196

Laundry girl
Posted on April 9, 2017 by David M Willis

196 thoughts on “Laundry girl”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Quick! Nanab Berry!

    …I wouldn’t put it past Amber to actually have a Pokéball to throw

    1. foamy

      It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an arm.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        Sal should kinda know about this anyway

    2. Needfuldoer

      Throwing toys is apparently how you make friends in the DoA universe. Amber just wants to be friends with Sal!

    3. showler

      We recently got plush pokeballs to sell at work.

      I was incredibly disappointed that you couldn’t turn them inside out and have them turn into a pokemon.

      1. Alan Lafond

        Maybe they ran into copyright issues with Popples. 😉

        1. Pat

          Toys that you can turn into other toys by turning them inside-out have been around for a very long time.

  2. DarkoNeko

    Lol what 😀

    1. DarkoNeko

      Also, Sal taking aggressive actions against Amber, that’s gonna end well.

    2. MatthewTheLucky

      Amber’s finally had a psychotic break and formed a third personality:
      Trainer Amy.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        She needs a Magi-kap!

  3. Kris

    You gotta weaken her first Amber! That’s day one stuff!

    1. Shiro

      In Pokemon Go you can’t weaken them, but you can feed them a razz berry to butter them up.

      1. JessWitt

        Mmm, raspberry butter.

        1. de Combys

          I bet you could do that by adding raspberries to a recipe of apple butter.

          Thanks for the idea XD

        2. JessWitt

          Glad I could be of (unsuspecting) help.

        3. Ed Rhodes

          Can you put it on a beret?

      2. Arianod

        Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t give Sal the raspberry.

        1. motorfirebox

          Only one man would DARE give Sal the raspberry!

        2. Joe Moose

          Lone Star!!!!!

      3. Roborat

        Wouldn’t razzing them just piss them off?

  4. Aislashu

    Not the first time Sal’s had balls bouncing off her face

    1. Falling Star

      I don’t know whether to say “noooooooo” or “yeeeeesssss” in response here.

  5. Tacos

    Nah, ya need a Master Ball to catch a Sal.

    1. gkheyf

      but then how will you catch saltwo?

      1. Tacos

        Hell if I know. I never played any of the games, I just watched the anime.

      2. Cattleprod

        You mean Walky? Distract him with Nachitos, I guess.

      3. Passchendaele

        With a lot of luck, 30+ minutes, 60+ pokeballs, and the hope it doesn’t run out of moves and Struggle itself to death (as has happened to me SO MANY TIMES).

        1. Dragon_Nataku

          inorite?? It’s like “I’D RATHER DIE THAN BE YOUR FRIEEEEEEEEEEEND *struggle*”

    2. Kris

      Who needs a Master ball when you have 999 Ultra balls and an hour to kill?

      1. Derek

        but what happens when she runs out of PP, starts using Struggle and kills herself? Happened to me with Tapu Lele

        1. Kris

          Soft reset!

      2. svata

        Ultra balls? Psh. Just wait until nighttime and use Dusk Balls.

        1. Deanatay

          … ecept Sals are actually stronger at night.

    3. ValdVin

      I’m just tired enough to have read “ball” as “bait”.

      What’s that condition where one.imagines awful puns when nobody said it? And is this a result of the Sal Slipshine ad recently?

      1. Dragon_Nataku

        Maybe you just live in the Safari Zone

  6. boop

    Sal no, don’t reach in to an enclosed space after a clearly frightened person, that’s very scary and also a good way to lose your arm

    1. Shiro

      Like trying to extract a cat from a box.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Everyone knows you just tilt the box and let gravity do the extractin’.

  7. inqntrol

    “Sal becomes enraged. It’s super effective.”

    1. Passchendaele

      “Sal used rummage. It’s not very effective.”

      1. Falling Star

        “Amber used imagination. It’s not very effective…”

        1. Chrissy

          Amber used anxiety! Oh no! Sal is confused!

