback.) Sarah existing in the same dining hall didn’t have to merit a response. Dining halls are large public areas, and Sarah wasn’t getting food there to somehow get at Raidah. But instead, she chose the mean girl option, and given Sarah’s not at all surprised when it starts that school year, it seems unlikely that was the first time. The pattern of behavior in those two strips paints Raidah and her friends as the aggressors.

          As a bonus on the ‘how Raidah reacted to Joyce says a lot about her character’, the smear and cold war arguing with Joyce at lunch had no effect whatsoever. Jacob genuinely didn’t realize Joyce had ulterior motives until they were undeniable, which means the entire lunch with Joyce and Raidah went over his head. Every other method would have been more efficient than what she went with, and that’s pretty foreseeable because Joyce was already interested in someone who she knew had a girlfriend. Raidah asserting dominance/ownership in social games probably wasn’t going to scare her off, whereas calling Joyce’s behavior out as inappropriate (to Joyce or to Jacob) would have removed ambiguity that was necessary for the insinuating herself with Jacob thing Joyce was pulling (first to hook him up with Sarah, then herself.)

          I like Raidah as an antagonist, especially because she’s the kind of person who CAN be perfectly nice to interact with so long as you’re not on her bad side. And I don’t pretend the cast is always acting in the right, because they’re teenagers who make realistically terrible decisions. (Most relevantly, I’ve expressly called Dina’s willingness to spy on Raidah to help Sarah get revenge a character flaw on Dina’s part.) But it’s also clear Raidah’s not a great person herself. The cast bring out her nastier aspects, but those nasty sides already existed.

        3. Spencer

          I mean, Raidah acted like that to Joyce at lunch because it was already made clear that Joyce was sniffing around Jacob. Of course she could have dealt with it like an adult but, like, she’s 20. She’s not anymore mature about this shit than Sarah, we just know what makes Sarah tick.

          I’m also not entirely willing to take Raidah’s first appearance, which established her animosity towards Sarah and that Some Really Bad Shit happened last year with her and her roommate, as indicative of a months-long harassment campaign more than I am something that was there to kickstart Sarah’s backstory from freshman year. I’m not saying I’m totally right, it’s just how I’m processing it.

          I need to stress that I’m not arguing “Raidah is good actually”, but more “Raidah is not just the villain that Sarah thinks she is, and that we think of her because she’s in opposition to characters we like more.”

        4. Regalli

          I think I’d be more willing to read it as only foreshadowing if it were only one strip of Raidah going into Sarah’s space to harass her for the crime of existing in public. Two strips makes it a pattern of behavior, and once we’re talking about a pattern it seems… unlikely, to say the least, that Raidah did nothing in the intervening semester and a half. Plus, the interaction after the punch where Sarah apologizes – Sarah being pleased by Raidah’s ‘new reaction to her’ when Raidah jumps at Sarah’s approach, Sarah’s ‘Despite everything between us, I shouldn’t have done that’ – suggests their history wasn’t just what we saw in the flashbacks. And Sarah’s not surprised in either of the isolated dining hall harassment strips, which further suggests this is nothing new.

          And what we see of Raidah’s behavior before the mall is two instances of her going out of her way to harass Sarah, where Sarah either shuts down Raidah’s argument (‘my roommate was doing illegal drugs’) or leaves the situation entirely (by eating lunch outside.) Even at the mall, Sarah tries to leave the situation. Twice, even, leaving in the first interaction with Dina and then trying to take both Dina and Joyce. (When she leaves the Dina one, she even says ‘we don’t have to stay and be insulted by these bullies’ and Raidah says to ‘slink away and look out for number one like you always do.’ While that’s clearly referring to Dana, it’s also interesting when we’ve seen Sarah do this in response to Raidah’s harassment once before.) In short, we see multiple occasions of Raidah and friends harassing Sarah. We see multiple instances of Sarah trying to deescalate or at least be coldly factual (when she was already sitting and eating and Raidah comes into her space to insult her.) We see Sarah refer to Raidah and friends as bullies, and Raidah make a rude remark about Sarah leaving the situation instead of continue to get harassed. We see Sarah allude to ‘everything’ between them and Raidah’s ‘new reaction’ to her with fear rather than bullying in a way that implies more than just a friendship that went sour and then months of silence. In the context of all of this, Sarah punching Raidah when she tries to get Joyce to stay (after already trying to turn Dina against Sarah earlier, while Sarah was present) comes off as Sarah giving into violence after a lengthy period of Raidah as the aggressor. And critically, Sarah deescalating didn’t stop anything. Punching Raidah did. Honestly looking back at those early interactions, the ‘break up Raidah’s relationship because fuck her’ is definitely revenge, but it’s revenge from Raidah’s playbook.

