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LorennaCleary.bsky.social @lorennacleary.bsky.social ⋅ 12h
Al Ewing Writes Comics @al-ewing.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Gwen @finalgwen.bsky.social ⋅ 15h
Michael P. Breen @mpbreen21.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Katie C @spiffykt.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
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(Jim Lee Era)
⚧️Coming Out
now I have to wonder if Charlie LITERALLY CANNOT SEE anyone who hasn’t been directly introduced
seems inconvenient…
She did acknowledge that Carla mentioned Read Hall, but you did say “see”.
I love how your avatars are inverses of each other.
I just picture that the angel and devil on Joyce’s shoulders look like those two images.
Lmao that’s a funny mental picture
Ana: “Wait until you’ve been dating for at least a month to get past kissing!”
Me: “Get that diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
50 shades of (Joyce) Brown, from fundies to undies
That sounds like the title of a slipshine!
blessing in disguise for some cases lol
tho despite the ‘buildup’ i feel like an irl situation of something similar to this carla would prolly be disillusioned/bored about charlies ‘lack of coolness’ unless she’s just into aloofness which charlie isn’t doing on purpose
Like a vampire needing to be invited before entering a house?
I would not be even a little surprised to find that Charlie is severely faceblind (and thus wouldn’t recognize Carla even after being introduced).
(“Will you be wearing that hat every time I see you? It’s fairly distinctive. That helps.”)
At least we know which hat she’s going to mistake Carla for.
Booster is a fucking saint.
lol at this point they prolly think “well, carla won’t get under charlie’s skin” or so, or she’ll end up being friends with carla for like 5 years before any hint of anything romantic XD(which isn’t necessarily bad)
*probably
Booster deserves the world. It’s really a shame what they’re getting is Carla time
adam Black said it better than I could, Carla is one of the best persons in the cast, she’s just got a lot of rough edges like every other character in the cast.
As a very ND person who would unironically love to be the trophy husband to a rich heiress with a heart of gold (“Babe, we don’t need more than $200k a year, pay all your employees more, I cooked for a living”) I wish I had a sibling like Booster.
what part of her is even c[
…it’s really just because Charlie gives zero fuck about her ?
Maybe? Carla seems to crave of attention to the point that she seems to give little regard to weather it is positive or negative (much like my dog when he thinks its fun to steal my underwear out of the hamper).
I guess just ignoring her might make Carla crave your attention, as she is not used to being denied or ignored. I am not sure if she simply wants to correct that error, or finds the idea that somebody doesn’t have a strong prebaked opinion on her endearing.
Edit: Not that Carla likes negative attention, but she seems to at least thrive in some aspects with it – becoming motivated to build and innovate in the name of Revenge (you know, the best reason to create a projectile launch system).
She does like negative attention. She got all hot and bothered about Malaya, effectively begging to be insulted by them
People try to ignore Carla often. Only Charlie has achieved the magic of genuine Carla Unawareness. It seems to be her catnip
Now say “thank you Booster”
“You are worthy of being in Carla’s presence, Not-Charlie.”
Great.
The rich kid gets their way, again.
Ah, but she’d have to WORK at the relationship. Carla hasn’t won yet, and we may even see her brain fitz so bad due to poor social skills that she messes it all up and expriences crushing heart ache
Yeah, this is really obviously forcing Carla out of her comfort zone in a way that may actually prompt growth of some kind, as much as Carla is capable of such.
tbf trying to get 5 mins of convo from charlie without booster mediating would prolly feel like pulling teeth to carla, unless they just spend like 2 hours together in a room/cafe where carla’s fine with ‘basking’ in her presence and creepily staring at her even tho it prolly wouldn’t bother charlie like it would other ppl
*PROBABLY
lmao i already said i’m never gonna change the way i type that word no matter how many times you correct me (if anything this kinda correction would make ppl double down on doing it more y’know? ;P)
… as usual.
her
she didn’t use her wealth to get access to the iguana.
Wait and see if Charlie actually acknowledges/likes her, first. The rich kid only got introduced to Charlie so far.
Who knew “so long fucker” was the line that’d finally get Booster to cave.
I think it’s more that they realized that Carla is the unstoppable force to Charlie’s immovable object, she will NOT give up, and that this could go on literally forever if nothing is done to resolve it.
Booster does not want to be stuck in a neverending “Wabbit Season!” “Duck Season” with these two yoyos.
Then it turned out to be “Elmer Season” all along, so it was OK.
They really don’t want it to become Booster season so best to nip it in the bud before that happens.
This is incredibly well put!
