Mary isn’t Catholic, so in terms of family planning, condoms should probably be okay? Although I’ll bet she’s the type to refer to birth control pills as “abortion pills” and talk at great length about shirking Eve’s curse.
I read it more as periods, since birth control can let you have some control over old aunt flow, and in some cases skip it entirely.
…yours makes more sense
Too bad for your innocence! Depending on the sect birth control pills can be both preferable to condoms and evil abortion pills! See, if you aren’t having sex then severe periods are gross and icky and distasteful unto the Lord. Gotta get that weird lady-business hidden and under chemical control! Once you’re having sex, though, anything that even maybe sort of possibly intentionally blocks fertilized eggs is a murderous no-go. Plus without marriag. you’re a harlot. Unmarried people shouldn’t use birth control because failure rates and STDs and interfering with GOD’S PLAN. Married couples have it a bit different. Condoms, spermicide, and diaphrams are kind of ok for married folk because it’s all pre-fertilization cockblocking and because typical failure rates are high enough to say it’s in God’s hands (note the hypocrisy). No IUD sin-sticks for anyone. Vasectomies and tubal ligation are studiously not talked about. All this was covered in great depth in my “progressive” fundamentalist sex-ed and puberty books, and now you know it, too!
Hormonal birth control doesn’t “block” an already-fertilized egg. It keeps the eggs in the ovaries. No ovulation = no fertilization happens = no conception = not an abortion. It’s “pre-fertilization cockblocking” (lol!) for women. So yes, massively hypocritical.
Not sure from your phrasing if you already know that and were being illustrative, sorry if so. 🙂
To quote Kevin Swanson, host of Generations Radio:
“Swanson: I’m beginning to get some evidence from certain doctors and certain scientists that have done research on women’s wombs after they’ve gone through the surgery, and they’ve compared the wombs of women who were on the birth control pill to those who were not on the birth control pill. And they have found that with women who are on the birth control pill, there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb. They’re just like dead babies. They’re on the inside of the womb. And these wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies.
Peeples: We’ve actually heard on both sides of that. We’re researching that and want to make sure we speak correctly to that in our second film. But we have medical advice on both sides of the table there, so we want to make sure that we communicate that properly.
Swanson: It would seem, and I realize that people are a little split on what are all the effects of the birth control pill, but it would seem that there’s a tremendous risk in the use of it for the life of children.”
It’s a newer tactic in the culture wars over birth control and abortion. Hormonal birth control pills *primarily* work by preventing ovulation. But as a secondary effect/backup feature, they also make the uterus inhospitable to implantation in the unlikely event that an ovum is released and fertilized. Thus, we get anti-choice activists yelling about how Obamacare supposedly restricts religious freedom because it forces the health insurance plans covered by companies like HobbyLobby to provide access to “abortion pills” to their employees.
Welp THAT is something I hadn’t run into and I’ve done a lot of looking into both sides of it, and that’s certainly not been mentioned by my doctors in the past. (I’ve not been on hormonal BC for several years though.)
If true, it doesn’t change my stance on it personally, but I’d be interested to check out some links if you have some relevant ones on the average frequency of occurrence compared to non-BC users, or if/how the uterus reacts differently when on BC than it would without. (Even with no form of birth control, a fertilized egg does not always successfully implant.)
Not as interested in sources using “baby graveyard” type of rhetoric but I know it’s a topic people feel strongly about. Appreciate the new info; it’s good to be up to date.
Everywhere I see discussing it points out that the pill works strictly by blocking ovulation. EXCEPT for the inserts in the packages, which assure you that, even should ovulation and fertilization happen, implantation is unlikely. (Anecdotally there does seem to be a higher miscarriage rate for women on the pill, so that might make sense? However this could also be due to women not realizing how high the miscarriage rate in general is.)
Registered just to say that the content quoted by Wanderso is utter and absolute BS, for anyone that is wondering. (They may have already known that, but I didn’t see a sarcasm marker.)
