the same way that uninsured motorist did right by my brother and me by almost killing my mother running that stop sign and paying for our college with the settlement?
I mean I don’t know what it’s like in the States but in Canada it’s an offense under the motor vehicle act to drive without at least basic third party liability insurance.
Taffy
I’m well aware of the consequences of not having it. That doesn’t change the fact that $200/month for literally no coverage is robbery.
cute carla
I pay that a year and have more than basic coverage… then again, I’m on the other side of the pond
Tegan
When it’s mandatory to have, they can get away with charging out the butt for itm
Wizard
All American states and territories require a certain minimum liability/property damage coverage. Drivers have to show proof of insurance when they register their car, but that doesn’t necessarily stop some people from cancelling their policy or letting it expire. It’s pretty easy to get away with it, as long as you don’t get pulled over or get into a wreck.
A few years back, I got rear-ended by an uninsured driver when I stopped for an oncoming cop car. Good news was, my insurance included uninsured motorist coverage so I wasn’t stuck with the bill.
Probably only cuz he didn’t hear what Linda said. Or maybe because he doesn’t understand the full implications? How much does Danny actually know about Sal’s backstory?
He knows that she held Ethan as a hostage and Amber knifed her. But also doesn’t know that Amber and Amazi-Girl are two distinct people… She’ll probably talk to him in time. One really good thing about Danny is he’s a really good listener and not too judgmental.
Joe Helfrich
I’m pretty sure that he does know that, in that Amazi girl talked about Amber being “in here” in at least one of the Shipshines (and I think shifted personas.)
He saw her without the mask in “Mask or No Mask” and I don’t think even Danny’s *that* obtuse.
We know that there was the issue of Marcie’s injury in her childhood; but aside from that time, they were responding to their child engaging in dangerous behavior- criminal behavior, even. While they made poor choices, heck- they may have made poor choices for the wrong reasons, they made *mistakes*, not malicious choices AFAWK. And, they early see that they made mistakes along the way; otherwise they would not have the feeling of regret so visible in the final.
This arc has been the most humanizing treatment that these two have ever received across the entire story, and it makes them more interesting, because they are not just copy-pastes of ‘supervillain dad teams up with vigilante dad’. They’re flawed, but shown as human.
Sal’s “criminal behavior” was a DIRECT result of Linda’s treatment of Marcie’s injury. Her attitude about Sal hanging out with “undesirables” are, IMO, the “malicious decisions” you’re absolving Sal’s parents of. Hard disagree there.
BBCC
^ That.
Needfuldoer
Yup. Linda’s microaggressions against Sal started before Marcie got hurt. They started well before Sal even met Marcie.
This arc has had a lot of characters pretty explicitly stating the reasons they think Linda and Charles are bad, and that assessment has been pretty well supported by their actions this arc so far.
That they show some mild uncertainty in a single panel doesn’t really change that.
The “PROOF, FINALLY!” line from Linda doesn’t strike you as narcissistic at all?
someone
Kinda, but due to her sad expression as she’s saying this, it looks like she’s trying to convince herself. If she had kept in panels 3 and 4 the look she had in panels 1 and 2, then yeah, it’d be pure narcissism, but due to the sorrowful look it seems there’s a bit more than that here.
Seems like seeing Sal with Danny have forced them to rethink about how they’ve seen her all along, and now she’s looking for some straw to grasp to justify herself.
It absolutely doesn’t excuse her past behavior, obviously, but it does offer a small hope of character growth for her; if she can actually go to the next step and admit that they’ve mistreated their daughter badly. No guarantee of that happening at all, though.
Mark
It strikes me as “it’s been such a struggle, always hoping we were doing the right thing. I want this to be validation.” People can care about their kids without knowing what would work best for them.
Clif
It’s true that parenting has a lot of guess and hope and flying blind and that wanting validation is only human. But it’s also worth noting that the validation in this case is a white nerd boyfriend.
asp55
Not that I disagree agree, but I also think it’s a bit more nuanced: Sal appearing to be happy because of said white nerd boyfriend, and the stories about how smart & perceptive Sal is.
