Yeah this would be an excellent time for her to discover people don’t think as highly of her as she thinks they do. Let’s see, what few friends does she have here? Jason? I don’t think he’ll be happy to speak with her after she lost him his job. Billie? She’s losing touch with her old dormmates because she’s finally found some who actually look up to her. Danny? He comes off nice but he doesn’t stick up for someone who lets him down. Amazi-girl? Sal doesn’t even know who she is.
Ethan will probably let her down the most gently, which is why her finding him first is going to make this discovery especially painful.
True I guess, after getting accused (framed), he fessed up. Oops!
Wizard
Well, that and sexing up a student in the first place.
thereaverofdarkness
Sure but for that he was never caught. In a way, it caught up to him. But it easily could have slipped through the cracks.
thejeff
But that was the reason he was fired and the only connection to Sal anyway. You can’t blame Sal and dismiss him banging her at the same time.
thereaverofdarkness
I blame Penny. She is more at fault for it than anyone else is, and she didn’t even know about Jason sleeping with Sal. Jason and Sal both had a hand in making Jason get fired, but more than anything it was Penny’s fault.
Heavensrun
Eh, what Penny did was shitty, but if he hadn’t actually banged Sal, it would’ve been a minor inconvenience. “Penny said you banged a student.” “What? That’s a bald faced lie!” “Yeah, everybody knows she hates you, but we had to ask, you know?”
Hell, if he was even halfway willing to fight for his job,he could’ve gotten around it, maybe without even lying. “I know I shouldn’t have had relations with a student, but I did give her work to another TA to grade, I was absolutely clear to her she would not get preferential treatment, and she is now working with a different tutor.” I mean, it’s not ideal, but he’s taken steps to minimize the conflict of interest and he is a -student- TA. I mean, Ruth’s situation has already shown us the administrative culture in the school is willing to sweep some things under the rug. (Her situation was also arguably much worse than Jason’s.)
Your description of Sal’s friends doesn’t really make much sense to me.
Jason doesn’t appear to be holding any kind of grudge against Sal; like BBCC said, the one most responsible for Jason getting kinda-sorta fired is himself (with Penny being the distant second). Billie and Sal have never been all that close, even when they were roommates. Regarding Danny, how exactly has Sal let him down recently? Failing to notice that he was saying goodbye isn’t exactly a relationship-breaker. And as for Amazigirl, the fact that Sal doesn’t know who it is under the mask is pretty irrelevant, considering that Marcie wouldn’t consider her a good reference anyway.
Out of all of them, Ethan is probably the least likely to turn Sal down. Remember, Ethan was the one that sought her out to talk about the convenience store incident. What is it about their interaction afterwards that makes you think Ethan’s gonna tell her “Sorry, can’t help you, you’re super violent and unstable, please go away,” or something to that effect?
marillius
How about the fact that Marcie did exactly that thing despite being Sal’s best friend?
Seriously, did I miss an entire chapter? When we last saw Marcie before this chapter, she and Sal had been getting along pretty well, with Sal having just realized what the problem was between her and Marcie. (At the time it was heavily implied there wasn’t a problem, that Marcie just wanted to plow the asshat with the lizard). What the heck happened? Where was the chapter where Marcie just said ‘f off my main dude’?
Regalli
The part where Sal got into a fight at the political rally where Marcie was a trainee in security. (Aka when Ryan came back into the plot.) This at least got Marcie reprimanded and almost certainly cost her the job, especially since the big fight that broke out was between Sal and AG (two unrelated people, one of whom Marcie invited) and the rally’s interns. Which was actually a while ago, you didn’t miss a chapter so much as a book.
This isn’t really about Malaya, though the two of them being completely unable to exchange basic pleasantries without hating each other is an issue given they’re also roommates. It’s about Sal’s tendency to start fights getting MARCIE in trouble by being close by, and probably the fact that Sal promised after Marcie’s injury no more fights and hasn’t been able to keep it.
the final pam
You know, you could click the ‘Marcie’ tag and see all the previous strips with her in it, where they show how the conflict started.
idk about Penny as DISTANT second, since she instigated it. Jason just happened to not contest it.
thejeff
I’d say distant because Jason actually banged the student. Which is what I’d say instigated the whole thing. (Arguably Sal instigated the banging, but that doesn’t really matter because it’s his job not to bang students, even if they want to.)
Regalli
Yeah, if Jason HADN’T banged a student, then Penny’s baseless spite-filled accusation would be met with him going ‘what student?’ and either getting a name and some odd behavior to which he could go ‘yeah no, my office hours just didn’t work with their class schedule’ or get nothing and respond ‘so you believed an employee who was getting fired, who hates me, on no evidence? You realize any student I would produce to contest this would be an admission of something inappropriate, yes? And that anyone sexually extorting their students for grades would continue to extort them into coming to their defense?’ Or something less critical of the system, probably.