  8. Shiro

    So a while ago, the Sprint store at my mall got a pokestop. About a month later, they added a second one on top of the first in the very same spot. Not gonna complain, it’s just weird.

    1. Ana Chronistic

      THREE BOOST MOBILES IN ONE SPOT

      Only thing Lakeforest Mall has anymore, LITERALLY. Not even kidding, there are ZERO stores =p

    2. Dragon_Nataku

      This has been a thing from the beginning on my uni campus. Some (clever?) people submitted the same location twice under different names

  9. Durandal_1707

    If Amber’s costume covered her whole face like Iron Man’s or something, I could see this, but there is just no way that Sal shouldn’t be able to recognize her, especially given how much they’ve been hanging out together lately.

    1. BBCC

      AG wears a mask.

      1. Durandal_1707

        Barely. That thing hardly covers anything.

        1. BBCC

          But she still wears a mask.

        2. Fart Captor

          Also her hair is different. But mostly, this is only the second time Sal has bumped into Amber out of costume

        3. BBCC

          Real talk: AG is active, confident, has a different hairstyle, is taller (heeled boots), and always wears a mask and mostly runs around at night. Amber’s a slouchy, skittish nerd who runs away and freaks out and rarely leaves her room except to shower and go to class. Also she wears glasses. Glasses, posture, confidence, personality, height, and hairstyle all go a long way to looking different, which is also the real reason why nobody ever figures out Clark is Superman. I mean, just because you have a friend who SORTA looks like Jane Russell doesn’t mean your friend is secretly Jane Russell.

        4. BBCC

          And now I’ve ruined the joke, so I’ll be over here in the bad box.

        5. zoelogical

          so what you’re saying is that all i need to do to get people to stop mistaking me for my mom is get a radically different posture, hairstyle, heels, and personality

        6. BBCC

          It can’t hurt.

        7. Dana

          And don’t forget to be yourself!

        8. Heather

          Also a lot of people (save Lois who is perhaps a bit more sharp despite all the jokes people make) think Superman already revealed is secret identity anyway in universe (that he’s just Kal-El and chills in his fortress when not saving the planet), but yes the rest of the things fit as explanations as well.

          I mean some people jump to AG being a student since I guess the time she appears fits but what if she was a townie/local who just tried to play it smart with her reveal dates? Etc. I imagine there are various theories in any case.

          Also Sal has decided she’s not interested in learning who she is anyway, she’s not even really looking given the whole think with her deleting the phone tracking app anyway. I think Sal will figure it out anyway despite her disinterest in such potential knowledge but you can’t solve a maths problem you’re not interested in even trying, even if it seems relatively simple when the details are spelled out to you in retrospect.

        9. BBCC

          I believe general consensus was Lois figured it out immediately (or fairly quickly) but was willing to let it go because Superman’s mission was important and later because she wanted Clark to tell her the truth (and was surprised – happily – when he chose to do so prior to proposing). Everyone else sees mild mannered, slouchy, chunky looking (because he wears bulky clothes layered over his costumes), different hairstyled Clark who has glasses. Again, they might see a resemblance if you pressed it, but again, if you had a coworker who resembled John Stamos, you probably aren’t going to assume they’re actually factually John Stamos.

        10. Kryss LaBryn

          Hey, anyone remember the TV show “Night Court”? Remember Matt? Always wore cardigans, seemed a bit stout?

          Remember when he did that underwear fashion shoot, and it ended up he was actually super muscular and cut?

          Total shock to us all, because people in cardigans just aren’t muscular. If they’re large, it’s fat. Right? Right.

          It’s all about what one assumes one is looking at, and that is a powerful thing, assumptions, that can easily be tapped into.

        11. BBCC

          YUP! Hell, even something like removing glasses drastically changes how people expect to see you, as does a haircut/hairstyle change.

        12. showler

          I embarrass myself by remembering that his name was “Mack”, not Matt.

        13. Rotunda

          Amber and Sal had an encounter in the sequence following Amber’s angry table-flipping.

