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Joyce is in such distress that she has said the word “butt” out loud instead of going with “tushie” as usual. Or perhaps the first symptom of Butts Disease to manifest is the fascination with the word “butt.”
Pff. I trust Carla’s engineering ability. She will install cow-catchers… er, hair shields in front of the wheels of the shower shoes. A perfect design!
I must not butts. Butts are the mind-killer. Butts are the little-death that bring total assholification. I will face my butts. I will permit them to pass over me and through me. And when they have gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the butts have gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Hopefully some high type jinks and not too much conflict. Between run ins with Mary and having to go all Sarah on Billie and Ruth, Carla has not had the easiest of runs this semester.
Initially I thought that if Joyce got into Ultra Car, they could bond over that, but I think Joyce partly likes cartoons because they’re less complicated than real life, like Walky? So maybe a more nuanced show (based on Dorothy and Carla’s descriptions and Walky’s distaste for it) isn’t for her.
Carla has already tapped into Ruttech at least once in DoA. Remember the Rube Goldberg thing she built to prank Mary? http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/ruttech/
(there was a mega-post of all the strips that made up the entire sequence from research through creation to payoff but I’ll be damned if I can find it now)
Shoddy design is reason enough on its own. You know that feeling you get when you see someone trying to do something you’re good at, and failing like a kitten in a sack? That’s what Carla’s feeling right now.
The only way Carla could be anymore obvious about secretly being a good person who likes people is if she started saying “Baka” in her sentences. But she’s not an anime nerd, so that won’t happen.
Joyce doesn’t. She told Becky that Carla gets a room all to herself “for some reason”. Carla isn’t closeted but hadn’t had any reason to discuss this with Joyce.
Good thing no one ever pointed out to Joyce how many people sit on the classroom chairs she sits on, or the ones in the cafeteria or so on. Eventually she’d be terrified of sitting anywhere.
The cafeteria ones likely do. Unless a TA does it for their own reasons, though, I suspect no classroom surface at a university ever gets properly cleaned. I’ve watched TAs who take that responsibility seriously, rare as that can be, go to the trouble of washing black boards and white boards to ensure proper visibility to the back of the room before actually using the classroom.
Later at the hospital, Joyce tries to explain how it ended up her arse when she slipped in the shower, betcha the doctor has heard THAT excuse a million times before.
Literally every time I make a Carla love comment, I get a ‘but omg Mary avatar’ reply, it’s like clockwork lmao. It’s a random avatar, like, I don’t even notice it anymore, only ever when other ppl comment on it :p
I’m pretty sure it’s been mentioned. Which engineering hasn’t been, although it looks like mechanical is by far the most likely candidate, with electrical in second.
I thought for sure she was going to slip in those “shoes” (walking in HDPE plastic on damp tile? come on!) and fall on her ass. Strangely enough the result was the same anyway.
All this time I have hoped Carla would be a bad influence on Becky… I change my mind. I want her to be a bad influence on JOYCE. This will be delightful!
If you give her cookies, she will just focus on the source and current-possessor of said cookies, and be unable to be a bad influence on the rest of humanity.
Eeeeeee, Carla! *composes self* All right, let’s do this.
Panel 1: Joyce, lord of the jugs. Conqueror of the Sludge Lands.
Panel 3: “Oh no! My hubris!” may be one of my favorite lines yet. And my top candidate for the next book title.
Also, I continue to love how fucking fearless Carla is. Like, to wear a towel that short, to talk to someone in a shared shower space in this current climate of trans bathroom panic? I’d never have the ovaries to pull something like that off, so I’m just continuously impressed by her.
Panel 4: That said, Carla isn’t fireproof. She’s not going to shower when most other people are showering and I imagine she’s mostly been used to sneaking in when no one else is in. Cause that’d be way more hassle in bullshit harassment than anyone would want to deal with.
And I notice very clearly how fast she’s intervening here to interrupt Joyce trying to dwell on why exactly Carla may be intentionally showering during a time that no one else is.
And I feel that. I’m out as trans, but in a shared space like a bathroom and a locker room, I’m gonna ghost as best I can, because I’m all too aware of how many trans girls get beaten up in bathrooms and I’ve had my share of harassment from fuckers when I’m just trying to quickly pee and get out.
Panel 6: Engineer Carla has no time for your shoddy prototypes!
But seriously, it’s glorious to see Carla’s continued kindness under a defensive layer of snark and toughness. Like, she really is a good person and doesn’t suffer people being in shitty situations or distress well, but at the same time…
She’s still petrified that letting people know will paint a giant target on her back. And I just weep to think of little Carla trying to be her authentic self and trying to be genuinely kind and having that beat out of her to the point that she cowers behind this caustic shell unable to be the full asshole she erroneously thinks will protect her.