Whaaaaa-? I will say that they are human and shown to have flaws, but they’re also extremely in the wrong about how Sal has been raised. Linda has exhibited tons of racist beliefs and attitudes and uses her marriage to Charles as a shield for any and all criticism. Charles for his part is a huge enabler of this. The worst of this racism bleeds through with how she tries to control how her children look, act, and even who they associate with. Right now for the first time Sal is getting approval with Danny, Mr. Vanilla himself, while Walky is getting the cold shoulder by being with Lucy. And like, Linda has been talking with Walky and knew about Lucy and was perfectly happy with it when she though Joyce was Lucy, but the instant she was corrected she got a lot less expressive and friendly and made up an excuse to avoid lunch plans.
The worst part is Sal seems genuinely happy with Wonderbread. Only, now that she heard her mothers comment about it validating her mistreatment growing up she’ll have to reevaluate what her relationship with Danny means in regards to her relationship with her mother and that’s a WHOLE mess of worms. Sal seems the type to act as genuinely as possible and I think she’s honest enough with herself to trust her feelings for Danny don’t come some sublimated desire for approval, though I imagine the fact she seemed to enjoy the last few minutes of approval is going to bother her a lot.
In short, Linda has NOT done right by Sal, and even the theoretically positive act of approving of Danny is used to justify past bad behavior and has the potential to upset the relationship.
Screw you Linda, there are worse parents on campus, but not many.
Mark
“uses her marriage to Charles as a shield for any and all criticism.” I’ve seen this assertion from dozens of commenters. Is there a citation?
BBCC
They might be mixing it up with when WALKY used it to defend Linda when Sal first told him what was up.
Just_IDD
I don’t think this is an in comic based assertion. Its how shitty some parents can be in real life. I ran into a Jewish lady at a coffee shop recently and had to deal with the same bullshit. She was whining about the riots in France and I said that police shot a 14 yo boy and her response was “it was a Muslim boy.” Like his race or anything else has to do with being 14. When I caller her on it, then she switched to how people are dying in Israel. Which is clearly not related to anything except in her racist mind.
This arc has effectively demonstrated Linda’s *racism* not her humanity. Linda and Charles are finally reflecting their daughter positively because they are seeing her through the filter of Danny’s whiteness, whereas they are ignoring Walky because of his black girlfriend. You aren’t seeing Linda and Charles in their default state. You are seeing how they treat white people that fit their idea of successful.
And you don’t just steal the money your daughter has raised by herself in order to help her friend pay for life-changing surgery, while being a great mom the rest of the time. That’s not a one-time bad decision. That indicates some really messed up values.
Plus, did you forget the part where she wanted to kick Amber out of school because *her father* was responsible for the kidnapping?
Sure, Linda is expressing self-doubt here, but it’s an extremely (paradoxically) prideful self-doubt. She’s saying “my problem child eventually did what I wanted her to do and stopped being a problem” when she should be saying “my daughter had problems when I was controlling her life and they went away when she went out on her own, maybe I was the cause of her problems.” Linda’s congratulating herself for the fact that Sal can be perfectly happy in the absence of her influence.
I think I understand your point here. It’s very easy for us to dislike the Walkertons. We’ve seen years of their actions and how that’s traumatized Sal and Walky in different ways. They have a huge flaw as well, that’s very hard to dismiss if you’re a decent person in any way, but that doesn’t mean you can write them off completely. Linda, especially is being compared to Sal, shown they are similar. This humanizes her and some of her actions because she was probably like Sal as a kid.
They even admit some decisions were “fraught” as in tense and likely mistakes. What those decisions were who knows. (Probably all of them). But you can’t say all their decisions were bad or out of a selfish place anymore even if it’s negatively effected their kids.
For instance I think if would be incredibly unreasonable to expect any parent to accept their kid is going to school with someone who stabbed them in the hand. We know Amber and she and Sal squashed things, but that was after getting into a fist fight! Blaine, her dad kidnapped their other kid. The Walkertons don’t read the comic. They don’t know Amber is an innocent girl struggling with her own trauma who put her life on the line to save Walky and a bunch of other people. Of course they want her gone. Perfect example of a decision made with good intentions that if it had succeeded would’ve fucked their kids over again. I think that’s the Walkertons whole life. Bad, very flawed parents doing what they think is best but it has the opposite result. They’re just arrogant enough to think they’ve done well. We vilify them because we see them at their worst.