        14. Rotunda

          Oops: here.

    2. Kris

      It’s also kind of a play on how no one recognizes Superman is Clark Kent.

      1. John

        I’m still going on the theory that everyone knows that Clark Kent is Superman, but if the bulletproof guy who can twist I-beams into knots and shoot lasers from his eyes wants them to call him “Clark” and pretend they don’t recognize him just because he’s wearing glasses and a bad suit, that’s what they’ll do.

        1. thejeff

          Cute, but are all the villains going along with the game too?

        2. Spencer

          They do as long is they’re not in a “What If Superman Turned Evil” storyline.

        3. John

          Every minute he puts into maintaining his “secret” identity is a minute he’s not thwarting them.

      2. showler

        Man, if masks don’t hide identities than the entire concept of super heroes falls apart.

      3. StClair

        Looks like it’s time to repost this clip from the 1978 movie, for everyone who (still) doesn’t believe it could work. (It does.)

      4. Roborat

        I know of one webcomic that was based on that idea, and I am sure there are/were many more.

    3. Kryss LaBryn

      I once walked right past my Dad while I was playing hooky at the mall with some friends and he didn’t recognize me.

      I took off my glasses and swapped jackets with a friend, and now I’m just another teen in a group of teens when he wasn’t expecting to see *me*.

      You’d be surprised how much the human brain runs with what it’s expecting to see instead of immediately latching onto what is (and what is obvious to outsiders in the know).

      Hell, I avoided someone at school who was actively looking for me by taking off my glasses and hat, both of which I *always* wore. She sat right beside me and chatted with her friends for several minutes before getting up and leaving again, having never recognized me.

      Hell, Carlos Santana is big-time famous and I bet no one ever recognizes him when he wants to be incognito because all he’d have to do is take the hat off and no one would recognize him. He wouldn’t even have to lose the shades!

      TL;DR: A change of hair and glasses (or a mask) can change one’s appearance far, far more than one would expect, especially if one isn’t actively looking to see if Person A is actually Person B.

    4. thejeff

      It’s kind of funny that every time anybody who knows one of them interacts with the other someone has to post “They’re sure to recognize her. It’s so obvious.”
      And yet it never happens. It’s not going to happen this time either.

      1. John

        It’s pretty reasonable that people wouldn’t make the connection from brief encounters, especially with poor observing conditions and distractions like a rapist fight. With increasing contact, it gets less and less plausible, and there’s a point where it just becomes ridiculous. Sal’s nowhere near that threshold yet. Danny was so far past it he couldn’t even see it in the rear-view mirror anymore by the time unmasked Amber fell into his lap.

  10. Fart Captor

    Half of my brain is squeeing over what an adorable dork Amber is, but the other is freaking out because Sal getting angry here is going to lead to bad times

    I never get to feel one thing at a time with these two :/

  11. BBCC

    Amber, no, don’t fantasize about catching people, that’s weird.

    1. TheAnonymousGuy

      Honestly not as weird as Joyce shipping and engaging in activities to make her parings a thing.

      1. BBCC

        At least in Joyce’s fantasies, people are acting on their own agency! (I would hope).

    2. Falling Star

      Unless you’re in love with them. Then it’s okay.

      1. BBCC

        ……Agree to disagree.

  12. Passchendaele

    I was extremely worried this was a delayed April Fools prank designed to mess with us at a pivotal moment, or the Dumbiverse had descended into madness.

    Yay for (not right now) violent confrontations?

    1. CJ

      We saw Sal get angry several times by now. And she always caught herself before inflicting physical damage.
      That Amber freaks whenever she sees her is a thing she cannot know.

      1. BBCC

        Well, there’s been a couple times she had to be talked down by Walky or Marcie, and Marcie had to stop her from knocking Malaya’s teeth down her throat.

        1. Passchendaele

          That’s why I’ve included the (not right now) part. Although Sal doesn’t have much reason to pursue any kind of confrontation with Amber, considering that this is so weird and spontaneous that she seems more annoyed than anger, I’m worried that Amber might freak and start getting violent if provoked. And, without anyone to stop her (including herself, if it gets bad enough), Sal could easily reciprocate.

