134

Crutch
Posted on October 22, 2022 by David M Willis

134 thoughts on “Crutch”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    THAT’S A WHOLE ASS WALKER

    1. Reltzik

      What about a tripod-walker?

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        Like a baby holding an apple!

    2. Delavan

      Nah, it’s a whole-ass Walky.

      1. Delavan

        Or, WALKERTON XD

    3. Bicycle Bill

      I use one of these.  What does that make me?

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        You’re a hexapod Bill!

    4. Opus the Poet

      Or as another name for them a Zimmer frame.

      I had to push one of them around for four months after the truck hit me.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        the fuck truck?

        (sorry either way)

  2. Nono

    This may be the weirdest “friendship” so far.

    1. Rabisch

      Look like the friendship between a cat and a dog

  3. The Wellerman

    Tripod… LOL

    GaryTheSnailRimshot.gif

    1. Stephen Bierce

      *plays the opening to the Jeff Wayne version of War of the Worlds on the hacked Muzak*

      1. The Wellerman

        Fascinating!!! ?

        Why does this sound like it would belong in an anime?

        1. Stephen Bierce

          Because the anime creator boys wanted to do it themselves!

        2. Steve C.

          I loved that album!

      2. Reltzik

        … this is what I get for replying to Ana before reading down. I deserve this.

        1. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Hey, don’t beat yourself up. The internet will happily handle that for you. Besides, at least you went high-brow. I made an Austen reference. Not even Jane, but Powers.

        2. Ana Chronistic

          I mentioned septapods on Patreon but no one got that

      3. keithcurtis

        Great album!

      4. StClair

        The chances of anything coming from Mars
        Are a million to one, he said

        1. Bicycle Bill

          Farewell, Thunder Child!

  4. Regalli

    Dumbing of Age Book 13: Take your pick here, there’s several, though Amber’s third panel line is definitely a front-runner.

  5. Sirksome

    Amber ruining someone one-snidely implies they’d get invested enough to be ruined by her which breaks her own rule of herself having no value! That’s catch 22 dating!

    1. newlland(Henryvolt)

      Jokes on you maybe the biggest appeal is getting ruined.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Maybe the real getting ruined is the friends we made along the way.

        1. Joshua Kronengold

          Maybe the real friends are the ruined people we left in our wake.

  6. alongcameaspider

    You know I kind of dig their dynamic, not like as a hypothetical couple that’d be a train wreck, but just how they interact with each other

    1. Jo_cubstar

      I do too. They’re cute

    2. Sirksome

      Nah you can’t have a girl and a non binary person attracted to women have a fun and platonic dynamic. That’s breaking the rules!

    3. Hazel

      I’m liking it too. Do I think they should date? No. Do I think they should make out once? Perhaps. Both are kind of blunt jerks butting up against each other but not in a destructive way. There is potential there for a good friendship.

    4. Yotomoe

      A friendship is a kind of ship.

      1. Jon

        So is a battle cruiser. Not sure which one this would be.

        1. Joe Moose

          It has a lot of canons, though. [rimshot]

    5. zaratustra

      Booster is the only person that’s managed to get Amber really -talking-, instead of just raising walls.

      1. AbelUndercity

        They’re very good at what they do.

      2. Rabisch

        THIS!!!

      3. pig

        Huh, I couldn’t put my finger on what I found engaging about their dynamic, but I think this is it.

  7. Wednesday

    I had a dream last night where the room filled with mist and Booster slowly removed their disguise piece by piece, revealing they were a still-living Mike all along, pulling the ultimate headgame

    1. Chaucer59

      I so wish that could be. I like Booster, but I really miss Mike.

  8. Suet

    Nah, it’s not a tripod, it’s less unstable.

    If Booster falls into a cold read in a snap, it has to be a crutch.

  9. Kyrik Michalowski

    I know this is a lomg shot, but do you think this will get Amber and Walky back together? As much as I enjoy Lucy(I don’t but that is neither here nor there) I feel like Walky and Amber are a good couple. They have some issues but nothing insurmountable.

    I’m not sure, what do you think?

    1. Sirksome

      I think the nail’s in the coffin on that. Mainly because neither has made a move to really reconcile why the split in the first place. The attraction is obviously still there but without desire to address the problem they’ll just come into conflict again if not over Mike then something else. I see them maybe banging again sometime when they’re both free but not dating.

      1. Yotomoe

        I see them banging sometimes too. Whenever I close my eyes.