Walky and Sal are both happy and healthy and have lived fairly privileged lives. You think Sal just gets to buy and drive a motorcycle because she’s that cool? Who pays her insurance for that thing? Fills it with gas every week? Where is it being stored right now? It’s not so easy to just say the Walkertons are bad parents. We’ve seen bad parents. They’re more complicated then that.
Okay I’m done trying to defend them now. They’re both scumbags.
BBCC
Sal paid for her motorcycle herself.
Sirksom
I never said she didn’t, but she doesn’t just get to have a motorcycle because she’s cool. I’m talking about stuff like what Sal mentions here which admittedly still looks bad on Linda.
Even if it was ultimately used against her Sal enjoyed riding her motorcycle. She saved people’s lives with that motorcycle. Linda in part is responsible for that whether we like her or not. It doesn’t absolve her of anything, but it is an argument.
BBCC
I said that to address her parents paying for insurance and gas. As Sal said it was expensive, hence why it’s in storage now.
And sure, you could argue that, but it’s a really really weak argument.
Laura
Hmm. Speaking of money, I wonder whether Sal ever did get her $700+ in shoebox money back.
If Sal could afford a motorcycle, I kind of wonder why Marcie never got an electrolarynx.
I mean, I get that not every person with a disability wants a device “work around”, and not every device is affordable, and maybe her throat is just too damaged even for PT and tools to make much difference. And there’s a whole ASL speaking community that she can be part of. I do get that. And Marcie communicates just fine with her phone. And maybe the PT of learning to use a new device would just bring back too many traumatic memories of her injury.
…It just seems to me that it would be an interesting plot point to explore. Because tools exist. Not all tools are practical. But if Joyce could get glasses and Amber could program reminders on Walky’s phone to help with his ADHD, I just wonder what other tools might be available or useful to support our heroes in their journey into adulthood.
cain
Marcie’s injury happened when they were, what, 10? By the time Sal was old enough to make money legally, Marcie would have been communicating exclusively via ASL for 6 years, the majority of her teen years. Going back to oral speech would probably have been very difficult and uncomfortable at that point. It would be interesting to hear the reason she only uses ASL/text and not other tools, though.
Sal places people above status. Linda places status above people. Yes this arc is humanizing Linda. That doesn’t change that lots of humans are absolute shit people, and Linda is definitely on that end of the spectrum of human decency.
Regretting past decisions does not absolve them. And Sal having healed somewhat from her extremely traumatic teen years does not mean Linda’s decisions are retroactively justified.
That was my concern when this story started. I’m hoping that this doesn’t really cause issues because when Willis paired them together despite their rules about rehashing couples from the Walkyverse, I assume that meant that they would actually be the complete opposite of their dynamic in the other setting (I.e., they’ll be in a healthy relationship). I like this pairing and don’t want it taken from us.
Same. I also am not a huge fan of “MY PARENTS LIKE THEM AND THEREFORE I MUST REBEL” storylines for punks, like c’mon Sal, show a bit of nuance. You can like Danny AND rebel against your parents.
*sigh* I just find their dynamic so sweet. They seem to bring out the best bits of each other.
Tisiphone
I think this is more of a “well, I just got what I’ve always wanted: their approval… and it feels just as awful and conditional as I worried it would.”
I don’t think she’ll rebel, but she’s going to have to work to decide how she wants to approach this new approval from her parents. There’s absolutely a way forward for them together even with Sal rebelling. Because, if she’s honest with Danny about this sort of crap her parents have been pulling, Danny might go righteous and furious anger on her behalf.
It’d make me pretty happy to see him really lay into her parents as The Bestest White Son They Always Wanted to drive home their racism. Will they learn their lesson? Who knows. But I do at least see a path where Sal and Danny grow closer from this, not apart.
Needfuldoer
Agreed.
This is the part where Sal has to listen to the chapter title: “but don’t give yourself away”. She doesn’t have to be a sellout (for want of a better phrase).
Mark
Yelling at people that they’re awful almost never produces a lesson. But understanding their values and quietly, calmly, methodically, comprehensively pulling the supports from under the way they express those values just might work.
