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I’m surprised she remembers to call her Jennifer, but the “outing her relationship with the RA to the entire dorm” is one of those incidents that you’re going to remember for the rest of your life.
I suspect Carla is pretty attentive to calling people what they want to be called given she would have been deadnamed more than once when she began to transition. Unless of course she thinks they’re a real creep, like Mary.
And the government tried to keep her from being. https://www.dumbingofage.com/ding/
Carla making herself known is a middle-finger to the people who don’t want her to exist. It is a habit that’s backed by having wealthy parents who support her (and pay for lawyers). It also tends to keep people at arm’s length.
And, this is just a suspicion, Carla might be face blind, and being egocentric has functioned as a handy cover when she doesn’t recognize people or gets them mixed up.
sorry, couldn’t suppress etymology nerdery. Villain comes from a word meaning peasant or serf, who was obligated to work the land in a Villa. The opposite of rich and famous.
Anyone else find Jennifer super condescending here? Charlie is responsible for herself and doesn’t need to be treated like a baby because she’s neurodivergent, she doesn’t need to be “looked after”
at the very least, a college campus should be a safe place to ‘wander’, i tend to zone out too, try not to be airheaded when i’m crossing teh street but sometimes i do need friends to help me focus or cling onto/hold their hand lol. she seems unaffected though. guess we’ll have to wait til next strip to see if booster says anything about it
Totally, and the key word here is friends. If I was Charlie I imagine I might ask a close friend to help me with things I struggle with after disclosing my neurodivergence to them, but I certainly wouldn’t want classmates who I barely even know and I’m not friends with treating me like a little kid
If I’m remembering correctly within the last year someone tried to roofie Joyce, Beckie was kidnapped (several people were kidnapped, but Beckie is in the room so we’ll go with her), and Mike was pushed off a building.
Sounds perfectly safe! No bad people to worry about ’round these parts!
well if jennifer was concerned for those reasons, that’d be valid but it just seems so far like another day to day life of classes, unless charlie’s gotten caught up with something off screen we weren’t aware about (tho booster didn’t think she needed any special attention for now even if theywere having trouble tracking her down)
It’s a mix for me. Jen’s also the only one who bothered to learn her name which shows a level of caring no one else here displayed. Condescending and caring is kind of her thing.
Jennifer’s condescending to everyone. Her first comment here pretty much sums up her “ugh, woe is me, having to be responsible for everyone, hellllllooooo all you others, get on my level of role-model-goddess” shtick. But aside from that, based on that last strip, she literally caught Charlie walking AWAY from their class moments before it was going to start. So it actually does seem like Charlie *does* need some kind of help?
I’ve been holding back on commenting on Charlie until we know how exactly she is neurodivergent. Many have been assuming ADHD, but I don’t want to assume either way—I have ADHD, but would not want to comment on anything besides the disorder I actually have, and often times ADHD partners up with similar conditions.
That said, if she has ADHD and nothing else? From what we’re seen, she needs help. (Not Jennifer’s help, mind, but a professional’s.)
Well, she’s not as ‘social climbing’ as Raidah(?) but given the ‘head cheerleader’ vibes, other than it making her look better, you’d think she wouldn’t even bother unless charlie was known to be popular herself versus her helping out/befriending joyce because she (joyce) was gushing over how ‘cool’ jennifer was
Jennifer has always been like that, for better and for worse. She’s the one who best handles serious shit because she’s always expecting it, and HAS been there for people in that way, but she is also incredibly condescending as though everyone but her is so stupid that they’ll be assaulted at any time. It’s a very interesting mixture imo, and one of the only somewhat redeeming qualities she has.
Her strength/virtue is being protective, but she does it even if unwanted, and she acts as though it makes her superior and mature.
Hmm, so Jennifer not only knows Charlie’s name, but also evidently knows enough about her as a to be concerned when she’s left alone. Interesting.
Also WOW was her very first retroactively-tagged appearance a lot earlier than the one I was expecting. Kudos for that slipping under everyone’s noses.
I guess it partially helps that it’s clearly a different design than the final one, but even then she still very obviously resembles Booster. Surprised nobody caught it.
maybe she’s brought her into the class before? but assuming she’s grabbing her by the arm (hidden/can’t see so can’t tell for sure) hopefully she asked if it was ok before literally dragging her back
Looks more like hand behind the back to me, but there’s definitely some form of physical contact/guidance going on. “Literally dragging” is probably a little harsh for what’s going on.
It would be abelist but I point out there was a rapist knife-killer, a school shooting fundamentalist, and a goddamn supervillain gangster in recent months. Plus a doxxing bunch of fratbros.
i don’t know how much leslie has done but hopefully she’s set stuff up to accommodate more anxious students/others to feel safer within her class as well
though still some kinda ‘college’ version of a ‘buddy system’ might be helpful
I mean presumably if not for Jennifer she would have missed class
Plus given everything that’s happened in a short period on campus I’d be concerned letting someone who appears to be at the very least not very aware of their surroundings and easily distracted wander around alone
I don’t think anyone’s saying Jennifer shouldn’t have nudged her to come to class, it’s the part where she tells everyone else to watch after her in third person as if she’s a child that’s the issue. That’s where it goes from being helpful to being ableist
maybe they are taking time off if they mean literally home and not the shared dorm room with walky, unless booster has a ‘busy day’ with getting involved with ethan again
(sorry accidentally posted this as its own comment instead of a reply lol)
I was wondering reading down through, if anyone caught that. The way I read it is that Booster isn’t a student and simply brought the Nintendo to Charlie, and now they can go home!!
I’m not sure what’s so interesting about the phrasing. Booster was meeting their sister to return the Nintendo Handheld, and felt like they couldn’t just bail without getting it done. Seems pretty straightforward.
maybe they are taking time off if they mean literally home and not the shared dorm room with walky, unless booster has a ‘busy day’ with getting involved with ethan again
It must really say something about the rest of this circle of companions if Jennifer is the most considerate one among them to be the only one remembering a acquaintances name.
Reminder that this campus (and many irl college campuses!) has repeatedly been shown to be unsafe. Letting someone who isn’t aware of their surroundings just wander is risky at best.
I mean with Carla either she see through it right away unless she getting tons of attention I don’t think Radiah would be willing to let Carla be the center of the attention.
