Sal’s gonna sneak up behind him, put it on him, and vanish away like the ninja she is. By the time he notices it, he’ll have been wearing it for a week.
Rabisch
This seems incredibly possible.
Demoted Oblivious
It will be witnessed by one person, Ms Billingsworth, further cementing her claim that Sal is Amazi-Girl.
She hasn’t stolen anything. She was lying about it because Sal has a hard time being vulnerable. Even if she used the “I stole it” line, it would mean that she thought of him. And she has a hard time admitting she’s in love with Danny to herself, much else other people. She thinks she deserves a guy like Asher, after all.
It could be love, romantic or sexual, or she could just be feeling good to have a friend. I’m guessing Sal’s been lonely with Malaya distracting Marcie.
So I have a question. I feel like I heard/read somewhere that Willis had said he is not going to pair any of the characters with people they had been paired with before in the other ‘verse. Did I make that up? Because if it’s true then this all feels very hollow.
I think the point was more that he wasn’t going to retread the Walkyverse pairings unless he felt he could do new things with them, not that he was opposed to revisiting those pairings on principle. Ruth/Billie, Walky/Dorothy and Sal/Jason all happened in both the Walkyverse and the Dumbiverse, and all of them happened fairly early on.
I don’t think it’s an early on thing, Sal/Jason was a significant length of the Walkyverse and even stretched into the paid strips. In fact it was probably the last ship to properly take off in IW!, even later than Joe/Rachel.
Thag Simmons
Sal/Jason happened early on in Dumbing of Age was my point. This wasn’t like a thing Willis said and then changed his mind about, it’s just never been the case that Walkyverse pairings aren’t allowed in Dumbing of Age.
My understanding of that was that it came up “unless they could find something new to do with the pairing.” I think we’ve already seen this with some couples in the strip.
He did say that, but with the caveat that he still might if he could think of a new angle, hence why Robin and Leslie and Ruth and Billie could be a thing. Danny and Sal broke up very early on in the Walkyverse and so this is more of a chance to see them developing what could turn into something romantic.
Yeah, Walkyverse Danny/Sal started with a Sal who hadn’t yet become Batman and a Danny who was kind of a dick. When Post-Angstening Sal reached out to Danny, she still had him on a pedestal as part of the normal life she no longer had, and would sometimes try and force some of her cheerful wacky old persona because it was what he knew from her.
This Danny’s had character development before he and Sal really started bonding, and since this Sal became a cool biker chick before college, he wouldn’t expect any different. Walkyverse Danny/Sal was supposed to be endgame before Billie waltzed into the plot and became a character, but Dumbingverse Danny/Sal seems to have healthier foundations for a longterm relationship.
I mean, Danny/Billie was walkyverse endgame, anyway, so I feel like this would still be fine even if he rigidly held to that.
Like, he had Mike, Blaine, and Ross die after previously having hesitation about what he did with Walkyverse Ruth or others who died, so nothing is really set in stone.
Well one, it’s hypothetically endless serialized fiction and if it runs long enough than any viable pairing could happen. No one saw Ruth/Jason coming, that’s for sure.
The other more important bit is that it’s less that the Walkyverse ships are off-limits and more that if the Walkyverse ships depict these characters as ideally as that pairing can depict them, then there’s no real point in going over that again. Sal disappeared from Danny’s life and he moved and got with Billie, so we don’t actually know what Danny and Sal actually seriously together would be like. You’re never gonna see Joe/Rachel again, for example, not only because both of them are different characters here with different narrative goals, but because Joe/Rachel was explored to its limits by the time of Shortpacked’s conclusion. Conversely we are absolutely gearing up for a romance narrative about Joe and Joyce even though that was explored in the Walkyverse, and Joe is even kind of hitting the same beats where Joyce inspires in him feelings he doesn’t know how to deal with after he begins to see her in a new light beyond “fundie weirdo”, but that still manifests differently here because everyone reading It’s Walky! knew from the get-go Joe would never be with Joyce because Walky’s name was the danged title, and that being up in the air means a go at that relationship has different goals and expectations.