          The breakup plan can be 1000% in the wrong, on every level, and Raidah have still been a bully to Sarah who only stopped when Sarah gave into her pent-up anger and fought back. The one doesn’t make the other justified, it just means Sarah’s stooping down to Raidah’s level when she does it. Sarah can still be in the wrong to punch Raidah, and she clearly thought so since she apologized for it once she’d had time to cool off. But everything about their interactions prior to the room party and the start of the Jacob breakup plan reads like an ongoing issue, not a new development, and it happens more than once on-panel so we can’t dismiss it as comedic effect. Raidah’s genuinely an antagonist. A well-written antagonist who can be nice when it suits her, but an antagonist nonetheless to the people she doesn’t like.

          Frankly, the fact that she IS genuinely pleasant and has friends makes her a more realistic portrayal of a bully IMO than Mary or Mike. No one in the hall likes Mary because she’s just too nasty to everyone, at all times. The only people who really tolerated Mike were his primary victims, and both of them had already had their self-esteem eroded by abusive adults before he showed up. But a lot more standard-issue bullies are like Raidah and Chan and Char, people who are nice to those they like but abominable to those they don’t.

        5. thejeff

          I would say that although it all went over Jacob’s head because he still had no idea Joyce was flirting, that doesn’t necessarily mean that kind of campaign wouldn’t work. The point of it is not to call attention to what she’s doing, but to paint Joyce as an unsuitable partner, diminish her appeal without ever acknowledging that she’s a threat or that there’s a choice to be made.

          Largely I think it failed because she was aiming at “checklist” Jacob, while Joyce was bypassing that entirely.

  18. Kravis

    AVENGERS, ENSEMBLE!

  19. newlland(Henryvolt)

    You a couple nights ago on the Patreon feed someone mentioned how it felt like Jennifer was talking like Linda. I didn’t see it until this strip.

    1. WanderingLynx

      OH GOD YOU’RE SO RIGHT. Yeah. The resemblance is beyond uncanny and firmly into creepy af.

    2. WanderingLynx

      OH NO THERE’S EVIDENCE

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/marketplace/

      1. Reaver

        Even her hair is getting critically close to Linda levels

        1. Wagstaff

          Hopefully if she lapses into her old habits soon enough, her excessive drinking and occasional mild concussion will destroy whatever brain cells are necessary for her to completely become borderline histrionic and achive irreversible Linda-fication.

  20. Ray Radlein

    Maybe the bike is in the garage because Sal couldn’t afford insurance for it and her parents refu7sed to help out with that?

    1. Pilgrim

      Maybe it’s in the garage because riding motorcycle in the snow is suicidally stupid?

      To be fair Sal can’t afford the insurance was my first thought too. Fallout from the Blaine affair (Lost her license, lost her insurance, or her motorcycle impounded) was my second.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Knobby tires and tire studs are a thing, you know. Riding a street bike with slick tires isn’t a good idea even in the rain, but you can ride a dirt bike on a frozen pond if it’s properly equipped.

  21. bcb

    An ensemble of vocalists?

  22. General Tekno

    I’m full on assuming the bike is garaged because Sal’s mom found out about it existing.