Right, ChrisHerself. Hormonal contraception blocks sperm and egg from ever meeting. Columbia University has a really excellent site called GoAskAlice with more information for anyone who’s interested.
@Wanderso: That quote is legitimately my favorite bit of ridiculous fundie wtf. It’s like…(addressing Swanson, not you) no one told you that. No actual scientist made that claim at you. You just made that up out of your own head and banked on no one knowing how ludicrously scientifically inaccurate and impossible it is. You strange little man.
It’s seriously like something a small child with no understanding of…anything would say.
My doctor told me essentially what L!ghtn!ng said: that the main effect was to prevent ovulation, but that it also made implantation less likely if fertilisation did happen to occur.
My assumption is that it reduces the thickening of the lining of the womb: my periods have certainly got progressively shorter and lighter through my child-bearing years, especially in the period of time after I stopped having children, and so was on the pill without a break. This is unlikely to be solely the result of aging, seeing my youngest was born when I was 26.
I agree Lumin, what I’m most interested in is the statistics of the frequency of a fertilized egg being rejected in HBC versus non-HBC users. And the risk of such an event occurring in HBC users.
If it’s significantly higher, then that certainly gives me insight into the ongoing suppression of women’s right to birth control. If it’s not, then to me it’s simply another scientific fact re-purposed into anti-choice propaganda. Good information to have either way I think. 🙂
*reads all the information, goes back to TweeBopALula* Wait did you just use the word harlot? I don’t think that word has been used since 1911. But hey since we seem to be sliding back in time maybe that word is going to be back in fashion again. Ooo! maybe, we can use prithe and thee and thou and Scoundrel!
For the record (and in case you didn’t catch Erik’s message way at the bottom of the page) thou, thee, thy, thine are second person informal singular form. That’s why they are used to refer to God (which is probably where the air of formality is coming from); Medieval European Christians liked to think of Him as a friend they could be palsy with. The Germans still do, too, using du, dich, dir, dein to refer to Gott, and well as friends, family, children and animals.
Like No Name said, “thee”, “thy” etc. are informal, not formal. That’s why you refer to royalty as “your majesty”, not “thy majesty” and judges as “your honor”, even in period pieces.
As of 1 Jan 2014 there were something like 1.025 million words in the English language. So there’s lots of words like ‘harlot’ and ‘trollop’ and ‘strumpet’ (a couple other good ones that are also underutilized or ignored today) out there we could — and should — be using.
Nah. Roz is slightly more redeemable than Mary. Satan only knows what Mary’s reaction to hearing about what happened to Joyce at the party would have been. Probably something that would make me want to reach through the fourth wall and strangle her till rigor mortis set in
Roz seems to have the right general idea and she genuinely cares about and wants to help people. I know some people get into activism to chase power, but I don’t think she’s one of them.
Her execution isn’t perfect and she can be abrasive, but she doesn’t deserve the backlash she gets from Leslie. I know that she can be frustrating to watch. But man, that’s so not the way to deal with an exceptionally passionate student.
I can understand Roz’s frustration at…having to take that class, tbqh, as well as Leslie’s frustration at having Roz in her class. But even though Leslie may be marginalized cuz she’s gay, she’s still much older than Roz and, as her professor, has a lot of (institutional) power over her. In a lot of their interactions it seems like Leslie is trying to put Roz in her place, which is Not Okay.
In fact, I’d argue that it’s entirely because she’s roomed with Mary that’s responsible for her weary take-no-shit, fuck-off-with-your-fundie-bullshit approach to Joyce that makes the comment thread freak out at her.
When your regular exposure to fundie culture is the likes of Mary and her constant slurs and hating on your baby sister for being related to you and picking fights with anyone she views as walking too loudly past her door…. well, is it any surprise she went off on Joyce and has a low threshold for fundamentalism in general?
Especially when you also note that she blames that general culture for the electoral success of her sister.