Also, Eeeeee, Joyce and Carla are talking and interacting. The first tenative steps towards Joyce having someone to talk to about Jocelyne when she comes out are being taken here!
I love the layers we see of Carla. Behind her snark there is compassion and behind her “don’t care” attitude there is an all too real awareness of the need for being careful in certain situations.
And aside from all that here we also see a real spark of interest for engineering and wanting to share that love with people.
I feel like “Oh no, my hubris!” is the single phrase most capable of explaining humanity entirely by itself. Also, Carla is so awesome and multi-dimensional!!!
It probably says a lot about Joyce as a person that, despite being known to be a fairly hardline Christian, Carla doesn’t feel even slightly threatened or defensive towards Joyce. Probably it helps that Joyce simply couldn’t be plausibly seen to be threatening unless you were present at the Toedad Car Crash site and saw her right hook in action.
Yeah, it also shows how plugged in to the general feel of the hall she is even if she separates herself outside of it a lot. Like, Carla is way more relaxed and open here than she was with Mary initially and I think that’s directly related to cottoning in on Mary’s abusiveness to queer folks and Joyce’s relatively good karma in the hall.
Plus, I want to believe she’s found out about the Underground Becky Railroad that has been happening on the floor, though that is likely a stretch to say is even remotely canon yet.
I dunno, most of the other floor inhabitants knew and were helping hide Becky. Someone who knew Carla was trans might very well have assumed she’d be in at least basic solidarity and briefed her on the situation.
That does raise an interesting question: WHO knows that Carla is trans? The only people confirmed to be in on it are Sal and Ruth (and the Rutten parents, of course).
Even though everyone thinks Joyce is overreacting she’s actually right to be worried. I got a bacterial infection from a shower when I had a wound on my foot. It almost killed me twice, and I still haven’t fully recovered.
I didn’t even have an open wound and still managed to get a big old wart growing inside my foot (so the bottom of my foot was still flat) that had to literally be dug out of my foot, all from using the dorm showers. Yaaaaaaaaaay…
Not all of us think so (even if I do find it amusing how she reacts in specific).
Back when I was in college I knew plenty of people who went and worked out first thing in the morning then showered there because the facilities were better maintained both in terms of cleanliness and proper general maintenance. There was a neighborhood five minutes away where many people ended up living in apartments and rental houses to avoid most of that.
@JessWitt There’s also the risk of conjunctivitis. I know at least two people who got shower stall nastiness inadvertently kicked in their face because of someone being an idiot.
Do you have to sign a waver or something that you won’t sue the University for dorm shower infections? If not, why is it not cheaper to have them cleaned at least twice a day?
As someone recovering from their third surgery for pilonidal disease, having spent over twenty years dealing with the stigma of this, I cringe every time I see the phrase “butt’s disease” on this comic. You make fun of things like this, you make people feel ashamed about health issues that are important not to let fester.
Emperor Norton II: “Gah, why won’t this thing hubris properly?”
Courtier: “Er, sir, that’s not what hubris means.”
ENII: “Hubris means what I want it to mean, for I am EMPEROR! -10 internet points!”
Courtier: “Actually, sir, hubris is an actual word that means-”
ENII: “A definition?! OFF WITH HIS INTERNET CONNECTION!”
Instead of a formal definition, I just think of it anything that gets you killed in Greek mythology. Taunting the power of grimyshowerflor would definitely do that.
I will give a bajilionty shemolians to anyone that sends me video of them walking, on a wet tiled floor, wearing gallon water jugs that have been cut in half and attached to Ugg boots.
I’ve got the feeling that Carla is one of those engineering minds that, if she sees a problem, she has to fix it; now. If she doesn’t, she’ll spend all the intervening time stressing about it. This will either make her a great friend or a horrible nag who is always trying to take over when you’re trying to do something and she’s convinced herself that you’re ‘doing it wrong’.
Meanwhile, I’m just wondering who is going to come in next and just take in the sheer unimaginable oddness of Joyce writhing on the floor as if in agony whilst Carla is fiddling obsessively with… Are those half-jugs with shoelaces threaded through the open tops?
Yeah, it’s interesting to see Carla the fixer approaching all these scenarios with that “okay, there’s the problem, what’s the best solution” mind because I’ve had that mindset in the past (oh, you’re dealing with X, let me figure out the best solution for X and… oh, shoot, I’m forgetting to show empathy with regards to the emotions of dealing with X and need to learn to ask first before trying to help).
And it’s interesting to see how that affects a lot of things, whether it be her revenge plan against Mary, her handling of Ruth’s depression, or her interventions with Amber’s face and Joyce’s jugs of shower resistance.