    1. Sirksome

      No one likes Linda for fairly justifiable reasons, but the more I think on it her taking the bike Sal bought herself just seems like too harsh a move for her to do for no reason. Like thats essentially disowning Sal because I don’t believe Sal would just accept that. Maybe Linda could leverage Sal’s tuition into compliance but again that just feels like a huge battle that gains her very little when Sal hasn’t done anything to earn such a punishment.

      1. Regalli

        I remind you that Linda actively STOLE MONEY from Sal – which was intended to go towards Sal’s best friend’s medical care – because she didn’t like Sal’s choice of friend and thought the incident where she and Marcie were attacked by a disturbingly violent peer would show Sal to cut ties with Marcie, the victim. And then said in response to Sal (justifiedly) telling Linda she hated her that of course Sal didn’t, she was a child and Linda was her mother.

        Yeah I wouldn’t put the tuition thing past Linda, is my point. That woman has set herself up for Sal going No Contact the moment she’s able to, and depending on what happens when she decides it’s time for Walky to stop fooling around and become a doctor already… I suspect she might be heading down the same ‘more children estranged than talking to her’ path Carol’s already reached.

      2. BBCC

        It’s not a ‘punishment’, Sirksome, Linda just doesn’t want to raise a ‘hoodlum’ and Sally knows better. She just bought the motorcycle to spite her and wans’ that such a silly thing to do? Surely there were more responsible things to spend her money on. She’s just going to make sure Sally doesn’t ride it until Sally comes to her senses and realizes Linda’s only looking out for her future in her best interests.

        Excuse me, I need to vomit.

        1. Sirksome

          The thing to me is Sal bought the bike. She owns it. Realistically what can Linda do? Nothing really without pushing it to an extreme that severs the relationship entirely. I do think Linda “loves” her children in that very controlling “as long as you hold to my specific expectations for you” kinda way. She really gonna sabotage that to exercise control over her adult daughter’s bike she’s probably known about since Sal bought it. Hell she might even be paying the insurance on it because how is Sal affording that and registration and gas as a college student? It just seems like a really easy way to ruin a holiday break just to fuck your daughter over.

        2. Regalli

          I’m pretty sure the last shot Linda had of even remotely salvaging the relationship was Freshman Family Weekend, where Sal put in one last attempt to be the Good Upstanding Daughter Linda claims she wanted, and Linda completely ignored her for Walky. (And Charles didn’t do anything to convince her to cancel the hair appointment and spend time with them instead. She made it as an out, but the way she lingered before leaving makes it clear that if they had said at any point before she was out the door ‘wait, no, of COURSE we value you more here with us right now than you spending the rest of the day getting your hair straightened,’ she would have rescheduled.) And we don’t know for sure if Linda knew – Sal bought the motorcycle in Tennessee, with her own money, and arrived AFTER Walky had been dropped off. It’s possible the senior Walkertons had no clue, or that if they paid Sal a gas stipend or something (and even that I’d doubt given Sal’s desire not to owe people and probable desire that Linda NOT have any access to bank accounts,) they hadn’t realized it was for a motorcycle. I suspect Sal didn’t have insurance, and her parents said something about how motorcycles are just too unsafe for them to be comfortable knowing she drove one.

          As to the pressure that would do to their relationship with Sal? Linda already broke it beyond repair stealing that money, and even if she could have salvaged something of it, she’s actively ignored those chances. The worst part is, I genuinely don’t think Linda realizes she’s blown it. I’m not even certain CHARLES realizes his daughter’s given up on being accepted by them and no longer considers their house home. So I can see them continuing to squander chances to reconcile with Sal because they genuinely don’t realize they’ve been losing her. Hell, Linda’s interactions with the kids after the kidnapping and in the lunch with the Keeners (‘oh, his major’s pre-med. He just doesn’t know it yet’) make it pretty clear she doesn’t see her golden boy clearly when he’s right there.

        3. Thag Simmons

          Linda reacted to being told “I’m going to hate you forever” with “no, you won’t”.