We’ve seen her do this half-head poke out for a number of other hallway disturbances, one of which to the even more quiet example of Billie sneaking her laundry basket into Ruth’s room which served as the basis of Mary’s blackmail plan against Ruth.
And Carla picked jack shit. She did some skating on carpet and didn’t immediately kowtow to Mary’s demands. That’s not “picking a fight” though Carla did commit the fatal sin of being *gasp* rude to a person who fundamentally does not respect the existence of queer individuals and especially trans individuals as we saw later.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/clinkclink/ Mary wonders what there could possibly be so many of in Billie’s bag to make such a clatter. Bottles do make a lot of noise when packed together, and it is unlikely that Mary has encountered a post-binge garbage run before. She gets an answer and the joke ends.
Oops, I missed (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/joke/), where Mary goes to the door of her room because she, like other humans, might like to be invited to a party. Slight rudeness back and forth; Mary’s gauche, then rejected by Roz and Becky, then makes a snarky comment, possibly to hide her hurt feelings.
It’s actually hard not to see Mary’s ‘attack’ as upping the ante, having previously sunk to Carla’s level of childishness by first lying down in the hall and then gluing her skates.
We’ve all been guilty of, in the heat of an argument, saying something deliberately spiteful that had no relation to the topic of dispute other than to make the other person feel awful, which feels a little like winning until you realise what you’ve done.
Mary is not a nice person, but to treat Carla as some sort of martyr of blithe-spirited transsexual youth bullied by a bigot is pretty innacurate
So sorry, Mary is absolutely a bigot. What I meant was that she was nasty to Carla for other reasons than pure bigotry, even if her attack was expressed purely as bigotry.
Did you have a comment with multiple links? Those tend to be temporarily moderated and approved by Willis when he wakes up. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
Yeah, fundies tend to hate condoms because, as best I can remember, having condoms or teaching safe sex is actually temptation to have sex and implanting the demonic idea of sex before marriage and so a person, and especially a woman who has condoms is a (slur for sexually active woman) because she actually planned ahead for sexual intercourse and so planned to sin instead of being carried away by Satan’s influence.
Shockingly, this also leads to one hell of a rape culture where showing any sign of actually being interested or enjoying sex as a woman was basically the equivalent of putting a sign over your head saying “I am a sinner and I’m going straight to Hell now”.
So yeah, between that and the premarital hanky panky, Mary’s got reasons for days to despise her. Not that Mary needs much help to hate someone.
I once saw somewhere that linked to CCLI (couple-to-couple league, a Catholic family planning group), with the caveat that the site they were linking to was excessively birth-control friendly. So yes, when the conservative Catholic approach to family planning is considered too birth control friendly, condoms are definitely not going to fly.
(Of course, as I write this it occurs to me that condoms tend to be associated more with safer sex than with birth control, so there might be a bias against them. On the other hand, all the public health stuff you get after having a baby tends to work against that, and having babies earlier would be more common, so who knows.)
There’s also a not insignificant number of fundie types that hate condoms because they see them as “defying God’s plan” to punish (perjorative for sexually active women) women who think they can have sex without receiving the punishment of childbirth promised to women in Genesis (according to their world views).
And more horrifyingly, as defying “God’s plan” to wipe out the queer folk through the “righteous plague” of HIV.
Anti-sex activists tend to be scary fucks that way.
Despite having read ALL of Shortpacked and still keeping up with DoA, I’ve gotta admit I’m a wee bit surprised to learn Mary ISN’T hardcore Catholic. I’d appreciate any and all insight into this character’s mindset OTHER than raging c*nt.
G.I. Joe…?
(that isn’t a question, that’s my attempt to finish that phrase/soundbite, but with a questioning tone due to the fact that you put a “not” in front of the phrase).
/explaining the joke
Maybe not. It’s overplayed, but Carla could easily just loiter around Mary, make hmm noises, and start talking in non-sequiturs for a week(no, no, the airspeed of a watermelon is far to low. A cantaloupe, perhaps?). By the end of it Mary’s had a nervous breakdown and Carla hasn’t technically done anything wrong.
