While the fucking of mothers is a time-honored tradition, Carla might be sex-repulsed as that was true of Ultracar. So, in literal fashion, Carla might sound like a Joyceism “literal mother-cuddling goddess”.
Do we know anything about Carla’s family? Considering Carla’s disdain for people and the DYW factor, I’m inclined to assume the worst, but on the other hand it’d sure be nice if Carla’s parents were chill.
We know they’re rich as Croesus and support her 100%. The former has been made crystal clear in comic, the latter merely suggested by the fact they provided gear for her prank on Mary, but has been explicitly stated by word of God.
Yeah, I remembered that they were rich (Ruttech is literally on her phone right now), but it’s nice to know that there are some decent parents in this comic.
There’s also Mike’s parents. If I’m remembering right, the worst things about them are just embarrassing Mike (and Walky, albeit due to a situation they were unaware of) and being waaaaay overaffectionate towards… well, pretty much everyone they come across.
That’s what makes her the perfect foil to Mary, who THINKS she’s a righteous saint, but is actually such a bongo that beatniks hire her to let them play her head while they read poetry at cafés.
It really is. Carla thinks she’s an asshole, but deep down she’s really a decent person. Mary thinks she’s a decent person, but deep down she’s really an asshole.
Well, except she doesn’t think she’s a decent person, she thinks she’s a saint and everyone else is a Sodomite.
Also, she’s not an asshole ‘deep down.’ She’s asshole on the surface, and every time you go down a layer, you just find more asshole. She’s like an asshole jawbreaker.
I feel like there’s some reclamation in that, largely because so much of her aesthetic seems to have reclamation elements to it. Like, oh, is being tall something used to clock me? Fuck it, I’m on skates now all the time. Oh, should I be afraid to show my legs and wear short shorts, fuck it, my shorts will be as short as they can be and I’ll even wear a baggy top with it.
So I could see her identifying with asshole, not only because people fuck with an asshole far less often than with a victim, but because the world in her world, much like ours is one that routinely shits on trans women as predatory terrors that stalk through bathrooms and cruel bullies that make poor transphobes cry. So, there might be an element of, oh, you view me as a monster, well then I’ll be a… er… hmm… I’m not quite sociopathic enough to pull off monster, sooooo… I know, asshole! I’ll be the jerkiest asshole that can be… ah, goddamn it, you need help, ugh, I’m gonna do it, but I’m gonna complain and pretend its a giant chore the entire time just so you still believe me when I claim to be a bad person.
Oh, definitely. Carla’s cultivated a personality pretty heavily oriented around reclamation and misanthropy for misanthropy’s sake. Which is fine, you know, we all build our own identities, but eventually she’s going to have to come to terms with the fact that she does actually give a shit about human beings.
Nah. Onions have one outer layer that isn’t quite like the rest. There is no layer of Mary that is not full of spiteful hatred and self-righteous bigotry.
That’s weird, my previous post disappeared. What I said was “This Avatar ought to be interesting.”, referring to the master of all four elements, not tiny pictures or the Na’vi.
Isn’t that what happened to her in Roomies? With the Dark Side of the Hypocrisy as strong in her as it is, I expect she’s got a collection of STDs by now, so I’ll pass on that..
Though now I am imagining Carla serenading Mary with ‘F**k Me In the A** for Jesus’ once she finds out that Little Miss Holier Than Thou has been getting it in the pooter to avoid (ahem) embarrassment.
Does anyone here even know who the beatniks were? It was so long ago, but I saw the best minds of my Generation starving, hysterical, naked, strung-out on drugs, …
Ten years from now, there’ll be a movement in this comment section (which, likely, will have transferred itself, completely intact, to whatever new project Willis has going by then) to ban use of the word ‘bongo’, because people find its use offensive. No one will remember WHY they find it offensive, but it will be often used to describe people the speaker doesn’t like, and people will find its use makes them uncomfortable, for some reason.
I think that for April Fools some year Willis should “Joyceify” the filter so that all curse words (her recent “shit” notwithstanding) get replaced with tamer alternatives.
You can be a terrible person and have compassion at the same time, humans are complicated like that. Also, her attitude tends to portray that of one who does not think themself terrible.
True, but Carla tends to have a hard time being any type of horrible past just being a bit of an ass. Like, she really wants to be the lone jackass that is above it all, but she keeps on volunteering herself to do really good actions for people without much prompting.
Like, she’ll whine about it and try and play up how big of a jerk she is, but she’s given way more affirmations and pick-up speeches when she’s dealing with those who’ve been bullied and hurt. Even when she’s angry with them.
It’s also not an uncommon phase among young trans kids in early college. Get kicked around enough and a pose of “whatever, I hate the world right back” seems damn attractive and a bit more empowering than “all my friends and family left me because I’m trans”.
Oh, sure. Although Carla’s a bit different than your average misanthrope— she takes joy in the whole deal. A bit less ‘the world hates me, so it can fuck right off’ and a bit more ‘the world hates me, so I’ll laugh while I set it on fire.” Probably a healthier position, anyway, since it’s less socially isolating.
Yeah, I was supporting the Carla=/=horrible (especially in her own mind) thing. I know how it is. When the majority is lining up to be a jackass to you, being a jackass outwardly is really easy, but it also leaves you with a tendency to put yourself between complete jackasses and the meek.
Carla is a jerk with a very hidden, very hard to find heart of gold. Not pure gold, but gold.
Whereas Mary has no heart, instead she has a black hole where her heart should be that sucks in all joy and light around her.
*glares at Mary*
“Mercy is the mark of a great woman…”
*builds elaborate prank*
“Guess I’m just a good one”
*whistles 1812 overture menacingly*
“Well I’m all right.”
Becky: “Don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?”
Joyce: “Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.”
*sends Ross flying with one punch*
Cerberus, your score on the awesomeness scale just shot up because Firefly.
I just realized (and confirmed) that you are the same Cerberus who also comments on Pharyngula. Please allow this avid reader (both here and there) but rare commenter to say how much I appreciate your remarks. You are a one-person counterargument to the “never read the comments” trope.
Mary: Ah you think the jerkass is your ally? You merely adopted the jerk, I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see the non awfulness until I was already in college, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!
Except a Sith acknowledges that they are evil and serve the dark side. I see Mary being a dark Jedi hardliner who refuses to believe she has turned to the darkside and instead just views everyone else as corrupted. So, like, one generation away from being Darth material, or one shattering defeat and Sith victory speech from joining their ranks.
…
Jeez I am to nerdy for my own good, aren’t I?
I don’t think Carla will circle back willingly. I think she hasn’t gotten that much sympathy for Ruth yet. I’m sure Billie will guilt her into it, though.
I wouldn’t say she’s a jerk with a heart of gold. She’s like one of those Mega Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, or a 3 Musketeers bar: Outer layer of cultivated asshole, but is a good person through and through all the way down to her core.
It’s the reason I like her and can even stand Carla at all.
It seems like Carla intentionally wakes up pretty early (likely to shower when no one else is around). This is like the 3rd or 4th time she’s been up and dressed at way too early in the morning o’clock while everyone else is just getting their day started.
Not to devalue some nicely added detail and context but she could also just be a morning person. I typically wake up before 6am just cause that’s how I’m wired.
That’s true, though if the case, I guarantee the showering time is somewhat intentional still simply because using shared facilities as a trans girl, especially ones that are very open and where the shower stalls are not overly private is a very fraught thing and I can see her at the very least not even wanting to deal with that shit and the stress it brings.
She might be surviving on caffeine and weird sleep habits. I did something very similar my first two years in college. Managed to build one hell of a caffeine addiction.
It’s were you enter that period of sleep deprivation that you become lucid again and coffee slowly replaces your blood. You have little mini blackouts or “naps” peppered between classes before finally crashing for a solid twenty-four. But hey at least you got that final in on time!
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Motherfucking goddess. For real. Yesss, Carla. You know it baby. Kinda amazing that this strip coincides with the #queerselflove hashtag on twitter, because fuck yeah this girl loves herself. And rightly so, because she’s fantastic and deserves to be loved.
And it’s lovely to see because trans women tend to get hit with a lot of social messages that we are worthless and meaningless and our suicide numbers are way too high because of it, so seeing her pride herself like this and make sure she never forgets she is a rockstar badass (even if maybe inside she’s struggling with the same things as too many of us) is just…
Words cannot describe how happy that makes me.
She’s a motherfucking goddess and none of the Marys in the world can ever tear that away from her!
Right? It’s wonderful. She gets to be a badass rockstar, cute and fierce and amazing, but still a flawed, messy, struggling human being, just like anybody else. Because she’s fucking human. It makes me emotional, too.
I’m not trans, but I’ve struggled with feelings of worthlessness my entire life, some of them tied to my queerness, others to my mental health issues, and NOTHING makes me happier than seeing my fellow queer people be kickass and awesome and loving themselves.
MORE BADASS, SELF-LOVING QUEER PEOPLE IN ALL MEDIA PLEASE.
Absolutely. While I can’t really speak to this myself, I have a couple of trans friends who read this comic, and they’ve both said similar things about Carla in casual conversation. Visibility’s a big deal.
Is…
Is nobody else alarmed by the lack of response from Ruth?
Like, Carla’s awesome and all, but this strip really reads like Ruth-foreshadowing to me.
Entirely possible, but it’s worth noting 7:40 AM on a Sunday isn’t the time you should expect a lot of activity from a college student. Especially not one who’s clearly suffering from long-term depression, because it wreaks havoc on your sleep schedule.
Like, I worry about Ruth in general because hello, Ruth, and non-response isn’t GREAT and can certainly be a potential sign of Serious Badtimes, but given the specific time I wouldn’t be super-worried just yet compared to if Ruth was still non-responsive at 10 AM, say.
As Willis hisself points out below, she has disappeared into her fortress of solitude before. Billie stood where Carla stood, with the same sort of questions being asked.
Ruth isn’t on suicide watch – yet. And she’s a big girl, she can do what she wants including not answer the door or even be out somewhere else.
I agree with Regali. If this was 10am, then I’d be slightly more worried.
Carla should tell Billie she knocked and got no answer.
Clearly Billie needs to come up with a way to frame checking on Ruth as cold and terrible vengeance against Mary. Then Carla will stop at nothing to get it done.
I would have less sympathy but for the fact Ruth isn’t Carla’s friend or Billie’s. Ruth is this random would-be ally (who isn’t one) who unloaded all of her problems on her after ignoring her to bully other residents.
Eh, it’s early. If she goes the day without checking in, I’ll be pissed at her, but right now, I’m doubting she makes it an hour or two in comic time without doubling back to check in on her.