And it’s why I think Billie calling her out on not trying to find out outside factors will be a good thing, because I think it will start her down a good pathway in the future of melding her solution-focus to the strong empathy and want to do right by people that she constantly tries to deny exists.
I feel the same way when I have to use a website that’s designed crappily, especially badly designed forms. It’s so frustrating to KNOW how easily something could have been done SO MUCH better, but not be able to fix it.
Indeed. But Joyce being Joyce, she cannot gloat about herself to other people, since that’s akin to pride, and pride is sinful.
So her gloating about herself is to be done to inanimate objects only… Although I suppose some of those shower drains may have acquired a life of their own by now.
Yeah, that talk between Joyce and Carla about Carla being trans might come sooner rather than later. Carla is currently wearing a fairly short towel, and Joyce is on the ground right now. If Joyce looks up, she might accidentally find out the quick way.
I hope it doesn’t offend anyone, but Carla is hella hot here. She’s got legs for days, and, then, for some reason, I find wet hair attractive. Noticed it in college, when a girl I’d never given a second thought to came to my room after a shower. Weird.
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 21h
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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CARLA TO THE RESCUE
now the machinations of Joyce’s feet will be cold, swift, and ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS
and her BUTT, TOO
i KNOW AURGLAFARGLAH
Hurrah for ridiculously appropriate avitars.
Joyce is in such distress that she has said the word “butt” out loud instead of going with “tushie” as usual. Or perhaps the first symptom of Butts Disease to manifest is the fascination with the word “butt.”
In that case I think my sister has a chronic strain.
roller skates
Shower shoes with wheels? Revolutionary!
You only say that because they revolve.
Well, they revolve until they immediately get clogged with hair.
Ugh.. must burn my brain to cast out THAT image.
Pff. I trust Carla’s engineering ability. She will install cow-catchers… er, hair shields in front of the wheels of the shower shoes. A perfect design!
If Carla was capable of making skates that could withstand the horrors of those showers, why isn’t she wearing them?
Nothing intimidates Carla.
I think this is how we all expected Dumbing of Age to end. Joyce quickly dying of Butt’s Disease while the only bystander uncaringly walks away
She just wants us to think she doesn’t care.
baka.
I-I-It’s not like she l-l-l-likes us or anything. Baka!
COMIC OVER
now to begin work on the Second Dumbing of Christ
“Dumbing of Christ: A Historical Webcomic by David M Willis”
The floor has claimed her butt. Her butt is part of the floor now.
But she does care, that’s why she rescued those poor jug shoes.
The horrors of Butts Disease, it haunts me even now…
(hehe, “butts”)
this is how it farts
^^^^^
I used to be a normal, functional person! NOW look at me!
no cure
Oh dear, oh dear…
If there’s any consolation, nobody ever thought you were normal to begin with.
I’ll be good, I’ll be good… and eat my vegetables or however your avoid the butts disease.
a donut a day keeps butts disease at bay
Can I butt in on this?
…GET! I meant to say GET! ITS GOT ME TWO AAFHGEFKAKFFFGRLA
You meant to say one thing, butt you said another.
It was inevitabuttle.
I’m on the way too, aren’t I?
sigh
butt-gerunding
I’m looking at you bu- OH NO! I’M LOOKING AT BUTTS! This will only make things worse!
You tricked meeeee!….
all succumb to the butts disease
I am the Typhoid Mary of Butts Disease
No no, Typhoid Mary was immune to typhoid herself.
I must not butts. Butts are the mind-killer. Butts are the little-death that bring total assholification. I will face my butts. I will permit them to pass over me and through me. And when they have gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the butts have gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Emotion, yet butts.
Ignorance, yet butts.
Passion, yet butts.
Chaos, yet butts.
Death, yet butts.
What? You’re still a well-rounded individual.
ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
apparently I made this exact joke about a year ago
Even Something Positive is a victim to this horrible disease!
(Don’t forget to read the tagline at the bottom.)
Joyce and Carla? THIS is a fresh story pairing! What wacky fun will this pair of misfits get up to? ^_^
Hopefully some high type jinks and not too much conflict. Between run ins with Mary and having to go all Sarah on Billie and Ruth, Carla has not had the easiest of runs this semester.
Aside from being super-techie and sometimes annoying on purpose, how is Carla even unusual, much less a misfit?
…Yes, I know she’s trans. That’s a medical detail.
Shrug. How’s Joyce a misfit? I think the point is more the jaunty “these goofs and their shenanigans” connotation.
Carla creating *the* perfect shower shoe?
Joyce forever raising her into a position of sainthood?
Carla getting incredibly annoyed at that and thus deliberately being mean to her in order to knock herself off the pedestal?