Booster seems to actually kind of like when people push back against them. Like they weirdly kind of reached an accord with Amber due to it, for instance.
Though here, I kinda feel like seeing how Carla is awestruck makes Booster just kind of think introducing them should be harmless enough. That, or they just kind of see Carla’s complete inability to keep her facade cohesive in the face of Charlie to be pathetic in a way that lessens their resolve.
Booster definitely can tell Carla is so smitten that she can’t even brain good
Charlie missed her chance; Carla had Fuckface on her head for a WHOLE DAY and she never got to enjoy the sight.
Booster is totally gonna deliberately sabotage this introduction, I can just see it. They’ll introduce Carla as a rich asshole with a massive ego trip.
We can all but hope this comes to pass
Carla replies ‘yep, that’s me! I was in ALL the newspapers and talk shows!’
I’m wondering if Booster is just hoping that once Carla can notch her attention post for Charlie, Carla will move on and forget about Charlie.
Carla is perfectly capable of self-sabotage herself without any need of Booster’s intervention.
That’s mean, but if I was Charlie sibling, I would do the same. At least, prepare her to Carla’s personality.
maybe dating charlie will make carla likeable
When a hyper fixated crush starts on the basis of “Someone’s neurodevelopment disorder makes them outright ignore me and I think that’s attractive” I think the answer is “No”.
I’m sure that’s exactly how she thinks about it, too.
Nothing short of a complete personality change can make Carla likable.
I suspect a touch of maturity might have a stronger impact on her likability than you’d expect.
I mean access to Fuckface should be reason enough for social interaction.
Dumbing of Age, Book 17: Tell Her I Have Access To An Iguana
Never assume a woman does not have iguanas at her disposal.
Yesssss. Ninja Rick is dead. Long live Fuckface!
Ninja Rick is alive and captive in the basement of Galasso’s.
I like to think Ninja Rick is one of the groundskeepers at IU.
We just never see him, because he’s a ninja.
If this is most vulnerable we’ll see out of her, then so be it.
The tryst we’ll see is between Carla and Charlie?
Why exactly, besides the author’s wishes, do these characters tolerate Carla? I find her terribly amusing most of the time but I wonder what exactly makes anyone give her the time of day considering the way she acts.
When the chips are down most of her façade (really, Chrome? I needed to auto-correct that?) falls away and she’s just a lonely young woman who is an adept problem solver and helper.
I do seem to remember Carla does random nice things relatively often, but then refuses to admit she was being nice. I think what’s different in this storyline is that Carla has never needed something from someone else before.
DING DING DING ding DING DING dingalingaliiing
Oh cool, you actually READ the webcomic!
Okay, that’s a little harsh, but man, people really are being critical as fuck about Carla, and it just kind of feels mostly unwarranted.
Then again, Carla to me is like Robin. Getting THAT mad at her just feels kind of silly. It’s like wanting to beat the shit out of Daffy Duck.
how many problems has she “solved” so much as “progressed past caring”? Has Carla even been generally polite to anybody? Why does anybody acknowledge Carla besides her insistence on attention? I’m just now starting to wonder this, since Charlie has given me reason to wonder.
She cleaned Amber’s bloody head with no judgement, helped Joyce build shower shows.
She ended the Suicide pact.
She was part of the kidnap rescue squad. She’s fun, perky, smart handy, has good style, is good natured, a loyal friend.
She’s high on her supply but one of the best characters.
Holy shit, you said something that didn’t make me wish I was blind or dead.
A momentary error blip in the universe. Don’t worry, it will correct itself soon.
The Internet is filled with wrong opinions. Undoubtedly, this is one of them.
I can’t tell which folks didn’t read the first 10 books worth of strips, so don’t know those things happened, and which folks did read them, but insist those things didn’t happen.
At least we’ve got links and don’t have to rely on human memory.
I literally blanked out , when Willis had to zero the whole comments for the first time, when Carla was rude to Mary. And she deadnamed her. TWICE.
Wasn’t it like 9 years ago?
A lot of people are telling themselves with Automatic Carla hate.
She’s cartoonishly obnoxious and makes self esteem her main personality trait. ( Gee an LGBT character who never hates themselves.
I can’t imagine why that would bother some people. / S)
Every single character… has done worse things than Carla. Onscreen. Even Booster.
Objectively she’s practically a damn Saint.The Bad Girl thing is an act. It’s deliberate, as she doesn’t want a reputation as a goody-goody.
Id be honored to have a loyal friend like Carla. And friggin Mary can buy earplugs.