        2. Spencer

          Cerb brought up a really good theory down below that the reason she’s so feverishly pursuing Amber right now might be because the last time she saw the two together Danny was crying after a conversation with her.

        3. BBCC

          Oh no, I was responding to CJ’s “she’s always stopped herself” comment. Usually she can back off (or will with a little prompting), but not always.

  13. Stephen Bierce

    *plays a 1970s laundry detergent jingle on the hacked Muzak*

    1. Northamptonier

      Here’s another laundry-related option:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF3HZ-lhsDg

      Plus, that Laundry Day (aka “My Freeze Ray”) song has an additional advantage of feeding the shippers.

  14. Archivist

    I’m glad the Shprtpacked-y bluesketch thing has a place in this ‘verse.

  15. Clif

    I do not understand this one. Is it a fantasy sequence?

    1. Fart Captor

      Yeah, all but the first and last panels are

    2. BBCC

      From second panel to the last one, yeah.

    3. Meta

      In panel two, you can see that Amber is flicking the Pokeball out of her phone — she’s playing Pokemon Go, and everything from panel two until the end of the thought bubble is imaginary.

      1. Tacos

        Is that what happened? I legit thought Amber really just randomly had a toy Pokeball with her that she then threw at Sal.

        1. Dragon_Nataku

          I thought that too, like, that she had some kid’s toy that launched actual Pokeballs, and that the only fantasy panels were the ones where Sal was in the ball.

        2. Meta

          That’s what I thought at first too, but the thing she’s holding in panel 2 is the shade of blue that her phone is. (Also Sal’s line in the last panel wouldn’t make much sense of she had just been hit with a PokeBall.)

  16. Just Me

    I thought Sal was the type to just walk away instead of getting into a ‘fight’.

    Amber, no, Sal-amons are too wild and dangerous to trap.

    Wonder how many other people Amber has fantasized about trapping inside pokeballs?

    1. BBCC

      She tries to walk away, most of the time, but she used to get into fights and that response is still her instinct – turning away is work for her.

      1. Fart Captor

        I think the guy in the hoody might’ve put her in a crabby mood, which isn’t helping

        1. BBCC

          Yeah, plus she’s probably fed up with dorm shit after 5 years living in a dorm.

  17. Keulan

    I’m pretty sure Sal’s not a pokemon, so that wouldn’t actually work.

    1. madock345

      I’m almost positive a human got accidentally stuck in one of those one time.

      I do know for sure that Ash once accidentally caught a rice ball he was eating in one. He popped it out like a pokemon and still ate it, so that implies it works on other things.

  18. Delicious Taffy

    That’s what you get for trying to catch a Salandit, Amber. They’re not even out, yet.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      For the love of Talos, I’ve been on an archive binge for like two days, and I’m only up to 2015, still. These are the consequences when you want to re-read a good webcomic with daily updates, I suppose.

      1. Chris

        Really, I got through the entire archive after pulling one all-nighter. I congratulate you on being able to get that far though *applause*

  19. Spencer

    I wonder if it means anything that Amber’s response is to create a fantasy where she’s in control.

    psh nah

    1. BBCC

      Nah, dunno whatcha mean.

      1. Spencer

        Hey I just wanted to thank you for trying to talk to me a few days ago. I kinda just had a big meltdown and said stupid stuff that I’m glad got deleted but I just wanted you to know that I appreciated you and others sticking your neck out for me (especially the person who offered to actually chat with me; please let me know who you are so I can thank you).

        1. Delicious Taffy

          BBCC and the others are cool like that.

        2. BBCC

          No worries. I hope you’re feeling better. *appropriate gesture of support*

    2. Bagge

      Can’t imagine what that would be.

    3. Cerberus

      It’s Earth’s greatest mystery.

  20. JessWitt

    Sure wish I could Fire Emblem my problems away.