Though… I just realized, if Ruth did do something, she locks her door. Carla doesn’t have keys. Like, she might be able to pick a lock (I’d not be surprised if she happened to know how to pick a lock considering her counterculture interests) and Billie has her addiction to making spare keys, but there’s no easy way to force her way inside other than breaking down the door, which is a rather extreme reaction if you don’t have a strong suspicion something’s wrong.
I’m a person that takes people asking me for help seriously, if you ask for a ride tomorrow at three, I’m there at two. If you ask me to check on someone even if I don’t know them, I am having a long conversation with them.
If you say you’ll do something but then decide to half ass it, you lack integrity and i may as well be talking to a child.
Eh, Carla’s been shown so far in the Ruthless arc to half-ass requests at first and then take it more seriously and have the long conversation anyways (that’s pretty much how the first check-in went), so I’m willing to hold out for a bit to see if patterns continue.
I do suspect I might be defending myself only to be proven wrong when Carla does do some extreme thing to check on Ruth next page, like duck taping a walky talky to a rock and throwing it through Ruths window.
She half-assess it at first because she’s a smartass and wants to make a point about how you can bug her to do something but you can’t make her do it well.
But then she’s a worrier and if she doesn’t check in properly it’s going to bug her, so she goes back and does it right (probably all the while grumbling about “FINE I guess I’ll do the right thing. This time. Because I feel like it, not cuz I’m like worried about her or anything.”)
Carla’s a sophomore, and there seemed to be an implication early on (around the first hall meeting, I think?) that this is her second year in this hall, so she and Ruth have maybe lived together for a year already, or she already knew Ruth by reputation?
A: Billie’s request was to check in on Ruth “from time to time”. That’s a super-vague timeframe.
B: Carla clearly expresses her reluctance and does not actually give explicit agreement.
C: It is currently fairly early morning on a Sunday, and Ruth and Carla talked just yesterday (see the strip just before the above link).
D: If Ruth isn’t responding to knocks on the door, Carla’s options are limited, and much further limited if she doesn’t want to potentially draw poor attention to herself and/or Ruth. Circling back later is pretty much the best option.
E: If I ask you for a ride tomorrow at 3:00, please don’t show up tomorrow at 2:00. 2:30 fine, 2:45 great, but at 2:00 I’m probably in the shower and you’ve just made the whole thing weird for me.
Why? Because Carla didn’t instantly buy in to the mindset of “Ruth, whom you mostly know as an aloof jerk, must be watched at all times for what may or may not be the tiniest sign that calamity, total and irreversible, is about to befall?” That’s requiring a bit much of anyone.
I suddenly got a weird flash of Ruth sitting naked in the centre of her room with a blanket around her shoulders as she drinks strong spirits and writes horribly maudlin and repetitive poetry about Billie and their relationship.
I see you drew the phone in hand twice instead of using the same one with different text. I assume drawing it twice is more work. I’m probably wrong, though.
Well if Ruth is dead or dying. Carla is will have quite an emotional backlash. amoung many other’s own backlashes.
hope not..
but..
trauma from the other universe holds true
Hmm. I dunno, I always find it really weird when people call themselves goddesses. Some people use it as if it excuses all of their shitty behavior, past and future. Carla hasn’t done anything wrong, but… I dunno, I guess other people have ruined it for me.
And what if Ruth is not alright?
Yeah I know, no trucks in the dorm.
She has been making an attempt to get out into the world, but still, she looked pretty damn bad last appearance.
Then Carla has a screaming fight with Becky after Ruth gets carted off to the ER. Later on, Amazi-Girl ends up talking her down off of the edge of the roof of the dorm, thus repaying the debt she owed the other girl for helping fix her head wound.
This is going to blow up in Carla’s face; it’s going to blow up in her face and her life probably will never be the same. She’ll tell herself that she doesn’t care but it’s still going to be something that haunts her and she’ll lose a bit of that sparkle.
You see, I think that Ruth is lying unconscious in her room having nearly drunk herself into a coma.
I’ve held steadfast to the theory that Ruth’s replacement is going to be Sarah.
Sarah’s a sophomore with a good GPA, she could use the financial support, and I can’t think of better training for a lawyer than having a bunch of losers come up to you with problems you don’t care about and demanding you solve them.
Also she won’t beat people up so she’s a marked improvement.
Of course, Mary doesn’t have any dirt on Sarah. So, what little power she has on the floor will suddenly be lost. That could have its own strong effects on the storyline.
Since it would be immediately be followed by a request to get rid of the following list of degenerates that Sarah’s perfectly fine with, I doubt it would stick for long.
Could it still be a %#*~ing book title if you replaced the €£¥!!ed sweary bit with obfuscating punctuation? I find most cussing funnier that way anyway, $&@+ it.
See that thin white contrail, etched in stark relief against the endless blue vault of the morning sky? See the bright spark of sunlight reflecting off polished aluminum at the tip of that ethereal spear, fleeting in its incredible motion? That’s the joke, way over your head.
carla isnt a perfect angel, just like every single other character in this comic. i dont expect the commenters to react differently than they do with the other characters flaws. i do think carla shouldve actually checked up on her, since she even had it on a to-do list? but calling herself a goddess is perfectly fine
Yeah, I guess I’m in the minority here on account of my frustration with Carla.
1. It seems that she just half-assed checking on Ruth because she’s too selfish to really care about an at-risk person. Maybe she’ll turn around in the upcoming days / minutes (in comic time), but for now she’s just being an asshole. There’s no point in being a “good person deep-down inside” if that doesn’t translate into good actions
2. I don’t care who you are, no one gets to think of themselves as a “goddess” or “god”. You’re a human being. You’re not more important than everyone else. Both throughout human history and amongst people I’ve met, those who have this attitude tend to do shitty things and not care
It’s more than a little frustrating to see Carla acting so self-centered here. I know it’s not exactly out of character for Carla to be more wrapped up in whatever she’s up to, but Ruth basically disrupted her whole life sticking up for Carla and it seems like that didn’t even earn Ruth a “Hey, knock knock, just wanted to make sure you haven’t OD’d”
I also don’t know how I feel about this whole reveal we’ve had in the last couple weeks that Carla’s basically a trust fund baby. As someone who’s had a lot of bad experiences with classism it makes it a lot harder to sympathize with her or see her as a victim when her family are a bunch of billionaires.
Ruth actually did jack to help Carla. She flew in like a savior and collapsed at the first opposition. She’s accomplished nothing for Carla. For all her good intentions, her personal failings have left her in the same place Carla expects authority figures to be – useless at best.
She may be trying to remedy that, but for the moment, Carla’s on her own. As she expects.
Well, technically, what seems to be a lot of people’s problems is that it has earned exactly a knock knock, making sure you didn’t OD and people are expecting more out of Carla because they understand exactly how bad Ruth is and many of us have had personal experiences surrounding friends or partners who’ve been in that bad state and we’re scared any time we see that closed and silent door standing in for Ruth because of what we fear is behind it (imaginations are butts sometimes).
That being said, Carla is Carla. I’d be a lot more worried, if she hadn’t done this “look at me not caring dancing away… okay, never mind, I’m here, but not because I care or anything” tsundere dance multiple times already. She wants to be the jerk who never gets tied down into other people’s problems, but she’s too good of a person to truly devote herself to making things worse like say Mike does or even to fully dump off things that were thrown on her shoulders with no warning (on that note, Billie kinda did a little bad on this one as throwing something as big as “make sure my friend doesn’t kill herself” is a heavy investment to throw on someone, especially when given as a “if you don’t, prolly no one will” thing. Like I get why she did it and the desperate awful situation she is in because Mary and because of Ruth’s self-destruction, but it’s not like Carla volunteered for this job off the bat).
Oh, side minor note, I’m a little wary of constructions wherein a marginalized group member owes a portion of their life to any ally who does the bare minimum on their regard a personal debt they then need to pay back to the ally. Especially given my own personal history. And that’s before even noting that the “help” Ruth gave was as thejeff notes, to basically dump the whole situation at her feet, say, handle it yourself, then attempt to victim blame her for it and then later try and use it as a cudgel to beat her own self with and dumped a whole bunch of emotional stuff on Carla. Like, Carla, despite her press, is a good person who’s been through this dance before, so she’s taking it all relatively in stride, but that’s not really the quality of “help” that should require some weird form of life debt as you’re suggesting here.
And as for classism. It’s her flaw. She’s a spoiled trust fund baby who actively outwardly plays up her insensitive asshole bits. As for your own experiences, I’m deeply sorry for them and offer these *hugs*. I can note that wealth only protects the marginalized to a certain degree. Like, note Caitlyn Jenner, there is a lot of transphobia and awfulness that her wealth straight up buys her out of having to deal with, but look to most reporting on Caitlyn Jenner to see how much it also doesn’t. Carla has money and family who love and support her, that’s an advantage few trans people have, but she’s still an 18 year old trans girl in a society where elected officials want to literally place bounties on the heads of trans people caught using the “wrong bathroom”.
Yeah, I feel that part of Carla’s flippancy right now is that she kind of just got tossed into the Billie/Ruth drama without any context or explanation of how badly things have gotten, so she’s approaching it like she approaches everything; by being a butthole who loudly complains about all this stupid dumb nice person junk she very obviously would never willingly do.
I wrote a bit below about how I think Carla is being a jerk right now being so laissez-faire about Ruth right now, but as you and thejeff point out, Ruth did pretty terribly by Carla. Swooping in as a Big Bad Ruthless and immediately caving, blaming Carla for picking a fight and then using her guilt to beat herself up while Carla’s standing there wondering what the fuck is going on and waiting for her to knock it off, because she has better things to do than listen to Ruthless whine.
As for Carla and her wealth, I feel her bringing up her parents was a deliberate character beat and not just an off-hand explanation of where she got all of her wonderful toys. That Mary misgendering her did hurt her a lot more than she cared to admit, and she fell back on a support network she could rely on, and used them to strike back at Mary.
Why do i even bother — You’ve obviously never met the Kartrashians or most any other ‘celebrity’ in person, have you? There are exceptions, of course, but most celebrities don’t just think they are gods or goddesses, they *KNOW* that they are.
And why? Because people worship them, follow them on Twitter, keep the mags like “People” and “Us” and “Entertainment Weekly” and others too numerous to mention in business, and hang on every thing they do, every move they make, and every word they say.
“2. I don’t care who you are, no one gets to think of themselves as a “goddess” or “god”. You’re a human being. You’re not more important than everyone else. Both throughout human history and amongst people I’ve met, those who have this attitude tend to do shitty things and not care.”