I find myself wondering what use class, or even college itself is to someone with such severe attention problems. But maybe Charlie usually takes medications that help her keep up, and has forgotten to do so today.
Also, the name Charlie reminds me of Flowers of Algernon.
It’s fine. One just gets a notetaker, records one’s classes, and replays the lectures at one’s own speed, afterward. Maybe several times, with lots of pause/rewind to make sure one has got the gist. Maybe one forms a very patient study group, to talk everything through, afterwards, once the conversation part of one’s brain warms up, once one is relaxed and comfortable with no time pressure.
One can even get untimed or take-home exams. One can dictate one’s exam answers, when necessary. One can have the exam questions presented to one in multiple formats — e.g., both as text and as speech — to assist with language processing and comprehension.
So long as one can eventually do the reading and write the papers, it’s perfectly cromulent to attend classes with a sensory processing delay.
School is for everyone who wants to use it. Everyone has a right to an education.
That’s one reason why, over here, attendance is not mandatory at lecture-type university courses. 100% of your grade comes from the exam; how you learn for the exam is your business, you’re an adult (because you suddenly magically became one when you left highschool).
If she does have ADHD, she very well may be able to hyper focus on the course content itself if she finds it interesting. This level of inattentive ADHD is basically my spouse’s life, and he’s just finishing up his doctorate. Spacy doesn’t mean unable to be a very effective academic.
Oh. Goody. Jennifer and Ruth are within interacting distance again. Yay
And poor Booster, getting dragged into -antics-. They’re going to spend the rest of their days walking around with that Nintendo under their arm. Cursed to roam forevermore.
Booster wants to return home to their dormitory after their quick task of returning Charlie’s (or possibly The Shared) Switch took longer than expected
Do they have to be vaguely aware of Charlie just because they shared a class? It’s easy enough to not notice someone if they don’t make themselves notable.
And honestly, from the look of it, Charlie probably keeps to herself and doesn’t do much to stand out. So she’s be particularly easy to not notice.
I’ve seen a few comments saying that it’s ableist to insinuate Charlie can’t be left by herself, but I don’t know man, she was so distracted that she missed people yelling at her and waving their hands in her face (mostly Carla). What happens to Charlie when there’s a real emergency and someone yells at her “you need to leave the building right now!” but she doesn’t parse it because she’s distracted?
And I say this as a distracted neurodivergent person myself. I have missed people talking to me when they’re in front of me. I have missed people saying my name until they repeat it louder several times. I have not seen very obvious objects in my path because they were not the thing I was focusing on. But it’s never been so bad that I miss a person waving their hands in my face.
These things come in degrees. It’s hard to tell if Jen is just being her usual insensitive self or happens to actually know Charlie’s situation pretty well. When I was much younger, I remember incidents where I would space out, find out I’d followed some random people, and barely remember how I got somewhere. It was like emerging from underwater and realizing I was in the wrong pool.
Oh, sure. Me, too. Like there were blank spaces in my perception of time. Folks would say I would just “disappear”. I didn’t disappear — I was just interested in something and didn’t notice that the group of people had continued on without me. Folks said I was wandering off. Who knows — perhaps I was.
The blank spaces still happen sometimes, but I use sense memory to piece together what’s recently happened even if I can’t actually recollect it happening. (E.G., “My hands ache, so I know I must have used them to close the garage door when I left.”) Often the memory of sound is a bit easier to piece together than visual recollection.
Like a tape with a time lag before the replay. Like a perceptual delay. It’s like being a detective into one’s own recent past, in the absence of reliable short-term memory. Figuring out what happened in one’s “absence”.
Seems like Dina might have had a similar situation, earlier in the strip, when she would follow along with a group of people, without fully grasping what was going on, and turn up in their company before they realized that she had accompanied them.
In a situation like this, it might be very helpful to have a “buddy” keeping tabs on a person and making sure that one gets to one’s classes. I think Jennifer might just be acting the “mom friend” because that’s what she does, not because of any particular type of assumption. Taking charge is just how Jennifer shows caring.
It’s good to have a buddy. Without one, it’s very easy to get lost. If Charlie acknowledges and accepts Jennifer’s “mother hen” wing-tucking, then I see no trouble.
In a situation like Charlie’s I’d probably want to get as many accommodations as possible. I got some pretty amazing academic help and accommodations, during my last few years of school. Almost felt like a cheat, to have so much support and leeway. But when life throws disadvantages and challenges at us, it is so important to take advantage of whatever access we can get.
Valid points. For the most part at least. I’m not too fond of the buddy thing myself, having negative experiences where it was used to constantly deny my autonomy. Not fun.
Yeah, agreed. It’s not ableist to give someone help in an area that they obviously need it. If Jennifer hadn’t shepherded Charlie in there, she’d still be wandering and getting distracted with thoughts about marine wildlife and whatnot.
I have literally had to wake my spouse up during the middle of the night because he was happily sleeping through the fire alarm that I find pain-inducing-ly loud. And like, yeah, he’s my spouse, so it’s different, but if I saw another random person clearly in need of assistance, I wouldn’t leave ’em. Obviously, it’s better to wait until someone asks for assistance, but (as with this example) that’s simply not always possible. With inattentive types, they frequently can’t ask for help, because they aren’t attentive to the fact that things are going/about to go wrong. Reciprocally, (I have AuDHD), my spouse stopped me from walking directly into the path of an oncoming bicycle. So it goes both ways. XD
I think the main reason people (including myself) are thinking it’s ableism is because aside from knowing Charlie’s name, we have no idea what the relationship is between Charlie and Jennifer. Have they been acquainted somehow? Are they like, friends in the classroom? Or is Jennifer just assuming Charlie is an invalid because she found her spacing out in the hallway?
Especially keeping in mind some of the language Jennifer used when talking to Joyce about autism ( https://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2022-06-23-prettysolidevidence.png ) ( https://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2022-06-24-lessreal.png ) then I think it’s pretty likely that Jennifer is a little ableist. In a very well-meaning way, but still kinda… you know? Especially with the language here, talking about Charlie in that first panel as if she is a wayward child or pet. We’ll see what happens but eh, that’s my reasoning for why when I read Jennifer’s lines in this strip, my nose crinkled.