Ruth/Billie was a bit of a big deal in the Walkyverse, except there’s no way to call that a repeat here in DoA because both of them are such different characters. Meanwhile Walky/Dorothy was explored on much the same level as Danny/Sal was, and at the moment in the Walkyverse reruns Dorothy is trying to beat Walky to death with her bare hands. Life comes at you funny sometimes.
I would disagree with this. Once Ruth and Jason started interacting during the date, a lot of people started to figure it out.
Yumi
I feel like that’s a bit…late for what Spencer is talking about.
Thag Simmons
Maybe. But the reason I’d say nobody saw it coming prior to Jason’s new look is because nobody expected him to be an important character again and he had minimal connections to the non-Walkerton members of the cast
Demoted Oblivious
No one saw the Americans being willing to nuke Japan, but once they hit Nagasaki, a lot of people started to figure it out.
If someone wants to claim they were actually shipping Ruth and Jason before their first interaction or even post-skip before it actually became a thing, I’m going to call [citation needed].
I like you Thag, but I’m pretty sure anyone claiming they saw it coming, would have to have violated causality.
Ruth/Billie in the Walkyverse was also explored primarily/most explicitly in the Roomies Redux strips, as I recall, which were written and published after Ruth’s death there. They were very different characters with a different dynamic here, but it was also a chance to explore their relationship in realtime.
Oh, also, after Shortpacked ended and Dumbingverse Dina/Becky became a thing, Willis posted some art and declared it canon of Walkyverse Becky and Dina together against the Soggies. When we saw Walkyverse characters again in an April Fools strip in 2017 or so, Becky was with the Shortpacked universe-hopping squad looking for anti-Soggie weapons, so yeah, that relationship is definitely Walkyverse canon too, the rules just don’t apply since they only met AFTER the Walkyverse ended.
Sal/Danny happened in Roomies, yes; but so early on that their characters were barely established (and Sal ended up becoming someone so completely different to her initial incarnation that she might well have been an entirely different character).
So I’d make an argument that whilst a ‘Danny’ and ‘Sal’ once dated in a different comic, these two characters as they are now depicted never dated.
I can’t recall if he said that, but I’m pretty sure Willis at some point said he wasn’t gonna have anyone die in this comic, and then he went and killed off Mike. So even if he did say that maybe we shouldn’t assume it’s still accurate anymore.
The ‘people won’t die’ was never absolute – the issue was that, like breaking a bone (even Joyce spraining her wrist put her in the brace for ages,) the status quo change of ‘grieving’ would last the rest of the comic without a timeskip, but even then they made occasional jokes that like, Tony could die, because Tony was too minor a character to derail things with grief. (‘Who’s Tony?’ Yeah, exactly. If he died offscreen over the break due to ridiculous shenanigans with murderous llamas invading the football field during a game, it would still have no impact on the story whatsoever.)
But yeah, the rules change as the story needs them, especially when, say, a storyline’s been inching towards ‘kill off the Alliance of Evil Dads so they can no longer escalate and get some Becky angst in’ and that’d probably require a timeskip ANYWAY. (Also neatly skipping the inevitable Drama of Thanksgiving and winter break that would have split up the cast.) I distinctly recall that when Blaine and Faz first showed up, Willis said Blaine wasn’t Faz’s bio-dad, but by the time the Faz is Great storyline ran they’d forgotten saying that (I can’t find the quote but remember hearing they had admitted to that) and evidently found it more interesting and a better story angle for Faz to be in all likelihood Amber’s half-brother… and also fear ending up like Blaine, but Amber is the person who shows him he doesn’t have to be. While also making it extra clear that yes, Blaine is in fact THAT MUCH human garbage. (The hints that Yuri was a teenager when Faz was born in conjunction with the way his arc’s gone are the kind of thing you don’t casually drop as a red herring, not for a storyline that’s only an occasional drop-in on Amber’s plot. So unfortunately, I assume Blaine was a sex predator in addition to an abusive fuckstain, mob stooge, and half-rate supervillain whose only trick was ‘try and kidnap Amber’s friends’.)