But because the accusation WASN’T baseless and there apparently WAS a name or something attached, Jason saw it, went on an angry monologue at another student admitting his guilt, and then decided to just take the firing. This was policy. Jason knew he could get fired for it and knew why the rule existed and apparently knew that Sal was doing this for grades per Slipshine, which a responsible authority figure should respond to up front with ‘I will not change your grades for sex, if you want your grades changed you should find a tutor whose style suits you better, if you want sex you should find someone who’s not currently your teacher.’ Jason getting fired is Jason’s fault.
I don’t think she thinks ANY of them think highly of her. That’s sal’s whole thing. Some of them idolize shit she *does* like riding a motorcycle, but she knows she doesn’t have many friends. Closest she has atm are Danny, maybe carla, n Joyce. (Danny n carla moreso than joyce, bc duh)
I think Ethan has more of that sort of look that says “who’re you lookin’ at? no, I did not look in your direction and totally have no knowledge in events which may or may not be transpiring somewhere near me but outside of my peripheral vision please ignore mejustscootinthroughguysplease”
(which, given that you have a non-standard gravatar you presumably know already.)
thereaverofdarkness
So many memories! Thank you for this. Now every time I see your avatar, it will remind me of the time that Becky grew up and started living. It will remind me of the BEGINNING.
Oh yes! I love Willis explanation of how he was very conscious of the common use of gay characters in media, as a side character in someone elses story. They do their bit, they induce character growth and they leave (too often fatally).
Becky DID help Joyce grow and learn a number of life lessons*, but that was not all she did – she also firmly planted the foundation of HER OWN story, and when the chapter was over, the dust had settled and the Toe were carried away by all the cops, Becky was not gone, she was there to stay.
Not the end, but the beginning. And what an awesome story it is!
*) Dina as well, but that’s a completely different, much more dofusi story.
BigDogLittleCat
That *is* the BESTEST Becky strip and that is the bestest Becky face.
Brings new meaning to the lyrics of ‘Let Me Take a Selfie’ by The Chainsmokers.
And looking at the lyrics, I see it almost seems to be mentioning DoA characters. It has Jason, Sierra, and possible mention of Sal. I suspect the song could be told from the perspective of Penny.
When did Marcie’s problem with Sal shift from her reckless conflict-causing to her being antisocial? The first is a thing she does, the latter is how she is. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with being people-averse? It’s bothering me a bit that it seems like Marcie is making her friendship conditional on … Sal making other friends? Sure, in an ideal world she should make new friends but that’s particularly hard for Sal, and it won’t be any easier if the one friend she does have places these terms and conditions on their relationship.
The friends thing was a problem before the reckless conflict causing. Sal bringing it up (in addition to her bringing up her talk with Ethan) is probably her trying to say she knows what Marcie’s concerns are and she’s trying to address them. Marcie needs evidence over anecdotes this time because she is being cautious and trying not to get hit with more splash back, and so is (for now) keeping her distance.
In fairness, Sal’s the one that made it about her being friendless. First with saying in front of Marcie that Malaya was stealing her friendship away (despite Marcie telling her earlier that day exactly what her problem with Sal was), and now here where Sal is saying that she’s making friends. If I were to make a leap, I’d say that Sal is trying to say that she’s making normal friends besides Amazi-Girl who are less likely to lead Sal into situations where there is significant splashback onto Marcie. But she’s missing some of that extra information and so it feels like she’s just switching focus entirely, ignoring that that’s not the problem here.
I also want to point out that at no point did Marcie ever create a stipulation or conditions that Sal has to make more friends besides her. The only thing that Marcie has ever told Sal was that her actions tend to have direct consequences for Marcie. And.. if there’s any conditions put on a relationship, “stop doing shit that negatively affects me” isn’t entirely unreasonable, especially when that often involves physical violence.
On a deeper level, Sal’s long been focused on “I only need one friend”, with strong implications that Marcie should be the same way. She’s been threatened by Marcie doing other things and not spending enough time alone with her – partly her work schedule, but also Malaya and roller derby in general. Sal being able to make other friends lessens her dependence on Marcie and that may well be good for their relationship.
Even though it’s not something Marcie’s talked about before on panel, there have been enough hints and she seems to confirm it here.
Side note: Did Marcie start roller derby to get closer to Malaya? In that “I wanna hit that” strip way back, Sal and Marcie are in the audience. Marcie wasn’t on the team yet?
Regalli
There was a flashback, but Marcie was on the team as of at least When Somebody Loved Me. That said it could’ve been her first game? So: possible, not certain. If it were their first encounter with Malaya it makes Sal’s immediate assumption of wanting to punch her and Marcie meaning the same pretty unreasonable, so maybe they already knew Malaya and she invited Marcie to roller derby? Not sure. Counting scenes, first interaction they share is the car park beer sharing that ends in AG showing up, where they seem to already know each other, followed by the conversation after Marcie’s recruited and playing… But that still leaves several weeks for them to meet beforehand that we don’t know timeline on.