There might be some underlying crumminess, but maybe if we see more of the scene, we’ll get a better understanding of Jennifer’s intentions here (we literally only have one panel of information about Billie and Charlie’s relationship to each other (Billie found Charlie outside and seems to know she (Charlie) wanders)).
That said, I sure coulda used more wrangling as a youth. Might have actually gotten someplace by now, even. Maybe Charlie appreciates it, we don’t know.
at this point we don’t know if Charlie needs the sort of accommodation of needing an escort between classes. I don’t blame people for jumping to “ableism” conclusion since our source is Billie; it just wasn’t my first thought
It’s only been a couple of weeks for this semester so far, right? Most of my college classes I didn’t learn everybody’s name. For instance my Calculus class I hardly knew anybody because the professor would just stand in front of the class and drone on and on. Chem 101 I knew everybody in my lab section, but the only people in the lecture section that I knew were the ones in my lab. The Chem teacher was one of the fun professors though, he was a lot like TV Dad, Reginald VelJohnson. No puppies though.
Yeah, it’s not really weird to be unaware of classmates’ names, although it is perhaps weird that nobody who saw Charlie connected the dots when Booster brought her up. (but then that might’ve happened mostly as a punchline for the previous comic)
No, but we’re not talking the whole school, we’re talking the handful of students in Leslie’s class. It’s not a big class and it’s discussion focused, so you interact with the other students.
OTOH, Charlie may well not participate a lot, if she’s normally like what we’ve seen of her. If Leslie’s aware of that and doesn’t push to get her attention and make her respond, she’s probably less likely to be known than others in the class.
I couldn’t tell you the names of anyone I ever shared a class with who wasn’t already at least an acquaintance before the school year started. They may as well have been grey blobs, for how little they registered.
And like, all three of these redheads are fairly self-absorbed, what with them all being t**ns.
If you let her know that, you think the answer will be anything other than “I will fucking increase the fucking thing .jpg”?
Carla has shown repeatedly she doesn’t mind driving a hundred people away by annoying them as much as possible to find one who would up with her. Indeed, that she enjoys it.
Ngl, I very much enjoy this take. As much as I like Carla’s crisis over Charlie’s absolute ambivalence, I feel bad for Charlie because she probably doesn’t mean it and Carla is a vindictive asshole. I want someone to *intentionally* tear Carla down with her own selfishness and entitlement.
Although maybe that’s Charlie’s long-game. That could be fun.
I actually really love how much Booster & Charlie look both pretty similar and pretty different. They’re easy to tell apart if you’re paying attention, but they do, in fact, have very similar features. It has that weird realism of twins.
Charlie’s first appearance was 4 months before her official first appearance. (https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/charlie/)
I wonder how long Willis has though about insert a new character in history.
They have to keep it vague so that the game system can be the Switch, or whatever Nintendo console comes out next, and still be relevant. They’re already working on their next system, so sooner or later calling it a “Switch” will be outdated.
It’s in Douglas Sutherland’s “The English Gentleman” – stated something along the lines of “a gentleman always takes care to get an acquaintance’s name right – unless he wishes to insult him, in which case he will always get it wrong.”
Tho maybe more insulting to not remember at all lol
(but a shame ppl take it personally when not on purpose, one time i moved and a former classmate of mine happened to go to the same school again and i didn’t remember his name but he was a dick to me for the rest of the year because of it)
I’m almost sure it’s just because it was Charlie’s turn to have the Nintendo and they’ve been looking for her all day (maybe more like 30 minutes) in order to hand it over and they want back to the dorm.
Trans folks do tend to get more practice with handling name changes than some others do. One of my friends has changed names three times to find something that really fits him, though this current one seems to be doing the trick.
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
Booster is implied to be AMAB, based on roommate assignments and Joyce’s ignorance. Charlie and Booster look almost completely alike, including traits such as:
Hair color
Height
Similar face shape
Their differences:
Charlie has a more rounded face (this can happen with HRT)
Charlie has boobs, Booster does not (Booster may have had top surgery or wear a binder, though)
I notice Booster didn’t confirm or deny thar they’re fraternal twins. You lost me on that last part, though. If they’re identical twins and Charlie is a trans woman then they’re both amab. Booster never had boobs, Charlie has them because of HRT.
Well, I’m saying if they’re both identical and Charlie is a cis woman, Booster would have yeeted their mammaries or is binding. I think that’s the more likely scenario, but I’m honestly not sure.
Carla’s on the girls’ side of the dorm though, the university clearly acknowledges gender identity in room assignments. Granted as Booster is non-binary it is plausible that they defaulted to their birth-assigned gender when it came to roommates, but it doesn’t seem like conclusive evidence on the subject.
Especially since Booster has a roommate. I think their old roommate was probably one of the famous douches. Mary isn’t in the contending since her roommate was Roz. But Peter or Ryan definitely are in the contending since we don’t know who their roommates are. It’s possible the roommate could be a side note or be introduced later as douche bazooka #4.
(The relevance of Booster having a roommate is that Carla doesn’t have one and it’s implied that it’s because she is trans. They probably put it as a suggestion and Carla was probably on board because she’d be like “fuck yeah I get my own room”.)
I just assumed the real reason Carla has her own room is because her rich parents hooked her up, with her being Trans as a convenient excuse for what she wanted anyway.
Nobody has tapdanced on-panel in a little straw hat, twirled a cane, sang the phrase “Booster and Charlie are fraternal twins”, and then danced back off-panel while extending their arms and wiggling their fingers really fast, no. Booster said they’re twins yesterday and the word “fraternal” was spoken, and that’s about as far as that’s gone at the moment.
I find the fact that fraternal was spoken yesterday, but then Booster neither confirmed nor denied that a strong indication that they are perhaps identical.
They’re certainly twins but it hasn’t been confirmed that they’re fraternal twins. They appear to have different agab but one or both of them may have medically transitioned, as someone above points out.
For those who can’t be arsed to read the previous two strips Booster’s been in, one of which is from yesterday, they’re returning a Nintendo console (timeline blah blah blah) to their twin sister, Charlie. You can tell they’re twins because they look the fucking same and Booster has repeatedly referred to her with the words “my twin sister”.
