I was gonna crack a joke about our nepo baby experiencing bad things for the first time, but she is transgender so I’m gonna say it’s more like the second type of bad thing she’s ever experienced.
Carla is evasive about her backstory but there’s a lot of implications that her transition was extremely public and the subject of a legal battle, and I struggle to imagine growing up like that
Supportive Wealthy Parents can insulate her from some of that, her folks could afford lawyers to fight discrimination in the first place, but not all of it. She would have still been dealing with a lot of very bad things
ResRam
The fac that she handled Mary being a agressively bigoted taint towards her from the very first day with humor and counterpush … doesnt mean it doesnt register or hurt.
doesn’t she have a room to herself? other than maybe charlie being affected
considering the ‘daughter of ruttech’s room’ might be of limits, not that cops would care
maybe this will give her the push she needs to talk to her parents properly (altho i wonder if that’s enough for them to change company stuff but surely there’s plenty of other business deals they’re doing if they’re billionaires to where not funding a war wouldn’t be that big of a deal)
Location tags would be kinda nice, in general. (Especially since fifteen years of sliding timescale has rendered some of them virtually unrecognizable.) I’m not losing sleep over their absence, though.
I’d dig a poster that’s a campus map with the DoA points of interest. Ooh, or an interactive map with some kind of real-time tracking of where everyone is on the map. So we could see how many nights Sarah is really spending over in Tony’s room.
How about a map of every place Amazi-Girl has been sighted? I bet Daisy’s working on making one of those.
What about the one billionaire student? Don’t want to undercut the adversity of Carla’s trans life experience but I also feel like this situation with cops likely presents more of her privilege here.
Whirlakitty
Yeah, I feel like “rich” overrides trans. I also feel like if they’d trashed her room, she’d be vocal about it. Quiet and not willing to talk about it makes me think they did leave room alone and she’s feeling…guilt? Something like that?
Cbwroses
I think it’s more likely that they didn’t know or care who any of the rooms belonged to unless and until they found something.
Thag Simmons
I think it would very much depend on the cop and the context. Money can insulate you from a lot, but it can’t protect you from everything. I doubt she got special treatment in this case, and given her implied backstory having her privacy invaded probably hits on some bad memories
thejeff
I think a lot of it depends on what the cops knew and what they were looking for.
It seems like they just tossed the whole floor (whole dorm?)
Had they even done enough research to know who was living there and thus to even be able to either target Carla because she’s trans or leave her alone because she’s rich?
Early in my transition, I was pulled over for one reason or another; pretty sure it was a blown taillight. This was still early enough days that I hadn’t done anything with my id yet; cop takes it, has me get out of the car, proceeds to call backup in spite of the fact that there was absolutely no reason to, then he and his backup have a real good laugh at my expense before finally letting me go.
I’m concerned as to what they did to Carla’s room with that expression. I don’t know what all they’ve done, and I’m hoping they didn’t do anything specifically to Carla’s room for her being trans. I don’t know if any of the cops were transphobic, but it sure as hell wouldn’t surprise me.
What are y’alls thought on this? I’m curious to see what everyone else is thinking after today’s strip.
but a higher chance she hasn’t even looked yet. untouched, worse, even the same as everyone, there’s still a weight hanging over her that she’s dreading. The people she loves are responsible for atrocities, that’s what the protests were about, that’s what the police brutality and trashing of everyone’s homes was supporting. Just a few more minutes where that’s not real yet.
marcus erronius
I think you’re right… She hasn’t looked, and she knows that no matter what she finds, it will be upsetting. She’s avoiding discovering what she’s going to have to be upset about. :-(
I think it’s just the general feeling one would feel from someone disrupting and tearing apart your personal space. I don’t presume the cops did more to her than they did to anyone else’s room. I hesitate to use the word violating because it’s a heavy word with certain associations… but I’d imagine one would feel some degree of violation from that.
Maybe I missed something but why is Carla upset or wistful or whatever emotion she is? I feel like she wasn’t even around for this arc. Did something happen or is it still just her parental stuff?
Just a hunch here but it might have something to do with the cops upending her room as retaliation for what went down during the protest. In addition to the parental stuff.
Also possible that hers was the only room untouched, due to her massively wealthy parents, and she feels guilty/garbage-y about it.