OK, first of all, read Cerberus’ reply, and then I have the following to add:
As I have said before, Carla is used to severe hostility and hatred. Not for being a jerk, but simply for being Carla. She is used to people like Mary trying to put her down all the time. Or to put it in your words, she is used to people trying to make her feel LESS IMPORTANT than anyone else. Trying to make her stop being who she is. Trying to make her commit suicide.
Think about that for a moment. I mean, really, think about it. Sure, people like Mary will deny that last part, but you will see people trying to defend their attitude even in the face of facts on how LBGQT youth are thrown out of their homes, pestered, bullied, discriminated against. The overall message is one “You are not a full human being like us. Go away.” Eventually, when they have nowhere else to go, they go away from life itself. That is the consequence of letting people like Mary getting their way.
THAT is what people Mary (and Carol, and Toedad) ultimately creates with her hatred and hostility, and that is why they are so goddamn awful as they are. And that is also why I have plenty of contempt for people who think they can “be against marriage, but still be sad about the mass shooting in Florida”. It is like saying “I am against that ******* Rosa Parks sitting in the front of the bus, but they shouldn’t be lynched.” They do not understand that the more they spew out their vile bigotry, the more likely it is that eventually someone will take that one step further, and start lynching, or shooting up people; or that their kids will gladly bully their LBGQT classmates to a degree that can be likened to torture.
Carla calling herself a goddess is not simply about being an asshole. It is one of her coping mechanisms for dealing with this horrible, heinous, disgusting hostility she gets from being Carla. She actively denies to be put down by the scum of the earth, and instead choose to tell herself up as much as possible, refusing to act like a victim. And you know what? As someone who is checking off all the “correct” boxes in fitting into society, I say that if that is the worst Carla does (which it pretty much is), then for crying out loud, just let her do it! Heck, I will gladly applaud it, like I applauded Carla’s little hologram light show!
Now, I can admit that today’s strip shows is the worst side of Carla… Which, in full context, just shows how good a person she is. Her act of being a jerk is just that, an act. She happens to care about people, but she is also extremely guarded against appearing vulnerable, because she does not trust people in general to actually help her out (I trust you understand why by now). Ruth has not actually done much to help her out specifically; and certainly not in a way that would qualify her as a proper ally. Plus, Ruth is doing what she is doing right now as much for her own sake as anyone else’s. Carla has already gone way beyond what she has had to do, because really, the only thing she had to do was nothing. She could have just ignored Billie’s first request, she could have stopped talking to Ruth, she could have ignored Billie’s further requests… But she knows from the very second she is asked that she is going to say yes, so what is really going on in her brain is to figure out a way to accept it without appearing to be caring in any way.
And yes, if I was to do it like that, I would simply be a jerk. But Carla’s situation is not comparable at all to mine, so I cannot possibly sit here on my chair of so many privileges and condemn her for putting up her shield against the world. Because that would make me a true and utter asshole. Which I try not to be.
I’ve known WAY too many times that people have done what Carla is doing and it turned out that the person that they were to check on was in trouble or died.
Carla’s entire DoA run so far has been her acting like a jerk for the first few (in-universe) minutes of a given appearance and then going waaay past what would be expected of most decent people and actually being one of the best people in the comic. She’ll be back.
And this cannot be stressed enough: It’s not even 8 goddamn am on a Sunday morning. I regularly slept until and past noon when I was in school if I didn’t have class in the morning.
Well… don’t stack THOSE books at childrens’ eye level then.
(I’m pretty sure it’s already been said, but there’s just SO many comments to go through and it needs to be said frequently: WRITE THE BOOK… stop making excuses like “I don’t want to put ‘motherfucking’ on a book at childrens’ eye level.)
i’m not sure what you’re upset about. the books are these comics, but tangible, so as long as the comics are being posted, he is writing the book. and he’s allowed to name it what he wants, what with it being his creation and all.
also, i’m not sure he has much of an option in terms of height anyway, since everything at cons is sold from child-height tables, and i imagine getting chewed out by an offended parent whose child learned a new word today is a fun con experience.
i am very tired and therefore grumpy and couldn’t let this go without responding. harrumph.
I bet that you’re probably shaking your head that a totally random humorous remark is being taken with such total po-faced seriousness by so many, aren’t you?
Do we have a promise from Willis that no one will actually die in this comic? I suppose that does not exclude “permanent vegetative state”.
Not giving a shit about other people is not an endearing trait. Though this strip makes it all the more obvious that Carla and Malaya are made for each other. Marcie needs to find someone better. There’s no shortage of lesbians in this comic, it shouldn’t be too hard.
Except we’ve seen, again and again, that in Carla’s case, it’s a facade.
We saw her bandaging Amber up. We just saw her with Ruth a little while back, checking up on her for Billie, in the Story of How Carla Rutten scored Free Bonus Cookies. Except she didn’t, of course.
But sure, judge her on this one 30 second interval. That’s part of the problem with serialized webcomics, we hyperanalyze each strip, often losing the larger context of the characters.
Technically, if Ruth turned out to be dead or in a drunken haze or something, SOCIETY would judge her on this 30 second interval. I’d certainly never live with myself if I could’ve prevented something bad but figured it’ll all be fine even though literally the only other thing I had to do all day was “whatever I wanted you mother fucking GOD”.
That’s human nature isn’t it, to rip themselves about the small moments surrounding a tragedy and to find a way to blame themselves. Why did I choose to go into that nightclub, why didn’t I charge my phone when my friend was calling for help, why didn’t I check my messages religiously. Why didn’t I pick up that them saying they were feeling better was a red flag? Why didn’t I just stay the night?
We’re (ideally) caring empathetic creatures and we want to always be on and support our fellow man as best we can. But one of the darkest and cruelest lesson about being an emotional caretaker for a person or for a set of people is that you can’t be “on” 24/7. You’re going to slip up, you’re gonna say something wrong, you’re not going to be available during a crisis point, you’re gonna miss a red flag.
And you can’t just live 24/7 with the person who needs care (unless that is very specifically the role you have chosen and even then, it is best to have a separate caretaker as well so you can take breaks and thus not get broken by the weight of having to do that. And you have to live your life in the other moments and not let the fears of whether they’re alive or dead overwhelm you at all times (the majority of my friends have dealt with depression and suicidal ideation, so I know from experience having to constantly keep an eye out for that) and make their life more central than your own. Especially not when you’re a girl in college who’s gotten a suicide case dumped on her lap with some vague instructions on “checking up” on someone behind a locked door (does she even have her phone number, I genuinely forget) that you’ve had maybe two interactions with.
Would that mean she would be any less broken up or self-hating if Ruth was in a bad way in there and needed quick relief? Hell no. And I think the what-ifs will be drawing her back there fairly regularly this morning, because that’s the person Carla is, a worrier who’s got a secret soft spot.
Will this mean she won’t circle back and check and check? Will this mean she won’t have another heart-to-heart where she pretends she isn’t the big softy she is? No.
Which is to say in way too many words, yeah, society and Carla would judge her harshly. But they would to if she was lying in the bathtub from an attempt last night. We’re very good as a species at lamenting and assigning reason to these things and pinpointing the hindsight action and timing that would have prevented it far too late to help.
Honestly, I doubt SOCIETY would judge her at all. Or even know she was supposed to be checking up on her. Carla would judge herself, I’m sure, as Cerberus said and I’m sure she’ll come back around to check.
Society would however judge her if she panicked, called the cops, broke the door down or something else drastic, only to find Ruth just sleeping heavily or already out or something normal.
The thing that is irksome about Carla is that, if another character did this, they’d probably be rightfully seen as an asshole. But now with Carla I’ve developed something like PTSD. I CAN’T criticize her negligable behavior because Carla is a stand-in for all trans people, not just an asshole herself. I can’t even be charmed by what a conga she is like with Mike because when Mike’s a conga I can tell he’s a conga and that the humor comes from not liking him. Carla is so weirdly played straight and then played for sympathy that I can’t make a disconnect between either of those aspects to her character. Carla exists in a valley between sympathetic and played for comedy and the two aspects of her are so dimetricly opposed that I CAN’T enjoy her.
Your hypothetical, wherein someone with purportedly the same knowledge but is not Carla would be allowed different scrutiny is interesting to me, because we’ve actually had this before.
I had this exchange in mind when writing today’s strip because I wanted to avoid writing the same strip. Having someone pause in front of Ruth’s door, only choosing not to answer it is kind of a go-to thing at this point. It’s tread ground! The phone affirmation merely bookends nigh-identical information told.
See, that’s the thing. The story isn’t telling me I need to sympathize with Billie nearly as much as Carla. The last panel screams “You go girl!”. With Billie it’s a negative “She shouldn’t have crossed me”. Billie is acting out of anger, not apathy.
But beyond that, I feel like the story was not framing Billie as someone I need to feel sorry for. If I said, “Wow, That’s a dick move, Billie” people probably wouldn’t call me homophobic or racist or anything. With Carla, the amount of leeway she’s given with her actions gives me this feeling like if I try to say anything negative about her, people will think it has something to do with her being trans. And because all of her actions get funneled through that so I can’t even normalize it to “Yeah, Carla’s an asshole”.
But I think I see what you are bumping up against and that’s the unfortunate context of how certain characters are treated by the audience. Like, Carla tends to get an outpouring of transphobic hate (and I don’t mean comments saying “I dislike this character” but like people Willis bans because they’re making transphobic slurs) whenever she appears, no matter what she does. Just recently, a whole mess of online TERFy types tried to argue that Carla was a violent man beating up on a weaker woman because a pie technically constituted assault.
And what this does, is create an unfortunate context where negative comments are given more focus and attention because of the established pattern of people arguing in bad faith (not to mention the way certain characters tend to be viewed negatively no matter what they do good or bad simply because of their statuses as marginalized individuals who have been victimized in some way and so their every action is held to a much higher standard than any other character).
And it means people are a bit more wary of negative comments because of that established animus and people are more likely to point out things like the disproportionate way certain characters are treated by the fans for similar actions.
Like, in your example, it’s noteworthy that in the two links provided, there’s only a single person (Mandiblebones in the second link) who brings up the idea that it’s a bit fucked to back away from investigating further. In this thread there’s a whole lot more people not only saying that but straight up saying that this is the big proof of what they’ve been saying about Carla being awful. Everyone has a right to dislike or be rubbed wrong by any character, regardless of reason but that is a noteworthy distinction inviting debate especially in the context of the hate the character draws for existing.
And I can most certainly understand your frustration. You dislike the character and your reasons are not bigoted, but you’re seeing that context of people being wary of the way certain characters are treated and it’s feeling like you’re being silenced. And that sucks.
But the reason people are looking askance has to do with the context of your surroundings and the behavior of those in the threads. No one would consider it potentially homophobic or racist if you called Billie a dick, but if every Billie appearance had a group of people ready to jump on every negative action of hers and there was a mass of people being banned because they were saying racist and biphobic things on every Billie appearance, then people would look twice.