For evidence, here she’s measuring Mary’s door when her own door is 100% identical. Why, if not to make Mary crazy?
You act like building plans are always followed 100% perfect. Any true evil plan requires precise measurement of the right door, no silly avoidable mistakes.
She’s an engineering major after all, it’s important to measure twice, cut once, and leave adequate signage that a major works will be coming to her area.
I think that driving Mary crazy trying to avoid Carla’s revenge prank probably is the plan. Why else title her plans on the chalkboard the way she did unless Mary was meant to find that board. He’ll, I bet the plan is to get Mary to panic, break into Carla’s room, see that board, tell on Carla and in effect tell on herself for breaking into Carla’s room, and have Mary be the criminal who gets in trouble.
Slightly too subtle, I think. Methinks the plan is “drive Mary insane with worry over a nonexistent revenge, wait til she either breaks or is at the edge of apathy, and then pie her in the face.”
Yeah, this seems like the most likely (and probably the most effective) revenge strategy to adopt but I’m not sure how “Carla” it is. It seems a bit too understated for her.
…but that pretty much everyone, especially including the victim, is sure you were responsible…somehow.
Alternately, only the victim has a clue, and no one else buys the truth for a minute. That’s probably harder to pull off, though.
I haven’t been able to read sheet music since I was 15 so I came looking for exactly this comment. 😀 I was hoping for Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf but the notes don’t fit.
Saw it performed in the Royal Albert Hall in London with real cannons. Can’t really claim I heard it because my ears were ringing for days afterwards. The cannon fire adds quite a touch…
I am irrationally happy that not one, not two, but FOUR people in the comments not only knew the answer from the notes alone, but knew it fast enough to ninja one another giving it.
**heartfelt applause** Bravo, comment’s section. Bravo.
Also impressed with Willis for putting in specific notes instead of random. A Bravo to you as well.
In the overture, that tune seems to represent the Russian army. Turns up for the second time just after France (The Marseillaise) sorta trips over and runs away, and just before the bit with the cannons. Translation: “IT’S ON, [bongo].” (In real life, the Russian army mainly just hung around waiting for Napoleon to over-reach himself.)
I didn’t get it in my head, but when I grabbed an instrument it took about five seconds to recognise it and think “… will there be cannon? I hope there’ll be cannon.”
Here’s a link to — as the video says — “the dramatic part” (grin); naturally, with real cannons too.
Lost in all the hubbub about the cannon fire, though, is the fact that Tchakovsky also included a massed chorale. I remember one year when we performed this at the college I attended; they combined the campus men’s and women’s choruses with the community Choral Union (of which I was a part), resulting in almost 200 voices onstage with the University Orchestra. No cannon, unfortunately; we subbed someone firing 10-gauge shotgun blanks into an empty oil drum instead.
I did that too, for an annual outdoor concert the symphony used to do, last time was a few years ago, it was great fun, even got to be the one pulling the lanyard a couple of times.
If it were the William Tell Overture, Carla would be in a black mask, astride a white horse, and meting out justice against the desperadoes of the Wild West.
*I* still read books these days. Although I’m running out of storage room, I prefer the feel of a physical book in my hand instead of staring at a screen. I’ve looked into getting an e-reader, but the sites where I buy the majority of my books (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Military Fiction, Mil History) don’t offer e-versions of the books they sell.
(I’m also old, which might play a part)
Yes, there is growing access to digital “open-source” books, but the requirement of real, very expensive textbooks is still an ongoing concern. From USNews&WorldReport: “The U.S. Public Interest Research Group found the average student spends as much as $1,200 each year on textbooks and supplies alone.” Students who offset that average amount tend to be participating in nontraditional college environments, but the characters in this webcomic are going to a plain ol’ face-to-face university. Students find themselves using their financial aid on textbooks instead of focusing their financial aid on tuition, which drains their funds quicker, and is a very real and current problem.