( As for Booster the idea that she needs to confess her feelings before she is introduced e is outrageously manipulative , controlling and creepy.
And ppl defending it, doubling down on it, declaring her feelings aren’t sincere.. this is insanity. Do you hear yourselves?
The LGBT audience does.
So do the AntiTrans fans grasping at any fig leaf of legitimacy of Carla hated. )
…how does being polite solve any problems?
It certainly prevents some problems from coming into life. Like mouthing off to someone and getting in, often serious, trouble from that
It can help to signal someone who is maybe, just maybe, worth interacting with, versus someone who doesn’t deserve being given the time of day.
Women were So polite they won the right to vote ….
Surely it will keep working.
i mean within reason you can always walk away from another person but sometimes ur stuck being within each others presence either through school or work tho i imagine it’s worse during a retail shift
that said i don’t think it’s as if charlie has any reason to dislike her even if she doesn’t reciprocate her feelings, though i imagine irl more ppl would be told to fuck off more clearly
To be fair, as annoying as Carla is, she is… just annoying. She is not hostile, abusive, cruel, she is just annoying.
Carla can be nice. If they actually liked/tolerated Mike, they can handle Carla.
Yeah, basically. They snark at her, like Walky, but they also generally don’t interact with her THAT often to where it’d be an issue, anyway.
Carla helped Joyce with the shower shoes, helped Sarah send her sister back to school, and has helped Sal and Ruth out with odds and ends, probably in part since they interact with Carla a bit more often.
She’s obnoxious, sure, but this is a world that is basically ours, but 15 percent more cartoony. There’s a lot of people being a bit extra in this setting.
Booster is especially beautiful in these panels
I may have missed it – did Willis show any reason why Carla would think Charlie is “cool”?
I think it’s because Charlie doesn’t really acknowledge Carla’s presence. Carla craves attention, positive or negative, but Charlie doesn’t give her any of that.
Carla is deeply in crush with Charlie, and everything about Charlie strikes Carla as cool.
ya, no need to overthink it.
She is nonchalant in the presence of Carla and her antics and she thinks that she is cute generally that’s enough to impress Carla’s the same thing happened with Malya I beleive.
Sometimes we sublimate unattainability with desirability.
Carla also just likes girls with masculine names
The essence of cool is not caring what other people think of you. Charlie appears to be unimpressed by Carla’s awesomeness, therefor cool.
I never trust Booster to do a good thing; not without them having gained something out of it (usually to the annoyance of someone else), but it really seems like Carla is so persistently pestering that they may have finally met their match in stubbornness.
I love that they just felt bad for Carla and introduced them anyway.
Booster no. Carla will never learn if she doesn’t suffer consequences
For what.
…for being an aggressive, annoying asshole pushing herself on everyone around her until they do her bidding?
That’s one way to look at it.
*Considers that way of looking at it*
Doesn’t spark joy, tossing out
Exactly. There’s no obligation to deliberately make things less fun for yourself, and protesting when others won’t join you in it is silly.
Did you not read Friday and Saturday’s strip or did it not come out in your language?
Don’t be such a whiny brat when people disagree with you.
It is an accurate way to look at it.
If you have the kind of mindset that would look at it that way, maybe it’s “accurate”, sure.
And the best way to teach those consequences is to have them also apply when Carla drops the mask and is genuine, courteous, and vulnerable.
i think the consequence would be her putting charlie on a pedestal and being disappointed she’s just another person that carla wouldn’t have given the time of day if she wasn’t initially ignored to begin with
I mean, Booster has been not introducing Carla to Charlie for a while now, and even accepting that she needs to “learn” something here, she shows no signs of doing so, so why keep doing that? Unless you’re confusing “learning” with “being unhappy”.
Oh, oh, oh. So many assumptions. So many wrong assumptions.
1. Carla will never learn no matter what you do. She is a motherfucking goddess.
2. If Carla ever learns anything, it will be because she chooses to.
3. Perhaps Booster believes introducing her to Charlie is more likely to make her learn something. What that thing may be, is beyond the ken of mere mortals. See 1.
4. If Booster doesn’t introduce Carla, you think Carla will be the one suffering consequences? Ha ha ha. Amusing, bug.
5. Carla and Booster are sitcom foils for one another. Your puny fist-shaking call for manners and petty comeuppance do not concern them, for theirs is the infinitely higher calling of comedic hijinks, shenanigans and buffoonery. You are like a worm telling a quetzal that they are misbehaving by soaring so high above them and wishing upon them the punishment of falling to the ground. It’s not happening, worm, but if it makes your worminess feel righteous, then good for you! I appreciate that you feel this way.
i wish this site had upvotes
+1
…You’re not ENTIRELY wrong, but the way I see it, the problem here is that Carla has demonstrated such a staggering capacity for denial and rationalization that this, right here, is probably about as serious a consequence as Booster is ever going to be able to make her suffer in the near future.