Joyce not caring and teasing her about it good-naturedly?
Carla breaking down and telling Joyce the reason she lashes out is because she’s afraid of showing vulnerability?
Joyce in turn confiding her deepest weaknesses to Carla?
Bonded through this mutual revelation, Joyce and Carla’s relationship becoming more intimate?
I SHIP IT SO GODDAMN MUCH
And Beckys head will explode.
Welll… You know, Joyce did say that she would be into girls if only she could stop at the neck. She might be perfectly great with Carla!
Joyce telling Jocelyn about her new trans friend! Jocelyn realizing she can confide in her sister!
^*^*^ <3
And if anyone is an expert on Butts Disease, it’s David Willis.
yo
Wait, aren’t you David Willis? Just, you know, the other half than the one we usually think about?
Hmm.
I am super excited at the possibility of these two becoming friends.
Partly because I feel that way of just about any two characters not already friends. Mostly because it would probably mean more Carla.
Carla? Make friends? Ridiculous! She only has cohorts and collaborators!
Please more Carla
Initially I thought that if Joyce got into Ultra Car, they could bond over that, but I think Joyce partly likes cartoons because they’re less complicated than real life, like Walky? So maybe a more nuanced show (based on Dorothy and Carla’s descriptions and Walky’s distaste for it) isn’t for her.
Wait a minute. What if… what if… I’m just spit-balling here… what if the comic became all about Carla & Dina and their wacky adventures?
No, no. That’ll never work. The comic would implode was awesome-overload.
Am I the only one that is thinking Carla will come back with anti-grav boots that allow Joyce to hover effortless above the grunge, sludge, and mess?
Courtesy of Ruttech, of course.
That WOULD facilitate her crashing into the ceiling grime, so there is much comedic potential in it. I’m in favor.
This ain’t the walkyverse, Bill.
Carla has already tapped into Ruttech at least once in DoA. Remember the Rube Goldberg thing she built to prank Mary?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/ruttech/
(there was a mega-post of all the strips that made up the entire sequence from research through creation to payoff but I’ll be damned if I can find it now)
That’s all technology that actually exists.
I literally do not know whether Carla intends to fix the shoes or just wanted to rescue them and keep them away from the bad engineer.
I just figured she was going to fix them and then keep them on a shelf in her room instead of returning them to Joyce.
Joyce’s milk jugs brings all the Carlas to the bath.
And they’re all like “These are shoddy and inadequate”
Damn right, these are shoddy and inadequate
I can teach you,
But it’s easier to fix them myself OUT OF THE WAY
Well, I always say, nothing livens up a comic strip like an amazing pair of jugs!
…
I REGRET NOTHING!
Yeah, this comic has butts and jugs and everything.
Not to mention hubris and effortless wafting.
Channeling your inner Jeph Jacques with that alt-text I see
to be fair, he started it
Makes you wonder what goes on in the hotel rooms where the cartoonists hold their parties at the end of the day.
The end of con days, that is, since that’s the only way cartoonists will meet each other.
Yo.
Yo, Jeph.
Please tell me Carla is gonna make something awesome!
She totally is!
Carla making something awesome is as certain as water being wet.
Unless Carla superheats the water turning it into plasma!
We will now see something worth seeing!
I hope that she gives Joyce’s shoes wheels. We need Joyce on wheels
And…and now Carla makes better anti-shower shoes, right? Cause she’s secretly a [hushed whisper]good person who cares about people?
No no no don’t be silly this just CLEARLY just because she cares about things being done right.
Wait, no! She just wants to one-up Joyce to assert dominance over her. Yeah, that’s the one.
Or maybe she just felt like dumping Joyce on her ass.
Yeeeaaaaah, let’s go with that one! Now Joyce owes her one HAHA PRANKED
Of course she doesn’t care about people, what a silly notion (Joyce is OK, right? Not that she cares, or anything).
Shoddy design is reason enough on its own. You know that feeling you get when you see someone trying to do something you’re good at, and failing like a kitten in a sack? That’s what Carla’s feeling right now.
An intervention was OBVIOUSLY required.
LIES! How dare you slander her so!
*whispers* But you’re totally right.
The only way Carla could be anymore obvious about secretly being a good person who likes people is if she started saying “Baka” in her sentences. But she’s not an anime nerd, so that won’t happen.
There has been no confirmation in comic that Ultra Car ISN’T an anime…
She’s an engineer. Damn right she will.
Carla is Chaotic Good. She doesn’t do the right thing because she’s nice, she does it because it’s the right thing to do.
She’s Chaotic Good who thinks she’s Chaotic Evil.
Carla: as ever, the hero we need, not the one we deserve.
Pffft, as if we were cool enough to deserve Carla.