I feel like a lot of people are kind of crapping on Sal for some pretty harsh reasons.
Why SHOULD someone have more then one good friend in an idealistic world? Man, sometimes I’m lucky to have even that. But here we have Marcie chasing after a girl for sex, and maybe crushing on her a little, while doing it at the cost of a friendship she had, before that point, actively encouraged to be… veeeery close.
It’s fine that Marcie makes more friends. Its fine that as time goes on, she wants to spend time with people other then Sal. But she never spends time just with Sal. She always bring along someone who is this horrible little brat who regularly insults Sal for, as far as we can see, little reason other then because she can.
Honestly, aside from years of friendship, why does Sal even like Marcie? Marcie seems to be bringing up this Splashback stuff out of nowhere (because the flashbacks happened, I guess?), never hangs out with Sal alone, is spending most of her time with a girl that is extremely caustic and venomous when dealing with Sal, all for what seems to be some sex or a rather hidden agenda for a relationship, while Sal does her best to…
What, exactly? What caused Marcie’s sudden doubt and dislike? Last time we saw these two before this chapter actually do anything significant, it was wrapping up their last bit of drama, where Marcie straight up admitted she was ditching Sal for a chance at some tail, something which has multiple different awful connotations considering how she’s ditching an apparently life long friend for it and not being straight with Malya, instead doing things like hanging in the same bed under false pretenses. Guys get flak for that kind of crap all the time but it’s okay here because Marcie is cute?
But really, what does Sal need to prove? I get why she’s bothering to try, Marcie is her best friend, but why do people in the comics think she should given how very little ‘friendship’ we’ve seen come from Marcie in recent comics… or in the comics in general?
Regalli
As I said upthread, you missed the inciting incident of this fight: Sal costing Marcie a job with her fighting. The splashback thing is relevant because that’s exactly what Marcie is actually angry about and has actual, very recent consequences for Marcie.
And remember, Marcie’s not a student – she came up here just to be closer to Sal and has to keep terrible minimum wage jobs to share a crowded apartment. That’s a huge show of friendship (and Marcie’s the only one who apparently stayed in contact with Sal after she was shipped off to Tennessee, also a big deal to Sal,) and also a whole lot of effort that means Marcie’s free time is significantly less than Sal’s and Sal costing her that job was especially shitty.
marillius
I didn’t miss that. I missed how Sal defending herself and another woman from assault somehow makes her a bad person. Is she just supposed to stand around and do nothing? Marcie’s been a prick since the start when it comes to Malya but this really takes the cake if that’s why she’s made.
Inahc
“defending herself and another woman from assault “? what?
that’s the bad part, imo. as much as I like sal, insisting on fighting there was a real jerk move, even before we knew she’d promised to not do exactly that.
after that, amazi-girl gets the blurry photo, finds and confronts “ryan”, fights him and his minions, sal joins in to save her, and they go on the chase for the amazi-phone. that part’s pretty noble; it probably added to marcie’s trouble too, but honestly, she was probably already fired by then anyways.
the final pam
No one said that Sal was a bad person. Sal stepping in to help AG fight off Ryan and his goons was due to her sense of justice and it was noble, yes, but Sal didn’t appear to tell Marcie or any of the staff what was going on. Neither did Amazi-Girl, until after they beat up the rest of the guys and Ryan got away. To the security team and to the organizers of the event, you have these two women assaulting four of their interns out of nowhere. Literally no one but Sal and AG know why they are doing what they are doing.
And that’s the entire problem. What Sal did was for a good cause, but she didn’t tell Marcie anything about what was going on before stepping in, and she didn’t wait for authority to step in to take care of it because she doesn’t trust it, and the end result is that it all negatively reflects back onto Marcie, because she’s the only reason Sal was at that event to begin with. Marcie is then unfairly blamed for the fight, loses her job, and at the end of it, still doesn’t appear to know why Sal did it. And at no point did Sal explain what happened or apologize for it.
Even though Sal was doing a good thing, her actions directly lost Marcie her job. And for Marcie, who lives in poverty in an apartment with several other roommates, that’s pretty significant. That’d be pretty significant even if she were relatively well off otherwise. That’s a shitty thing for a friend to do, whether intentional or not.
what the heck! doesn’t Sal defend herself from Malaya’s idiot comment yesterday? Doesn’t MARCIE defend Sal??
Marcie might be angry at Sal, but what Malaya said is blatantly wrong and Marcie knows it! But instead of telling Malaya anything, she just lands another hit on Sal. Marcie knows that Sal is upset and she throws this at her again?