          I don’t think she even considers that her behaviour could drive her kids away

        4. Sirksome

          Linda was right though. Sal doesn’t hate her anymore. Doesn’t like her, but can’t believe Sal hates her either, not that we see that interaction enough to really know.

        5. Anon A Mouse

          Linda being right about Sal not hating her anymore doesn’t make that comment “right”, because it assumes Sal is going through a “phase” of hating Linda rather than Sal herself maturing to the point she doesn’t hate Linda entirely. It is still possible that Sal hates Linda for the things she claimed she hated her forever about and may indeed still hate her forever for those things.

        6. Demoted Oblivious

          Linda’s other mistake though, is assuming that Sal not hating forever will decay to dislike. But hatred can also decay to just not caring, and this is the one I see Sal moving towards. The problem for Linda, is once someone really doesn’t care about you, you can’t bring them back. Nothing you can do will make them care about you anymore because you’re now just a difficult phenomenon of existence, worth no more love and attention than lightning, the wind, or the tide. It happens whether you care about it or not, you just have to deal with it and move on.

        7. Regalli

          I agree with both of these. I’ll also add that you can go no contact or EXTREMELY low contact with a parent and still have some messy feelings that include affection – even while recognizing that they shouldn’t be a part of your life. I wouldn’t be shocked if Sal would be a little sad if Linda got murdered by a mobster. That doesn’t mean what Linda did wasn’t abusive, or that Sal didn’t also hate her in some ways, just that the conditioning of ‘this is your parent’ is pretty dang strong and kids look for affection from the adults in their life.

          That’s about the best I can see Linda getting from Sal, at this rate. ‘Complicated feelings that maybe merit a deathbed visit.’

        8. BBCC

          You can love someone (and want them to love you back) and hate them. I think she will always hate Linda for taking that money – doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her. If it were that easy, abusive relationships would be so much easier.

        9. BBCC

          *easier TO LEAVE.

        10. Sam

          It is extremely unlikely that Linda pays for any part of the motorcycle – Sal absolutely has no reason to give her that kind of financial control over her. We don’t know how she pays for it, but it is still very likely that Sal uses entirely her own money on it. But she would also likely not call the police if Linda stole it due to her general distrust of the police, her prior arrest, and that Linda being white would seem ‘more reasonable’ to them.

          And yes, it absolutely is like hyper-controlling parents to sabotage themselves because they believe they are right and that their ‘unreasonable’ children will come around. Not that it will drive them away forever.

        11. Sirksome

          No Sal does not have her own money. She paid for Danny’s bike in target gift cards Linda probably sent her. The Walkertons sibs live very comfortably on their parents dime. I don’t think it justifies Linda in anyway but that’s just a fact. Linda already has financial control over her. No idea how Sal pays for that bikes up keep. That might be why it’s gone. She ran out of money to maintain it. Makes sense at least why it would be “garaged”. Not everyone has stolen mob money to spend on gas.

        12. Sam

          Sal has literally said before that she saved up for the motorbike on her own. We do not know where she acquired that money. We do not know how she has managed to afford beer or cigarettes before either.

          I still find it likely that the motorcycle is the one thing Sal would have found a way to finance on her own even if nothing else and not given Linda any control over because if she ever felt a need to escape, the motorcycle was literally her escape vehicle and Linda has proven herself untrustworthy and willing to take away things to try to get her way with Sal before.

          Until we know what really happened to it, we could speculate in circles though, so I’ll just leave it at that.

        13. Demoted Oblivious

          Sam’s got the reason of this though. After Linda stole Sal’s savings for Marcies surgery, Sal would be a moron to trust Linda with money *ever*. Sal would have had to go to extra effort to keep her bike savings hidden from Linda. And since Sal doesn’t seem tobhave a job now, it’s entirely possible that she simply ran out of money for insurance.

        14. BBCC

          She doesn’t see it as fucking over her daughter. She thinks she’s helping her. Clearly, Sal just *naturally* gravitates to behaving badly and needs Linda to help her. She’ll thank her one day. Not sure on the how’s. My guess would be either threatening to pull the tuition, but who knows?