The relationships one has always been more malleable than others because by now, most characters have very different dynamics than they had in the Walkyverse, and many started diverging from the start. (Walkyverse Joyce and Dorothy hate each other, as do that Joyce and Sal.) But I still wouldn’t hold my breath to see Walky/Joyce as a canon ship again because their dynamic as friends is close enough to the Joyce and Walky! one that there’s not much new ground to tread. Same reason, I suspect, why Amber/Mike was never actually readdressed – even adding AG into the mix, the most that relationship could work would’ve been pretty close to their dynamic in Shortpacked all over again. By comparison, Walky/Dorothy and Joe/Joyce were only explored as actual relationships as opposed to crushes briefly in an AU before it intersected with the plot, Ruth/Billie was explored largely via flashback (and had a different dynamic due to that Ruth being Billie’s childhood babysitter), and Danny/Sal’s dynamic is so different here than it was there that it won’t go down the same lines if it does become a thing there. (Also, it’s been SO MUCH LONGER since Willis wrote or thought of them as a romantic couple than Amber/Mike or even Joyce/Walky, so they’ve probably had the space to reassess that relationship as well.) If there’s a new spin on it, or potential that wasn’t explored, it’s more likely to have a chance.
I mean if I was Sal I probably wouldn’t want to meet Danny at his dorm either. The room probably stinks of Joe scent and Danny has become nose blind to it.
Sometimes I just call cute romantic things gay because “gay” is the word I most often use in my own relationships for different reasons. But also, Danny is bisexual, so this is all quite gay. ^.^
Yumi
Oh yeah, from the “everything,” romantic things, regardless of orientation, are the most likely to be called “gay” from what I’ve seen.
115 thoughts on “Present”
Ana Chronistic
“hey Wonderbread, hope ya like things ah fished outta the trash”
Linkman0596
“I mean, i assume that’s why you seem ta like me”
Clif
And now I’ve given it to you, I own you.
Harmony
“See, ‘least I own up ta my manipulatin’.”
Yumi
MY HEART
Doctor_Who
Call an AWWWmbulance!
Prince Mech
MINE TOO
Schpoonman
Oh mY GOOOOOD.
Sirksome
I mean that hat’s decent but it’s never gonna be blue hat. It’s not even close.
Clif
But it came from Sal and so Danny will treasure it forever on account of Danny not being the brightest bulb in the pack.
Needfuldoer
No, but sometimes he’s the sharpest!
Demoted Oblivious
Yes… high praise, being the sharpest marshmallow in the bag.
Nono
Okay, over/under on whether or not the hat is stolen.
Thag Simmons
I don’t think post-robbery Sal is into Crimes.
plasticwrap
More like what’re the odds she’ll chicken out and find a way to give that to Danny without actually personally giving it to him.
Steamweed
Sal’s gonna sneak up behind him, put it on him, and vanish away like the ninja she is. By the time he notices it, he’ll have been wearing it for a week.
Rabisch
This seems incredibly possible.
Demoted Oblivious
It will be witnessed by one person, Ms Billingsworth, further cementing her claim that Sal is Amazi-Girl.
Suitora
She hasn’t stolen anything. She was lying about it because Sal has a hard time being vulnerable. Even if she used the “I stole it” line, it would mean that she thought of him. And she has a hard time admitting she’s in love with Danny to herself, much else other people. She thinks she deserves a guy like Asher, after all.
Demoted Oblivious
It could be love, romantic or sexual, or she could just be feeling good to have a friend. I’m guessing Sal’s been lonely with Malaya distracting Marcie.
powerpowerpow
Whether this is going to go very good or very bad, I don’t think my heart can handle having to find out over the course of a week.