The reason Booster is here (and not in their room) is that Charlie asked for her Nintendo back, and they’re giving it to her. We know this because it was stated explicitly, via the sentence “My sister wants the Nintendo back early”. They also appear to be looking directly at Charlie when they address her by name and ask her to take back the Nintendo.
All in all, this situation seems incredibly ambiguous to me. It’s really hard to tell what’s going on, but I think I have a plausible theory going, here.
But that leaves us with this “Jennifer” character showing up??!? is she anyone, do you have an explanation or are we supposed to take wild guesses here, this whole scene is so obscure and random
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half surprised Carla remembers Jennifer
Only as long as she wants something from her.
She had to briefly be one of Ruth and Billie/Jennifer’s secret keepers, so it makes sense.
I’m surprised she remembers to call her Jennifer, but the “outing her relationship with the RA to the entire dorm” is one of those incidents that you’re going to remember for the rest of your life.
I suspect Carla is pretty attentive to calling people what they want to be called given she would have been deadnamed more than once when she began to transition. Unless of course she thinks they’re a real creep, like Mary.
That’s a really good connection I hadn’t thought about
Yeah, I was just thinking this as I read the final two panels. At first it seemed out of character for Carla, but then I reconsidered.
Well, she used to be Billie, and girls with boy names are hot.
Yeah, but Jennifer’s not a “boy” name
Jennifer used to be Billie. She thinks Girls with boys names are hot, I hear.
funny thing is I just realised I’ve read this comic for so long that I’d forgotten “Billy” is (also) a boy’s name XD
Ok Jennifer gets points for that one
Right? Carla walked into it after having it explained to her. The troll gets trolled.
But- but why would anyone ever wish to spurn Carla??
Maybe Jennifer’s still holding a grudge at Carla for outing Ruth?
Entertainment value?
Because they’ve met her :v
To be fair, the only way Carla could have anticipated this outcome is by trying to imagine what someone else is thinking.
Carla is literally Willis’s cat!!!!
Oooo finally Booster and Charlie in the same room on-screen!
This is Carla’s villain origin story.
i mean surprised she wouldn’t have more of a villain origin story earlier from getting dragged into ruth & jen/billie’s ‘suicide pact’ lol
She’s not a villain already?
more-so a shit stirrer or just someone chaotic. tho she seems to wnat more attention than just causing chaos for the heck of it
Yeah, I thought her villain origin story was that she was from a rich and famous family.
And the government tried to keep her from being. https://www.dumbingofage.com/ding/
Carla making herself known is a middle-finger to the people who don’t want her to exist. It is a habit that’s backed by having wealthy parents who support her (and pay for lawyers). It also tends to keep people at arm’s length.
And, this is just a suspicion, Carla might be face blind, and being egocentric has functioned as a handy cover when she doesn’t recognize people or gets them mixed up.
sorry, couldn’t suppress etymology nerdery. Villain comes from a word meaning peasant or serf, who was obligated to work the land in a Villa. The opposite of rich and famous.
Villain is when loud
Yeah that checks out
haha, got ‘er. Nice one Jennifer Billingsworth
Alright, that’s probably the longest it’s taken for a character to get tags, since she first appeared… Back in 2021 apparently. Huh.
idk, “Sue” took a while to show up, even after getting named
… And who is Sue, again?
a T-Rex.
Oh come on, Carla, you’re a troll extraordinaire, you must realize you GAVE her that one.
Why do you think she looks so annoyed to have to introduce herself?
Anyone else find Jennifer super condescending here? Charlie is responsible for herself and doesn’t need to be treated like a baby because she’s neurodivergent, she doesn’t need to be “looked after”
Thank goodness, I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought so
Yeah that was my first thought too. Did Charlie ask for help?
at the very least, a college campus should be a safe place to ‘wander’, i tend to zone out too, try not to be airheaded when i’m crossing teh street but sometimes i do need friends to help me focus or cling onto/hold their hand lol. she seems unaffected though. guess we’ll have to wait til next strip to see if booster says anything about it
Totally, and the key word here is friends. If I was Charlie I imagine I might ask a close friend to help me with things I struggle with after disclosing my neurodivergence to them, but I certainly wouldn’t want classmates who I barely even know and I’m not friends with treating me like a little kid
“Hey, Charlie, class is starting.” Oh! the indignity!
There’s a difference between giving her a heads up class is starting and ‘don’t let her wander around on her own’ like you’re her minder.
If I’m remembering correctly within the last year someone tried to roofie Joyce, Beckie was kidnapped (several people were kidnapped, but Beckie is in the room so we’ll go with her), and Mike was pushed off a building.
Sounds perfectly safe! No bad people to worry about ’round these parts!
well if jennifer was concerned for those reasons, that’d be valid but it just seems so far like another day to day life of classes, unless charlie’s gotten caught up with something off screen we weren’t aware about (tho booster didn’t think she needed any special attention for now even if theywere having trouble tracking her down)
It’s a mix for me. Jen’s also the only one who bothered to learn her name which shows a level of caring no one else here displayed. Condescending and caring is kind of her thing.
it’s worth noting that jennifer has done that to, like, half the cast.
It’s nice that she helps people when others don’t, but yeah I definitely find Jennifer really condescending at times.
Jennifer’s condescending to everyone. Her first comment here pretty much sums up her “ugh, woe is me, having to be responsible for everyone, hellllllooooo all you others, get on my level of role-model-goddess” shtick. But aside from that, based on that last strip, she literally caught Charlie walking AWAY from their class moments before it was going to start. So it actually does seem like Charlie *does* need some kind of help?
I’ve been holding back on commenting on Charlie until we know how exactly she is neurodivergent. Many have been assuming ADHD, but I don’t want to assume either way—I have ADHD, but would not want to comment on anything besides the disorder I actually have, and often times ADHD partners up with similar conditions.
That said, if she has ADHD and nothing else? From what we’re seen, she needs help. (Not Jennifer’s help, mind, but a professional’s.)
Yeah, we haven’t seen a lot of her yet, so it’s hard to say, but given what we’ve seen, it’s not unreasonable to think she needs some help.
Cheerleader, problem solver, … just Billie’s old schtick in new Jennifer form.
Well, she’s not as ‘social climbing’ as Raidah(?) but given the ‘head cheerleader’ vibes, other than it making her look better, you’d think she wouldn’t even bother unless charlie was known to be popular herself versus her helping out/befriending joyce because she (joyce) was gushing over how ‘cool’ jennifer was
I think Jen is actually more compassionate than just doing it for points.