Tisiphone
Facts and logic also don’t work.
cain
I don’t think Tisiphone was suggesting that Danny lay into Linda and Charles to defeat their bigotry once and for all, or anything like that. Righteous fury would be a show of defiant support in a love language Sal will easily recognize. She has had very little validation from others that her parents have treated her badly. If my guess is correct, any validation of that idea has come from other people Sal thinks of as rebels. She deserves to get that righteous fury from someone she thinks is genuinely doing it for her, not just for the rebellion.
Lumino
Honestly, if Sal tries to pull that I’d love for Malaya of all people to call her out on her bullshit. She’s outright stated that she hates when Sal is being fake, so Sal dumping Danny to be a ‘rebel’ would really set her off.
Kimi
It could just be that it is hard to find anything to not like about Danny at first impressions. He seems to be the people pleaser type of personality, so unless those types annoy you, they tend to get along with most people at the first encounter.
That being said, Danny does tend to bring to much drama and I personally think he provides Sal with a much needed calm space to relax. Her mother might also like it since she is a rock the boat type, but that doesn’t mean that Sal needs to throw it away to spite her mom. I think that just proves that she needs to cut her mom off asap (depending on how financially dependent, etc).
Well aside from Becky and Dina, I think it is definitely the healthiest relationship in the comic. I have known many lesbian couples, and there’s is one of the better lesbian relationships I’ve known.
Gwyn
Generalizing and pathologizing the health of lesbian relationships is not appreciated or appropriate.
Who peed in your cornflakes? I was making a comment on a fictional relationship between comic characters, not talking about people in the real world.
Gwyn
No need for personal attacks. You’re the one who talked about relationships you observed outside of the comic. But even if you were just talking about the comic, keep in mind actual queer people hear comments about how our relationships are unhealthy way too often.
Taffy
I’m trying to figure out where you read any of that.
Eh, Ruth’s reason was ‘dumb’, but that’s because depression is absolutely a self-destructive and self-sabotaging condition, that actively pushes the person dealing with it to make choices that will ultimately harm them, especially in cases where it can form a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Ruth’s reason while dumb, to me it’s the most realistic one. Her struggle with depression would lead her to make a dumb as rocks choice like that. It’s something I’ve seen time and time again in the real world.
Pretty sure Ruth broke up with Billie/Jen because she recognized how dangerous and unhealthy their relationship was. The happy part only mattered because she wanted to do it at a time when Billie/Jen wouldn’t hurt herself
cain
I think it’s both. Ruth saw that they had reached a really bad low point, and when she rose out of that low point, she wanted to remove any risk of dragging Billie back down into it. I don’t think Ruth was expecting to stay unsuicidal, and she ended her relationship with Billie because she thinks her suicidality would be contagious.
I’m still wondering if a confrontation by the younger generation (including also Walky and Lucy) might eventually lead to a breakup of the elder Walkertons. Whatever you think of Charles, I’m convinced that he’s not nearly so invested in Linda’s worldview as she is and has been silencing vague discomfort for a long time. When it won’t be silenced, it could become acute.
414 thoughts on “So happy”
Ana Chronistic
the same way that uninsured motorist did right by my brother and me by almost killing my mother running that stop sign and paying for our college with the settlement?
Marvelman
What? That happened? When?
Miri
… Is your mother OK?
TemplarKnight
I think in it’s own way, Oklahoma is mother to us all.
But seriously, she good?
Ana Chronistic
This was like when I was… five?
(She’s very fine and currently tolerating a grandcat in the house)
Decidedly Orthogonal
UN-insured?!?!
Taffy
Insurance is expensive and worthless anyway.
Minibit
I mean I don’t know what it’s like in the States but in Canada it’s an offense under the motor vehicle act to drive without at least basic third party liability insurance.
Taffy
I’m well aware of the consequences of not having it. That doesn’t change the fact that $200/month for literally no coverage is robbery.
cute carla
I pay that a year and have more than basic coverage… then again, I’m on the other side of the pond
Tegan
When it’s mandatory to have, they can get away with charging out the butt for itm
Wizard
All American states and territories require a certain minimum liability/property damage coverage. Drivers have to show proof of insurance when they register their car, but that doesn’t necessarily stop some people from cancelling their policy or letting it expire. It’s pretty easy to get away with it, as long as you don’t get pulled over or get into a wreck.