Demoted Oblivious
“over the course of a week”
Oh ho HOO.. Aren’t we being quite the optimist today!
Spencer
This entire chapter has been about characters who used to have old ships getting into more interesting ones.
Meagan
So I have a question. I feel like I heard/read somewhere that Willis had said he is not going to pair any of the characters with people they had been paired with before in the other ‘verse. Did I make that up? Because if it’s true then this all feels very hollow.
Thag Simmons
I think the point was more that he wasn’t going to retread the Walkyverse pairings unless he felt he could do new things with them, not that he was opposed to revisiting those pairings on principle. Ruth/Billie, Walky/Dorothy and Sal/Jason all happened in both the Walkyverse and the Dumbiverse, and all of them happened fairly early on.
Nono
I don’t think it’s an early on thing, Sal/Jason was a significant length of the Walkyverse and even stretched into the paid strips. In fact it was probably the last ship to properly take off in IW!, even later than Joe/Rachel.
Thag Simmons
Sal/Jason happened early on in Dumbing of Age was my point. This wasn’t like a thing Willis said and then changed his mind about, it’s just never been the case that Walkyverse pairings aren’t allowed in Dumbing of Age.
Yumi
My understanding of that was that it came up “unless they could find something new to do with the pairing.” I think we’ve already seen this with some couples in the strip.
Thag Simmons
It’s happened a lot, fairly early on too. Ruth/Billie, Walky/Dorothy, Sal/Jason, Mandy/Grace/Sierra, there’s been a fair few walkyverse reduxes.
BBCC
He did say that, but with the caveat that he still might if he could think of a new angle, hence why Robin and Leslie and Ruth and Billie could be a thing. Danny and Sal broke up very early on in the Walkyverse and so this is more of a chance to see them developing what could turn into something romantic.
Regalli
Yeah, Walkyverse Danny/Sal started with a Sal who hadn’t yet become Batman and a Danny who was kind of a dick. When Post-Angstening Sal reached out to Danny, she still had him on a pedestal as part of the normal life she no longer had, and would sometimes try and force some of her cheerful wacky old persona because it was what he knew from her.
This Danny’s had character development before he and Sal really started bonding, and since this Sal became a cool biker chick before college, he wouldn’t expect any different. Walkyverse Danny/Sal was supposed to be endgame before Billie waltzed into the plot and became a character, but Dumbingverse Danny/Sal seems to have healthier foundations for a longterm relationship.
DailyBrad
I mean, Danny/Billie was walkyverse endgame, anyway, so I feel like this would still be fine even if he rigidly held to that.
Like, he had Mike, Blaine, and Ross die after previously having hesitation about what he did with Walkyverse Ruth or others who died, so nothing is really set in stone.
Spencer
Well one, it’s hypothetically endless serialized fiction and if it runs long enough than any viable pairing could happen. No one saw Ruth/Jason coming, that’s for sure.
The other more important bit is that it’s less that the Walkyverse ships are off-limits and more that if the Walkyverse ships depict these characters as ideally as that pairing can depict them, then there’s no real point in going over that again. Sal disappeared from Danny’s life and he moved and got with Billie, so we don’t actually know what Danny and Sal actually seriously together would be like. You’re never gonna see Joe/Rachel again, for example, not only because both of them are different characters here with different narrative goals, but because Joe/Rachel was explored to its limits by the time of Shortpacked’s conclusion. Conversely we are absolutely gearing up for a romance narrative about Joe and Joyce even though that was explored in the Walkyverse, and Joe is even kind of hitting the same beats where Joyce inspires in him feelings he doesn’t know how to deal with after he begins to see her in a new light beyond “fundie weirdo”, but that still manifests differently here because everyone reading It’s Walky! knew from the get-go Joe would never be with Joyce because Walky’s name was the danged title, and that being up in the air means a go at that relationship has different goals and expectations.