Jennifer’s super ableist, so this tracks.
I mean, super condescending is pretty much how Jennifer always acts, so this didn’t strike me as particularly odd for her.
Jennifer has always been like that, for better and for worse. She’s the one who best handles serious shit because she’s always expecting it, and HAS been there for people in that way, but she is also incredibly condescending as though everyone but her is so stupid that they’ll be assaulted at any time. It’s a very interesting mixture imo, and one of the only somewhat redeeming qualities she has.
Her strength/virtue is being protective, but she does it even if unwanted, and she acts as though it makes her superior and mature.
DOCTOR SCOTT!
Now I’m picturing a young Carla watching that movie and just shouting her name between every other name in the scene.
Interesting… now that she’s tagged we can see how far back she made her first appearance. (Including in the background of one of Leslie’s classes.)
It looks like Willis missed tagging her for last Sunday (4/23/2023).
Hmm, so Jennifer not only knows Charlie’s name, but also evidently knows enough about her as a to be concerned when she’s left alone. Interesting.
Also WOW was her very first retroactively-tagged appearance a lot earlier than the one I was expecting. Kudos for that slipping under everyone’s noses.
I’m curious if anyone noticed before now.
Doesn’t seem like it.
Also that “default doodle for Book 12” poll really needs a Liz option. Frankly I would’ve thought she was a shoo-in!
I guess it partially helps that it’s clearly a different design than the final one, but even then she still very obviously resembles Booster. Surprised nobody caught it.
Willis has traditionally done that… remember Sal?
Why can’t Charlie be left to wander by herself?
Insidious ableism.
Jennifer is incredibly ableist, but this is honestly one of those times where we need more information.
Or maybe we don’t, because Jennifer is incredibly ableist.
Interferes with scheduled events like classes and affects her overall performance? Some people need a little extra wrangling, it’s cool.
maybe she’s brought her into the class before? but assuming she’s grabbing her by the arm (hidden/can’t see so can’t tell for sure) hopefully she asked if it was ok before literally dragging her back
Looks more like hand behind the back to me, but there’s definitely some form of physical contact/guidance going on. “Literally dragging” is probably a little harsh for what’s going on.
Yeah but all forms of physical contact are against the law in the comic’s setting. Billie is committing a felony.
that was a pretty and sick burn
Was it?
Because Jennifer is a busy body who feels morally superior from helping people while being unintentionally ableist and infantilizing
It would be abelist but I point out there was a rapist knife-killer, a school shooting fundamentalist, and a goddamn supervillain gangster in recent months. Plus a doxxing bunch of fratbros.
All in like two months.
i don’t know how much leslie has done but hopefully she’s set stuff up to accommodate more anxious students/others to feel safer within her class as well
though still some kinda ‘college’ version of a ‘buddy system’ might be helpful
Still abelism, because we know Jennifer has really shitty views on the disabled not mattering.
I mean presumably if not for Jennifer she would have missed class
Plus given everything that’s happened in a short period on campus I’d be concerned letting someone who appears to be at the very least not very aware of their surroundings and easily distracted wander around alone
I don’t think anyone’s saying Jennifer shouldn’t have nudged her to come to class, it’s the part where she tells everyone else to watch after her in third person as if she’s a child that’s the issue. That’s where it goes from being helpful to being ableist
Why presumably? She’s made every class so far.
Or she’s not actually registered student, and while Leslie might let that be, some one else might not.
Just a possible alternative
No Cheetos though. That’s a mission fail.
This CARLA runs over your dogma
Jennifer you have made a powerful enemy today.
pretty sure she would’ve already considered them enemies if not bothering to talk to her otherwise after ruths intial hospitalization
“so i can finally return home” why are they phrasing it like they need her to break the curse that a witch placed on them
I’m interested in that line too. It’s pretty cryptic.
The switch is like a genie bottle, it bounds them to this realm against their will
maybe they are taking time off if they mean literally home and not the shared dorm room with walky, unless booster has a ‘busy day’ with getting involved with ethan again
(sorry accidentally posted this as its own comment instead of a reply lol)
my thoughts exactly.
Because Booster.
Siblings can tend to be overdramatic about how much they’re being inconvenienced.
that’s when i just start throwing the thing at my brother’s head, tbh
MUST GO MY PLANET NEEDS ME
I was wondering reading down through, if anyone caught that. The way I read it is that Booster isn’t a student and simply brought the Nintendo to Charlie, and now they can go home!!
If Booster isn’t a student, why would they be sharing a room with Walky?
I’m not sure what’s so interesting about the phrasing. Booster was meeting their sister to return the Nintendo Handheld, and felt like they couldn’t just bail without getting it done. Seems pretty straightforward.
First thing Jennifer’s done in a long time to remind me why I love her.
Has she been there this entire time?
maybe they are taking time off if they mean literally home and not the shared dorm room with walky, unless booster has a ‘busy day’ with getting involved with ethan again
It must really say something about the rest of this circle of companions if Jennifer is the most considerate one among them to be the only one remembering a acquaintances name.
Don’t think it’s really a matter of remembering – no reason to think any of the others have ever heard it.
mission-2 still missing charlie’s tag
Jeez. Somebody should start calling Jennifer “Billie”, just so she gets how that sort of thing feels!
Y’know, for ‘spurning purposes’!
Also, “Hello Charlie! Welcome to the asylum!”
I note a missing retrotag …
https://www.dumbingofage.com/mission-2/
Reminder that this campus (and many irl college campuses!) has repeatedly been shown to be unsafe. Letting someone who isn’t aware of their surroundings just wander is risky at best.
Charlie is an adult who takes college classes. You do not “let” adults wander or “not let” them wander. Because adults are adults.
Note that Carla is one of the billionaire contacts that Jennifer and raidah actually SHOULD be making.
I mean with Carla either she see through it right away unless she getting tons of attention I don’t think Radiah would be willing to let Carla be the center of the attention.
Add a few censor bars for strong cusses and Jennifer is basically Julie Powers here.
HOLY CRAP YOU’RE RIGHT
Hacked muzak: “You know my name”-Chris Cornell… am I doing this right?