A few years back, I got rear-ended by an uninsured driver when I stopped for an oncoming cop car. Good news was, my insurance included uninsured motorist coverage so I wasn’t stuck with the bill.
Thag Simmons
Only Danny seems happy in that last panel.
V
Probably only cuz he didn’t hear what Linda said. Or maybe because he doesn’t understand the full implications? How much does Danny actually know about Sal’s backstory?
Kyrik Michalowski
Not as much as he probably should be.
TulipKitten
He knows that she held Ethan as a hostage and Amber knifed her. But also doesn’t know that Amber and Amazi-Girl are two distinct people… She’ll probably talk to him in time. One really good thing about Danny is he’s a really good listener and not too judgmental.
Joe Helfrich
I’m pretty sure that he does know that, in that Amazi girl talked about Amber being “in here” in at least one of the Shipshines (and I think shifted personas.)
He saw her without the mask in “Mask or No Mask” and I don’t think even Danny’s *that* obtuse.
BBCC
And yep, there’s that other shoe!
Fucking Linda.
Mano308gts
Going to have to disagree here somewhat.
We know that there was the issue of Marcie’s injury in her childhood; but aside from that time, they were responding to their child engaging in dangerous behavior- criminal behavior, even. While they made poor choices, heck- they may have made poor choices for the wrong reasons, they made *mistakes*, not malicious choices AFAWK. And, they early see that they made mistakes along the way; otherwise they would not have the feeling of regret so visible in the final.
This arc has been the most humanizing treatment that these two have ever received across the entire story, and it makes them more interesting, because they are not just copy-pastes of ‘supervillain dad teams up with vigilante dad’. They’re flawed, but shown as human.
Bo
i dont get a sense of that from this comic, and today’s strip’s last panel, at ALL
Cholma
Sal’s “criminal behavior” was a DIRECT result of Linda’s treatment of Marcie’s injury. Her attitude about Sal hanging out with “undesirables” are, IMO, the “malicious decisions” you’re absolving Sal’s parents of. Hard disagree there.
BBCC
^ That.
Needfuldoer
Yup. Linda’s microaggressions against Sal started before Marcie got hurt. They started well before Sal even met Marcie.
Schpoonman
No.
Thag Simmons
This arc has had a lot of characters pretty explicitly stating the reasons they think Linda and Charles are bad, and that assessment has been pretty well supported by their actions this arc so far.
That they show some mild uncertainty in a single panel doesn’t really change that.
Bryy
The “PROOF, FINALLY!” line from Linda doesn’t strike you as narcissistic at all?
someone
Kinda, but due to her sad expression as she’s saying this, it looks like she’s trying to convince herself. If she had kept in panels 3 and 4 the look she had in panels 1 and 2, then yeah, it’d be pure narcissism, but due to the sorrowful look it seems there’s a bit more than that here.
Seems like seeing Sal with Danny have forced them to rethink about how they’ve seen her all along, and now she’s looking for some straw to grasp to justify herself.
It absolutely doesn’t excuse her past behavior, obviously, but it does offer a small hope of character growth for her; if she can actually go to the next step and admit that they’ve mistreated their daughter badly. No guarantee of that happening at all, though.
Mark
It strikes me as “it’s been such a struggle, always hoping we were doing the right thing. I want this to be validation.” People can care about their kids without knowing what would work best for them.
Clif
It’s true that parenting has a lot of guess and hope and flying blind and that wanting validation is only human. But it’s also worth noting that the validation in this case is a white nerd boyfriend.
asp55
Not that I disagree agree, but I also think it’s a bit more nuanced: Sal appearing to be happy because of said white nerd boyfriend, and the stories about how smart & perceptive Sal is.