  23. AGV

    This scene seems straight out of a tv drama

  24. Antonio Tyler

    “Ah still rebel… responsibly.”

  25. Mancuso

    I’m clicking back on tags just to freshen up on Raidah’s arc, and I’m reminded once more of all the reasons I have for .

    1. Mancuso

      Dang, I effed up the HTML. Link: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/wallets/

    2. Demoted Oblivious

      Reasons you have for… what? What do you need reasons for Mancuso? We don’t know! Auughhhh, what are they for!?

  26. brionl

    Definitely not Glee Club.

    1. Demoted Oblivious

      Maybe Sal wants Jane Lynch’s role.

  27. PB

    You know, this is exactly how I felt while talking to the guy who used to pick on me in high school. Uncomfortable, vaguely disgusted, and really conflicted.

  28. Brumagem

    For public edification, some people get very touchy about whether you call it a chorus, choir, or group ensemble. In my experience, if it’s religiously affiliated it’s a choir. If it’s a school thing, it’s group vocal ensemble. Otherwise, it’s a chorus.

    1. WanderingLynx

      English is my second language and tonight you’ve enriched my vocabulary 8D Thank you! I had no idea of the differences – No wonder Sal was pissed off!

      1. Wagstaff

        English is your second language? What was your first? I am curious!

        1. WanderingLynx

          I’m from Chile and my native language is Spanish :3

        2. Wagstaff

          Oh goodie! And a coincidence too! I was just making some tacos and Pan de Queso!

          I wish I were multilingual. If anything, I’ll probably learn German first….

        3. WanderingLynx

          Chile is further down south, my friend ^^ But please don’t worry! I know the name sounds Mexican as hell, and my country is a VERY narrow, very long strip along the Andes mountain range. Not a lot of people know about it.

          All that said, tacos and pan de queso are GLORIOUS food, and I’m glad you’ll making some 8D I’m craving something spicy as well but it’s aaaalmost 3 am here

        4. Wagstaff

          What did you have in mind? Perhaps some Pedre? I wish I could make that now; but unfortunately, I have not the ingredients!

        5. WanderingLynx

          You gotta tell me if you ever make some ^^ I was, more realistically, thinking of putting together some egg fried rice with a great Korean chili sauce there’s in my fridge, but mffff. It’s a cold winter night TwT Don’t wanna move.

    2. cbwroses

      In my schools, it was chorus from middle school to high school.
      That said, I had an ex from high school who went to a different school in a different city in the same region who asked if I were in a show choir (she disliked them). I don’t think either one of us ever used the word “ensemble” for our respective singling classes.
      Long story long, , at least in some places, it’s not that cut and dry.

    3. ValdVin

      That’s what I always thought, and I had some Catholic schooling, then some public school after that.

      “Ensemble” I had never heard, but I may be older than many folks here.

  29. cbwroses

    Here’s a thought: Asher stole his granddad’s money to pay for college.
    Could he be involved with Jennifer to gain access to her family’s money/influence?
    Having reconnected with the family business, at least partly, to be told when Blaine was killed, it’s possible he was asked to payback or make up for the money he stole.
    Probably not the case unless he’s playing a long con (since he’d probably have to marry her to make it happen outside of straight robbing them), but I distrust him so much that I wouldn’t be surprised.

    1. WanderingLynx

      Oh man. Yeah. I don’t see it as such an unlikely thing, Asher playing the long con. He’s doing this whole “yay we’re reformed and normal and totally in love sweethearts” dance with Jennifer, we don’t know his motives, and it could very well mean they get like… Married before finishing college? Y i k e s.

      He’s not out-out of the mob and he’s got zero problem about wrapping up loose ends before Gramps gets him. Have your upvote-equivalent :3

      1. Thag Simmons

        He seems to have had zero problem having Blaine killed, but Blaine was a murderous bastard who was a danger to everyone around him. He definitely had problems with participating in Blaine’s plan, even if he did it in the end.