But why is familial banishment tied to who may or may not possess the Nintendo?
Their dorm room is their home. They have to return the Nintendo because Charlie asked for it back early.
I find myself wondering what use class, or even college itself is to someone with such severe attention problems. But maybe Charlie usually takes medications that help her keep up, and has forgotten to do so today.
Also, the name Charlie reminds me of Flowers of Algernon.
It’s fine. One just gets a notetaker, records one’s classes, and replays the lectures at one’s own speed, afterward. Maybe several times, with lots of pause/rewind to make sure one has got the gist. Maybe one forms a very patient study group, to talk everything through, afterwards, once the conversation part of one’s brain warms up, once one is relaxed and comfortable with no time pressure.
One can even get untimed or take-home exams. One can dictate one’s exam answers, when necessary. One can have the exam questions presented to one in multiple formats — e.g., both as text and as speech — to assist with language processing and comprehension.
So long as one can eventually do the reading and write the papers, it’s perfectly cromulent to attend classes with a sensory processing delay.
School is for everyone who wants to use it. Everyone has a right to an education.
I graduated, with similar difficulties.
That’s one reason why, over here, attendance is not mandatory at lecture-type university courses. 100% of your grade comes from the exam; how you learn for the exam is your business, you’re an adult (because you suddenly magically became one when you left highschool).
Flowers for Algernon!!
I haven’t seen that one, does Algernon ever get the flowers?
After a fashion.
Algernon gets a fashion, too? Good gravy, how many things are they givin’ this Algernon person?
Or you could read the book. The movie was named _Charly_.
If she does have ADHD, she very well may be able to hyper focus on the course content itself if she finds it interesting. This level of inattentive ADHD is basically my spouse’s life, and he’s just finishing up his doctorate. Spacy doesn’t mean unable to be a very effective academic.
Oh. Goody. Jennifer and Ruth are within interacting distance again. Yay
And poor Booster, getting dragged into -antics-. They’re going to spend the rest of their days walking around with that Nintendo under their arm. Cursed to roam forevermore.
“And did she ever return? No she never returned, and her fate is still unlearned”
Booster wants to return home to their dormitory after their quick task of returning Charlie’s (or possibly The Shared) Switch took longer than expected
When did it become everyone else’s responsibility to babysit Booster’s sibling they’ve literally never known about until now?
I mean they’ve shared a class since the start of the current semester, they have to have been at least vaguely aware of Charlie
And Jennifer’s dialogue implies something like this has happened at least once before
I thin it’s possible that Charlie lives in the same hall as Jennifer, too – Charlie may be a known quantity outside of class, too.
Do they have to be vaguely aware of Charlie just because they shared a class? It’s easy enough to not notice someone if they don’t make themselves notable.
And honestly, from the look of it, Charlie probably keeps to herself and doesn’t do much to stand out. So she’s be particularly easy to not notice.
I’ve seen a few comments saying that it’s ableist to insinuate Charlie can’t be left by herself, but I don’t know man, she was so distracted that she missed people yelling at her and waving their hands in her face (mostly Carla). What happens to Charlie when there’s a real emergency and someone yells at her “you need to leave the building right now!” but she doesn’t parse it because she’s distracted?
And I say this as a distracted neurodivergent person myself. I have missed people talking to me when they’re in front of me. I have missed people saying my name until they repeat it louder several times. I have not seen very obvious objects in my path because they were not the thing I was focusing on. But it’s never been so bad that I miss a person waving their hands in my face.
These things come in degrees. It’s hard to tell if Jen is just being her usual insensitive self or happens to actually know Charlie’s situation pretty well. When I was much younger, I remember incidents where I would space out, find out I’d followed some random people, and barely remember how I got somewhere. It was like emerging from underwater and realizing I was in the wrong pool.
Oh, sure. Me, too. Like there were blank spaces in my perception of time. Folks would say I would just “disappear”. I didn’t disappear — I was just interested in something and didn’t notice that the group of people had continued on without me. Folks said I was wandering off. Who knows — perhaps I was.
The blank spaces still happen sometimes, but I use sense memory to piece together what’s recently happened even if I can’t actually recollect it happening. (E.G., “My hands ache, so I know I must have used them to close the garage door when I left.”) Often the memory of sound is a bit easier to piece together than visual recollection.
Like a tape with a time lag before the replay. Like a perceptual delay. It’s like being a detective into one’s own recent past, in the absence of reliable short-term memory. Figuring out what happened in one’s “absence”.
Seems like Dina might have had a similar situation, earlier in the strip, when she would follow along with a group of people, without fully grasping what was going on, and turn up in their company before they realized that she had accompanied them.
In a situation like this, it might be very helpful to have a “buddy” keeping tabs on a person and making sure that one gets to one’s classes. I think Jennifer might just be acting the “mom friend” because that’s what she does, not because of any particular type of assumption. Taking charge is just how Jennifer shows caring.
It’s good to have a buddy. Without one, it’s very easy to get lost. If Charlie acknowledges and accepts Jennifer’s “mother hen” wing-tucking, then I see no trouble.
In a situation like Charlie’s I’d probably want to get as many accommodations as possible. I got some pretty amazing academic help and accommodations, during my last few years of school. Almost felt like a cheat, to have so much support and leeway. But when life throws disadvantages and challenges at us, it is so important to take advantage of whatever access we can get.
Valid points. For the most part at least. I’m not too fond of the buddy thing myself, having negative experiences where it was used to constantly deny my autonomy. Not fun.
I am so sorry that happened to you, NG.
S*** sucks sometimes, yo.
Hey, I shot you a link for Djamaste on the last page. Sorry it came late.
No worries perfect timing actually, also thank you for being so supportive! 🥲
Right after a long walk to be enjoyed with one of my fav comfort foods — curry burger with toasted bun, caramelized onion, wasabi and mustard.
Yum, that burger sounds wonderful! :-9
So glad the “djam” was useful to you.
Hope you have a great day!
Also this Djamaste mix sounds absolutely wonderful, perfect and serene 🥰
(also hey, it includes “Maenam” by Jami Sieber, also one of my all time favorite songs. huh. small world)
i agrée it’s odd for people to be assuming ableism. for some people, it is dangerous to leave them wandering alone.