… wait, didn’t Carla have a room with her own shower? Or am I misremembering things?
She has her own room but I don’t remember it ever being said she has her own shower.
Her own room yes, but I don’t think she has her own shower.
Her own room, not her own shower.
..we are all so helpful at the same time, huh.
She has her own room, and now she has her own shower of corrections.
Considering her nature, she would be the type to want to use the shower when others are not around.
Her own room with her own half bath.
Half baths are a sink and a toilet, no shower.
She has her own room, not her own shower
She has her own room, not her own shower
Ske hos har omn reem, npt hor ogn sohewr
Is that last sentence being said in Scots or Welsh?
All room and no shower makes Carla a dull girl
Al rom and noo shoewr meks Calla abu ll gril
Al Capone and the New Shoes meek Call Abu Dhabi
My guess is that she might have the standard sink/mirror combo that the shared rooms would have in the half-baths, and that’s it.
Now I imagine all the above posters saying their lines in unison.
We are all individuals!
Yes, we are all individuals!
How cute, you think you are all individuals, and not just a collective lump of people known better as Our loyal subjects.
Me? Subject myself to another Emperor?
…alright, if you have cookies. The good ones.
We are the Emperor of the Internet. Trust Us, We have cookies.
So what exactly are you emperor of, then?
I’m the emperor of…of…of the palm trees of Bornholm, yes! And my imagination!
This royal gathering is a meeting for the history books!
Heretic!
The only Emperor is the God Emperor!
I’m not.
Shhh!
I love that these characters as so important to people that we can have a relatively long thread discussing their bathroom and shower arrangements.
Oh noes. Not the dreaded Butts Disease D:
When Carla is done re-engineering those things, will they end up being able to throw pies at people?
Or maybe sing a hymen to Carlas greatness.
That started out to be a joke but mid writing I realized she just might do it…
A hymen? But Joyce needs those to live!
I’m not sure how one would go about “singing” a hymen, but it sounds considerably more intimate than I think Joyce would be comfortable with…
:V
I need to start saying ‘oh no! my hubris!’ at every opportunity.
I know! Especially when I have a broken femur.
But you need those to
That’s how you will become a good steampunk villain.
absofuckinglutely.
…Does Joyce know about Carla? Cause we might be about to get a preview of how she’ll handle learning about Jocelyn.
Joyce doesn’t. She told Becky that Carla gets a room all to herself “for some reason”. Carla isn’t closeted but hadn’t had any reason to discuss this with Joyce.
*hasn’t had, I mean.
Actually I kinda hope that they get to know each other as as people, before Joyce says something shocked and ignorant.
I was wondering that, myself. I think that is one of the many talks no one has had to step and have with Joyce yet.
Seems like this could be heading into that direction in this book maybe?
Oh god, I can only handle so much conflict and drama at once.
Willis, I swear, if you start another dramatic arch before finishing the others, I swear I’ll… I’ll…
I’ll write a very strongly worded letter!
I… I think I like Carla even more now.
Also I regret not being earlier, this would’ve been a good time to snipe Ana
Well, then you would have had to get off your butt earlier… oh, sorry.
How could you make butts the butt of such a bad joke?
The real question is, how could he -not-?
that is RACIST
I am a Posterior-American
I got a friend who is a butt…. well, a bit of an arse to be honest.
Good thing no one ever pointed out to Joyce how many people sit on the classroom chairs she sits on, or the ones in the cafeteria or so on. Eventually she’d be terrified of sitting anywhere.
At least the shower room floor gets mopped every week. The chairs probably never get cleaned.
The cafeteria ones likely do. Unless a TA does it for their own reasons, though, I suspect no classroom surface at a university ever gets properly cleaned. I’ve watched TAs who take that responsibility seriously, rare as that can be, go to the trouble of washing black boards and white boards to ensure proper visibility to the back of the room before actually using the classroom.
Betcha she’s a hoverer vis-a-vis public terlets
On the other hand, I’ve never seen a classroom chair with visible grey-pink slime on it.
“shod-dy” engineering.
I see what you did there.
Two days later: why do I have a report card giving me an f in practical engineering? And why am I being billed for it?
Nonono, that’s not an F, that’s a 15. Yes, Joyce, witchcraft is real, and Carla put a hex on you.
oh my god
Cursed to bow down in Carla’s magnificent presence
*narrows eyes*
You…!
BUTT CONTAMINATION! If only she used a Mars bar wrapper, her ass would have been safe.
Why bother fixing her shoes? She’s already dead. RIP Joyce, what a strange way to end the comic.
Apparently butts disease can be spread in multiple ways, and there is no cure that I’ve heard of.
I’m sensing the last panel contains the next book’s title.