    2. Yotomoe

      This times 1,000. Of all the couples DOA put together that I didn’t know I wanted, Amber/Walky had to have been my favorite. I want them to get back together so damn bad and it sucks cuz I just have a feeling that bridge is burned. Either Walky has to change or Both have to change but neither is going to change and if they do they may change in a way that makes them realize they might not be great for each other, like Ruth did.

      1. Chaucer59

        Really, I found them diluted by the coupling.

        1. StClair

          ha HA, “coupling”!

    3. newlland(Henryvolt)

      I mean I feel myself wanting it but is it ok for me to want it? Should I dare to get my hopes up or should I keep trying to get over it and except that they both have a new fresh start?

      My mind is telling me to be realistic and stop fixating on something that came and gone but my heart is telling me not to give up on the spark so easily. But even then I got to wonder should I listen to the mind and over think this type of matter or are these actually how I feel or is it just a strong lingering feeling with a mix of nostalgia?

      There’s just so much to be unsure about. So I’m just going to sit back and enjoy watching the chips fall where they may, see where it all leads maybe they get back together or maybe Walky stays with Lucy who knows.

    4. Rabisch

      To be honest, i think that Walky and Lucy will help Booster to get together with Amber.

    5. Laura

      Lucy’s good for him, and he makes her happy. They revolve around similar nerd fandoms. They are comfortable together (mostly). She encourages his projects and helps him take more pride in how he presents himself. I like Lucy and Walky together. They click.

    6. Freemage

      At this point, I don’t ship Amber with ANYONE. After she assaulted Walky at the Halloween party, her best option is to forget romance, sex, and everything related to either, until she can actually get the help she needs with her anger issues.

      As for Booster… nah, I don’t ship creepsters.

      1. Laura

        Hear, hear!
        This friend speaks my mind!

  10. Juanoku

    It’s a wheelchair

  11. Yotomoe

    “I want a hedonistic one-sided affair where I just ruin the other person” ticked so many of my boxes all at once it sent a shiver down my spine.

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      That’s always a good sign, or a bad sign. Depends on what kind of movie you are in, keep your fingers crossed that your are in a “skinemax” movie.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        You are*

    2. newlland(Henryvolt)

      The refreshing feeling when they remind you why they do it for you.

      1. newlland(Henryvolt)

        You know what I’m starting to realize that Booster might be better than me because I can’t stop admiring.

    3. StClair

      whereas I had to take it as sarcasm and/or comedy, because as an actual sincere statement it’s incredibly messed up (IMO).

  12. newlland(Henryvolt)

    This fits for her mentality, I’m surprised I needed her to spell it out for me.

  13. Caro

    idk if i’d get along with booster irl, but i adore them as a comic character. they’re never not interesting and/or funny

    1. Yotomoe

      Honestly think I’d get along with them. I dunno I usually hate getting psychoanalyzed by people but at the same time I like talking to people who might have insight on me cuz I don’t know what the fuck is up with yoto.

    2. RacingTurtle

      Same

    3. Hazel

      Yeah, this is the only way I interact with my fave characters in media. Love em. Would HATE to meet them.

  14. Chaucer59

    My impression: it’s not the fact of Booster’s cold reading everyone that Amber finds objectionable—it’s that they’re so good at it.

  15. Reltzik

    At this point, Booster knows enough for it to count as hot reading. They’re just not going to say “hot reading” in the context of Amber after just saying they won’t imply she’s hot. (It wouldn’t imply that she’s hot, but it would feel like they were tap-dancing on the boundary just to prove they can.)

  16. Wraithy2773

    I’ll give Booster a pass on their nose-poking-in bit here. Yeah, they did just promise to cut that out, but it’s the active conversation, and when someone says something that heavily self-loathing, it’s going to be hard for anyone to not comment in reply…

  17. Throwatron

    oh no i am trash i am shipping it

    1. Sajuuk-Khar

      You are not alone.

  18. Kitschensyngk

    A hexapod.
    An octapod.
    A dodecapod, even.

    1. Reltzik

      Millipede.

      …. I don’t know HOW -pod turned into -pede, but English and logic don’t mix.

      1. Stephen Bierce

        All the leg shots in the run of 9 Chickweed Lane, or infinity, whichever comes last.

      2. Agemegos

        -pod is Greek.

        “millipede” is Latin.