She was forced to express a reluctant willingness to acknowledge at some point in the future that maybe she had romantic intentions towards Charlie, and expressed genuine admiration for her, with implications of humility, for all of two seconds. That’s basically torture, as far as she’s concerned!
Iguanas are a value add for many!
Booster’s face in panel three is one of the most mentally exhausted expressions to appear on a character not named Dorothy
“Man, I wish people would stop seeing me as the solution to all their damn problems. Having to constantly pay careful attention to literally everyone around me all the time is freaking EXHAUSTING.”
“HARD SAME.”
“…”
“…”
“Friends?”
“Friends with benefits?”
“Drinking buddies, with the possibility of advancing to friends with benefits in the future?”
“Deal.”
I like Carla and I like when girls happen at the same time. Booster is helping.
it is a charming strip.
Pointless bongo
carla’s high-tech rubber & you’re glue
Not even Booster can put up with this ad infinitum
Another strip, another clutch of comments complaining that their preferred social protocol is not being respected here and they find it unacceptable and/or incomprehensible.
Allow me to help.
Carla is being cute and quirky, and Booster performs annoyement but finds her endearing.
There you go, you’re welcome
Only my personal preferences for interaction are valid. Anyone who does something I would do or enjoy is misbehaving, and should be held in contempt of court if you have one more outburst like that. This is a courtroom, not some kind of comic strip on the Internet.
Objection your honour i plead insanity, as supported by exhibit A, a printout of a screenshot of an artwork of me being a freaky little bongo
Let the record show that said artwork also prominently features Ada Wong, from the Resident Evil series of video games, wearing a leather belt covered in hand grenade pins and nothing else.
Let the record show that the court is not looking at the defendant’s exhibit but instead making questionable doodles on their sketchpad and then passing these on to the jury after confiscating the defendant’s exhibit and surreptitiously eating them.
Case dismissed!
Let me complain that my preferred social protocol IS being respected then.
Or is that what Taffy just did?
Ever considered a career in politics?
hear me out. Is shitposting the highest form of politics? in this TED talk,
These days, politics is pretty much nothing but shitposting, writ large.
shhhhh kids come loot at this
it’s an incredibly boring opinion in its natural habitat
Is there a tactful way of saying I’d rather kill myself than get into politics?
I just think Carla is cute ( ꈍᴗꈍ)
Some commenters clearly don’t understand the attraction signs and mating rituals of the ADHDtism accidental-flock-together dating scene, despite the repeated examples throughout the whole comic.
It’s a little heartwarming to realize they’re getting to have this beautiful cross-cultural experience– most people are trainwrecks in young sex and romance, welcome to more broad flavors.
I’ve always liked Carla as a character, and wanted a chance to get to see her mellow her edges just a little. With DoA characters, their motivations tend to come from contextually-communicated circumstance, and hers make perfect sense.
She’s grown up in a competitive, abrasive, hostile world, at the very least externally. There’s been a lot of expectations to perform to, a lot to defend against, and the polarizing mental baggage is still fresh of that being a teen sucks for most people.
Charlie doesn’t even operate within the same sphere of her least favorite, most alienating, most difficult priorities. None of it’s *capable* of being performative, either. Grades? More like, how’s she still making any? Achievements? She made it to the cafeteria without getting lost yesterday. Is she holding any serious grudges? Huh, what? She aims for no particular appearance statement or impression. If she’s memorable, it’s for silly mistakes and cryptid status.
Of course Carla thinks that’s cool, and is a little obsessed!
I do think/hope that character growth can happen, and leave Carla’s comedic combative ego– just with a sense of scale, timing, and acceptance of mistakes.
Will it ‘pairing’ work out? I dunno, I only know the base externals about Charlie. Is it going to be a [crossed out: Coming] Dumbing of Age experience for Carla, and probably Booster too? I mean. That’s the comic.
It’s like nobody’s ever watched a single chapter of JoJo.
Many have, but I am not among their number. In what manner is anime JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure relevant to this chapter of Dumbing of Age?
I can’t answer that question for you. This is a journey you’ll have to take alone.
Ya know, I voted Sal on the hotness pool that is up at the time of writing, but Carla’s insistence is rubbing off on me. Why isn’t Charlie in the pool? Make it happen Willis.