That’s the important part though. I don’t dislike Carla. I honestly don’t. If I didn’t like a character simply because they’re an asshole then I wouldn’t like half of the characters I do like. But I like Carla purely as an awful person for the most part. I mean she’s had some good moments with Sal and Amber, but on the average she’s just kind of a dick and I’d rather see her like that and not care than how I feel being a jerk is something she’s earned or deserves, rather than just being an ass because she’s an ass.
I dunno, I guess it comes down to how we enjoy our jerkiness. Personally, I think Carla is a bit of a jerk, but her jerkiness and misanthropy makes sense from the internal motivations of the character and what she’s been through. And I see that as enriching the jerkiness in a way and making it more full.
And I think it was a change that largely needed to happen simply because assholes for asshole sake suffer a bit from being transposed into the more realistic DoA setting from the Walkyverse. But I can respect that that might not really the type of jerk that appeals to you.
Dude, it’s cool. You can hate Carla. If Carla being meh about Billie’s clear distress over Ruth’s safety bugs you, that’s fine. And, honestly, I do think the situation between Billie and Carla is hugely different, because Ruth straight up assaulted Billie numerous times. She doesn’t owe her shit, and Carla is someone who agreed to check up on Ruth and is just blowing it off. I’m convinced we see her loop back around to check, because I feel that’d be consistent with what we know of Carla, but it’s also a pretty crappy move of her to pull right now.
She’s being a turd. I’m fine thinking she’s being a turd, and also liking her for being a turd and also liking her for being more than just a turd because Carla’s displayed that she’s more than that. I like that she can both. It’s an important part of what makes her such a great character to me, that she isn’t the sum total of all trans people ever and she needs to be a magical queer,, and that she’s kind of an annoying jackass when she wants to be.
Use it as a book title, with Carla’s grinning face partially obscuring the last word! Because she just plain doesn’t give a poop about your fancy cover text, Mr. Willis 😀
(Sorry! Meant to leave this comment this morning, but had to rush off to the doctors.)
If Carla’s involved and A) grins, B) doesn’t give a poop, then all is forgiven 😀 …But she’d better outdo your Willisian avatar! I wanna see THREE thumbs up, minimum! Right, phone screen off, no more typing silly comments slightly under the influence of sleeping pills, and me actually going to sleep. An “alarm clock” with internet access has its drawbacks. Plus I’m too poor to actually buy your books so you can totally ignore any suggestions I make about them if you want 😀
* This isn’t her problem.
* She doesn’t know how serious the problem is.
* Ruth should be seeing professionals.
* Carla was dragged into the situation.
If anything happens to Ruth, it’s because of her depression and there’s not much Carla can do about that.
Are you referring to staking the books at children’s eye level at conventions?
I wouldn’t question the parenting style of a parent who would bring their child to a convention. That’d be a pretty badass parent TBH.
But considering the general attire, culture, and vernacular of convention attendees, I would question a parent who would bring their child to a con and then be squeamish about them seeing the word “motherfucking.”
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IS SHE LITERALLY A MOTHER-FUCKING GODDESS
’cause lesbian cougars, rrraowr
(also is this the DoA version of Carla’s “siblings”)
I just noticed the app name.
Personally, I’d have “Zommer” be the DoA equivalant to “Uber”.
Zoomer. I spelt it gud.
“Zommer” is the crowdsourced zombie apocalypse ap. There’ve been complaints that it will put hardworking professional zombies out of business.
… good!
Ah, the mother-fucking pantheon. The Great Quadrumvirate of Mike, Carla, Jacob, and Joe’s Dad.
Is Amazi-Girl a demigod trying to earn Amber her place back in the heavens?
“Do whatever you want, you mother-fucking goddess” would be a wordy but decent title for a Carla-focused Slipshine
I would pay out the nose to see that
See, now I just remembered that technically Joe and Rachel are her parents.
So shouldn’t she be like… 1?
I wanna see her parents now.
While the fucking of mothers is a time-honored tradition, Carla might be sex-repulsed as that was true of Ultracar. So, in literal fashion, Carla might sound like a Joyceism “literal mother-cuddling goddess”.
it’s true that one can fuck despite being repulsed… I mean, that third hand existed for a reason XD
Or is she a mother fucking-goddess?
(I blame xkcd)
Carla is majoring in babysitting
Rule number 1 of babysitting: Your client is a stuck-up whinybaby.
It’s funny because Ruth was the babysitter for Billie (and Walky) in the other universe.
Who watches the watchmen? And who babysits the babysitters? (That second one is evidently Carla)
Now that’s *my* kind of day-planner! ^_^
Carla: Making reminders fun to read.
Carla’s phone aspiration fills me with joy!
More damn zoomers, ultra-car’s gonna be pissed
I mean, look at the bottom-left. It may not be Joe, but her family built that technology.
*bottom right. I can handed good.
I have good feels for the awesomeness of Carla’s family. I like to think it could even be a to do sent from her parents. Cause that would rock!
Do we know anything about Carla’s family? Considering Carla’s disdain for people and the DYW factor, I’m inclined to assume the worst, but on the other hand it’d sure be nice if Carla’s parents were chill.
We know they’re rich as Croesus and support her 100%. The former has been made crystal clear in comic, the latter merely suggested by the fact they provided gear for her prank on Mary, but has been explicitly stated by word of God.
Yeah, I remembered that they were rich (Ruttech is literally on her phone right now), but it’s nice to know that there are some decent parents in this comic.
There’s also Mike’s parents. If I’m remembering right, the worst things about them are just embarrassing Mike (and Walky, albeit due to a situation they were unaware of) and being waaaaay overaffectionate towards… well, pretty much everyone they come across.
And Dina’s parents seem pretty awesome.
Billie classification as whinybaby canon.
I’m sure that Carla has a very efficient system for categorizing humans.
Is Sal “cool girl I most certainly do not have a crush on”?
Not enough disdain. Probably more like “girl everyone thinks is cool for some reason, but is still totally a skatefailing liar.”
No, they need to be more consise. Maybe:
Walky: Overgrown 11-year-old
Joyce: Mary-Ellen Walton
A custom app, eh ?
Or it’s a real app that only exists in their universe.
It’s made by Ruttech, her parent’s company.
The phone is, maybe not the app though.
See, canon confirmation that Carla is perfect and haters can go home.
That legit made me laugh. A quiet laugh, so I don’t disturb others at this time of night, but a laugh nonetheless.
Thanks.
Also, $20 on her nonetheless circling right back to check up on her within the next 5 comics.
She does seem to end up doing that a lot.
Almost like (HACK) she’s not as (COUGH) terrible a person (GAG) as she likes to think she is.
Carla: You take that back right now!
… (goes off to check in on Ruthless)
That’s what makes her the perfect foil to Mary, who THINKS she’s a righteous saint, but is actually such a bongo that beatniks hire her to let them play her head while they read poetry at cafés.
Yeah, it’s an interplay in opposites. Which is always, narratively, a lot of fun.
It really is. Carla thinks she’s an asshole, but deep down she’s really a decent person. Mary thinks she’s a decent person, but deep down she’s really an asshole.
Well, except she doesn’t think she’s a decent person, she thinks she’s a saint and everyone else is a Sodomite.
Also, she’s not an asshole ‘deep down.’ She’s asshole on the surface, and every time you go down a layer, you just find more asshole. She’s like an asshole jawbreaker.
Man, fuck Mary.
I feel like there’s some reclamation in that, largely because so much of her aesthetic seems to have reclamation elements to it. Like, oh, is being tall something used to clock me? Fuck it, I’m on skates now all the time. Oh, should I be afraid to show my legs and wear short shorts, fuck it, my shorts will be as short as they can be and I’ll even wear a baggy top with it.
So I could see her identifying with asshole, not only because people fuck with an asshole far less often than with a victim, but because the world in her world, much like ours is one that routinely shits on trans women as predatory terrors that stalk through bathrooms and cruel bullies that make poor transphobes cry. So, there might be an element of, oh, you view me as a monster, well then I’ll be a… er… hmm… I’m not quite sociopathic enough to pull off monster, sooooo… I know, asshole! I’ll be the jerkiest asshole that can be… ah, goddamn it, you need help, ugh, I’m gonna do it, but I’m gonna complain and pretend its a giant chore the entire time just so you still believe me when I claim to be a bad person.
Oh, definitely. Carla’s cultivated a personality pretty heavily oriented around reclamation and misanthropy for misanthropy’s sake. Which is fine, you know, we all build our own identities, but eventually she’s going to have to come to terms with the fact that she does actually give a shit about human beings.
So, she’s an onion?
Nah. Onions have one outer layer that isn’t quite like the rest. There is no layer of Mary that is not full of spiteful hatred and self-righteous bigotry.
What if asshole is an element? That way, she could be literally made of pure elemental asshole!
The names for those four newly-named elements aren’t official yet. There’s still time for you to get in your public comment!
This Avatar ought to be interesting.
Speaking of avatars, I typed my email wrong in the last post.
That’s weird, my previous post disappeared. What I said was “This Avatar ought to be interesting.”, referring to the master of all four elements, not tiny pictures or the Na’vi.
Isn’t that what happened to her in Roomies? With the Dark Side of the Hypocrisy as strong in her as it is, I expect she’s got a collection of STDs by now, so I’ll pass on that..
Though now I am imagining Carla serenading Mary with ‘F**k Me In the A** for Jesus’ once she finds out that Little Miss Holier Than Thou has been getting it in the pooter to avoid (ahem) embarrassment.
And then Dina mentioning that that isn’t what ’embarazada’ translates as, followed by a “that’s the joke” from Carla.
Does anyone here even know who the beatniks were? It was so long ago, but I saw the best minds of my Generation starving, hysterical, naked, strung-out on drugs, …
I think bongo has now won the euphemism treadmill. And thanks for the laugh when I’ve just woken and still hate the world for being so damn bright.
Ten years from now, there’ll be a movement in this comment section (which, likely, will have transferred itself, completely intact, to whatever new project Willis has going by then) to ban use of the word ‘bongo’, because people find its use offensive. No one will remember WHY they find it offensive, but it will be often used to describe people the speaker doesn’t like, and people will find its use makes them uncomfortable, for some reason.
Slash and burn linguistics.
Yeah, that was an absolutely brilliant use of the filter.
I think that for April Fools some year Willis should “Joyceify” the filter so that all curse words (her recent “shit” notwithstanding) get replaced with tamer alternatives.
Shit = Poop
Fuck = Premarital Hanky Panky
Damn = Goshdarn
Evolution = Dina nonsense
You can be a terrible person and have compassion at the same time, humans are complicated like that. Also, her attitude tends to portray that of one who does not think themself terrible.