Les
If her room is untouched, she also can’t know if it’s because of her wealthy parents or because transphobic cops did not classify it as a girls room. Not knowing the motivation would be much worse than knowing.
It’s Carla, so she might have tried to throw her weight around, only to be disrespected. Carla doesn’t deal well with being treated just like everyone else.
ya know what really don’t interact with the lungs? edibles
nothin quite like a good pot brownie, I try these new smores flavor kind recently, theyz good too :9
but yeah after what Carla been through today probably? a joint very much warranted TT~TT
I wonder if we’re ever gonna see Carla confront her billionaire tech parents for their company making computer tech stuff that supports genocide. Last time she talked with her parents, she chickened out on asking them about it. Or is that no longer important enough for the comic to focus on these days?
Carla’s last appearance is also LITERALLY that exact interaction. I could understand this more if we had strips of Carla farting around like usual without paying any lip service to it but this is the first time we’ve seen Carla since she tried to talk to her parents. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sal, who is very much not on the same page as her parents, gives Carla some advice in these next few strips.
Odo
Carla’s last appearance was also over 100 strips ago….
.
The problem isn’t “ Carla farting around like usual” but rather “Joyce and Dorothy doing nothing again and again and again”.
.
Which means more interesting plot lines get pushed aside.
——
And don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled with today’s comic. I am really excited to see more of this interaction. This is more of an issue with “squeeee! Doyce! How cute!” being repeatedly treated as the most important aspect of the comic.
Doopyboop
That happens all the time without Dorothy and Joyce being a factor. And I don’t even mean things like Joe, I mean things such as Mary, Malaya, Marcie, and Roz, who haven’t been characters doing much of anything since the timeskip. Carla is a different factor, sure, but in the past it’s been the case that Carla has gone long patches of time without much focus because she’s a side character but not a main character. Shit, it’s only this latest parent stuff and her relationship with Charlie that have had her have something to do other than wacky shenanigans. The comic focuses on what the comic focuses on. I think recency bias is what makes some people decide the latest issues are because of Dorothy and Joyce rather than just being a problem with the medium of a webcomic that updates daily.
Astariel
It IS the most important aspect of the comic.
Odo
It is partially the medium/structure of the comic, there are always going to be side plots… but there is still a decision on what plots are side plots and what gets focus. —— There has been a decision to spend a lot of strips focusing on “Cute Doyce Romance!”. Partially this is because they are main characters… but that doesn’t explain why we aren’t focusing more on them dealing with cheating fallout. —— I think the more explanatory factor is that Willis, and Astral just like seeing Joyce/Dorothy being cute. For them “Cute!!!!” is the most important thing. And they are free to have that preference, and Willis is free to act on it. I just think it creates a worse comic. —— I think it creates a worse comic because it puts the focus on something with zero narrative stakes. It actively disrupts the tension that is generated by more interesting plot lines by spacing them out over months with endless filler. —— Beyond that it is uncomfortable for the priorities of the strip to essentially mirror the priorities of Joyce and Dorothy, the same priorities that drove them to cheat in the first place. “They are being heroically gay. Their love is more important than anything else. Etc….” Joyce’s and Dorothy’s motivations are glaringly obvious. We already know their internal narrative in this area. But the comic is still choosing to emphasize that same narrative again, and again, and again, at the expense of developing other perspectives. This decision minimizes other narratives, including the narratives of the characters who would reasonably have been hurt by Joyce/Dorothy’s selfish actions. Joyce and Dorothy acted as if they were more important than anyone else… and instead of challenging this perspective, the comic reinforces it by prioritizing the story of their romance over any other stories.
thejeff
@Odo: I think that last part matches my take pretty well. It’s a combination of narrative focus and tone that has me uncomfortable with this arc.
There are hints in some of the recent cute scenes that might be setting up future conflicts, but it’s hard to tell yet and I don’t really trust my instincts on where things are going anymore.
Doopyboop
I don’t care for the vast majority of relationships that have been depicted in the comic but you don’t see me screaming about Willis “wasting my time” about it. The fact that Dorothy and Joyce had sex so fast in their relationship doesn’t click for me personally but that’s whatever, man. I’m ace. I’m USED to things like this not being #ForMe, that comes with being ace.