See, Charlie had barely departed and WOOSH Carla retreated right back to her egocentric bullshit.
Me as Booster: “I caught that. And that is why I’ve decided never to introduce you.”
It’s her security blanket.
So uh…
What if Charlie isn’t into girls?
Friendship exists. Don’t be silly.
Well, yeah, but it’s pretty clear that’s not what Carla’s after. A “friendship” one falls into as a safety net from romantic prospects is likely to be a toxic one.
I don’t think it’s exactly clear to Carla what Carla is after.
I disagree. If your romantic interest is there only in the “OMG I wanna bang that”, then it’s not going to work out anyway.
WOW. i don’t even know how a thought like that is even possible. have you NEVER been friends with anyone you felt a romantic feeling for?
Actually… no. But there is a friend I have – well, we haven’t spoken in some time – sooner or later your age, too, will start with a three (if you’re lucky)… I’m pretty sure she had a crush on me when we were kids. But we ran in the same circles, and that’s why we were friends to begin with; she certainly didn’t hunt me down Carla’s doing.
I feel sorry for you then. If your romantic interests aren’t your friends as well, that bodes ill for the future. That’s no way to build a relationship at the very least.
Carla: who said anything about her being into girlS plural
And obviously, not being into Carla is not a thing Carla considers possible.
…I mean, presumably if that were an issue, Booster would have brought it up long before this. Would have been a great way to finally shut Carla down, if only they could say it and honestly mean it.
Carla went from looks really creepy to downright cute just in one strip. I hope her interest in Charlie can last a long time and not fade away just after this introduction. Hanging out with Charlie and Booster could do her some real good.
Once again, Carla proves herself relatable. The brain shutting down when you encounter someone you fancy is no fun at all.
Seconded.
oh dear, she thinks it’s aloofness…
All things aside… I keep forgetting just how tall Carla is. Booster is pretty average and she is just towering over him.
*over them
–Dave, yes, they’re rooming with Walky, but that doesn’t imply a particular gender
Ah, right, forgot about that.
Is Carla not wearing roller skates?
She is not.
Is Carla wearing a push-up bra to impress Charlie, or is she normally this busty and I just never noticed?
Joyce sure as hell noticed
As another wee trans person myself. It’s likely either top surgery (she can afford it) or more likely her doctor increased her estrogen dosage. My cup size went up after my dose got increased.
or progesterone, I have some quality Anecdotal Evidence that a decent progesterone dosage applied at the right stage causes boob growth to realize its full potential
Carla’s always been shapely, but she wears loose flannel shirts a lot of the time.
dude. follow the helpfully provided links before commenting maybe
her boobs got bigger post skip, it was not only telegraphed in dialogue but confirmed in the alt-text
Booster is starting to grow on me
As an autistic entity, I must say, discovering that someone has iguana access does in fact increase their likelihood of holding my attention longer.
In this very weak formulation i feel like this would be true of most neurotypicals as well
only the cool ones
I know, right! Either blurting that out was just a happy accident, or Carla is more of a smooth operator, than I thought…
I mean, yeah, I always wanna meet pets. This is one of the best pitches Carla could have made.
This will be a train wreck….but every romantic relationship in the comic is a train wreck except Dina and Becky. Sal and Danny might avoid it but the rest are a pile of smoking ruins.
Hey now….
Joyce and Joe aren’t a train wreck….. yet. They’re currently more like a train or plane that got delayed due to a technical issue. It’s just starting out in earnest.
Technically their relation started with her punching him on the face, do it is more like a train wreck that, after throughout repairs and modifications, it’s once again on the rails.
Their relationship is a disaster after PLENTY of disaster relief and development
What happened to that train that used to watch the other trains go by?!
As a weird greek rock song goes.
It’s a metaphor! The train is rolling again, or at least the singer (who is a train) hopes he will roll again one day when (if!) someone comes and pushes the dirt off its wheels, and then all the sad feelings willl look around sadly and wonder “what happened to that train”.
It sounds like a weird translation but actually it’s just a weird song. I love Yannis Angelakas so much
Sounds a little bit like Bill Peet’s story The Caboose that Got Loose.
what is the name of the song?
To treno
I don’t trust Willis to let us keep Dina and Becky.
Carla armor cracks developing…..
I see y’all hating on Carla and let me tell you, I’m giving you the side eye.
it is getting a bit much
like damn if some people saw me being as awkward as I am in real life I guess I’d just get stabbed
This is cute, I dun care ♥