It feels like Marcie is just pushing Sal further and further away. Like I know Marcie doesn’t OWE it to Sal to be her emotional support, it just feels like she’s constantly cold and unpleasant for someone who is supposedly her best friend
Sal always takes the (verbal) hits without fighting back. It’s like she feels it’s better to save face than to try and look petty defending herself against someone who may or may not believe her.
She’s probably spent plenty of time learning that people won’t believe her.
chris73
Yes Sal does have a very strong martyr sense about her
Axel
I more meant in how many times she’s probably had to defend herself to her mom and other authority figures, than that she had a martyr complex. I mean, my mom was not nearly like Linda and I still have so many things similar to that ingrained, and I moved out seven years ago.
chris73
Well I wonder how many times Sal has “defended” Marcie in the past when maybe Marcie didn’t actually want or need defending or Sal pushes everyone away except for Marcie because she doesn’t want to seem as if shes deserting Marcie even though Marcie may not want to be smothered by Sal
Like when younger and Sal decided that is was up to her to raise the money for Marcie, did Sal really think Marcie would have accepted or been impressed by Sal raising the money through robbery or had Marcie accepted her condition but Sal couldn’t let her self-imposed martyrdom go, that she had to “fix” it
Emily
No, Sal is a child of abuse who has been conditioned to expect being treated as a failure and disappointment.
For someone who’s Sal’s oldest friend, Marcie sure doesn’t seem to be doing much to try to maintain that friendship right now. And I don’t think Sal’s really done anything to intentionally hurt Marcie either.
That’s part of what’s pissing me off about Marcie. Sal seems more than willing to explain herself but Marcie doesn’t want to hear any of it, so while the excuse that she doesn’t know why Sal reacted the way she does to Amber at that rally is true, it’s also something Marcie’s had a hand in- she could have known if she’d listened.
Sal got stalked and harassed repeatedly until she got tired of it and snapped- and jumped into a fight against a group of men pinning down a lone woman (one of whom was a rapist.) If Marcie had asked instead of freezing Sal out, she’d have known that. Marcie lost her job, but that fight was more Amber’s fault than Sal’s and blaming Sal for it is pretty stupid, in my opinion.
(Sal’s recent team up with Amazigirl against the petty criminals is another thing altogether, but Marcie’s cold shouldering wasn’t even about that.)
Basically Marcie is okay hanging out with Malaya who doesn’t have an ounce of morality and actively treats nice people like trash, who she admits is lacking in Sal’s higher character, but is willing to accept because her lack of integrity means Marcie’s safer. Which is fine, but…I mean, in my opinion, awful. She’s very lax on Malaya’s failings and severe with Sal’s, I guess because when Malaya’s an asshole to someone it doesn’t affect her personally.
I’m just very disgusted with Marcie right now. Both Sal and Marcie have had a hand in the way the friendship is falling apart, but Sal seems willing to work on it and Marcie is just putting it all on her and again putting Sal in the position where she feels like she has to somehow ‘prove herself’ to someone she cares about.
Axel
I 100% support Marcie distancing herself from Sal when it’s dangerous to her (even non-literally), has lost her a job, and so on, and I get why Malaya, despite being an asshole, is easier to be around, but I agree with the rest of this. It seems like Marcie doesn’t want to keep being friends, and since she’s the one setting up hoops, it feels like she should be the one to say that she wants a break, or to not hang out anymore, or whatever. Because right now, it feels like she might ghost Sal.
194 thoughts on “Prove”
Ana Chronistic
“yo, Hostage, where’s the library so I can get a book and learn how to make friends“
Cholma
I hear that Dale Carnegie has *just* the book for Sal!
All-Purpose Guru
I think if Sal was to read that book she would spontaneously combust.
Deanatay
I was thinking:
“Yo, Hostage, come over here and be my friend for my other friend who’s more important to me than you!”
Doctor_Who
My theory: Sal is going to go through every single character before she finally breaks down and hangs out with her biggest fan Joyce.
I especially look forward to her parading Mary and Galasso in front of Marcie.
MatthewTheLucky
Also, every character will agree, then leave awkwardly while Sal and Malaya trade barbs.
thereaverofdarkness
Yeah this would be an excellent time for her to discover people don’t think as highly of her as she thinks they do. Let’s see, what few friends does she have here? Jason? I don’t think he’ll be happy to speak with her after she lost him his job. Billie? She’s losing touch with her old dormmates because she’s finally found some who actually look up to her. Danny? He comes off nice but he doesn’t stick up for someone who lets him down. Amazi-girl? Sal doesn’t even know who she is.
Ethan will probably let her down the most gently, which is why her finding him first is going to make this discovery especially painful.
BBCC
Jason lost himself his job.
Makkabee
It was a team effort.
BBCC
Yeah, no. Jason’s the one who’s obligated to turn her down.
thereaverofdarkness
True I guess, after getting accused (framed), he fessed up. Oops!