    1. Shiro

      Except they tend to call the cops if you start swinging a medieval war weapon at people :C

      1. JessWitt

        I can always use tomes instead.

      2. John

        I dunno, that’s what I spent the afternoon doing.

        Last time the cops showed up, they took a selfie with us and put it on their Facebook.

  21. Plasma Mongoose

    Now I want to know what other Pokegirls she has caught, like Dinadoor for example.

  22. MatsuoTanuki

    It’s official… bring out the orderlies and Thorazine, Amber O’Malley”s already fragile grip on reality has disintegrated.

    1. Spencer

      She’s just having an imagine spot because she’s thrown into another PTSD-inducing encounter with Sal. She wants the problem to go away and came up with a cartoonish fantasy to deal with it, almost like she thought she could atone for being abused by her dad by dressing up like a superhero and crafting a narrative where she’s invincible and has a Lois Lane.

      If she actually threw a ball at Sal and got disappointed it didn’t capture her, then yeah.

      1. MatsuoTanuki

        Fair point…

  23. Reltzik

    ….. I am trying to decide if this counts as progress.

    ….. I mean, normally I’d say, no, not at all, but the bar for progress is SO FREAKING LOW…

    1. Fart Captor

      It’s not that the bar is low, so as the problems are many and difficult. If you’re trying to climb an icy hill carrying weights and wearing roller skates, any slight progress is noteworthy

      1. Spencer

        She’s lasted longer as Amber this time as well. She used to be thrown into panic attacks until she switched but right now she’s acting in front of Sal.

        So it’s possible she’s making some slight progress. She was at least able to talk to Danny for a bit last time.

        1. Cerberus

          Yeah, that is a huge growth point, though I worry Sal aggressively reaching into her constructed space with the hand Amber stabbed might set back some of that progress.

          Also, yay, it’s good to see you again. Are things doing better?

        2. Spencer

          Yeah I’m doing better, I think. Had some good interviews and some hopes with some good employment in my area. My meds are mellowing me out a lot so I think I might actually be on the right stuff this time. I hope at least.

          I figured it was worth giving this series a shot again. First attempt was… not good, but I think I’m doing okay right now. I’m just gonna take it slow and slip out if things get too hectic for me again, but I’m okay right now.

        3. Cerberus

          Yay, I’m glad to hear that and yeah, definitely bail when you need to. Your mental health comes first no matter what. *hugs*

        4. Fart Captor

          Cool! I’m glad you’re doing better as well

        5. BBCC

          As am I!

  24. zoelogical

    this is kind of friggin adorable social anxiety what the heck

  25. newllend(Henryvolt)

    This is the single greatest page of DoA Willis has ever done.

    1. Dara

      I am in fact giggling uncontrollably.

  26. C.T Phipps

    I’d have been entirely okay with Amber actually sucking Sal into a Pokeball and this being a serious plot point, doubly so if she proceeded then to pull out Sal to attack her enemies.

    1. BBCC

      I wouldn’t, as it doesn’t sound like Sal has much agency in this arrangement.

      1. Abel Undercity

        More likely scenario: An enraged Sal emerges from the Pokeball to enact violence upon her captor.

        1. BBCC

          Until they’re forced to release her yeah.

          The double edged sword here is that Pokemon ‘release’ is the same kind of release they use in The Giver.

  27. JessWitt

    Amber looks like she’s peering from a Poke Ball herself.

    1. tim gueguen

      “Amberchu, I choose you!”

  28. Larkle

    I stopped playing Pokemon Go after I accidentally logged out and it wouldn’t log me back in. Definitely not starting over.

    Sal, what are you even trying to do?

    1. Arian

      Was it a Google account? Try disassociating your Google account from your phone and then reassociating it. That might fix the issue and won’t do any harm to anything else that uses it.

      If it was a Trainer Club account, no idea.

  29. Falling Star

    I was not expecting this level of pure silly and now I can’t stop giggling!
    …
    “Sal, I choose you!”
    Samber confirmed? v(*_*)v

  30. John

    Sal, you’re just being a dick now.