I would bet real human moneydollars that cute college freshman Christian girls wailing about their butts being contaminated is SOMEONE’S fetish
It’s a thing which exists. Of course it is.
Yeah, it is. Anything which can be interpreted in the slightest as skeevy is the fetish of someone somewhere.
Well, it is now…
Later at the hospital, Joyce tries to explain how it ended up her arse when she slipped in the shower, betcha the doctor has heard THAT excuse a million times before.
I guess it’s good she first tested them with her boots on.
Save the shoes!!!
She is going to make something ridiculous. I just know it.
Either that or Joyce will start a life of skating.
God, I really do love Carla the most. Just when I forget, because she hasn’t been around for a while, she walks back into my heart, being flawless.
…that love declaration. With THAT avatar.
wow XD
Literally every time I make a Carla love comment, I get a ‘but omg Mary avatar’ reply, it’s like clockwork lmao. It’s a random avatar, like, I don’t even notice it anymore, only ever when other ppl comment on it :p
Am I the only thinking we’re not seeing enough Carla? Because we’re not seeing enough Carla.
There is NEVER enough Carla. If I was writing this comic, it’d be called Carla of Age. Carla of Carla. Carla Carla Carla.
Yes. Yes that is my comic and it is a good comic.
Ahem. I get overly excited about Carla sometimes.
Naaaah, it’s barely visible.
Though, maybe it’s a good thing we don’t see much Carla? Certain characters can get old if overly used, even with amazing writers like Willis.
I mean, this true. But I still want more Carla, always. LOL.
Has it ever been mentioned what Carla’s major is? Because I imagine her to be an engineering major.
I’m pretty sure it’s been mentioned. Which engineering hasn’t been, although it looks like mechanical is by far the most likely candidate, with electrical in second.
ha ha, butts
OH NO NOW I HAVE IT TOO
join us
join us
JOIN BUTTSSSSSSSSSS
It is the only way.
It is your destibuttiny.
I thought for sure she was going to slip in those “shoes” (walking in HDPE plastic on damp tile? come on!) and fall on her ass. Strangely enough the result was the same anyway.
All this time I have hoped Carla would be a bad influence on Becky… I change my mind. I want her to be a bad influence on JOYCE. This will be delightful!
Oh ye of little faith.
Carla can be a bad influence on EVERYONE!
As long as you give her cookies, of course.
Actually, no.
If you give her cookies, she will just focus on the source and current-possessor of said cookies, and be unable to be a bad influence on the rest of humanity.
Cookies are her weakness. Makes sense.
Of course Human Carla is an engineer.
Comic Reactions:
Eeeeeee, Carla! *composes self* All right, let’s do this.
Panel 1: Joyce, lord of the jugs. Conqueror of the Sludge Lands.
Panel 3: “Oh no! My hubris!” may be one of my favorite lines yet. And my top candidate for the next book title.
Also, I continue to love how fucking fearless Carla is. Like, to wear a towel that short, to talk to someone in a shared shower space in this current climate of trans bathroom panic? I’d never have the ovaries to pull something like that off, so I’m just continuously impressed by her.
Panel 4: That said, Carla isn’t fireproof. She’s not going to shower when most other people are showering and I imagine she’s mostly been used to sneaking in when no one else is in. Cause that’d be way more hassle in bullshit harassment than anyone would want to deal with.
And I notice very clearly how fast she’s intervening here to interrupt Joyce trying to dwell on why exactly Carla may be intentionally showering during a time that no one else is.
And I feel that. I’m out as trans, but in a shared space like a bathroom and a locker room, I’m gonna ghost as best I can, because I’m all too aware of how many trans girls get beaten up in bathrooms and I’ve had my share of harassment from fuckers when I’m just trying to quickly pee and get out.
Panel 6: Engineer Carla has no time for your shoddy prototypes!
But seriously, it’s glorious to see Carla’s continued kindness under a defensive layer of snark and toughness. Like, she really is a good person and doesn’t suffer people being in shitty situations or distress well, but at the same time…
She’s still petrified that letting people know will paint a giant target on her back. And I just weep to think of little Carla trying to be her authentic self and trying to be genuinely kind and having that beat out of her to the point that she cowers behind this caustic shell unable to be the full asshole she erroneously thinks will protect her.
Also, Eeeeee, Joyce and Carla are talking and interacting. The first tenative steps towards Joyce having someone to talk to about Jocelyne when she comes out are being taken here!
I love the layers we see of Carla. Behind her snark there is compassion and behind her “don’t care” attitude there is an all too real awareness of the need for being careful in certain situations.
And aside from all that here we also see a real spark of interest for engineering and wanting to share that love with people.
Carla is, as has been noted, awesome.