Saw someone point out that it took like six years for Joe to see any consequences for his list.
.
That person was right. Everything has always taken years to pay off. And while days / storylines have gotten longer over time (it’s slowly crept up from 30-60 days to 60-90 days on average), it’s worth remembering that the comic also used to publish less frequently (weekdays only), so those early storylines took longer to complete than the numbers would suggest.
.
TL;DR: this isn’t new. It really only feels slower than usual if you aren’t enjoying most of Joyce and Dorothy’s screentime.
97 thoughts on “Up an’ about”
NGPZ
nooooo….. TT~TT
Astariel
Looks like Carla’s been traumatized. I don’t like that.
Sirksome
Gotta get back down to not trusting eventually.
Jon
Don’t trust getting back down.
IntangibleMatter
Okay, now that I know that Carla’s hurt I’m really mad. NOBODY touches my precious nepo baby trans girl.
mads_in_zero
I was gonna crack a joke about our nepo baby experiencing bad things for the first time, but she is transgender so I’m gonna say it’s more like the second type of bad thing she’s ever experienced.
ANeM
Cops are involved so probably just the first type of bad thing still.
Thag Simmons
Carla is evasive about her backstory but there’s a lot of implications that her transition was extremely public and the subject of a legal battle, and I struggle to imagine growing up like that
Supportive Wealthy Parents can insulate her from some of that, her folks could afford lawyers to fight discrimination in the first place, but not all of it. She would have still been dealing with a lot of very bad things
ResRam
The fac that she handled Mary being a agressively bigoted taint towards her from the very first day with humor and counterpush … doesnt mean it doesnt register or hurt.
Lena
She’s literally experienced bad things in comic though?
zee
We saw that first type of bad thing it was a whole Mary plot thread
anon
doesn’t she have a room to herself? other than maybe charlie being affected
considering the ‘daughter of ruttech’s room’ might be of limits, not that cops would care
maybe this will give her the push she needs to talk to her parents properly (altho i wonder if that’s enough for them to change company stuff but surely there’s plenty of other business deals they’re doing if they’re billionaires to where not funding a war wouldn’t be that big of a deal)
Ty34er
Clearly you need to start tagging the important character: Garbage Roof
Paradoxius
You know, it’s really like Garbage Roof is a fifth main character…
MarshallBanana
Fifth? Fifth?! Who’re the…
Oh goddammit I took the bait didn’t I?
clif
They are Blow Job Cat, Reed Hall, Forest Hall, and most importantly the fountain that I can’t recall the name of.
deliverything
@clif:
Showalter Fountain.
RassilonTDavros
Location tags would be kinda nice, in general. (Especially since fifteen years of sliding timescale has rendered some of them virtually unrecognizable.) I’m not losing sleep over their absence, though.
Leadsynth
I’d dig a poster that’s a campus map with the DoA points of interest. Ooh, or an interactive map with some kind of real-time tracking of where everyone is on the map. So we could see how many nights Sarah is really spending over in Tony’s room.
How about a map of every place Amazi-Girl has been sighted? I bet Daisy’s working on making one of those.
Needfuldoer
This makes me wish we had location tags, but then the pile of tags to scroll past on the new page would be even longer…
stePH
I would just like the current chapter title to be shown under the strip, like we used to have before the site got a facelift.
RassilonTDavros
:(
Dot
Please please please please let this be the scene where Carla becomes compelling to me I want to like her I promise
Bryy
That’s in another 5 years.
GreyICE
Make it okay for characters to be awful
Dot
That’s not my issue with Carla.
Jay
Surely the cops were respectful of the one trans student
Steamweed
They were not. And don’t call me Shirley.
jeffepp
Good luck, we’re all counting on you.
Jon
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!
Doopyboop
When Kramer hears about this, the shit’s gonna hit the fan.
rowanmikaio
It’s fair if no one gets to consent to how people refer to them, right?
jabbingQuirker
When have you ever known the police to ever disrespect a trans person? Simply unheard of!
Sirksome
What about the one billionaire student? Don’t want to undercut the adversity of Carla’s trans life experience but I also feel like this situation with cops likely presents more of her privilege here.
Whirlakitty
Yeah, I feel like “rich” overrides trans. I also feel like if they’d trashed her room, she’d be vocal about it. Quiet and not willing to talk about it makes me think they did leave room alone and she’s feeling…guilt? Something like that?