Wizard
Well, that and sexing up a student in the first place.
thereaverofdarkness
Sure but for that he was never caught. In a way, it caught up to him. But it easily could have slipped through the cracks.
thejeff
But that was the reason he was fired and the only connection to Sal anyway. You can’t blame Sal and dismiss him banging her at the same time.
thereaverofdarkness
I blame Penny. She is more at fault for it than anyone else is, and she didn’t even know about Jason sleeping with Sal. Jason and Sal both had a hand in making Jason get fired, but more than anything it was Penny’s fault.
Heavensrun
Eh, what Penny did was shitty, but if he hadn’t actually banged Sal, it would’ve been a minor inconvenience. “Penny said you banged a student.” “What? That’s a bald faced lie!” “Yeah, everybody knows she hates you, but we had to ask, you know?”
Hell, if he was even halfway willing to fight for his job,he could’ve gotten around it, maybe without even lying. “I know I shouldn’t have had relations with a student, but I did give her work to another TA to grade, I was absolutely clear to her she would not get preferential treatment, and she is now working with a different tutor.” I mean, it’s not ideal, but he’s taken steps to minimize the conflict of interest and he is a -student- TA. I mean, Ruth’s situation has already shown us the administrative culture in the school is willing to sweep some things under the rug. (Her situation was also arguably much worse than Jason’s.)
pjeseb
Your description of Sal’s friends doesn’t really make much sense to me.
Jason doesn’t appear to be holding any kind of grudge against Sal; like BBCC said, the one most responsible for Jason getting kinda-sorta fired is himself (with Penny being the distant second). Billie and Sal have never been all that close, even when they were roommates. Regarding Danny, how exactly has Sal let him down recently? Failing to notice that he was saying goodbye isn’t exactly a relationship-breaker. And as for Amazigirl, the fact that Sal doesn’t know who it is under the mask is pretty irrelevant, considering that Marcie wouldn’t consider her a good reference anyway.
Out of all of them, Ethan is probably the least likely to turn Sal down. Remember, Ethan was the one that sought her out to talk about the convenience store incident. What is it about their interaction afterwards that makes you think Ethan’s gonna tell her “Sorry, can’t help you, you’re super violent and unstable, please go away,” or something to that effect?
marillius
How about the fact that Marcie did exactly that thing despite being Sal’s best friend?
Seriously, did I miss an entire chapter? When we last saw Marcie before this chapter, she and Sal had been getting along pretty well, with Sal having just realized what the problem was between her and Marcie. (At the time it was heavily implied there wasn’t a problem, that Marcie just wanted to plow the asshat with the lizard). What the heck happened? Where was the chapter where Marcie just said ‘f off my main dude’?
Regalli
The part where Sal got into a fight at the political rally where Marcie was a trainee in security. (Aka when Ryan came back into the plot.) This at least got Marcie reprimanded and almost certainly cost her the job, especially since the big fight that broke out was between Sal and AG (two unrelated people, one of whom Marcie invited) and the rally’s interns. Which was actually a while ago, you didn’t miss a chapter so much as a book.
This isn’t really about Malaya, though the two of them being completely unable to exchange basic pleasantries without hating each other is an issue given they’re also roommates. It’s about Sal’s tendency to start fights getting MARCIE in trouble by being close by, and probably the fact that Sal promised after Marcie’s injury no more fights and hasn’t been able to keep it.
the final pam
You know, you could click the ‘Marcie’ tag and see all the previous strips with her in it, where they show how the conflict started.
Like this: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/waitin/
Or the one from a few weeks ago, where Marcie said she keeps being Sal’s collateral damage.
Ana Chronistic
idk about Penny as DISTANT second, since she instigated it. Jason just happened to not contest it.
thejeff
I’d say distant because Jason actually banged the student. Which is what I’d say instigated the whole thing. (Arguably Sal instigated the banging, but that doesn’t really matter because it’s his job not to bang students, even if they want to.)
Regalli
Yeah, if Jason HADN’T banged a student, then Penny’s baseless spite-filled accusation would be met with him going ‘what student?’ and either getting a name and some odd behavior to which he could go ‘yeah no, my office hours just didn’t work with their class schedule’ or get nothing and respond ‘so you believed an employee who was getting fired, who hates me, on no evidence? You realize any student I would produce to contest this would be an admission of something inappropriate, yes? And that anyone sexually extorting their students for grades would continue to extort them into coming to their defense?’ Or something less critical of the system, probably.
But because the accusation WASN’T baseless and there apparently WAS a name or something attached, Jason saw it, went on an angry monologue at another student admitting his guilt, and then decided to just take the firing. This was policy. Jason knew he could get fired for it and knew why the rule existed and apparently knew that Sal was doing this for grades per Slipshine, which a responsible authority figure should respond to up front with ‘I will not change your grades for sex, if you want your grades changed you should find a tutor whose style suits you better, if you want sex you should find someone who’s not currently your teacher.’ Jason getting fired is Jason’s fault.