I feel like “Oh no, my hubris!” is the single phrase most capable of explaining humanity entirely by itself. Also, Carla is so awesome and multi-dimensional!!!
I feel like that is a big part of why Icarus is such a common allusion in modern media.
Icarus is a story about the problem of using wax as an adhesive. Carla would never put up with such shoddy engineering.
It probably says a lot about Joyce as a person that, despite being known to be a fairly hardline Christian, Carla doesn’t feel even slightly threatened or defensive towards Joyce. Probably it helps that Joyce simply couldn’t be plausibly seen to be threatening unless you were present at the Toedad Car Crash site and saw her right hook in action.
Yeah, it also shows how plugged in to the general feel of the hall she is even if she separates herself outside of it a lot. Like, Carla is way more relaxed and open here than she was with Mary initially and I think that’s directly related to cottoning in on Mary’s abusiveness to queer folks and Joyce’s relatively good karma in the hall.
Plus, I want to believe she’s found out about the Underground Becky Railroad that has been happening on the floor, though that is likely a stretch to say is even remotely canon yet.
I dunno, most of the other floor inhabitants knew and were helping hide Becky. Someone who knew Carla was trans might very well have assumed she’d be in at least basic solidarity and briefed her on the situation.
That does raise an interesting question: WHO knows that Carla is trans? The only people confirmed to be in on it are Sal and Ruth (and the Rutten parents, of course).
I’m gonna guess most of the sophomores do as well. And we definitely know Mary knows.
Even though everyone thinks Joyce is overreacting she’s actually right to be worried. I got a bacterial infection from a shower when I had a wound on my foot. It almost killed me twice, and I still haven’t fully recovered.
Ouch. That’s horrible. I hope you’ll get better.
See kids, avoid a University education. It’ll kill you.
Seriously though, here’s to a full recovery.
Oh my. That’s a good point – any open wounds are indeed susceptible to infection.
And as funny as Joyce’s shower stall fears are, I did get sick more times from college dorm living than I did in the rest of my pre-college life.
I didn’t even have an open wound and still managed to get a big old wart growing inside my foot (so the bottom of my foot was still flat) that had to literally be dug out of my foot, all from using the dorm showers. Yaaaaaaaaaay…
Oh god, warts can grow INSIDE your body? That’s terrifying.
Not all of us think so (even if I do find it amusing how she reacts in specific).
Back when I was in college I knew plenty of people who went and worked out first thing in the morning then showered there because the facilities were better maintained both in terms of cleanliness and proper general maintenance. There was a neighborhood five minutes away where many people ended up living in apartments and rental houses to avoid most of that.
@JessWitt There’s also the risk of conjunctivitis. I know at least two people who got shower stall nastiness inadvertently kicked in their face because of someone being an idiot.
Do you have to sign a waver or something that you won’t sue the University for dorm shower infections? If not, why is it not cheaper to have them cleaned at least twice a day?
As someone recovering from their third surgery for pilonidal disease, having spent over twenty years dealing with the stigma of this, I cringe every time I see the phrase “butt’s disease” on this comic. You make fun of things like this, you make people feel ashamed about health issues that are important not to let fester.
Carla: “My showers are like my revenges: Cold, swift, and absolutely ridiculous!”
So what’s Carla going to do with those jugs? Will she turn them into proper showers shoes for Joyce or roller skates?
Or maybe she’ll create the first roller skates that can be also used as shower shoes.
Shower skates!
I’m sure there’s a market for it.
The patients of shady doctors with a quota to fill, more than likely.
Hubris is among my favorite words.
It’s one of those words I sort of know what is, but could never explain properly to another person.
Oh, and because I’m weird, I like having a few of those words in my vocabulary, so feel free to -not- tell me exactly what it means.
It just means excessive pride or arrogance. It’s really not that hard
Whoops, I didn’t ready the second paragraph ;^^. Gomen.
Minus 10 Imperial Internet Points for you!
Emperor Norton II: “Gah, why won’t this thing hubris properly?”
Courtier: “Er, sir, that’s not what hubris means.”
ENII: “Hubris means what I want it to mean, for I am EMPEROR! -10 internet points!”
Courtier: “Actually, sir, hubris is an actual word that means-”
ENII: “A definition?! OFF WITH HIS INTERNET CONNECTION!”
“That word you keep using…”
That’s the good thing about being emperor. We heartily recommend people trying it.
As long as it’s emperor of something other than the internet, that is.
Recommendation taken under advisement.
“Man, it’s strawman in here! Won’t somebody fix the strawmanning strawman!”
Instead of a formal definition, I just think of it anything that gets you killed in Greek mythology. Taunting the power of grimyshowerflor would definitely do that.
I will do hubris to it!