TJ
Whaaaaa-? I will say that they are human and shown to have flaws, but they’re also extremely in the wrong about how Sal has been raised. Linda has exhibited tons of racist beliefs and attitudes and uses her marriage to Charles as a shield for any and all criticism. Charles for his part is a huge enabler of this. The worst of this racism bleeds through with how she tries to control how her children look, act, and even who they associate with. Right now for the first time Sal is getting approval with Danny, Mr. Vanilla himself, while Walky is getting the cold shoulder by being with Lucy. And like, Linda has been talking with Walky and knew about Lucy and was perfectly happy with it when she though Joyce was Lucy, but the instant she was corrected she got a lot less expressive and friendly and made up an excuse to avoid lunch plans.
The worst part is Sal seems genuinely happy with Wonderbread. Only, now that she heard her mothers comment about it validating her mistreatment growing up she’ll have to reevaluate what her relationship with Danny means in regards to her relationship with her mother and that’s a WHOLE mess of worms. Sal seems the type to act as genuinely as possible and I think she’s honest enough with herself to trust her feelings for Danny don’t come some sublimated desire for approval, though I imagine the fact she seemed to enjoy the last few minutes of approval is going to bother her a lot.
In short, Linda has NOT done right by Sal, and even the theoretically positive act of approving of Danny is used to justify past bad behavior and has the potential to upset the relationship.
Screw you Linda, there are worse parents on campus, but not many.
Mark
“uses her marriage to Charles as a shield for any and all criticism.” I’ve seen this assertion from dozens of commenters. Is there a citation?
BBCC
They might be mixing it up with when WALKY used it to defend Linda when Sal first told him what was up.
Just_IDD
I don’t think this is an in comic based assertion. Its how shitty some parents can be in real life. I ran into a Jewish lady at a coffee shop recently and had to deal with the same bullshit. She was whining about the riots in France and I said that police shot a 14 yo boy and her response was “it was a Muslim boy.” Like his race or anything else has to do with being 14. When I caller her on it, then she switched to how people are dying in Israel. Which is clearly not related to anything except in her racist mind.
The Blueprint System
This arc has effectively demonstrated Linda’s *racism* not her humanity. Linda and Charles are finally reflecting their daughter positively because they are seeing her through the filter of Danny’s whiteness, whereas they are ignoring Walky because of his black girlfriend. You aren’t seeing Linda and Charles in their default state. You are seeing how they treat white people that fit their idea of successful.
And you don’t just steal the money your daughter has raised by herself in order to help her friend pay for life-changing surgery, while being a great mom the rest of the time. That’s not a one-time bad decision. That indicates some really messed up values.
Plus, did you forget the part where she wanted to kick Amber out of school because *her father* was responsible for the kidnapping?
Dr. Sharks
Sure, Linda is expressing self-doubt here, but it’s an extremely (paradoxically) prideful self-doubt. She’s saying “my problem child eventually did what I wanted her to do and stopped being a problem” when she should be saying “my daughter had problems when I was controlling her life and they went away when she went out on her own, maybe I was the cause of her problems.” Linda’s congratulating herself for the fact that Sal can be perfectly happy in the absence of her influence.
Sirksome
I think I understand your point here. It’s very easy for us to dislike the Walkertons. We’ve seen years of their actions and how that’s traumatized Sal and Walky in different ways. They have a huge flaw as well, that’s very hard to dismiss if you’re a decent person in any way, but that doesn’t mean you can write them off completely. Linda, especially is being compared to Sal, shown they are similar. This humanizes her and some of her actions because she was probably like Sal as a kid.
They even admit some decisions were “fraught” as in tense and likely mistakes. What those decisions were who knows. (Probably all of them). But you can’t say all their decisions were bad or out of a selfish place anymore even if it’s negatively effected their kids.
For instance I think if would be incredibly unreasonable to expect any parent to accept their kid is going to school with someone who stabbed them in the hand. We know Amber and she and Sal squashed things, but that was after getting into a fist fight! Blaine, her dad kidnapped their other kid. The Walkertons don’t read the comic. They don’t know Amber is an innocent girl struggling with her own trauma who put her life on the line to save Walky and a bunch of other people. Of course they want her gone. Perfect example of a decision made with good intentions that if it had succeeded would’ve fucked their kids over again. I think that’s the Walkertons whole life. Bad, very flawed parents doing what they think is best but it has the opposite result. They’re just arrogant enough to think they’ve done well. We vilify them because we see them at their worst.