Cbwroses
I think it’s more likely that they didn’t know or care who any of the rooms belonged to unless and until they found something.
Thag Simmons
I think it would very much depend on the cop and the context. Money can insulate you from a lot, but it can’t protect you from everything. I doubt she got special treatment in this case, and given her implied backstory having her privacy invaded probably hits on some bad memories
thejeff
I think a lot of it depends on what the cops knew and what they were looking for.
It seems like they just tossed the whole floor (whole dorm?)
Had they even done enough research to know who was living there and thus to even be able to either target Carla because she’s trans or leave her alone because she’s rich?
Mishyana
Early in my transition, I was pulled over for one reason or another; pretty sure it was a blown taillight. This was still early enough days that I hadn’t done anything with my id yet; cop takes it, has me get out of the car, proceeds to call backup in spite of the fact that there was absolutely no reason to, then he and his backup have a real good laugh at my expense before finally letting me go.
Stormtide Leviathan
Carla!!! The circumstances of seeing you aren’t great but I love seeing you regardless
ZombieKyrik
I’m concerned as to what they did to Carla’s room with that expression. I don’t know what all they’ve done, and I’m hoping they didn’t do anything specifically to Carla’s room for her being trans. I don’t know if any of the cops were transphobic, but it sure as hell wouldn’t surprise me.
What are y’alls thought on this? I’m curious to see what everyone else is thinking after today’s strip.
RexLatro
My thought is that they did “nothing” to her room/left it alone, due to her family connections? This makes what Charlie told her hit a little harder
HueSatLight
non-zero chance its untouched because oligarchy
HueSatLight
but a higher chance she hasn’t even looked yet. untouched, worse, even the same as everyone, there’s still a weight hanging over her that she’s dreading. The people she loves are responsible for atrocities, that’s what the protests were about, that’s what the police brutality and trashing of everyone’s homes was supporting. Just a few more minutes where that’s not real yet.
marcus erronius
I think you’re right… She hasn’t looked, and she knows that no matter what she finds, it will be upsetting. She’s avoiding discovering what she’s going to have to be upset about. :-(
Doopyboop
I think it’s just the general feeling one would feel from someone disrupting and tearing apart your personal space. I don’t presume the cops did more to her than they did to anyone else’s room. I hesitate to use the word violating because it’s a heavy word with certain associations… but I’d imagine one would feel some degree of violation from that.
Bill Erak
Carla up in Garbage Roof I’m sure she’s not feeling like garbage after finding out her parents are earning money killing innocents.
Sirksome
Maybe I missed something but why is Carla upset or wistful or whatever emotion she is? I feel like she wasn’t even around for this arc. Did something happen or is it still just her parental stuff?
Doopyboop
Just a hunch here but it might have something to do with the cops upending her room as retaliation for what went down during the protest. In addition to the parental stuff.
Leorale
Also possible that hers was the only room untouched, due to her massively wealthy parents, and she feels guilty/garbage-y about it.
Les
If her room is untouched, she also can’t know if it’s because of her wealthy parents or because transphobic cops did not classify it as a girls room. Not knowing the motivation would be much worse than knowing.
Ophidiophile
It’s Carla, so she might have tried to throw her weight around, only to be disrespected. Carla doesn’t deal well with being treated just like everyone else.
flake
i think it’s “just” the parents thing. It kinda affects both her relationship and her worldview so I can see her still dealing with that
Pocky
Has she been smoking on the roof all day? her poor lungs. . .
flake
i figured it was a joint based on the angles
Taffy
Joints famously don’t interact with the lungs.
NGPZ
ya know what really don’t interact with the lungs? edibles
nothin quite like a good pot brownie, I try these new smores flavor kind recently, theyz good too :9
but yeah after what Carla been through today probably? a joint very much warranted TT~TT
Morleuca
See now here I thought it was a lollipop dtick
NGPZ
nah, thankfully this anime is NOT dubbed by 4kids XD
Kyulen
I wonder if we’re ever gonna see Carla confront her billionaire tech parents for their company making computer tech stuff that supports genocide. Last time she talked with her parents, she chickened out on asking them about it. Or is that no longer important enough for the comic to focus on these days?