Bon
I don’t think she thinks ANY of them think highly of her. That’s sal’s whole thing. Some of them idolize shit she *does* like riding a motorcycle, but she knows she doesn’t have many friends. Closest she has atm are Danny, maybe carla, n Joyce. (Danny n carla moreso than joyce, bc duh)
AnvilPro
Woo! New friends!
DailyBrad
Ah, that good deed paid off.
butts
ethan just didn’t notice her because he’s distracted by manny’s butt
King Daniel
I assume you’re the expert on getting distracted by butts.
thereaverofdarkness
I think Ethan has more of that sort of look that says “who’re you lookin’ at? no, I did not look in your direction and totally have no knowledge in events which may or may not be transpiring somewhere near me but outside of my peripheral vision please ignore mejustscootinthroughguysplease”
Keulen
That or he just overheard someone off-panel talking about Transformers.
Bagge
“Wanna that motor cycle ride now?”
thereaverofdarkness
where did you get that Becky avatar?
Bagge
From the BESTEST Becky strip
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/unlimited/
Bagge
(You can set your own gravatar and tie it to your email address with the “Get a gravatar” link next to your name below.)
Bagge
(which, given that you have a non-standard gravatar you presumably know already.)
thereaverofdarkness
So many memories! Thank you for this. Now every time I see your avatar, it will remind me of the time that Becky grew up and started living. It will remind me of the BEGINNING.
Bagge
Oh yes! I love Willis explanation of how he was very conscious of the common use of gay characters in media, as a side character in someone elses story. They do their bit, they induce character growth and they leave (too often fatally).
Becky DID help Joyce grow and learn a number of life lessons*, but that was not all she did – she also firmly planted the foundation of HER OWN story, and when the chapter was over, the dust had settled and the Toe were carried away by all the cops, Becky was not gone, she was there to stay.
Not the end, but the beginning. And what an awesome story it is!
*) Dina as well, but that’s a completely different, much more dofusi story.
BigDogLittleCat
That *is* the BESTEST Becky strip and that is the bestest Becky face.
Bagge
In STIFF competition.
Catman
This is either the best possible timeline or a big yikes waiting to happen.
Clif
Guess..
BBCC
I want popcorn. This is gonna be INTERESTING.
Stephen Bierce
Red Skies at night (Red Skies at night)
Oh oh (oh oh)
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh….
ivy
I’m glad that Sal has that one good relationship where she doesn’t have to feel like she has to constantly prove that she’s not awful or unredeemable.
Adam Black
Yeah, too bad its with Danny
Delicious Taffy
What’s wrong with Danny?
Plasma Mongoose
I still think that taking a selfie sounds like a slang term for wanking.
Kern Wallace
Sal actually isn’t about to go chasing down Ethan, she’s just making the jerk off motion toward him.
Bagge
That’s not necessarily something one should take a selfie of.
thereaverofdarkness
Brings new meaning to the lyrics of ‘Let Me Take a Selfie’ by The Chainsmokers.
And looking at the lyrics, I see it almost seems to be mentioning DoA characters. It has Jason, Sierra, and possible mention of Sal. I suspect the song could be told from the perspective of Penny.
dyd
In Korea and possibly other Asian nations they call it a selca instead.
Badgermole
When did Marcie’s problem with Sal shift from her reckless conflict-causing to her being antisocial? The first is a thing she does, the latter is how she is. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with being people-averse? It’s bothering me a bit that it seems like Marcie is making her friendship conditional on … Sal making other friends? Sure, in an ideal world she should make new friends but that’s particularly hard for Sal, and it won’t be any easier if the one friend she does have places these terms and conditions on their relationship.
Norah
It’s possible that Marcie feels like she can’t spend time with her other friends because she’d be deserting Sal, who has no other friends.
BBCC
The friends thing was a problem before the reckless conflict causing. Sal bringing it up (in addition to her bringing up her talk with Ethan) is probably her trying to say she knows what Marcie’s concerns are and she’s trying to address them. Marcie needs evidence over anecdotes this time because she is being cautious and trying not to get hit with more splash back, and so is (for now) keeping her distance.
the final pam
In fairness, Sal’s the one that made it about her being friendless. First with saying in front of Marcie that Malaya was stealing her friendship away (despite Marcie telling her earlier that day exactly what her problem with Sal was), and now here where Sal is saying that she’s making friends. If I were to make a leap, I’d say that Sal is trying to say that she’s making normal friends besides Amazi-Girl who are less likely to lead Sal into situations where there is significant splashback onto Marcie. But she’s missing some of that extra information and so it feels like she’s just switching focus entirely, ignoring that that’s not the problem here.