Yeah, agreed. It’s not ableist to give someone help in an area that they obviously need it. If Jennifer hadn’t shepherded Charlie in there, she’d still be wandering and getting distracted with thoughts about marine wildlife and whatnot.
I have literally had to wake my spouse up during the middle of the night because he was happily sleeping through the fire alarm that I find pain-inducing-ly loud. And like, yeah, he’s my spouse, so it’s different, but if I saw another random person clearly in need of assistance, I wouldn’t leave ’em. Obviously, it’s better to wait until someone asks for assistance, but (as with this example) that’s simply not always possible. With inattentive types, they frequently can’t ask for help, because they aren’t attentive to the fact that things are going/about to go wrong. Reciprocally, (I have AuDHD), my spouse stopped me from walking directly into the path of an oncoming bicycle. So it goes both ways. XD
I think the main reason people (including myself) are thinking it’s ableism is because aside from knowing Charlie’s name, we have no idea what the relationship is between Charlie and Jennifer. Have they been acquainted somehow? Are they like, friends in the classroom? Or is Jennifer just assuming Charlie is an invalid because she found her spacing out in the hallway?
Especially keeping in mind some of the language Jennifer used when talking to Joyce about autism ( https://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2022-06-23-prettysolidevidence.png ) ( https://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2022-06-24-lessreal.png ) then I think it’s pretty likely that Jennifer is a little ableist. In a very well-meaning way, but still kinda… you know? Especially with the language here, talking about Charlie in that first panel as if she is a wayward child or pet. We’ll see what happens but eh, that’s my reasoning for why when I read Jennifer’s lines in this strip, my nose crinkled.
There might be some underlying crumminess, but maybe if we see more of the scene, we’ll get a better understanding of Jennifer’s intentions here (we literally only have one panel of information about Billie and Charlie’s relationship to each other (Billie found Charlie outside and seems to know she (Charlie) wanders)).
That said, I sure coulda used more wrangling as a youth. Might have actually gotten someplace by now, even. Maybe Charlie appreciates it, we don’t know.
I love everyone going “but what about x situation? Would it be okay to treat Charlie like this then?”
And, I dunno, maybe, but I note a current lack of deadly fires or rampaging dads. What’s okay in an extreme situation doesn’t need to be the default.
And Charlie as far as we can tell has gotten herself to class fine up til now, so.
at this point we don’t know if Charlie needs the sort of accommodation of needing an escort between classes. I don’t blame people for jumping to “ableism” conclusion since our source is Billie; it just wasn’t my first thought
It’s only been a couple of weeks for this semester so far, right? Most of my college classes I didn’t learn everybody’s name. For instance my Calculus class I hardly knew anybody because the professor would just stand in front of the class and drone on and on. Chem 101 I knew everybody in my lab section, but the only people in the lecture section that I knew were the ones in my lab. The Chem teacher was one of the fun professors though, he was a lot like TV Dad, Reginald VelJohnson. No puppies though.
Man, I took Chem 101 in 1979, ten years before Family Matters came out. I’M NOT OLD, YOU GUYS ARE TOO YOUNG!!!
Yeah, it’s not really weird to be unaware of classmates’ names, although it is perhaps weird that nobody who saw Charlie connected the dots when Booster brought her up. (but then that might’ve happened mostly as a punchline for the previous comic)
There’s upward of 30,000 students at IU in Bloomington alone. Nobody is going to know everybody.
No, but we’re not talking the whole school, we’re talking the handful of students in Leslie’s class. It’s not a big class and it’s discussion focused, so you interact with the other students.
OTOH, Charlie may well not participate a lot, if she’s normally like what we’ve seen of her. If Leslie’s aware of that and doesn’t push to get her attention and make her respond, she’s probably less likely to be known than others in the class.
I couldn’t tell you the names of anyone I ever shared a class with who wasn’t already at least an acquaintance before the school year started. They may as well have been grey blobs, for how little they registered.
And like, all three of these redheads are fairly self-absorbed, what with them all being t**ns.
#spurned lol
Just fuck off Carla, I’m so tired of her bullshit schtick
If you let her know that, you think the answer will be anything other than “I will fucking increase the fucking thing .jpg”?
Carla has shown repeatedly she doesn’t mind driving a hundred people away by annoying them as much as possible to find one who would up with her. Indeed, that she enjoys it.
I’m just done with rich, entitled assholes who think because they’re wealthy they’re entitled to everything they want even your attention
Its not cute and its not funny
Ngl, I very much enjoy this take. As much as I like Carla’s crisis over Charlie’s absolute ambivalence, I feel bad for Charlie because she probably doesn’t mean it and Carla is a vindictive asshole. I want someone to *intentionally* tear Carla down with her own selfishness and entitlement.
Although maybe that’s Charlie’s long-game. That could be fun.
Agreed. I want to like Carla since she’s our only frequently appearing trans representation, but she really doesn’t make that easy.
(Jocelyn has never appeared often enough for my preference but she’s not an IU student AFAIK so it makes sense that she doesn’t.)
Carla and Walky should date.
I don’t dislike Walky that much
I actually really love how much Booster & Charlie look both pretty similar and pretty different. They’re easy to tell apart if you’re paying attention, but they do, in fact, have very similar features. It has that weird realism of twins.
A bit louder for those in the back, please
Charlie’s first appearance was 4 months before her official first appearance. (https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/charlie/)
I wonder how long Willis has though about insert a new character in history.
Pretty sure that was after Booster’s reference to being a twin – which was in their introduction sequence, iirc.
“The Nintendo”? Booster, are you secretly a parent in the 1980s?
They have to keep it vague so that the game system can be the Switch, or whatever Nintendo console comes out next, and still be relevant. They’re already working on their next system, so sooner or later calling it a “Switch” will be outdated.
it still sounds clunky as hell
Also, they think it’s funny that it sounds clunky.
“you’re the one who said ‘the internet’ instead of ‘google'”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/02-turning-saints-into-the-sea/inquisitiveness/
Carla tries hard. But she’ll never be a complete asshole, like Jennifer.
She destroyed the mood in one speech.
Perfect demonstration, no notes.
oh my, I did not get that Carla’s feud with Charlie goes way back…
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-13/01-bring-me-to-life-drawing/supremacy/
And Charlie made a small appearance from back in 2021?
Sneaaaaaaky Willis.