        1. Agemegos

          So that if the series of terms “monopod”, “bipod”, “tripod”, “tetrapod”, “pentapod”, “hexapod” etc. were extended to its thousandth term, the word would be “chiliapod”. A millipede is a specific kind of animal, an arthropod with two pairs of legs per body segment.

        2. Arian

          What they said.

      3. Needfuldoer

        English was invented when someone threw a bunch of Germanic languages in a blender with some French dialects, but they didn’t like how it came out so they tried to fix it by seasoning with loanwords from around the globe.

        1. Plain Marie

          Oo, that’s good.

        2. Mark

          Well, much of Celtic Britain had been substantially Romanized by long occupation centuries before all those Danes, Saxons, Normans, Anglii, etc. came, so there were quite a lot of Latin derivatives in British languages already.

        3. Liara

          Don’t know if this finally escapes moderation, but most English words with Latin roots don’t come from their time under Roman rule, but from being christianized about a millenium later

        4. StClair

          Nice. Another version I’ve heard is that it’s three languages in a trenchcoat. Or that it’s the result of Norman French mercenaries trying to pick up Saxon barmaids, and no more legitimate than the other products of such hookups.

        5. thejeff

          something about pursuing other languages down dark alleys to rifle their pockets for loose vocabulary.

  19. Svankensen

    Does Amber know what a cold reading is? This doesn’t look like it.

    1. shoopdawhoop

      They’re suggesting something about her in the form of a question and seeing how she reacts to it, that’s part of how cold reading works

    2. Keulen

      I thought cold reading was this shady technique psychics use to trick you into revealing all sorts of stuff about yourself and then make you think they read it from your mind or whatever. Or is there another meaning to the term that I’m not aware of?

      1. Sam

        It is that. Cold reading is basically luring people into revealing things while also using the most common trends of life to form narratives or guesses to why someone is acting how they are then presenting it with confidence.

        Like most family homes have two kids, most older relatives that have passed are men, more deaths are caused by things affecting your chest or abdomen (you know, where you keep every organ except your brain) etc..

        It can seem really personal when they say Uncle Doug is proud of you after passing from a heart attack, but they didn’t tell you that until after you said it was a heart issue and supplied his name so were clearly seeking some kind of affirmation. And of course, every ‘message’ is positive, because they want people to keep coming, they are never ‘surprised’ by a bad ‘message’.

        1. Mark

          It is so nice when somebody finally gives a definition for a term that everybody is batting around….

  20. Icalasari

    Well, I’ll give Booster credit for this:

    He’s at least working on the creepiness

    1. Hazel

      THEY

    2. Sajuuk-Khar

      They. It’s not hard.

      1. Laura

        Sometimes it can be hard. People make mistakes sometimes. Sometimes it’s intentional misgendering or carelessness, but honest slips do happen sometimes too.

        1. StClair

          Sometimes it’s as simple as people not paying attention or returning after an absence, and jumping into the conversation without doing the research.

        2. Taffy

          And sometimes people don’t know there’s even research to be done in the first place, if they’ve been gone long enough.

        3. Mark

          It can be very hard, for us grammar nerds. It is physically difficult to do this. “No, that’s wrong! Agreement in number! Go stand in the corner!”

          I reckon I’ll learn eventually and it will get somewhat easier. Only somewhat.

        4. Laura

          What makes it difficult for me is that I have friends who are plural systems, who use “we/they/them” pronouns, too. Makes it difficult for me to differentiate whether I’m talking about an nonbinary person or a multiple. (Hope I got the terminology right!)
          That’s why I just don’t use pronouns to describe myself. None of them exactly fit me.

        5. hazel

          I’m a grammar nerd who uses they/thems. Implying it’s bad English is insulting even if you don’t mean it as such, I don’t feel physical pain and grammar was my best subject. For me I just tried it and it felt right. No one decent is *trying* to confuse people with their pronouns. I hope you’ll consider working on it.

  21. BBCC

    This is a good conversation and I’m just sitting here making happy noises at all of it

  22. Dana

    Of course it’s a tripod. Booster’s a photographer!

  23. Rabisch

    I’m impressed by how hard Booster is trying to contain themselves. They really want to be friend with Amber and don’t scare her. It’s almost like seeing someone try to approach a stray cat. But even Amber is really trying hard to have a new friend despite her saying she wants to be a hermit. I really like this couple ♡..