I also want to point out that at no point did Marcie ever create a stipulation or conditions that Sal has to make more friends besides her. The only thing that Marcie has ever told Sal was that her actions tend to have direct consequences for Marcie. And.. if there’s any conditions put on a relationship, “stop doing shit that negatively affects me” isn’t entirely unreasonable, especially when that often involves physical violence.
thejeff
On a deeper level, Sal’s long been focused on “I only need one friend”, with strong implications that Marcie should be the same way. She’s been threatened by Marcie doing other things and not spending enough time alone with her – partly her work schedule, but also Malaya and roller derby in general. Sal being able to make other friends lessens her dependence on Marcie and that may well be good for their relationship.
Even though it’s not something Marcie’s talked about before on panel, there have been enough hints and she seems to confirm it here.
Side note: Did Marcie start roller derby to get closer to Malaya? In that “I wanna hit that” strip way back, Sal and Marcie are in the audience. Marcie wasn’t on the team yet?
Regalli
There was a flashback, but Marcie was on the team as of at least When Somebody Loved Me. That said it could’ve been her first game? So: possible, not certain. If it were their first encounter with Malaya it makes Sal’s immediate assumption of wanting to punch her and Marcie meaning the same pretty unreasonable, so maybe they already knew Malaya and she invited Marcie to roller derby? Not sure. Counting scenes, first interaction they share is the car park beer sharing that ends in AG showing up, where they seem to already know each other, followed by the conversation after Marcie’s recruited and playing… But that still leaves several weeks for them to meet beforehand that we don’t know timeline on.
marillius
I feel like a lot of people are kind of crapping on Sal for some pretty harsh reasons.
Why SHOULD someone have more then one good friend in an idealistic world? Man, sometimes I’m lucky to have even that. But here we have Marcie chasing after a girl for sex, and maybe crushing on her a little, while doing it at the cost of a friendship she had, before that point, actively encouraged to be… veeeery close.
It’s fine that Marcie makes more friends. Its fine that as time goes on, she wants to spend time with people other then Sal. But she never spends time just with Sal. She always bring along someone who is this horrible little brat who regularly insults Sal for, as far as we can see, little reason other then because she can.
Honestly, aside from years of friendship, why does Sal even like Marcie? Marcie seems to be bringing up this Splashback stuff out of nowhere (because the flashbacks happened, I guess?), never hangs out with Sal alone, is spending most of her time with a girl that is extremely caustic and venomous when dealing with Sal, all for what seems to be some sex or a rather hidden agenda for a relationship, while Sal does her best to…
What, exactly? What caused Marcie’s sudden doubt and dislike? Last time we saw these two before this chapter actually do anything significant, it was wrapping up their last bit of drama, where Marcie straight up admitted she was ditching Sal for a chance at some tail, something which has multiple different awful connotations considering how she’s ditching an apparently life long friend for it and not being straight with Malya, instead doing things like hanging in the same bed under false pretenses. Guys get flak for that kind of crap all the time but it’s okay here because Marcie is cute?
But really, what does Sal need to prove? I get why she’s bothering to try, Marcie is her best friend, but why do people in the comics think she should given how very little ‘friendship’ we’ve seen come from Marcie in recent comics… or in the comics in general?
Regalli
As I said upthread, you missed the inciting incident of this fight: Sal costing Marcie a job with her fighting. The splashback thing is relevant because that’s exactly what Marcie is actually angry about and has actual, very recent consequences for Marcie.
And remember, Marcie’s not a student – she came up here just to be closer to Sal and has to keep terrible minimum wage jobs to share a crowded apartment. That’s a huge show of friendship (and Marcie’s the only one who apparently stayed in contact with Sal after she was shipped off to Tennessee, also a big deal to Sal,) and also a whole lot of effort that means Marcie’s free time is significantly less than Sal’s and Sal costing her that job was especially shitty.
marillius
I didn’t miss that. I missed how Sal defending herself and another woman from assault somehow makes her a bad person. Is she just supposed to stand around and do nothing? Marcie’s been a prick since the start when it comes to Malya but this really takes the cake if that’s why she’s made.
Inahc
“defending herself and another woman from assault “? what?
the incident started with amazi-girl stalking sal at the rally. then sal insisted on trying to fight amazi-girl over marcie’s attempts to stop them: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/beef/ (and the page after that)
that’s the bad part, imo. as much as I like sal, insisting on fighting there was a real jerk move, even before we knew she’d promised to not do exactly that.
after that, amazi-girl gets the blurry photo, finds and confronts “ryan”, fights him and his minions, sal joins in to save her, and they go on the chase for the amazi-phone. that part’s pretty noble; it probably added to marcie’s trouble too, but honestly, she was probably already fired by then anyways.
the final pam
No one said that Sal was a bad person. Sal stepping in to help AG fight off Ryan and his goons was due to her sense of justice and it was noble, yes, but Sal didn’t appear to tell Marcie or any of the staff what was going on. Neither did Amazi-Girl, until after they beat up the rest of the guys and Ryan got away. To the security team and to the organizers of the event, you have these two women assaulting four of their interns out of nowhere. Literally no one but Sal and AG know why they are doing what they are doing.