True, but Carla tends to have a hard time being any type of horrible past just being a bit of an ass. Like, she really wants to be the lone jackass that is above it all, but she keeps on volunteering herself to do really good actions for people without much prompting.
Like, she’ll whine about it and try and play up how big of a jerk she is, but she’s given way more affirmations and pick-up speeches when she’s dealing with those who’ve been bullied and hurt. Even when she’s angry with them.
Yeah. I mean, she’s certainly a misanthrope, but ‘misanthrope’ and ‘decent human being’ are not mutually exclusive categories.
It’s also not an uncommon phase among young trans kids in early college. Get kicked around enough and a pose of “whatever, I hate the world right back” seems damn attractive and a bit more empowering than “all my friends and family left me because I’m trans”.
Oh, sure. Although Carla’s a bit different than your average misanthrope— she takes joy in the whole deal. A bit less ‘the world hates me, so it can fuck right off’ and a bit more ‘the world hates me, so I’ll laugh while I set it on fire.” Probably a healthier position, anyway, since it’s less socially isolating.
Yeah, I was supporting the Carla=/=horrible (especially in her own mind) thing. I know how it is. When the majority is lining up to be a jackass to you, being a jackass outwardly is really easy, but it also leaves you with a tendency to put yourself between complete jackasses and the meek.
To be truly terrible, you have to believe you’re not terrible, otherwise guilt would cripple you.
That’s assuming you have any sort of internal empathy. Carla clearly does.
Carla is a jerk with a very hidden, very hard to find heart of gold. Not pure gold, but gold.
Whereas Mary has no heart, instead she has a black hole where her heart should be that sucks in all joy and light around her.
Carla reminds me a bit of Captain Mal, quick to try and argue that she’s a scoundrel, but following the morality more times than not.
…Somebody needs to write this fanfic.
*glares at Mary*
“Mercy is the mark of a great woman…”
*builds elaborate prank*
“Guess I’m just a good one”
*whistles 1812 overture menacingly*
“Well I’m all right.”
Becky: “Don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?”
Joyce: “Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.”
*sends Ross flying with one punch*
And if Becky’s Zoe, then Dina can be Wash and play with dinosaurs!
Cerberus, your score on the awesomeness scale just shot up because Firefly.
I just realized (and confirmed) that you are the same Cerberus who also comments on Pharyngula. Please allow this avid reader (both here and there) but rare commenter to say how much I appreciate your remarks. You are a one-person counterargument to the “never read the comments” trope.
And in further matching opposites, Mary is Captain Hammer. Without the superpowers or fanclub.
Mary: Ah you think the jerkass is your ally? You merely adopted the jerk, I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see the non awfulness until I was already in college, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!
Yeah… Mary makes a good Sith lord.
Except a Sith acknowledges that they are evil and serve the dark side. I see Mary being a dark Jedi hardliner who refuses to believe she has turned to the darkside and instead just views everyone else as corrupted. So, like, one generation away from being Darth material, or one shattering defeat and Sith victory speech from joining their ranks.
…
Jeez I am to nerdy for my own good, aren’t I?
so like miko miyazaki from order of the stick.
*ups the nerd standards*
Daaaammmnnn I didn’t know fallen Paladins could be brought in. Makes total sense though.
she’s right, it’s all the rest of you who are corrupt and wrong.
Lies! Lies and Slander!
Not before Billie whines at her for not doing the job right the first time.
I don’t think Carla will circle back willingly. I think she hasn’t gotten that much sympathy for Ruth yet. I’m sure Billie will guilt her into it, though.
Sucker’s bet, she’ll be back as soon as it’s a reasonable time for people to be awake.
The “Jerk with a heart of gold” trope exists for a reason, and I would say has been well applied to Carla.
I wouldn’t say she’s a jerk with a heart of gold. She’s like one of those Mega Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, or a 3 Musketeers bar: Outer layer of cultivated asshole, but is a good person through and through all the way down to her core.
It’s the reason I like her and can even stand Carla at all.
Cultivated asshole, rather than wild asshole, free from artificial crabbiness?
Carla is my hero
The Brown family tension rises.
I guess Zoomer is her wireless provider?
I really like that she insults people on something that no one else will ever see.
Unless we just skipped ahead a day, it’s 8 am on a Sunday, going by the time on Carla’s phone.
I’m no Ruthless, but try to wake me up at such a time and you WILL lose femurs.
It seems like Carla intentionally wakes up pretty early (likely to shower when no one else is around). This is like the 3rd or 4th time she’s been up and dressed at way too early in the morning o’clock while everyone else is just getting their day started.
Not to devalue some nicely added detail and context but she could also just be a morning person. I typically wake up before 6am just cause that’s how I’m wired.
That’s true, though if the case, I guarantee the showering time is somewhat intentional still simply because using shared facilities as a trans girl, especially ones that are very open and where the shower stalls are not overly private is a very fraught thing and I can see her at the very least not even wanting to deal with that shit and the stress it brings.
…also i bet that means that she never runs out of hot water!
Bonus!
It could also be because she’s a… what was it, engineer? comp sci major? Those classes are always so damn early for some reason.
Given the last few computer science majors I’ve known, that might just be to encourage them to see some daylight from time to time.
How does a software developer get fresh air? Walk between the car and door.
She doesn’t sleep much, does she? We’ve seen her up late at night with Sal’s crew.
…Maybe she naps a lot.
She might be surviving on caffeine and weird sleep habits. I did something very similar my first two years in college. Managed to build one hell of a caffeine addiction.
It’s were you enter that period of sleep deprivation that you become lucid again and coffee slowly replaces your blood. You have little mini blackouts or “naps” peppered between classes before finally crashing for a solid twenty-four. But hey at least you got that final in on time!
I still wake up at 5:50 am every morning because of college habits. I went from hating coffee to expresso becoming my lifeblood.
Maybe she’s been awake since some time on Saturday.
Just hang a warning sign on the door whenever you don’t want others to wake you up. It works for me.
self-love, yass
I read that as “self-love, y’ass” and was wondering why Carla would call herself an ass.
I’m fairly certain Carla would call herself an ass
Why, because she’s stubborn like one?
She’s not the self-deprecating type (see: ‘you mother-fucking goddess’).
Except she also calls herself an asshole.
yeah but that seems to be more a matter of pride. like she is a very specific Kind of asshole, that has taken a lot of time to cultivate, thank you.
You know who an unsung hero is?
The guy who packages Dumbing of Age books in Hong Kong. I assume its just a single guy who’s life revolves entirely around Willis Comics.
I don’t know a lot about how the economy works…
Until I am told otherwise, I will believe this to be true.
So…many…papercuts…
Death of a thousand papercuts
Why isn’t this my checklist?!
Item #2 on Carla’s To-Do list is something every to-do list should include. Motherfucking goddess indeed!!
“do whatever the hell you want, you damn goddess”
If it’s not motherfucker, it’s not worth a damn.
if it’s not wham, it’s not ham!
If it’s not butter, then what is it?
Unbelievable
oooooor…you could put some graphic over that word comically!
That last panel is the best to-do checklist/planner/thing-a-ma-jigger ever.
can that last item on Carla’s to-do list be the name of the next book?
Not strong with the alt text is this one.
Whereas I tend to go crazy with it.
This is a periodic reminder that not everyone is using a device that one can read hovertext on.
A less passive-aggressive way of responding is with the actual text. To wit:
“this could be a good book title if i weren’t hugely reluctant to put ‘motherfucking’ on books i’ll stack on a table at children’s eye-level”
Mobile devices can read the hover text. Tap directly below the comic on either side of the info box. Works at least on Chrome and Safari on Android and iOS, respectively.
Which doesn’t contradict my statement (not everyone uses Chrome, for example).
Probably people who don’t like Regan.
I like her hat.
Me too, it’s like one of those rastacaps.
hah! the children are coming in to play already! learn to read soon, kids. that’ll make your dad’s job nigh impossible
That is an excellent hat for her. Really emphasizes the fact that her brain is superior to any human’s.
Zoomer is a Canadian magazine for baby boomers.
Motherfucking goddess. For real. Yesss, Carla. You know it baby. Kinda amazing that this strip coincides with the #queerselflove hashtag on twitter, because fuck yeah this girl loves herself. And rightly so, because she’s fantastic and deserves to be loved.
And it’s lovely to see because trans women tend to get hit with a lot of social messages that we are worthless and meaningless and our suicide numbers are way too high because of it, so seeing her pride herself like this and make sure she never forgets she is a rockstar badass (even if maybe inside she’s struggling with the same things as too many of us) is just…
Words cannot describe how happy that makes me.
She’s a motherfucking goddess and none of the Marys in the world can ever tear that away from her!
Right? It’s wonderful. She gets to be a badass rockstar, cute and fierce and amazing, but still a flawed, messy, struggling human being, just like anybody else. Because she’s fucking human. It makes me emotional, too.
I’m not trans, but I’ve struggled with feelings of worthlessness my entire life, some of them tied to my queerness, others to my mental health issues, and NOTHING makes me happier than seeing my fellow queer people be kickass and awesome and loving themselves.
MORE BADASS, SELF-LOVING QUEER PEOPLE IN ALL MEDIA PLEASE.
All the this! 😀
Absolutely. While I can’t really speak to this myself, I have a couple of trans friends who read this comic, and they’ve both said similar things about Carla in casual conversation. Visibility’s a big deal.
*gives caesaria82 a badass highfive*
The emperor of the internet officially proclaims you to be an Imperial Badass, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise!
Well, it takes one to know one, doesn’t it?
yeah! not a trans woman, but seeing carla makes me so happy
You go do you Carla. 😀
Is…
Is nobody else alarmed by the lack of response from Ruth?
Like, Carla’s awesome and all, but this strip really reads like Ruth-foreshadowing to me.
Entirely possible, but it’s worth noting 7:40 AM on a Sunday isn’t the time you should expect a lot of activity from a college student. Especially not one who’s clearly suffering from long-term depression, because it wreaks havoc on your sleep schedule.
Like, I worry about Ruth in general because hello, Ruth, and non-response isn’t GREAT and can certainly be a potential sign of Serious Badtimes, but given the specific time I wouldn’t be super-worried just yet compared to if Ruth was still non-responsive at 10 AM, say.
Should Carla be doing the hair on the doorjamb trick to detect activity?
She needs those hairs to detect the possibility of a Mary invasion of her dorm room.
The next chapter is named Glower Vacuum, and Ruth does love to glower.
Obviously a light hearted tribute to Ultra-Vac. No need to worry.
As Willis hisself points out below, she has disappeared into her fortress of solitude before. Billie stood where Carla stood, with the same sort of questions being asked.