        The vibe I’ve gotten from Asher is that he does genuinely want to be a good dude, but he isn’t very good at it

        1. Regalli

          ‘Wants to be a good dude, but isn’t very good at it’ is the way I read him, too (and also, a great way to sum it up.) Granted, there’s still a lot we don’t know about his current situation, but we know he DID want out of the mob enough to steal a life-endangeringly large amount of money from his Gramps, and he did express reservations helping Blaine. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get out of the mob. Asher ended up in a situation where all the options were pretty bad, and while some of it was from choices he made (stealing money leaving him ripe for blackmail,) not all of them were (he didn’t ask to be the grandson of a mob boss.)

  30. Eclipsa

    He sounds like a commercial for… for… something adult-y. Like life insurance or something.

    1. Wagstaff

      Or basically anything else that is currently thought of as essential for the “American dream” package but won’t be for very long….

      1. Needfuldoer

        Just wait for the current bubble we’re in to pop, real estate prices might dip back to sane levels again for a while. Generally they only track with inflation, but COVID and the disruption it caused to the construction pipeline had potential buyers spooked.

        Or just look at all the empty stores in the city, and all the low-paying menial jobs that aren’t getting filled. It’s kind of amazing how fast that kind of “that’s just the way it is” stuff we collectively used to put up with collapsed once it ran out of inertia.

        1. Needfuldoer

          (There’s also the problem that people want starter homes or to downsize, but all they’ve been building for the last 30+ years is McMansions that have only grown bigger, built cheaper, and filled with dime store opulence…)

    2. Delicious Taffy

      Life insurance is for people who can afford to die. I’m gonna have to become immortal just as a matter of practicality.

  31. Megan Rivera

    It’s okay to have healthy hobbies, Sal. ♥

  32. Rabisch

    Wait. Sal’s major is really music? That would be perfect! Great choice! And Jennifer is saying she had a crush on Asher since childhood… if that’s true, they being together now makes a little more sense. Raidah seems so friendly… Sal just don’t want be assimilate. Run away Sal! RUN!!!

  33. brute

    so riding a motorcycle is immature now i guess? or is it just not LiveLaughLove enough to be considered acceptable to… whatever they’re trying to be here?

    you know what, i decided this is intentional to get Sal away from them so they can go back to discussing their Secret Crimes.

  34. Nono

    I’m hoping Sal took music as a ‘friend of mine actually encouraged me and I think I’d be good at it’ than ‘finally, something my mom might actually approve of me doing’.

    I mean, I don’t think ensemble is very high up on the ‘respectable things Linda wants her kids to do’ scale, admittedly.

  35. Sam

    The way Jennifer and Asher are talking here disgusts me.

    These are the people that Malaya should be calling fakey, this is fakey goddamn central!

    Jennifer and Asher have been together for like not even three months because we know whatever happened with Jennifer and Ruth happened at Halloween. Even assuming Jennifer bounced to Asher near immediately afterwards, this relationship is like 2 and a 1/2 months long at most, and they are talking like they are 30 years old, getting married, revealing that Sal committed crime as a first goddamn impression which you absolutely should not do to anyone and especially not when it was traumatic and altered their life for 5 whole years so they might not particularly enjoy talking about it, and it comes across as so patronising in the way they are talking about Sal as if she is the one that had to turn around and mature the most out of everyone here.

    They’re talking about themselves as if they are the OTP of their lives and have absolutely 0 problems and are a wise older couple reflecting back on events from decades ago. As if it wasn’t three months ago that Walky punched Asher and Asher intimidated him into walking away and as if Jennifer hasn’t shoved herself right back in the closet. Love might be great, but it ain’t a problem cure-all.

  36. C.T. Phipps

    Sal: I’m the Music MEISSTERRRRRR!

    Everyone: *stare*

    Sal: Y’all not Batman fans, huh?

    1. Lee

      A+ reference, would lol again.