And that’s the entire problem. What Sal did was for a good cause, but she didn’t tell Marcie anything about what was going on before stepping in, and she didn’t wait for authority to step in to take care of it because she doesn’t trust it, and the end result is that it all negatively reflects back onto Marcie, because she’s the only reason Sal was at that event to begin with. Marcie is then unfairly blamed for the fight, loses her job, and at the end of it, still doesn’t appear to know why Sal did it. And at no point did Sal explain what happened or apologize for it.
Even though Sal was doing a good thing, her actions directly lost Marcie her job. And for Marcie, who lives in poverty in an apartment with several other roommates, that’s pretty significant. That’d be pretty significant even if she were relatively well off otherwise. That’s a shitty thing for a friend to do, whether intentional or not.
Derek
what the heck! doesn’t Sal defend herself from Malaya’s idiot comment yesterday? Doesn’t MARCIE defend Sal??
Marcie might be angry at Sal, but what Malaya said is blatantly wrong and Marcie knows it! But instead of telling Malaya anything, she just lands another hit on Sal. Marcie knows that Sal is upset and she throws this at her again?
It feels like Marcie is just pushing Sal further and further away. Like I know Marcie doesn’t OWE it to Sal to be her emotional support, it just feels like she’s constantly cold and unpleasant for someone who is supposedly her best friend
thereaverofdarkness
Sal always takes the (verbal) hits without fighting back. It’s like she feels it’s better to save face than to try and look petty defending herself against someone who may or may not believe her.
Axel
She’s probably spent plenty of time learning that people won’t believe her.
chris73
Yes Sal does have a very strong martyr sense about her
Axel
I more meant in how many times she’s probably had to defend herself to her mom and other authority figures, than that she had a martyr complex. I mean, my mom was not nearly like Linda and I still have so many things similar to that ingrained, and I moved out seven years ago.
chris73
Well I wonder how many times Sal has “defended” Marcie in the past when maybe Marcie didn’t actually want or need defending or Sal pushes everyone away except for Marcie because she doesn’t want to seem as if shes deserting Marcie even though Marcie may not want to be smothered by Sal
Like when younger and Sal decided that is was up to her to raise the money for Marcie, did Sal really think Marcie would have accepted or been impressed by Sal raising the money through robbery or had Marcie accepted her condition but Sal couldn’t let her self-imposed martyrdom go, that she had to “fix” it
Emily
No, Sal is a child of abuse who has been conditioned to expect being treated as a failure and disappointment.
Keulen
For someone who’s Sal’s oldest friend, Marcie sure doesn’t seem to be doing much to try to maintain that friendship right now. And I don’t think Sal’s really done anything to intentionally hurt Marcie either.
ivy
That’s part of what’s pissing me off about Marcie. Sal seems more than willing to explain herself but Marcie doesn’t want to hear any of it, so while the excuse that she doesn’t know why Sal reacted the way she does to Amber at that rally is true, it’s also something Marcie’s had a hand in- she could have known if she’d listened.
Sal got stalked and harassed repeatedly until she got tired of it and snapped- and jumped into a fight against a group of men pinning down a lone woman (one of whom was a rapist.) If Marcie had asked instead of freezing Sal out, she’d have known that. Marcie lost her job, but that fight was more Amber’s fault than Sal’s and blaming Sal for it is pretty stupid, in my opinion.
(Sal’s recent team up with Amazigirl against the petty criminals is another thing altogether, but Marcie’s cold shouldering wasn’t even about that.)
Basically Marcie is okay hanging out with Malaya who doesn’t have an ounce of morality and actively treats nice people like trash, who she admits is lacking in Sal’s higher character, but is willing to accept because her lack of integrity means Marcie’s safer. Which is fine, but…I mean, in my opinion, awful. She’s very lax on Malaya’s failings and severe with Sal’s, I guess because when Malaya’s an asshole to someone it doesn’t affect her personally.
I’m just very disgusted with Marcie right now. Both Sal and Marcie have had a hand in the way the friendship is falling apart, but Sal seems willing to work on it and Marcie is just putting it all on her and again putting Sal in the position where she feels like she has to somehow ‘prove herself’ to someone she cares about.
Axel
I 100% support Marcie distancing herself from Sal when it’s dangerous to her (even non-literally), has lost her a job, and so on, and I get why Malaya, despite being an asshole, is easier to be around, but I agree with the rest of this. It seems like Marcie doesn’t want to keep being friends, and since she’s the one setting up hoops, it feels like she should be the one to say that she wants a break, or to not hang out anymore, or whatever. Because right now, it feels like she might ghost Sal.