  31. Bagge

    Gotta catch them all!

  32. Rukduk

    Hahahahahahahahahaha…oh. Man, I needed this today. Like really bad. I’m doing some accounting work like I do every tax season and it’s really getting to me on top of everything else, because the clients I work with can be…exhausting. Still not a bad side job, but I won’t miss it when I switch to full time teaching in August.

  33. Thevoiceoftreason

    Shoulda thrown a razz berry at her first.

  34. BenRG

    One of the unanticipated side-effects of playing Pokémon Go too much!

  35. Eldritch Gentleman

    Sal is a Legendary. You need a Master Ball to catch her XD

  36. Heather

    Amber is really upset because ‘Laundry Girl’ is such a cooler superhero name and it’s too late to change it.

    1. tim gueguen

      She couldn’t use it anyway. Laundry Girl is the superhero at Purdue.

  37. OnyxIdol

    Is this a reference to some obscure 2016 mobile game or something?

    1. Needfuldoer

      I think it’s about some 90s cartoon that never took off outside a cult following.

  38. jeffepp

    This can only lead to making out.

    “Put yer suit on, so I can take it off ya.”

  39. Pan

    And my new Gravatar is…

    1. Abel Undercity

      (golf clap)

  40. JBento

    Amazi-balls not as amazing as advertised.

  41. Nenja

    at first I thought panel 2 actually happened.

  42. Benjy

    Oh yeah, I forgot Sal doesn’t know AG’s identity

  43. Commodore Jeep-Eep

    IT BEGINS!

  44. anonymsly

    Oh, Sal. You’re going to get stabbed again. Maybe with keys. Does Amber have keys in there? Because even if you don’t know it, you’re going after a hiding Amber and Ethan again, and I don’t think Amber currently has the wherewithal to realize that now is not then.

    Ethan might, though. Is this the point where Ethan recognizes Sal from the robbery?

    1. BenRG

      I don’t know… Amber’s reaction isn’t the old ‘traumatic flashback blackout’ that we’ve seen before. If anything it seems to be: “Go away; please go away! I can’t deal with you right now”. There’s too much higher mental function involved for Amber to be going through one of her usual seizures.

    2. BBCC

      Sal’s wearing leather motorcycle gloves. Stabbing her is gonna be harder this go around.

    3. thejeff

      I suspect Ethan’s already left. No strong evidence, just seems like he would have said or done something by now.

      1. Spencer

        It seems weird that he would leave her without at least taking down the chairfort.

        1. thejeff

          It was Amber who built up the chairfort. Her thing. She’s the one who wanted it, not Ethan.

        2. Spencer

          Well yeah, but he’s leaving his socially awkward best friend alone in a chairfort.

          Granted Ethan’s advice to Danny when Amber had a guilt ridden panic attack was to tell him to leave her alone, so maybe this is him just being non-confrontational again.

  45. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Amber will be obsessed with Pokemon Go until the heat death of the universe and I’m okay with that. And there’s nothing wrong with someone liking one particular game even after it fades from public consciousness. Especially for someone like Amber who is using it partially as a coping resource and a critical part of her self-care regimen.

    And her drifting into a comforting fantasy where she can avoid a confrontation is very Amber. We’ve seen how she’s coped with the breakup between Danny and Amazi-girl by drifting into her ships and avoiding really talking with either Ethan or Danny about it in any way.

    She doesn’t like fights and arguments. And why would she? An argument/fight in her mind is one that ends with someone being hit or someone cowering in fear of being hit. So Sal’s confrontation here on top of being triggering in the usual way is also likely triggering in those ways as well.

    Which brings us to Panels 1 and 7.

    1. BBCC

      Eh, ‘fades from the public consciousness’ has never meant people stop liking the thing, so yeah, Amber’s still into Pokemon Go. It’s not the huge trend it was, but it’s still a game a lot of my friends play.