  24. Meagan

    Wait Amber wants a relationship where she controls things….? I thought she didn’t want a relationship at all because she thinks she’s not good enough? Honestly I need like an annotated directory to the specific comics that are relevant to Amber’s romantic journey to make sense of this.

    1. Daibhid C

      She can not want a relationship and have strong opinions about what kind of relationship she’d like.

      Like how I spend time writing my stand-up routine, planning what venue at the Edinburgh Fringe I’d most like to book, and so on, while at the same time knowing I am never, ever going to stand in front of a crowd of people and say things, because good lord no.

      1. Laura

        We can be your audience! 😀

  25. TheCozburger

    “…it should be at least be…”

    Well said, Amber…

  26. CrazyJ

    A Spider Pod even (I’m glad I don’t have to set those up anymore even though they’re a pretty useful tool).

  27. Colineo

    I’m choosing to believe this conversation is happening simultaneously with the gender studies class and that Booster is secretly twins.

    1. JBento

      It IS happening simultaneously. The girl in the gender studies class who looks suspiciously like Booster is their sister.

      1. Daibhid C

        We don’t techniccally know that yet. All we know is that a) she isn’t Booster and b) Booster does have a sister. I mean, she obviously is, but there’s always the chance it’s a red herring.

        1. Daibhid C

          Imagine that my emphasis on “technically” involves elongating it so I sound the second c twice, and not that I just can’t spell.

        2. JBento

          If you could spell, you’d be a wizard.

        3. StClair

          and if you could multiply and divide, you’d be a mathemagician.

        4. Laura

          If you could divide and multiply, you’d be an amoeba.

        5. JBento

          If you could divide and conquer, you’d be a good strategist.

  28. Keith

    Oh then she’d never have considered me. Born train wreck at the bottom of the Marianas trench. But at least i’m not a rick that starts with a p. So there’s that, I guess.

  29. Taffy

    They’re cute. They should hold hands.

    1. JBento

      Woah there, buddy, save it for the slipshines.

    2. Sajuuk-Khar

      Yes…ha ha ha…YES!

    3. BBCC

      *edith voice* LEWD.

      1. Taffy

        Edith? Like Spider-Man’s talking glasses?

  30. Lan

    Is this amber subtly admitting she wants to be like her father? Because this sounds like something her father would want idk idk

    1. Exarch

      Maybe! That’s a read I hadn’t considered. I don’t actually think that Amber wants what she said in that panel. Her facial expression looks kinda like she’s doing a bit rather than being serious. I don’t think Amber would intentionally let herself be that terrible to a partner; I’d believe Amber would be looking for a hookup but doesn’t trust that she’s in the right place for a relationship.

      1. Laura

        Maybe she wants to be like Mike.

        1. Sombrero

          Well, Amber gave a very good description of her relationship with Mike, except for the hedonistic part.

  31. nicoleandmaggie

    The lower right ad video this morning was a super racist thing about how wokeism is ruining our country. (It’s not.) Can we go back to Old Spice commercials?

    1. Leorale

      The ads may be regional. (I’m used to looking right past ads, but today mine are in Spanish. ??)

  32. Sajuuk-Khar

    I love these two groin idiots and I’m very into this trash pile of a ship.

    1. ValdVin

      If groin is intentional that’s a hoot. And still a hoot even if it’s autocorrect.

  33. Steamweed

    “I will never again imply you are hot. Also, I hereby directly state that you are hot.”

    1. StClair

      not implying, though!
      #technicallycorrect

      1. Steamweed

        The best kind of correct!

  34. poyo

    non-binary….. psychoanalyzes people…. uses it as a social crutch… oh no, i AM booster !!!!!*

    ***and im extremely okay with it B)

    1. Sporky

      you should probably not be okay with that

      1. poyo

        why, what’s wrong with being non-binary ??

        (joking. i know you mean the psychoanalyzing)

  35. Guy Sensei

    This reminds me so much of Amber’s Emaciated Emo Eathan and it’s so decadent I love it
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/sexpuppets/

  36. David Doty

    Technically they didn’t promise to stop cold reading her, only her relationships.

  37. S.R.

    I don’t understand “it’s a crutch” the way it’s normally used. If someone is using a crutch in real life, it’s because they need one, but “it’s a crutch” as a metaphor usually seems to mean “I should stop leaning on this thing for support and just support myself”. Which is the opposite of what a crutch is for. A crutch is for when you should not, in fact, support yourself. Maybe if people said “false crutch” instead?

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