3oranges
What kind of pace do you expect here? It’s been how many days since the last time she called them?
Doopyboop
Carla’s last appearance is also LITERALLY that exact interaction. I could understand this more if we had strips of Carla farting around like usual without paying any lip service to it but this is the first time we’ve seen Carla since she tried to talk to her parents. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sal, who is very much not on the same page as her parents, gives Carla some advice in these next few strips.
Odo
Carla’s last appearance was also over 100 strips ago….
.
The problem isn’t “ Carla farting around like usual” but rather “Joyce and Dorothy doing nothing again and again and again”.
.
Which means more interesting plot lines get pushed aside.
——
And don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled with today’s comic. I am really excited to see more of this interaction. This is more of an issue with “squeeee! Doyce! How cute!” being repeatedly treated as the most important aspect of the comic.
Doopyboop
That happens all the time without Dorothy and Joyce being a factor. And I don’t even mean things like Joe, I mean things such as Mary, Malaya, Marcie, and Roz, who haven’t been characters doing much of anything since the timeskip. Carla is a different factor, sure, but in the past it’s been the case that Carla has gone long patches of time without much focus because she’s a side character but not a main character. Shit, it’s only this latest parent stuff and her relationship with Charlie that have had her have something to do other than wacky shenanigans. The comic focuses on what the comic focuses on. I think recency bias is what makes some people decide the latest issues are because of Dorothy and Joyce rather than just being a problem with the medium of a webcomic that updates daily.
Astariel
It IS the most important aspect of the comic.
Odo
It is partially the medium/structure of the comic, there are always going to be side plots… but there is still a decision on what plots are side plots and what gets focus. —— There has been a decision to spend a lot of strips focusing on “Cute Doyce Romance!”. Partially this is because they are main characters… but that doesn’t explain why we aren’t focusing more on them dealing with cheating fallout. —— I think the more explanatory factor is that Willis, and Astral just like seeing Joyce/Dorothy being cute. For them “Cute!!!!” is the most important thing. And they are free to have that preference, and Willis is free to act on it. I just think it creates a worse comic. —— I think it creates a worse comic because it puts the focus on something with zero narrative stakes. It actively disrupts the tension that is generated by more interesting plot lines by spacing them out over months with endless filler. —— Beyond that it is uncomfortable for the priorities of the strip to essentially mirror the priorities of Joyce and Dorothy, the same priorities that drove them to cheat in the first place. “They are being heroically gay. Their love is more important than anything else. Etc….” Joyce’s and Dorothy’s motivations are glaringly obvious. We already know their internal narrative in this area. But the comic is still choosing to emphasize that same narrative again, and again, and again, at the expense of developing other perspectives. This decision minimizes other narratives, including the narratives of the characters who would reasonably have been hurt by Joyce/Dorothy’s selfish actions. Joyce and Dorothy acted as if they were more important than anyone else… and instead of challenging this perspective, the comic reinforces it by prioritizing the story of their romance over any other stories.
thejeff
@Odo: I think that last part matches my take pretty well. It’s a combination of narrative focus and tone that has me uncomfortable with this arc.
There are hints in some of the recent cute scenes that might be setting up future conflicts, but it’s hard to tell yet and I don’t really trust my instincts on where things are going anymore.
Doopyboop
I don’t care for the vast majority of relationships that have been depicted in the comic but you don’t see me screaming about Willis “wasting my time” about it. The fact that Dorothy and Joyce had sex so fast in their relationship doesn’t click for me personally but that’s whatever, man. I’m ace. I’m USED to things like this not being #ForMe, that comes with being ace.
Thag Simmons
Webcomic pacing feels slow as shit, just a quirk of the medium
I’d also be shocked if this scene ends without addressing her parents
Li
Saw someone point out that it took like six years for Joe to see any consequences for his list.
.
That person was right. Everything has always taken years to pay off. And while days / storylines have gotten longer over time (it’s slowly crept up from 30-60 days to 60-90 days on average), it’s worth remembering that the comic also used to publish less frequently (weekdays only), so those early storylines took longer to complete than the numbers would suggest.
.
TL;DR: this isn’t new. It really only feels slower than usual if you aren’t enjoying most of Joyce and Dorothy’s screentime.
Lee