      1. vlademir1

        Very much that. Four out of my six managers at work went HARD on Go at launch, also about 25% of the nonmanagerial team but none of them pushed quite that hard and all have fallen off, to the point that all four spent at least $50 on the game and three have spent in the $100 to $500 range. Of those four, one stopped playing, and of the other three, two are still following the same behavior patterns they exhibited when the game originally dropped (especially now that the deep winter weather isn’t going strong so they can push harder on the Gen2 content. Point of all this being that while the number of players is significantly reduced for GO, those that remain are largely the type who will stick with the game so long as Niantic keeps supporting it and the typw who will make Niantic enough money to justify ongoing support and updates.

        1. BBCC

          Plus there’s the casual folks who may not spend hundreds of dollars, but consistently play or play once in a while.

        2. Nenja

          I’ve played Pokemon Go almost every day since they realised it. Switch it on when I’m on the bus to work, and catch a few mons on the way there.

      2. showler

        They said that during the one week Water Festival event 589 million Magikarp were caught. That indicates a fair number of people still playing.

        1. BBCC

          Or someone was really really busy.

  46. Cerberus

    Panels 1, 7: People have noticed that Sal is a bit more insistive and confrontational here than she has been in the past, which seems initially odd owing to how quickly she recognized signs of PTSD in Joyce.

    But I think the reason for that is this: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/dumped/

    We know Sal has a lot of issues with friendship. That she is slow to acknowledge a friendship is growing and is fiercely loyal and protective of those connections when they form. We also know that she has a habit of lashing out when she sees her friends being harmed. It’s something she’s struggled with since her schoolyard days.

    And I think Danny and Joyce have been slowly becoming something she is slowly starting to accept as friendship even if she is nowhere near assigning those connections anywhere near the same level of importance of Marcie, but I think they’re at least at the level that she’s willing to push slightly out of her comfort zone for them and she genuinely cares how they are doing.

    This is most apparent in how she’ll do emotional check-ins she wouldn’t do for someone she wasn’t as close to. Because she’s learned the hard-way the price of sticking her nose out into other people’s business.

    Which makes that strip super important, because that is where Danny and Sal last left off and it’s him blowing up at her as she tries to check-in after his fight with AG wearing Amber’s clothes. And it’s him blowing up at her after she very worriedly checked in on him.

    And that blowup hurts Sal. A lot. That hurt face in Panel 6 is like a kicked puppy and a sign of how much she’d been slowly relaxing her guard with “wonderbread”.

    And while she is hurt, she very much also recognizes that Danny is lashing out because of his own pain from the confrontation with AG, which means from her perspective, she encountered a girl doing laundry who she tried to help out picking up her laundry, something happened that she left her laundry behind and Danny ended up doing it. And then the girl ended up yelling at Danny, while occasionally pointing in Sal’s direction and this hurt Danny enough that he lashed out.

    So yeah, of course she’s going to be a little more confrontational and a little less respectful of Amber’s desire to hide, because this is a nexus of most of the things that make Sal more confrontational. Someone hurting someone she sees as a friend and someone randomly having a problem with her for seemingly no reason.

    Which is a bad mix. Amber is having a full PTSD-fueled panic attack and is having her constructed safe and quiet space aggressively invaded by the person she is most triggered by. And Sal is a bit more ready for a fight or an upset confrontation in “defense” of Danny.

    There are very very few ways this will end well for either party.

    1. Spencer

      I hadn’t thought of that at all, and I think that’d be a really interesting way for this to go down if Sal is trying to reach out to Amber for Danny’s sake. At the least while Amber has been acting strangely to her we’ve never really seen Sal react to it, but she has seen Danny be sad after talking with Laundry Girl so that would explain while she’s being so uncharacteristically confrontational with someone who she doesn’t know in any real capacity.

    2. BBCC

      I don’t think it’s possible for anybody to be QUITE as important to Sal as Marcie – even if others get just as close, Marcie’s been there longer and through some very painful points in Sal’s life. That length and those points can’t be easily replicated. That said, agreed that she’s starting to lower her guard around Joyce and Danny and that him blowing up at her hurt her.