Way back for us, but I think that was the previous meeting of this class or quite close to it.
Jenny, that’s a very Rutten move against her Carla-centrism.
Bravo.
Classic cheerleader move.
*spurning intensifies*
lots of glasses huh
This comment made me try to remember if we ever get any cis male characters who wear glasses. I can’t think of one.
Whatshisname, Ruth’s brother.
Howard.
Jacob – though we haven’t seen him this semester.
Lyle, in his brief appearance.
Doesn’t Jacob wear them?
Glasses is a basic need, like coffe and underwears.
Remembering someone’s name so you don’t mistakenly forget it and can spurn them on purpose? I don’t know if that’s in any etiquette manual.
It’s in the “Do Not Do This” chapter exclusive to the Deluxe Edition etiquette manual.
Look, you don’t want to ACCIDENTALLY be courteous to somebody, down that way lies madness.
It’s in Douglas Sutherland’s “The English Gentleman” – stated something along the lines of “a gentleman always takes care to get an acquaintance’s name right – unless he wishes to insult him, in which case he will always get it wrong.”
It’s a very “Mean Girl” kinda tactic
https://pixietrixcomix.com/magick-chicks/think-again
Tho maybe more insulting to not remember at all lol
(but a shame ppl take it personally when not on purpose, one time i moved and a former classmate of mine happened to go to the same school again and i didn’t remember his name but he was a dick to me for the rest of the year because of it)
OK Carla there is a time to dial it back a little
Also Jennifer maybe you too
So what’s the deal with Booster not allowed home because if an NES?
I’m almost sure it’s just because it was Charlie’s turn to have the Nintendo and they’ve been looking for her all day (maybe more like 30 minutes) in order to hand it over and they want back to the dorm.
Usually a courier doesn’t leave their package undelivered.
The truth is, the game was rigged from the start.
yaaaaas jennifer yaaaas
I mean at least Carla remembered to call her Jennifer?
Not that I’m particularly a fan of this string of Carla, but I am a fan of comedic timing.
Well played by Jennifer
Trans folks do tend to get more practice with handling name changes than some others do. One of my friends has changed names three times to find something that really fits him, though this current one seems to be doing the trick.
Been there, done that. Relatable. I hope you and your friend have some nice days
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
A thought occurred… Is Charlie a trans woman?
Booster is implied to be AMAB, based on roommate assignments and Joyce’s ignorance. Charlie and Booster look almost completely alike, including traits such as:
Hair color
Height
Similar face shape
Their differences:
Charlie has a more rounded face (this can happen with HRT)
Charlie has boobs, Booster does not (Booster may have had top surgery or wear a binder, though)
I notice Booster didn’t confirm or deny thar they’re fraternal twins. You lost me on that last part, though. If they’re identical twins and Charlie is a trans woman then they’re both amab. Booster never had boobs, Charlie has them because of HRT.
Well, I’m saying if they’re both identical and Charlie is a cis woman, Booster would have yeeted their mammaries or is binding. I think that’s the more likely scenario, but I’m honestly not sure.
Carla’s on the girls’ side of the dorm though, the university clearly acknowledges gender identity in room assignments. Granted as Booster is non-binary it is plausible that they defaulted to their birth-assigned gender when it came to roommates, but it doesn’t seem like conclusive evidence on the subject.
It’s possible that they were going to let booster decide which dorm and booster wasn’t really sure what to go with.
Especially since Booster has a roommate. I think their old roommate was probably one of the famous douches. Mary isn’t in the contending since her roommate was Roz. But Peter or Ryan definitely are in the contending since we don’t know who their roommates are. It’s possible the roommate could be a side note or be introduced later as douche bazooka #4.
(The relevance of Booster having a roommate is that Carla doesn’t have one and it’s implied that it’s because she is trans. They probably put it as a suggestion and Carla was probably on board because she’d be like “fuck yeah I get my own room”.)
I just assumed the real reason Carla has her own room is because her rich parents hooked her up, with her being Trans as a convenient excuse for what she wanted anyway.
I’m wondering if we’re gonna get more detail into what Charlie’s deal is, because so far she’s… incredibly relatable to me.
You’re also a murderer who’s in a band?
maybe booster got into psycho in order to help them
Half expect the next strip to be a joke of charlie taking the switch and playing it and tuning everyone else out even more
Well, Carla walked straight into that one.
“I pretend to forget people’s names to make a point.”
“I need you to make it clear that everyone should remember my name at all times!”
So were these two confirmed fraternal twins? They look really, really similar.
Nobody has tapdanced on-panel in a little straw hat, twirled a cane, sang the phrase “Booster and Charlie are fraternal twins”, and then danced back off-panel while extending their arms and wiggling their fingers really fast, no. Booster said they’re twins yesterday and the word “fraternal” was spoken, and that’s about as far as that’s gone at the moment.
I find the fact that fraternal was spoken yesterday, but then Booster neither confirmed nor denied that a strong indication that they are perhaps identical.
They’re certainly twins but it hasn’t been confirmed that they’re fraternal twins. They appear to have different agab but one or both of them may have medically transitioned, as someone above points out.
For those who can’t be arsed to read the previous two strips Booster’s been in, one of which is from yesterday, they’re returning a Nintendo console (timeline blah blah blah) to their twin sister, Charlie. You can tell they’re twins because they look the fucking same and Booster has repeatedly referred to her with the words “my twin sister”.
The reason Booster is here (and not in their room) is that Charlie asked for her Nintendo back, and they’re giving it to her. We know this because it was stated explicitly, via the sentence “My sister wants the Nintendo back early”. They also appear to be looking directly at Charlie when they address her by name and ask her to take back the Nintendo.
All in all, this situation seems incredibly ambiguous to me. It’s really hard to tell what’s going on, but I think I have a plausible theory going, here.
Yeah, it’s confusing. I’m currently guessing that Charlie has been a ghost this whole time.
oh wow, that actually explains a lot, tysm
But that leaves us with this “Jennifer” character showing up??!? is she anyone, do you have an explanation or are we supposed to take wild guesses here, this whole scene is so obscure and random
Jennifer is so funny :3
Harken, cur! Tis you I spurn! Now feel the burn!
Alt-text on Apr 25 no longer makes sense for those reading the comic in the future! LOL!