Walky and Sal are both happy and healthy and have lived fairly privileged lives. You think Sal just gets to buy and drive a motorcycle because she’s that cool? Who pays her insurance for that thing? Fills it with gas every week? Where is it being stored right now? It’s not so easy to just say the Walkertons are bad parents. We’ve seen bad parents. They’re more complicated then that.
Okay I’m done trying to defend them now. They’re both scumbags.
BBCC
Sal paid for her motorcycle herself.
Sirksom
I never said she didn’t, but she doesn’t just get to have a motorcycle because she’s cool. I’m talking about stuff like what Sal mentions here which admittedly still looks bad on Linda.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/05-as-long-as-its-free/ammunition/
Even if it was ultimately used against her Sal enjoyed riding her motorcycle. She saved people’s lives with that motorcycle. Linda in part is responsible for that whether we like her or not. It doesn’t absolve her of anything, but it is an argument.
BBCC
I said that to address her parents paying for insurance and gas. As Sal said it was expensive, hence why it’s in storage now.
And sure, you could argue that, but it’s a really really weak argument.
Laura
Hmm. Speaking of money, I wonder whether Sal ever did get her $700+ in shoebox money back.
Some electrolarynxes (talk box microphones, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolarynx) go for about that much.
If Sal could afford a motorcycle, I kind of wonder why Marcie never got an electrolarynx.
I mean, I get that not every person with a disability wants a device “work around”, and not every device is affordable, and maybe her throat is just too damaged even for PT and tools to make much difference. And there’s a whole ASL speaking community that she can be part of. I do get that. And Marcie communicates just fine with her phone. And maybe the PT of learning to use a new device would just bring back too many traumatic memories of her injury.
…It just seems to me that it would be an interesting plot point to explore. Because tools exist. Not all tools are practical. But if Joyce could get glasses and Amber could program reminders on Walky’s phone to help with his ADHD, I just wonder what other tools might be available or useful to support our heroes in their journey into adulthood.
cain
Marcie’s injury happened when they were, what, 10? By the time Sal was old enough to make money legally, Marcie would have been communicating exclusively via ASL for 6 years, the majority of her teen years. Going back to oral speech would probably have been very difficult and uncomfortable at that point. It would be interesting to hear the reason she only uses ASL/text and not other tools, though.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Sal places people above status. Linda places status above people. Yes this arc is humanizing Linda. That doesn’t change that lots of humans are absolute shit people, and Linda is definitely on that end of the spectrum of human decency.
cain
Regretting past decisions does not absolve them. And Sal having healed somewhat from her extremely traumatic teen years does not mean Linda’s decisions are retroactively justified.
Freezer
“Our constant assaults on her self-esteem have borne fruit!”
Animedingo
Gaslight your children for results
Needfuldoer
“The beatings continued and morale improved!”
Angel
Well, Sal succeeded *despite* them but i suppose it can be twisted into “every action has lead to this” or so
Icalasari
Oh god please don’t lead to a breakup these two actually have one of the healthiest relationships in this comic!
Which… Admittedly says more about the other relationships, BUT STILL!
Dr. T
That was my concern when this story started. I’m hoping that this doesn’t really cause issues because when Willis paired them together despite their rules about rehashing couples from the Walkyverse, I assume that meant that they would actually be the complete opposite of their dynamic in the other setting (I.e., they’ll be in a healthy relationship). I like this pairing and don’t want it taken from us.
Suzi
Same. I also am not a huge fan of “MY PARENTS LIKE THEM AND THEREFORE I MUST REBEL” storylines for punks, like c’mon Sal, show a bit of nuance. You can like Danny AND rebel against your parents.
*sigh* I just find their dynamic so sweet. They seem to bring out the best bits of each other.
Tisiphone
I think this is more of a “well, I just got what I’ve always wanted: their approval… and it feels just as awful and conditional as I worried it would.”
I don’t think she’ll rebel, but she’s going to have to work to decide how she wants to approach this new approval from her parents. There’s absolutely a way forward for them together even with Sal rebelling. Because, if she’s honest with Danny about this sort of crap her parents have been pulling, Danny might go righteous and furious anger on her behalf.