Ruth isn’t on suicide watch – yet. And she’s a big girl, she can do what she wants including not answer the door or even be out somewhere else.
I agree with Regali. If this was 10am, then I’d be slightly more worried.
Carla should tell Billie she knocked and got no answer.
It’s quite possible that she simply used up all her spoons yesterday trying to act the part of a Responsible Adult.
I’d bet on it, personally. Adulting is hard and exhausting.
So who gets to be hated next year for reporting Ruth, as with Sarah and Dana?
Clearly Billie needs to come up with a way to frame checking on Ruth as cold and terrible vengeance against Mary. Then Carla will stop at nothing to get it done.
(Y’know, as opposed to stopping with nothing, as illustrated here.)
I appreciate Ruth’s attitude is, “This is not my problem, just like I’m not your special project.”
Oh would you look at that, its all my sympathy for Carla fluttering away.
I would have less sympathy but for the fact Ruth isn’t Carla’s friend or Billie’s. Ruth is this random would-be ally (who isn’t one) who unloaded all of her problems on her after ignoring her to bully other residents.
Eh, it’s early. If she goes the day without checking in, I’ll be pissed at her, but right now, I’m doubting she makes it an hour or two in comic time without doubling back to check in on her.
Though… I just realized, if Ruth did do something, she locks her door. Carla doesn’t have keys. Like, she might be able to pick a lock (I’d not be surprised if she happened to know how to pick a lock considering her counterculture interests) and Billie has her addiction to making spare keys, but there’s no easy way to force her way inside other than breaking down the door, which is a rather extreme reaction if you don’t have a strong suspicion something’s wrong.
Billie is making a hail Mary pass that Carla is some kind of Ruth whisperer (which is categorically untrue).
And the ironic part is that she’s so far been able to have the realest conversation with Ruth of anyone in the cast so far, including Billie.
Now I just want a picture of Carla with “Reluctant Ruth Whisperer” beneath it.
How about a “You can’t handle the Ruth, but I can” t shirt?
Ruth’s an adult and Carla isn’t a babysitter.
I’m a person that takes people asking me for help seriously, if you ask for a ride tomorrow at three, I’m there at two. If you ask me to check on someone even if I don’t know them, I am having a long conversation with them.
If you say you’ll do something but then decide to half ass it, you lack integrity and i may as well be talking to a child.
Maybe you also shouldn’t try and guilt a complete stranger into your drama either.
Eh, Carla’s been shown so far in the Ruthless arc to half-ass requests at first and then take it more seriously and have the long conversation anyways (that’s pretty much how the first check-in went), so I’m willing to hold out for a bit to see if patterns continue.
I do suspect I might be defending myself only to be proven wrong when Carla does do some extreme thing to check on Ruth next page, like duck taping a walky talky to a rock and throwing it through Ruths window.
Hey, it’s cool to have different levels of patience for this sort of thing. Just stating where I’m standing on the matter.
Or maybe she builds a drone with an LED display/marquee and flies it through her window via remote control.
She half-assess it at first because she’s a smartass and wants to make a point about how you can bug her to do something but you can’t make her do it well.
But then she’s a worrier and if she doesn’t check in properly it’s going to bug her, so she goes back and does it right (probably all the while grumbling about “FINE I guess I’ll do the right thing. This time. Because I feel like it, not cuz I’m like worried about her or anything.”)
Yup, that’s been her pattern so far.
If I was friends with the person that’s one thing. Did Carla and Ruth even talk before the Mary incident?
I don’t really think closeness is a factor here. To use an extreme, what if Ruth is seriously hurt, do you need to know someone to help them?
Then I would call an ambulance. I wouldn’t find a stranger and ask them to do it.
Carla’s a sophomore, and there seemed to be an implication early on (around the first hall meeting, I think?) that this is her second year in this hall, so she and Ruth have maybe lived together for a year already, or she already knew Ruth by reputation?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/morlock/
I will note the following things
A: Billie’s request was to check in on Ruth “from time to time”. That’s a super-vague timeframe.
B: Carla clearly expresses her reluctance and does not actually give explicit agreement.
C: It is currently fairly early morning on a Sunday, and Ruth and Carla talked just yesterday (see the strip just before the above link).
D: If Ruth isn’t responding to knocks on the door, Carla’s options are limited, and much further limited if she doesn’t want to potentially draw poor attention to herself and/or Ruth. Circling back later is pretty much the best option.
E: If I ask you for a ride tomorrow at 3:00, please don’t show up tomorrow at 2:00. 2:30 fine, 2:45 great, but at 2:00 I’m probably in the shower and you’ve just made the whole thing weird for me.
Exactemondo. Also, Carla could tell Billie what’s going on.
Why? Because Carla didn’t instantly buy in to the mindset of “Ruth, whom you mostly know as an aloof jerk, must be watched at all times for what may or may not be the tiniest sign that calamity, total and irreversible, is about to befall?” That’s requiring a bit much of anyone.
Well…you tried, Carla.
And before 8 AM, no less!
Make a dust cover for the book that says: DO WHATEVER THE HECK YOU WANT, YOU MOTHER-LOVING GODDESS
Special Kickstarter bonus sticker/magnet.
i like this idea
Oh boy. I got a bad feeling about whatever’s up with Ruth.
Maybe she crawled into the garbage chute and died! Y’know, like people do.
I suddenly got a weird flash of Ruth sitting naked in the centre of her room with a blanket around her shoulders as she drinks strong spirits and writes horribly maudlin and repetitive poetry about Billie and their relationship.
every october
everything suddenly changes
and changes
and changes
and ends up this
beautifully defiant
tapestry of oranges
reds
and yellows
and then it all falls off and dies.
*holds up (borrowed) lighter*
oh carla stop making me love you more
Based more on the comments than the story, I present:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXGooo11CLw
I must say, I am loving her outfit
Oh Carla. Though your extremely awesome day planner may try to deny it, you do care. No doubt I’ll be seeing you again tomorrow.
So, I wonder if that’s a Tandy Zoomer or a Casio Zoomer.
Pretty sure it’s a Ruttech Zoomer.
The text on the phone says Ruttech Zoomer.
oshit poor Ruth.
Done and done
Sometimes I feel like I’m overly pissy, then I remember that you guys exist!
I’m sorry that was mean
I feel like Carla would be good at making motivational calendars now.
Not a big fan of her unthorough check, big fan of her notes to self. Then again, Ruth technically isn’t her responsibility, so I guess it’s fine
Best to do list ever!!!
I see you drew the phone in hand twice instead of using the same one with different text. I assume drawing it twice is more work. I’m probably wrong, though.
Well if Ruth is dead or dying. Carla is will have quite an emotional backlash. amoung many other’s own backlashes.
hope not..
but..
trauma from the other universe holds true
A *proper* goddess would just breathe fire into her and resurrect her.
Carla is indeed a goddess, the end.
Hmm. I dunno, I always find it really weird when people call themselves goddesses. Some people use it as if it excuses all of their shitty behavior, past and future. Carla hasn’t done anything wrong, but… I dunno, I guess other people have ruined it for me.
What I will imagine your life is like from now on
Mwahahahaa! Once I have achieved godhood, none will stand in my way of universal domination! Not even you PumkinCake.
GALASSO WILL BE THE MOST SUPERLATIVE GODDESS THAT THIS PLANET HAS EVER SEEN!!
(What is a sex)
I would be laughing a lot more if my mind didn’t keep telling me that whatever condition Ruth is in on the other side of that door is probably bad.
“Knockity knock” – I love that even her knocks are flippant.
!!!!
Swipity swipe, slipity-slide, fuckity-fuck! W000000!!!
i can’t stress enough how cute Carla looks with her hair down
And what if Ruth is not alright?
Yeah I know, no trucks in the dorm.
She has been making an attempt to get out into the world, but still, she looked pretty damn bad last appearance.
Then Carla has a screaming fight with Becky after Ruth gets carted off to the ER. Later on, Amazi-Girl ends up talking her down off of the edge of the roof of the dorm, thus repaying the debt she owed the other girl for helping fix her head wound.
That’s an interesting character outfit for Carla, but I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere and I can’t quite place it…any idea what the inspiration was?
Willis put the character model for this costume on his Twitter feed and on his Tumblr page; you might remember it from there.
It looks a lot like something from the grunge era. The hat especially.
well its on the list soo…..
This is going to blow up in Carla’s face; it’s going to blow up in her face and her life probably will never be the same. She’ll tell herself that she doesn’t care but it’s still going to be something that haunts her and she’ll lose a bit of that sparkle.
You see, I think that Ruth is lying unconscious in her room having nearly drunk herself into a coma.
Calling this now, and that it will be the incident that ends up to her losing her position – to be replaced with someone even worse.
I’ve held steadfast to the theory that Ruth’s replacement is going to be Sarah.
Sarah’s a sophomore with a good GPA, she could use the financial support, and I can’t think of better training for a lawyer than having a bunch of losers come up to you with problems you don’t care about and demanding you solve them.
Also she won’t beat people up so she’s a marked improvement.
Ooooh! I’m in favour of that development.
She would be good at it, she wouldn’t have time for bullshit and she would be sufficiently scary without going to Ruth’s excesses.
And the irony of Sarah having to deal with people all day and actually be respected for it would be great.
Of course, Mary doesn’t have any dirt on Sarah. So, what little power she has on the floor will suddenly be lost. That could have its own strong effects on the storyline.
In fact Mary might approve of how Sarah handled her roommate problem. “You got rid of a substance using degenerate? Good for you!”
Oh man, that would be a rough moment for Sarah. “Oh… you approve of my actions… fuck, maybe Raidah was right.”
Since it would be immediately be followed by a request to get rid of the following list of degenerates that Sarah’s perfectly fine with, I doubt it would stick for long.
Could it still be a %#*~ing book title if you replaced the €£¥!!ed sweary bit with obfuscating punctuation? I find most cussing funnier that way anyway, $&@+ it.
Frets internally*
I’m missing her overalls already.
agreed. Never have a so wanted to be a piece of denim
How dare Carla express a character flaw.
Why isn’t she being a magical queer? My ability to sympathize with her is completely conditional to that!
+1
i dont know about you but my ability to sympathize with a character is based on their actions and not their identity
See that thin white contrail, etched in stark relief against the endless blue vault of the morning sky? See the bright spark of sunlight reflecting off polished aluminum at the tip of that ethereal spear, fleeting in its incredible motion? That’s the joke, way over your head.
Um, it seems that the joke actually went over *your* head, as the original comment was making fun of people that are annoyed with Carla.