  37. Lee

    TL;DR the fact that Sal isn’t getting to talk is… not a red flag for me per se, but a warning sign. And belittling at the absolute minimum.

  38. Pylgrim

    Things keep piling up like this, with people pointing out how she’s not how she thought she was and she’s going to have a bad Majin Vegeta-like breakdown.

  39. CJ

    They couldn’t really be more grating if they tried.

  40. Eldritchy

    Raidah is with them too? Oh the Trash Squad is coming!

  41. Keulen

    I’m not convinced Jennifer is nearly as honest as Asher seems to think she is.

  42. darkoneko

    …are they trying to fool themselves, or other people ? Like, who would just do that whole speech out loud for no reason

    1. Thag Simmons

      Themselves. Definitely themselves

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        But they may still think they’re trying to fool everybody else.

        1. Thag Simmons

          Eh, I don’t think so.

  43. Nenja

    I find panel 3 really uncomfertable. Sal’s right THERE and the way they talk is like she’s not? It’s weird.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Yeah, I always hated it when people started doing that. Makes you feel like you’re an exhibit at a zoo, there to be observed instead of conversed with.

  44. Edwin I Callahan

    What’s weird is that Sal is turning into an actual college student. At this rate, she might make the Dean’s list at the end of the semester. Which is about a decade out in real world time, and we might not see it anyway because Another Time Skip.

  45. TheKelliestKelly

    Friendly reminder that Jennifer (Billie) is bi. Just cuz she’s dating Asher now doesn’t mean she’s back in the closet. Y’all can correct me if I’m wrong, but unless she’s saying stuff like, “I sure am straight! The attraction I once had to Ruth was just confusion,” she isn’t closeting herself.

    1. Spencer

      She is actually saying stuff like “I’m sure I’m straight! The attraction I once had to Ruth was just confusion” because Jennifer’s been in denial about her sexuality the entire series.

    2. Demoted Oblivious

      While Ms. Billingsworth certainly behaves as bi, she doesn’t recognize herself as such and talks about it herself as a phase. (I’m not saying she isn’t bi, but pointing out her own self deception) She’s not ‘back in the closet’, she never left. Even with Ruth, Ms. Billingsworth barely even recognized there was a closet she was in.

      Is a closet even an appropriate analogy here? My intention was to draw attention to her behaviour of self deception, not to abuse LGBTQ2+ identity.

      1. thejeff

        Kind of. Sort of.

        She’s never denied her attraction to girls, but she long treated it as if that was a thing everyone did. Denying she was queer, but not at all hiding that she had sex with girls. Which seemed to have something to do with not recognizing that bisexuality was a thing.

    3. Sam

      She literally said to Becky’s face that being with Ruth was a phase and downplayed Alice as just her best friend when there were clearly romantic tones to their former relationship as well from how Alice reacted so strongly. Jennifer is bisexual and obviously so, but she absolutely tries to downplay and write off her attraction to girls in particular.

      1. thejeff

        She downplayed Alice even when she was dating Ruth, so that’s not really writing off her sexuality. And it’s not entirely clear if the “phase” comment referred to her sexuality, just to Ruth or to some combination of the toxic mess that their relationship was.

        1. Sam

          She literally said to Howard that bisexuality only exists in porn before. Her downplaying Alice and dating Ruth at the same time still tells us that she brushes off former female romances as if they weren’t as serious or real and even in the middle of her relationship, this was shown by her still only being interested in going to places if ‘hot guys would be there’.

          The exact phrase Jennifer was refuting by saying it was a phrase as quoted is ‘Naw, I’m pretty sure you got the hots for her still.’

          To which Jennifer replies ‘I don’t. That was just a weird phase I was going through.’

          So it was attraction to Ruth she was specifically outlining as being a phase.

        2. thejeff

          Right, she had no idea that bisexuality was a thing. And she obviously wasn’t a lesbian, because she did like guys, so …

          What I don’t know is if she’d say she’s still interested in girls (you know, like everybody is), or she’d now pretend that was just a phase.