It’d make me pretty happy to see him really lay into her parents as The Bestest White Son They Always Wanted to drive home their racism. Will they learn their lesson? Who knows. But I do at least see a path where Sal and Danny grow closer from this, not apart.
Needfuldoer
Agreed.
This is the part where Sal has to listen to the chapter title: “but don’t give yourself away”. She doesn’t have to be a sellout (for want of a better phrase).
Mark
Yelling at people that they’re awful almost never produces a lesson. But understanding their values and quietly, calmly, methodically, comprehensively pulling the supports from under the way they express those values just might work.
Tisiphone
Facts and logic also don’t work.
cain
I don’t think Tisiphone was suggesting that Danny lay into Linda and Charles to defeat their bigotry once and for all, or anything like that. Righteous fury would be a show of defiant support in a love language Sal will easily recognize. She has had very little validation from others that her parents have treated her badly. If my guess is correct, any validation of that idea has come from other people Sal thinks of as rebels. She deserves to get that righteous fury from someone she thinks is genuinely doing it for her, not just for the rebellion.
Lumino
Honestly, if Sal tries to pull that I’d love for Malaya of all people to call her out on her bullshit. She’s outright stated that she hates when Sal is being fake, so Sal dumping Danny to be a ‘rebel’ would really set her off.
Kimi
It could just be that it is hard to find anything to not like about Danny at first impressions. He seems to be the people pleaser type of personality, so unless those types annoy you, they tend to get along with most people at the first encounter.
That being said, Danny does tend to bring to much drama and I personally think he provides Sal with a much needed calm space to relax. Her mother might also like it since she is a rock the boat type, but that doesn’t mean that Sal needs to throw it away to spite her mom. I think that just proves that she needs to cut her mom off asap (depending on how financially dependent, etc).
Reltzik
Is it really one of the healthiest relationships in this comic if comments like this from Linda can end it?
Opus the Poet
Well aside from Becky and Dina, I think it is definitely the healthiest relationship in the comic. I have known many lesbian couples, and there’s is one of the better lesbian relationships I’ve known.
Gwyn
Generalizing and pathologizing the health of lesbian relationships is not appreciated or appropriate.
Opus the Poet
Who peed in your cornflakes? I was making a comment on a fictional relationship between comic characters, not talking about people in the real world.
Gwyn
No need for personal attacks. You’re the one who talked about relationships you observed outside of the comic. But even if you were just talking about the comic, keep in mind actual queer people hear comments about how our relationships are unhealthy way too often.
Taffy
I’m trying to figure out where you read any of that.
K. Ivan Ruppert
Healthy is a spectrum and not a binary!
Booster97
If they do break up because of this, I’m not sure if it will even be the dumbest reason for a breakup in DoA.
For me Ruth breaking up with Billie essentially “because they are happy” is the one that takes the cake.
It would be followed by this one (“because it makes my parents happy”).
Followed by “Because I want to focus on my studies”.
But hey, it’s called Dumbing of Age for a reason!
Freemage
Eh, Ruth’s reason was ‘dumb’, but that’s because depression is absolutely a self-destructive and self-sabotaging condition, that actively pushes the person dealing with it to make choices that will ultimately harm them, especially in cases where it can form a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Bleuryder
Ruth’s reason while dumb, to me it’s the most realistic one. Her struggle with depression would lead her to make a dumb as rocks choice like that. It’s something I’ve seen time and time again in the real world.
Aslan
Pretty sure Ruth broke up with Billie/Jen because she recognized how dangerous and unhealthy their relationship was. The happy part only mattered because she wanted to do it at a time when Billie/Jen wouldn’t hurt herself
cain
I think it’s both. Ruth saw that they had reached a really bad low point, and when she rose out of that low point, she wanted to remove any risk of dragging Billie back down into it. I don’t think Ruth was expecting to stay unsuicidal, and she ended her relationship with Billie because she thinks her suicidality would be contagious.
Mark
I’m still wondering if a confrontation by the younger generation (including also Walky and Lucy) might eventually lead to a breakup of the elder Walkertons. Whatever you think of Charles, I’m convinced that he’s not nearly so invested in Linda’s worldview as she is and has been silencing vague discomfort for a long time. When it won’t be silenced, it could become acute.
Axel