What’s with the motherfucker shaming Willis? I’m a proud motherfucker, have been for years!
carla isnt a perfect angel, just like every single other character in this comic. i dont expect the commenters to react differently than they do with the other characters flaws. i do think carla shouldve actually checked up on her, since she even had it on a to-do list? but calling herself a goddess is perfectly fine
I suspect that she needs to talk herself ‘up’ some mornings.
Yeah, I guess I’m in the minority here on account of my frustration with Carla.
1. It seems that she just half-assed checking on Ruth because she’s too selfish to really care about an at-risk person. Maybe she’ll turn around in the upcoming days / minutes (in comic time), but for now she’s just being an asshole. There’s no point in being a “good person deep-down inside” if that doesn’t translate into good actions
2. I don’t care who you are, no one gets to think of themselves as a “goddess” or “god”. You’re a human being. You’re not more important than everyone else. Both throughout human history and amongst people I’ve met, those who have this attitude tend to do shitty things and not care
2. I don’t care who you are, no one gets to think of themselves as a “goddess” or “god”. You’re a human being.
What if God was one of us?
Pies the ones who make a fuss?
Checks on Ruthless if she must?
Checklist on her pink phone.
I like your cat. S/He looks like s/he needs a good petting.
Pffft that’s pretty clever actually 😂
I love it.
You’re not completely alone.
It’s more than a little frustrating to see Carla acting so self-centered here. I know it’s not exactly out of character for Carla to be more wrapped up in whatever she’s up to, but Ruth basically disrupted her whole life sticking up for Carla and it seems like that didn’t even earn Ruth a “Hey, knock knock, just wanted to make sure you haven’t OD’d”
I also don’t know how I feel about this whole reveal we’ve had in the last couple weeks that Carla’s basically a trust fund baby. As someone who’s had a lot of bad experiences with classism it makes it a lot harder to sympathize with her or see her as a victim when her family are a bunch of billionaires.
Ruth actually did jack to help Carla. She flew in like a savior and collapsed at the first opposition. She’s accomplished nothing for Carla. For all her good intentions, her personal failings have left her in the same place Carla expects authority figures to be – useless at best.
She may be trying to remedy that, but for the moment, Carla’s on her own. As she expects.
Well, technically, what seems to be a lot of people’s problems is that it has earned exactly a knock knock, making sure you didn’t OD and people are expecting more out of Carla because they understand exactly how bad Ruth is and many of us have had personal experiences surrounding friends or partners who’ve been in that bad state and we’re scared any time we see that closed and silent door standing in for Ruth because of what we fear is behind it (imaginations are butts sometimes).
That being said, Carla is Carla. I’d be a lot more worried, if she hadn’t done this “look at me not caring dancing away… okay, never mind, I’m here, but not because I care or anything” tsundere dance multiple times already. She wants to be the jerk who never gets tied down into other people’s problems, but she’s too good of a person to truly devote herself to making things worse like say Mike does or even to fully dump off things that were thrown on her shoulders with no warning (on that note, Billie kinda did a little bad on this one as throwing something as big as “make sure my friend doesn’t kill herself” is a heavy investment to throw on someone, especially when given as a “if you don’t, prolly no one will” thing. Like I get why she did it and the desperate awful situation she is in because Mary and because of Ruth’s self-destruction, but it’s not like Carla volunteered for this job off the bat).
Oh, side minor note, I’m a little wary of constructions wherein a marginalized group member owes a portion of their life to any ally who does the bare minimum on their regard a personal debt they then need to pay back to the ally. Especially given my own personal history. And that’s before even noting that the “help” Ruth gave was as thejeff notes, to basically dump the whole situation at her feet, say, handle it yourself, then attempt to victim blame her for it and then later try and use it as a cudgel to beat her own self with and dumped a whole bunch of emotional stuff on Carla. Like, Carla, despite her press, is a good person who’s been through this dance before, so she’s taking it all relatively in stride, but that’s not really the quality of “help” that should require some weird form of life debt as you’re suggesting here.
And as for classism. It’s her flaw. She’s a spoiled trust fund baby who actively outwardly plays up her insensitive asshole bits. As for your own experiences, I’m deeply sorry for them and offer these *hugs*. I can note that wealth only protects the marginalized to a certain degree. Like, note Caitlyn Jenner, there is a lot of transphobia and awfulness that her wealth straight up buys her out of having to deal with, but look to most reporting on Caitlyn Jenner to see how much it also doesn’t. Carla has money and family who love and support her, that’s an advantage few trans people have, but she’s still an 18 year old trans girl in a society where elected officials want to literally place bounties on the heads of trans people caught using the “wrong bathroom”.
One privilege, but not the other.
Yeah, I feel that part of Carla’s flippancy right now is that she kind of just got tossed into the Billie/Ruth drama without any context or explanation of how badly things have gotten, so she’s approaching it like she approaches everything; by being a butthole who loudly complains about all this stupid dumb nice person junk she very obviously would never willingly do.
I wrote a bit below about how I think Carla is being a jerk right now being so laissez-faire about Ruth right now, but as you and thejeff point out, Ruth did pretty terribly by Carla. Swooping in as a Big Bad Ruthless and immediately caving, blaming Carla for picking a fight and then using her guilt to beat herself up while Carla’s standing there wondering what the fuck is going on and waiting for her to knock it off, because she has better things to do than listen to Ruthless whine.
As for Carla and her wealth, I feel her bringing up her parents was a deliberate character beat and not just an off-hand explanation of where she got all of her wonderful toys. That Mary misgendering her did hurt her a lot more than she cared to admit, and she fell back on a support network she could rely on, and used them to strike back at Mary.
Why do i even bother — You’ve obviously never met the Kartrashians or most any other ‘celebrity’ in person, have you? There are exceptions, of course, but most celebrities don’t just think they are gods or goddesses, they *KNOW* that they are.
And why? Because people worship them, follow them on Twitter, keep the mags like “People” and “Us” and “Entertainment Weekly” and others too numerous to mention in business, and hang on every thing they do, every move they make, and every word they say.
“2. I don’t care who you are, no one gets to think of themselves as a “goddess” or “god”. You’re a human being. You’re not more important than everyone else. Both throughout human history and amongst people I’ve met, those who have this attitude tend to do shitty things and not care.”
OK, first of all, read Cerberus’ reply, and then I have the following to add:
As I have said before, Carla is used to severe hostility and hatred. Not for being a jerk, but simply for being Carla. She is used to people like Mary trying to put her down all the time. Or to put it in your words, she is used to people trying to make her feel LESS IMPORTANT than anyone else. Trying to make her stop being who she is. Trying to make her commit suicide.
Think about that for a moment. I mean, really, think about it. Sure, people like Mary will deny that last part, but you will see people trying to defend their attitude even in the face of facts on how LBGQT youth are thrown out of their homes, pestered, bullied, discriminated against. The overall message is one “You are not a full human being like us. Go away.” Eventually, when they have nowhere else to go, they go away from life itself. That is the consequence of letting people like Mary getting their way.
THAT is what people Mary (and Carol, and Toedad) ultimately creates with her hatred and hostility, and that is why they are so goddamn awful as they are. And that is also why I have plenty of contempt for people who think they can “be against marriage, but still be sad about the mass shooting in Florida”. It is like saying “I am against that ******* Rosa Parks sitting in the front of the bus, but they shouldn’t be lynched.” They do not understand that the more they spew out their vile bigotry, the more likely it is that eventually someone will take that one step further, and start lynching, or shooting up people; or that their kids will gladly bully their LBGQT classmates to a degree that can be likened to torture.
Carla calling herself a goddess is not simply about being an asshole. It is one of her coping mechanisms for dealing with this horrible, heinous, disgusting hostility she gets from being Carla. She actively denies to be put down by the scum of the earth, and instead choose to tell herself up as much as possible, refusing to act like a victim. And you know what? As someone who is checking off all the “correct” boxes in fitting into society, I say that if that is the worst Carla does (which it pretty much is), then for crying out loud, just let her do it! Heck, I will gladly applaud it, like I applauded Carla’s little hologram light show!
Now, I can admit that today’s strip shows is the worst side of Carla… Which, in full context, just shows how good a person she is. Her act of being a jerk is just that, an act. She happens to care about people, but she is also extremely guarded against appearing vulnerable, because she does not trust people in general to actually help her out (I trust you understand why by now). Ruth has not actually done much to help her out specifically; and certainly not in a way that would qualify her as a proper ally. Plus, Ruth is doing what she is doing right now as much for her own sake as anyone else’s. Carla has already gone way beyond what she has had to do, because really, the only thing she had to do was nothing. She could have just ignored Billie’s first request, she could have stopped talking to Ruth, she could have ignored Billie’s further requests… But she knows from the very second she is asked that she is going to say yes, so what is really going on in her brain is to figure out a way to accept it without appearing to be caring in any way.
And yes, if I was to do it like that, I would simply be a jerk. But Carla’s situation is not comparable at all to mine, so I cannot possibly sit here on my chair of so many privileges and condemn her for putting up her shield against the world. Because that would make me a true and utter asshole. Which I try not to be.
I got a bad feeling about this…
I’ve known WAY too many times that people have done what Carla is doing and it turned out that the person that they were to check on was in trouble or died.
Hope that this isn’t one of those times…
Carla’s entire DoA run so far has been her acting like a jerk for the first few (in-universe) minutes of a given appearance and then going waaay past what would be expected of most decent people and actually being one of the best people in the comic. She’ll be back.
And this cannot be stressed enough: It’s not even 8 goddamn am on a Sunday morning. I regularly slept until and past noon when I was in school if I didn’t have class in the morning.
Well… don’t stack THOSE books at childrens’ eye level then.
(I’m pretty sure it’s already been said, but there’s just SO many comments to go through and it needs to be said frequently: WRITE THE BOOK… stop making excuses like “I don’t want to put ‘motherfucking’ on a book at childrens’ eye level.)
i’m not sure what you’re upset about. the books are these comics, but tangible, so as long as the comics are being posted, he is writing the book. and he’s allowed to name it what he wants, what with it being his creation and all.
also, i’m not sure he has much of an option in terms of height anyway, since everything at cons is sold from child-height tables, and i imagine getting chewed out by an offended parent whose child learned a new word today is a fun con experience.
i am very tired and therefore grumpy and couldn’t let this go without responding. harrumph.
i write the book
I bet that you’re probably shaking your head that a totally random humorous remark is being taken with such total po-faced seriousness by so many, aren’t you?
Do we have a promise from Willis that no one will actually die in this comic? I suppose that does not exclude “permanent vegetative state”.
Not giving a shit about other people is not an endearing trait. Though this strip makes it all the more obvious that Carla and Malaya are made for each other. Marcie needs to find someone better. There’s no shortage of lesbians in this comic, it shouldn’t be too hard.