      I’m unsure she’s recognizing this as PTSD. She might think this is anxiety or shyness or recognize her as ‘the weirdo’ who always freaks out and runs away when she sees her. I’m interested in seeing her reaction when she learns the context.

      1. Cerberus

        Me too. And yeah, I also think Marcie will always be number one in her heart.

      2. Tan

        I realize this is aside your point, but I would put forward that, with work on their relationship, Walky certainly could be as important to Sal as Marcie is. The sibling bond, especially the close-in-age sibling bond is an extremely powerful force, and while it’s currently in a state of disrepair, signs suggest that the foundations remain solid.

        1. BBCC

          I think you strongly overestimate sibling bonds.

        2. Tan

          Agree to vehemently disagree.

        3. BBCC

          I think we’re going to have to. I’ve never seen a sibling relationship that did that good of a 180, and I don’t believe Walky can do it – he can change all he wants, but there’s no making up for the years he sat back and ignored Sal or her parents treating her like shit because he wasn’t paying attention or didn’t want to pay attention.

  47. Woobie

    Does anyone else think Sal’s bike togs look like a superhero outfit? Just add a (personalized, not manufacturer’s) logo!

  48. dralou

    For a brief time, I wondered why Amber was hiding in a dumpster… In my defense, I missed the previous comic.

  49. Liliet

    Omg this is adorable
    Pokemon are huge and terrifying creatures that the trainers however have no need to fear
    Amber really, really wishes she could be just as calm about things she fears in real life

    1. Fart Captor

      I’m trying to picture an oshawott big enough to be frightening, and it just can’t be done. Maybe if you were to let one evolve into its less cuddly forms, but why would anyone do that?

  50. Micki

    *insert Ultra Ball / Ultra Car joke here*

  51. Chris

    Geez Amber everyone knows that you need an Ultra Ball catch those damn Sals. Amateur, like seriously amateur

  52. chris73

    So Sal, again, gives someone a demeaning nick name, then calls Amber and weirdo and then physically grabs her (or at least attempts to)

    Whats Sals end game here, grab Amber by the scruff of the neck and drag her out of the chairs?

    1. Spencer

      It does seem out of character if Sal’s just doing this because Amber stacked a bunch of chairs, so I’m going along with Cerberus; Sal noticed that this is the same Laundry Girl who yelled at Danny and she wants to confront her over it.

      1. chris73

        Probably right but its a dick move by Sal, is grabbing someone when they don’t want to talk is technically assault?

        1. Spencer

          Amber is not in a place to be throwing stones about that.

        2. chris73

          Well no matter what happened in the past in this instance Sals being overly aggressive and dare I say it…abelist as well

        3. dralou

          … Wat.

          As much as I agree that Sal has no right to be so agressive, there is absolutely nothing ableist in her comment. She’s calling Amber a weirdo because about every time they interacted with each other, Amber acted weirdly. And she’s doing it again right now.

          Or did the meaning of “weirdo” change recently, to be even more pejorative than it was before ? I’m asking in earnest, I really don’t know…

        4. Fart Captor

          If Sal realized Amber was having some kind I’d anxiety attack, but didn’t care, I’d call it abelist, but I’m fairly sure she’d act differently if she had any idea.

          Right now she’s just a bit crabby, and thinks somebody’s being a bit selfish

        5. chris73

          Shes physically trying to yank Amber out of the chairs and that just a bit crabby…

  53. trlkly

    Sal should recognize Amber. Not as Amazi-girl, but as Danny’s girlfriend who very much hates Sal and broke up with him over him talking to her. Even if she doesn’t think it’s personal, she’s still very much someone with a really bad temper.

    Bad idea to go on the attack with someone like that.

    1. Spencer

      Danny told Sal he was dating Amazi-Girl and wasn’t paying attention when they fought.

  54. Oberon

    Vivian.

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