Ruth/Billie was a bit of a big deal in the Walkyverse, except there’s no way to call that a repeat here in DoA because both of them are such different characters. Meanwhile Walky/Dorothy was explored on much the same level as Danny/Sal was, and at the moment in the Walkyverse reruns Dorothy is trying to beat Walky to death with her bare hands. Life comes at you funny sometimes.
Thag Simmons
“No one saw Ruth/Jason coming, that’s for sure.”
I would disagree with this. Once Ruth and Jason started interacting during the date, a lot of people started to figure it out.
Yumi
I feel like that’s a bit…late for what Spencer is talking about.
Thag Simmons
Maybe. But the reason I’d say nobody saw it coming prior to Jason’s new look is because nobody expected him to be an important character again and he had minimal connections to the non-Walkerton members of the cast
Demoted Oblivious
No one saw the Americans being willing to nuke Japan, but once they hit Nagasaki, a lot of people started to figure it out.
If someone wants to claim they were actually shipping Ruth and Jason before their first interaction or even post-skip before it actually became a thing, I’m going to call [citation needed].
I like you Thag, but I’m pretty sure anyone claiming they saw it coming, would have to have violated causality.
Regalli
Ruth/Billie in the Walkyverse was also explored primarily/most explicitly in the Roomies Redux strips, as I recall, which were written and published after Ruth’s death there. They were very different characters with a different dynamic here, but it was also a chance to explore their relationship in realtime.
Oh, also, after Shortpacked ended and Dumbingverse Dina/Becky became a thing, Willis posted some art and declared it canon of Walkyverse Becky and Dina together against the Soggies. When we saw Walkyverse characters again in an April Fools strip in 2017 or so, Becky was with the Shortpacked universe-hopping squad looking for anti-Soggie weapons, so yeah, that relationship is definitely Walkyverse canon too, the rules just don’t apply since they only met AFTER the Walkyverse ended.
Kammon
Sal/Danny happened in Roomies, yes; but so early on that their characters were barely established (and Sal ended up becoming someone so completely different to her initial incarnation that she might well have been an entirely different character).
So I’d make an argument that whilst a ‘Danny’ and ‘Sal’ once dated in a different comic, these two characters as they are now depicted never dated.
Keulen
I can’t recall if he said that, but I’m pretty sure Willis at some point said he wasn’t gonna have anyone die in this comic, and then he went and killed off Mike. So even if he did say that maybe we shouldn’t assume it’s still accurate anymore.
Regalli
The ‘people won’t die’ was never absolute – the issue was that, like breaking a bone (even Joyce spraining her wrist put her in the brace for ages,) the status quo change of ‘grieving’ would last the rest of the comic without a timeskip, but even then they made occasional jokes that like, Tony could die, because Tony was too minor a character to derail things with grief. (‘Who’s Tony?’ Yeah, exactly. If he died offscreen over the break due to ridiculous shenanigans with murderous llamas invading the football field during a game, it would still have no impact on the story whatsoever.)
But yeah, the rules change as the story needs them, especially when, say, a storyline’s been inching towards ‘kill off the Alliance of Evil Dads so they can no longer escalate and get some Becky angst in’ and that’d probably require a timeskip ANYWAY. (Also neatly skipping the inevitable Drama of Thanksgiving and winter break that would have split up the cast.) I distinctly recall that when Blaine and Faz first showed up, Willis said Blaine wasn’t Faz’s bio-dad, but by the time the Faz is Great storyline ran they’d forgotten saying that (I can’t find the quote but remember hearing they had admitted to that) and evidently found it more interesting and a better story angle for Faz to be in all likelihood Amber’s half-brother… and also fear ending up like Blaine, but Amber is the person who shows him he doesn’t have to be. While also making it extra clear that yes, Blaine is in fact THAT MUCH human garbage. (The hints that Yuri was a teenager when Faz was born in conjunction with the way his arc’s gone are the kind of thing you don’t casually drop as a red herring, not for a storyline that’s only an occasional drop-in on Amber’s plot. So unfortunately, I assume Blaine was a sex predator in addition to an abusive fuckstain, mob stooge, and half-rate supervillain whose only trick was ‘try and kidnap Amber’s friends’.)