Except we’ve seen, again and again, that in Carla’s case, it’s a facade.
We saw her bandaging Amber up. We just saw her with Ruth a little while back, checking up on her for Billie, in the Story of How Carla Rutten scored Free Bonus Cookies. Except she didn’t, of course.
But sure, judge her on this one 30 second interval. That’s part of the problem with serialized webcomics, we hyperanalyze each strip, often losing the larger context of the characters.
Technically, if Ruth turned out to be dead or in a drunken haze or something, SOCIETY would judge her on this 30 second interval. I’d certainly never live with myself if I could’ve prevented something bad but figured it’ll all be fine even though literally the only other thing I had to do all day was “whatever I wanted you mother fucking GOD”.
That’s human nature isn’t it, to rip themselves about the small moments surrounding a tragedy and to find a way to blame themselves. Why did I choose to go into that nightclub, why didn’t I charge my phone when my friend was calling for help, why didn’t I check my messages religiously. Why didn’t I pick up that them saying they were feeling better was a red flag? Why didn’t I just stay the night?
We’re (ideally) caring empathetic creatures and we want to always be on and support our fellow man as best we can. But one of the darkest and cruelest lesson about being an emotional caretaker for a person or for a set of people is that you can’t be “on” 24/7. You’re going to slip up, you’re gonna say something wrong, you’re not going to be available during a crisis point, you’re gonna miss a red flag.
And you can’t just live 24/7 with the person who needs care (unless that is very specifically the role you have chosen and even then, it is best to have a separate caretaker as well so you can take breaks and thus not get broken by the weight of having to do that. And you have to live your life in the other moments and not let the fears of whether they’re alive or dead overwhelm you at all times (the majority of my friends have dealt with depression and suicidal ideation, so I know from experience having to constantly keep an eye out for that) and make their life more central than your own. Especially not when you’re a girl in college who’s gotten a suicide case dumped on her lap with some vague instructions on “checking up” on someone behind a locked door (does she even have her phone number, I genuinely forget) that you’ve had maybe two interactions with.
Would that mean she would be any less broken up or self-hating if Ruth was in a bad way in there and needed quick relief? Hell no. And I think the what-ifs will be drawing her back there fairly regularly this morning, because that’s the person Carla is, a worrier who’s got a secret soft spot.
Will this mean she won’t circle back and check and check? Will this mean she won’t have another heart-to-heart where she pretends she isn’t the big softy she is? No.
Which is to say in way too many words, yeah, society and Carla would judge her harshly. But they would to if she was lying in the bathtub from an attempt last night. We’re very good as a species at lamenting and assigning reason to these things and pinpointing the hindsight action and timing that would have prevented it far too late to help.
Honestly, I doubt SOCIETY would judge her at all. Or even know she was supposed to be checking up on her. Carla would judge herself, I’m sure, as Cerberus said and I’m sure she’ll come back around to check.
Society would however judge her if she panicked, called the cops, broke the door down or something else drastic, only to find Ruth just sleeping heavily or already out or something normal.
My book title vote goes to last comic’s “This Is The Most Wrong Thing I Have Ever Seen.”
…and people actually *like* this character somehow? >:/
Uh yeah duh. She’s awesome.
The thing that is irksome about Carla is that, if another character did this, they’d probably be rightfully seen as an asshole. But now with Carla I’ve developed something like PTSD. I CAN’T criticize her negligable behavior because Carla is a stand-in for all trans people, not just an asshole herself. I can’t even be charmed by what a conga she is like with Mike because when Mike’s a conga I can tell he’s a conga and that the humor comes from not liking him. Carla is so weirdly played straight and then played for sympathy that I can’t make a disconnect between either of those aspects to her character. Carla exists in a valley between sympathetic and played for comedy and the two aspects of her are so dimetricly opposed that I CAN’T enjoy her.
Your hypothetical, wherein someone with purportedly the same knowledge but is not Carla would be allowed different scrutiny is interesting to me, because we’ve actually had this before.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/warming/ — At the time, Billie already knew Ruth would drink herself into a depressive stupor, as she watched it from the closet.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/bongo/ — and here’s Billie, then specifically choosing not to care that Ruth has disappeared inside her room for days.
I had this exchange in mind when writing today’s strip because I wanted to avoid writing the same strip. Having someone pause in front of Ruth’s door, only choosing not to answer it is kind of a go-to thing at this point. It’s tread ground! The phone affirmation merely bookends nigh-identical information told.
That is one powerful filter you’ve got there, Willis, when it will even change the offending word when it appears as part of a URL.
durp
but it’s okay, i fixed it in the best way
Ha. The bongo filter is the gift that keeps on giving.
See, that’s the thing. The story isn’t telling me I need to sympathize with Billie nearly as much as Carla. The last panel screams “You go girl!”. With Billie it’s a negative “She shouldn’t have crossed me”. Billie is acting out of anger, not apathy.
But beyond that, I feel like the story was not framing Billie as someone I need to feel sorry for. If I said, “Wow, That’s a dick move, Billie” people probably wouldn’t call me homophobic or racist or anything. With Carla, the amount of leeway she’s given with her actions gives me this feeling like if I try to say anything negative about her, people will think it has something to do with her being trans. And because all of her actions get funneled through that so I can’t even normalize it to “Yeah, Carla’s an asshole”.
Well, Carla is an asshole. 😉
But I think I see what you are bumping up against and that’s the unfortunate context of how certain characters are treated by the audience. Like, Carla tends to get an outpouring of transphobic hate (and I don’t mean comments saying “I dislike this character” but like people Willis bans because they’re making transphobic slurs) whenever she appears, no matter what she does. Just recently, a whole mess of online TERFy types tried to argue that Carla was a violent man beating up on a weaker woman because a pie technically constituted assault.
And what this does, is create an unfortunate context where negative comments are given more focus and attention because of the established pattern of people arguing in bad faith (not to mention the way certain characters tend to be viewed negatively no matter what they do good or bad simply because of their statuses as marginalized individuals who have been victimized in some way and so their every action is held to a much higher standard than any other character).
And it means people are a bit more wary of negative comments because of that established animus and people are more likely to point out things like the disproportionate way certain characters are treated by the fans for similar actions.
Like, in your example, it’s noteworthy that in the two links provided, there’s only a single person (Mandiblebones in the second link) who brings up the idea that it’s a bit fucked to back away from investigating further. In this thread there’s a whole lot more people not only saying that but straight up saying that this is the big proof of what they’ve been saying about Carla being awful. Everyone has a right to dislike or be rubbed wrong by any character, regardless of reason but that is a noteworthy distinction inviting debate especially in the context of the hate the character draws for existing.
And I can most certainly understand your frustration. You dislike the character and your reasons are not bigoted, but you’re seeing that context of people being wary of the way certain characters are treated and it’s feeling like you’re being silenced. And that sucks.
But the reason people are looking askance has to do with the context of your surroundings and the behavior of those in the threads. No one would consider it potentially homophobic or racist if you called Billie a dick, but if every Billie appearance had a group of people ready to jump on every negative action of hers and there was a mass of people being banned because they were saying racist and biphobic things on every Billie appearance, then people would look twice.
That’s the important part though. I don’t dislike Carla. I honestly don’t. If I didn’t like a character simply because they’re an asshole then I wouldn’t like half of the characters I do like. But I like Carla purely as an awful person for the most part. I mean she’s had some good moments with Sal and Amber, but on the average she’s just kind of a dick and I’d rather see her like that and not care than how I feel being a jerk is something she’s earned or deserves, rather than just being an ass because she’s an ass.
I dunno, I guess it comes down to how we enjoy our jerkiness. Personally, I think Carla is a bit of a jerk, but her jerkiness and misanthropy makes sense from the internal motivations of the character and what she’s been through. And I see that as enriching the jerkiness in a way and making it more full.
And I think it was a change that largely needed to happen simply because assholes for asshole sake suffer a bit from being transposed into the more realistic DoA setting from the Walkyverse. But I can respect that that might not really the type of jerk that appeals to you.
Dude, it’s cool. You can hate Carla. If Carla being meh about Billie’s clear distress over Ruth’s safety bugs you, that’s fine. And, honestly, I do think the situation between Billie and Carla is hugely different, because Ruth straight up assaulted Billie numerous times. She doesn’t owe her shit, and Carla is someone who agreed to check up on Ruth and is just blowing it off. I’m convinced we see her loop back around to check, because I feel that’d be consistent with what we know of Carla, but it’s also a pretty crappy move of her to pull right now.
She’s being a turd. I’m fine thinking she’s being a turd, and also liking her for being a turd and also liking her for being more than just a turd because Carla’s displayed that she’s more than that. I like that she can both. It’s an important part of what makes her such a great character to me, that she isn’t the sum total of all trans people ever and she needs to be a magical queer,, and that she’s kind of an annoying jackass when she wants to be.
Use it as a book title, with Carla’s grinning face partially obscuring the last word! Because she just plain doesn’t give a poop about your fancy cover text, Mr. Willis 😀
(Sorry! Meant to leave this comment this morning, but had to rush off to the doctors.)
…Second to last word, that is. Ugh, exhausted tonight.
Naw, Carla’s already got Book 6’s title, it’s just a different title.
memo to self: start saving up now for Book 6 Kickstarter….
If Carla’s involved and A) grins, B) doesn’t give a poop, then all is forgiven 😀 …But she’d better outdo your Willisian avatar! I wanna see THREE thumbs up, minimum! Right, phone screen off, no more typing silly comments slightly under the influence of sleeping pills, and me actually going to sleep. An “alarm clock” with internet access has its drawbacks. Plus I’m too poor to actually buy your books so you can totally ignore any suggestions I make about them if you want 😀
I can’t judge Carla because:
* This isn’t her problem.
* She doesn’t know how serious the problem is.
* Ruth should be seeing professionals.
* Carla was dragged into the situation.
If anything happens to Ruth, it’s because of her depression and there’s not much Carla can do about that.
You all are making too much out of Ruth not answering the knock. She’s just down the hall in the showers after going for an early-morning run with Dorothy.
Don’t be silly. She and Amber are off getting counseling together.
I wish I had half of Carla’s Confidence.
Eh, Carla’s still the worst. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Are you referring to staking the books at children’s eye level at conventions?
I wouldn’t question the parenting style of a parent who would bring their child to a convention. That’d be a pretty badass parent TBH.
But considering the general attire, culture, and vernacular of convention attendees, I would question a parent who would bring their child to a con and then be squeamish about them seeing the word “motherfucking.”
Carla is an asshole and nobody’s victim. Which is good because Dorothy is boring as hell because of her flawlessness.
At least you didn’t call her a Mary Sue