    4. RedCat

      Maybe someone should remind HER of that, though.

  46. Amos Batista

    Is real Sal’s taking Music majoring? Wow, I wish I could see more of her taking these classes…

  47. Deanatay

    Sal: Ah don’t sing inna group! Ah sing ALONE! There may also be others, singin’ nearby, but ah ain’t singin’ with ’em!

    (BTW, ‘ensemble’ means ‘together’, in French. Don’t tell Sal.)

    I can’t wait for Asher, Jennifer, Raidah and Carl to be revealed as immature assholes. Probably not until near the end of the second book (so, several years from now), but I can have long-term goals.

  48. Segnosaur

    I am surprised she didn’t decide to major in math. (Would have been an interesting character arc, originally struggling so much in math class before becoming an “expert”)

    1. Demoted Oblivious

      There is mathematics to music, so she could switch to a double major. Certainly she’s got that, “you can’t tell me what I can’t do,” to her. Go Sal!

  49. Needfuldoer

    You’re all still barely not children anymore, can the “settling down” malarkey Asher.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Youth and enjoyment of life legally have to end at 17.

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        Except for the wealthy where it can run into the mid thirties (yes, three zero ess) or even to death.

  50. Julez

    I dislike the amount of talking about sal like she’s not standing right there that’s going on here.

    1. Segnosaur

      Plot twist… She’s not really there… She is a ghost and the real sal died during the time skip!

      Quick, get M night Shalamaladingdong on the phone!

      1. thejeff

        So that’s why she doesn’t have the bike. Couldn’t have driven Walky here with it, if she’s a ghost.

    2. Delicious Taffy

      Yeah, it does suck a lot. People love doing that to those of us who stand out in any way.

  51. Raptorofwar

    Aw, I liked Sal’s motorcycle. You can still have a motorcycle and be in ensemble.

  52. Heather

    “We’re all grown-ups now, and grown-ups always unnaturally brag about how mature they are now. It certainly doesn’t show either a lack of confidence or pure naivety at all.”

    Like if these guys were ten years older, this would still be an embarrassing thing to say tbh. Jesus.

  53. TheScreenJockey

    Fun fact:

    Music majors are some of the highest performing students in law school. It’s rare for music majors to GO to law school, but among those that do, they are almost always near the top of their class. It’s probably because the incredible amount of work you have to do outside of the classroom to get a degree in music serves them well with law school’s very heavy workload.

  54. Ellegos

    I feel like we are reaching the part of Sal’s character arc where she is going to need to confront the truth that behaving in a certain way or embracing a certain self-image or lifestyle just because it thwarts the expectations of others… is still letting those expectations define you.

    Malaya has called out Sal on how crafted her persona can be before. And here we can see how much she chafes at what are ostensibly (if misguided) compliments.

    1. Demoted Oblivious

      Malaya is dick just looking to tear people down. While even a stopped analogue clock is right twice a day, regardless, it isn’t any more useful for telling the time.

      Your point about just living to rebel however, is bang on. However, I think Sal is enough of herself that while accolades from any quarter may chafe, it won’t arbitrarily result in her changing what she *wants* to do. (see conversation regarding Danny potentially having positively influenced her towards a music major)

    2. Spencer

      I don’t know how much Sal is genuinely trying to make a Cool Rebel persona, more that it’s what she landed in as she walled herself up after being betrayed by her friends and her parents but then that Cool Rebel persona started attracting her attention.

      I don’t think it’s crafted, but it’s still been incredibly self destructive.

  55. Jenny Islander

    This couple is reminding me of conservative Christians who get married in their early 20s and immediately write books about how to relationship.

    1. Wagstaff

      For those who need a better picture, these are kind of books that belong right next to Brian Griffin’s Faster than the Speed of Love in the “I Am out of My Fucking Mind” section (better known as “popular psychology”) at your local book store.

  56. C.T. Phipps

    I would not at all be surprised if the Head Alien is revealed to have made them all cyborgs.

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