I will give a bajilionty shemolians to anyone that sends me video of them walking, on a wet tiled floor, wearing gallon water jugs that have been cut in half and attached to Ugg boots.
Heck, We will give no less than Ten Imperial Internet Points.
unfortunately we neither have gallon water jugs nor UGG boots in my country, otherwise I would gladly provide you with the requested video
Many shemolians to you, just for the thought.
I’ve got the feeling that Carla is one of those engineering minds that, if she sees a problem, she has to fix it; now. If she doesn’t, she’ll spend all the intervening time stressing about it. This will either make her a great friend or a horrible nag who is always trying to take over when you’re trying to do something and she’s convinced herself that you’re ‘doing it wrong’.
Meanwhile, I’m just wondering who is going to come in next and just take in the sheer unimaginable oddness of Joyce writhing on the floor as if in agony whilst Carla is fiddling obsessively with… Are those half-jugs with shoelaces threaded through the open tops?
Yeah, it’s interesting to see Carla the fixer approaching all these scenarios with that “okay, there’s the problem, what’s the best solution” mind because I’ve had that mindset in the past (oh, you’re dealing with X, let me figure out the best solution for X and… oh, shoot, I’m forgetting to show empathy with regards to the emotions of dealing with X and need to learn to ask first before trying to help).
And it’s interesting to see how that affects a lot of things, whether it be her revenge plan against Mary, her handling of Ruth’s depression, or her interventions with Amber’s face and Joyce’s jugs of shower resistance.
And it’s why I think Billie calling her out on not trying to find out outside factors will be a good thing, because I think it will start her down a good pathway in the future of melding her solution-focus to the strong empathy and want to do right by people that she constantly tries to deny exists.
I feel the same way when I have to use a website that’s designed crappily, especially badly designed forms. It’s so frustrating to KNOW how easily something could have been done SO MUCH better, but not be able to fix it.
omg my bae half naked with a towel on Willis you tease me
Objectification is a sin, you.
And we are all sinners.
Is Joyce…not even about to take a shower? Is she just there to gloat?
Indeed. But Joyce being Joyce, she cannot gloat about herself to other people, since that’s akin to pride, and pride is sinful.
So her gloating about herself is to be done to inanimate objects only… Although I suppose some of those shower drains may have acquired a life of their own by now.
It’s life . . . but not as we know it.
You are right! I completely missed that but she didn’t bring a towel or anything. She is just there to show the filth who is the boss!
That’s awesome!
A test run? Seeing if wet tile is too slippery? If the shoes wiill hold up that far without breaking?
The idea of showing Carla here to bear witness and take charge of jug-shoe engineering is it’s own payoff. I want lasers!
It was a test run. If the test failed, as it did, at least she’s properly dressed, not making direct contact.
She’ll have to burn the clothes, of course.
butts butts butts butts butts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f3RUzl86G8
WHADDYA WANT
On to plan B, Joyce.
Butts?
You rang?
“Oh no! My hubris!” will be the next DoA book title.
Actually, I think that’s the title of Joyce’s in-universe autobiography.
I hope so. I love the line! It feels a little out of character for Joyce, but it was too good to pass up.
I was surprised at first that Joyce wore the shower shoes on top of her boots, but then I realized of course she does.
Seriously? Carla is straight bae right now.
Uh, actually, I think you mean “homoromantic bae”
Hehe… Butt contamination.
-10 pun points for not saying her butt is tainted instead.
Yeah, that talk between Joyce and Carla about Carla being trans might come sooner rather than later. Carla is currently wearing a fairly short towel, and Joyce is on the ground right now. If Joyce looks up, she might accidentally find out the quick way.
Carla for RA!
Oh god, not her again.
“Oh no! My hubris!”
This will be the single most important thing Joyce learns at college.
Help! My Butt Is Contaminated!
An Autobiography by Dave Willis.
Funnier if you hear Joyce in Pinkie Pie’s voice like I do
Carla is so cute in this comic! Its nice to see a gap in her usual “I’m an asshole I hate you” facade. But it’s still there and I love it.
My Butt is Contaminated by the Sludgy Grip of the Grimy Shower Floor — an erotic novel by Chuck Tingle.
you mean
CONTAMINATED IN THE BUTT BY THE SLUDGY GRIP OF THE GRIMY SHOWER FLOOR
FROM HUGO AWARD NOMINATED AUTHOR CHUCK TINGLE
Even as a human, UltraCar has no tolerance for shoddy engineering.
I hope it doesn’t offend anyone, but Carla is hella hot here. She’s got legs for days, and, then, for some reason, I find wet hair attractive. Noticed it in college, when a girl I’d never given a second thought to came to my room after a shower. Weird.
And then what Carla is doing is kinda hot, too.