The relationships one has always been more malleable than others because by now, most characters have very different dynamics than they had in the Walkyverse, and many started diverging from the start. (Walkyverse Joyce and Dorothy hate each other, as do that Joyce and Sal.) But I still wouldn’t hold my breath to see Walky/Joyce as a canon ship again because their dynamic as friends is close enough to the Joyce and Walky! one that there’s not much new ground to tread. Same reason, I suspect, why Amber/Mike was never actually readdressed – even adding AG into the mix, the most that relationship could work would’ve been pretty close to their dynamic in Shortpacked all over again. By comparison, Walky/Dorothy and Joe/Joyce were only explored as actual relationships as opposed to crushes briefly in an AU before it intersected with the plot, Ruth/Billie was explored largely via flashback (and had a different dynamic due to that Ruth being Billie’s childhood babysitter), and Danny/Sal’s dynamic is so different here than it was there that it won’t go down the same lines if it does become a thing there. (Also, it’s been SO MUCH LONGER since Willis wrote or thought of them as a romantic couple than Amber/Mike or even Joyce/Walky, so they’ve probably had the space to reassess that relationship as well.) If there’s a new spin on it, or potential that wasn’t explored, it’s more likely to have a chance.
Yotomoe
CUTE
Rabisch
AGREED.
Sirksome
I mean if I was Sal I probably wouldn’t want to meet Danny at his dorm either. The room probably stinks of Joe scent and Danny has become nose blind to it.
Rainhat
D’aww.
Wagstaff
Awe, that’s really sweet of you Sal!
But seriously, if you’ve never seen it get that dark by 4 p.m. you’ve obviously never seen what the California wildfires can do.
Clif
Something I hope remains true.
Shitbird
This makes me so happy
Imogen
This is so cute and gay
Wagstaff
……gay?
Thag Simmons
This doesn’t really fit either definition of gay that I’m familiar with.
Wagstaff
Wait a minute, what if they’re using the very old definition, meaning “happy”?
Thag Simmons
There’s a reason I said “doesn’t fit either”
This is sweet and cute but it’s not what I’d call happy.
Yumi
The teens are calling everything gay again, but in a positive way this time.
Imogen
Sometimes I just call cute romantic things gay because “gay” is the word I most often use in my own relationships for different reasons. But also, Danny is bisexual, so this is all quite gay. ^.^
Yumi
Oh yeah, from the “everything,” romantic things, regardless of orientation, are the most likely to be called “gay” from what I’ve seen.
BBCC
AWWWWWWWWWWW.
Find him and kiss him you fool!
jupiterror
cute moment
Kyrik Michalowski
Oh Sal, I hope you can give Danny his hat in person and not through some third party. And I hope you can accept Danny doing nice things for you.
I look forward to you and Danny going on your first date sometime in 2025.
Pizzawiz
This is the content I live for
Clif
Joe is the first reason that pops into mind, but I wonder.
Judas Peckerwood
Just more evidence that Willis is a storytelling genius. As if you needed it.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
But if he gets the new hat, won’t the old hat inevitably show up at the worst possible moment, leading to incredible conflict and angst?
Clif
Yes. He can never let the two hats meet.
Spencer
It’s his old hat’s quantum duplicate.
Needfuldoer
Plot twist: this is his old hat. After it blew away, someone found it and donated it to a charity shop, where Sal bought it.
Unless that ‘Danny’s hat’ bonus strip ends with it blowing into a wood chipper, or something.
InTheory
Or the story point down the road that marks the end of their relationship.
Bagge
D’awwww
Lingo
BUT THE HAT CAME BACK
THE VERY NEXT
DAYBOOKTHE HAT CAME BACK
AND NOW HE HAS A LOOK
Lingo
…”And now it has her shook”?
meh
Geneseepaws