Whatever captain weirdbeard. Sounds to me like you have never actually tried to go through a semester like that. Not every textbook has .pdf versions floating around waiting for everyone to take, and often they come bundled with ‘essential’ software which is necessary to turn in homework, making the purchase mandatory.
Also, e-texts are worse for learning from. “According to scientists”, at least. Something about it being easier to find things again in a printed text than a digital one, as your memory handily links the words to a rough physical location in the book.
This is truth. I graduated in 2009, and during my last year was able to make ~$3K over the course of the year from a part-time job on campus. Blew through like 50% of it on textbooks, studio fees and necessary art supplies in that year alone, all of which were required for me to complete my studies. The other 50% went to my groceries for the year (my parents graciously covered my rent and tuition, I am absurdly fortunate that they could). Anyway, it would have been really nice to have had some of that left over, considering that I was graduating into a recession with a Fine Arts degree. :/
No, they require you to purchase them (Though I see rental is a thing these days). Some profs, having caused you to make your wallet cry, then assign you maybe a chapter and then assign the bulk of the reading from a reserve list at the library.
Then at the end of the semester they’re worth nothing on the secondhand market because the school mandates the new edition with the questions at the end of each chapter rearranged. Sometimes the professors mandate you purchase the latest version of their own book, and they’re the only source.
I signed up for my school’s honors program specifically to take the honors speech section and avoid the regular speech section, whose professor ran exactly that scam.
I’m pretty sure she’s rolling her eyes up at whatever deity there might be, and asking what exactly she has done so wrong in her life that she got stuck with Mary a roommate. I mean, she’s kind of terribly obnoxious, but it’s not like she’s gone around kicking puppies, or anything.
Yesssssssssssss. Keep her unsettled and on her guard, make her tiptoe around you wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. You wonderfully evil girl. 😀
Plus it serves as a potent reminder that she’s not just going to be slapped down by some cynical penny-ante transphobia and that she hasn’t forgotten that nor the destruction of her skates.
This is as much, oh hi, look at me up and about and not at all scared of your bullying bullshit as it is, oh hi, don’t mind me, just clearly setting up some completely ridiculous revenge plan that could be enacted at any minute, don’t mind me.
Oh dear. Much as Mary is a completely hateful person, and I would not be sorry if someone slapped her, I don’t want Carla to do something that could get her thrown out of the college.
I doubt it’d be something illegal. I mean her plan is called, “Carla’s Cold, Swift, And Absolutely Ridiculous Revenge Against Mary Plan.” I’m expecting something like a pie to the face.
Best prank I ever played on a co-worker involved simply letting her overhear me hint that I had set one up on her. She spent the afternoon tearing her desk apart.
She should just place a sign across the hall from Mary with the words “Soon” on it and occasionally poke around outside Mary’s door. And that’s it. Just get her more and more paranoid.
This is gonna be good. Also, I’m given the impression by Carla’s “Thank you” that Mary did indeed stand up straight. Guess Carla has mastered the use of the Bavarian Fire Drill as well as welding.
I think it’s also her being unfailingly polite and not rising to any of Mary’s bullshit. Like Mary is already halfway off on a rant about what she’s doing when Carla does the “stand up straight please, thank you” bit. It’s a great moment of just taking control of the situation back and leaving a passive note that Carla’s willingness to clown around with her is now at a firm end.
I wonder if she’s actually making a prank machine for Mary or if she’s just doing all of this in order to make her nervous and think that something’s going to happen but it never does
I’m open to both options
Were it not for the earlier comic showing her welding in private, I might’ve supposed that Carla’s revenge plan consisted simply of darting around like this, doing weird things, in order to make Mary think she was up to something… thereby ultimately turning Mary into a nervous wreck.
I’m happy for it to be both. Extra points if Mary reassures herself that Carla is just trying to make Mary paranoid for no reason, right before getting the full force of Carla’s absurdly complicated revenge.
I’m sure the Mary we know is nothing like the Mary behind closed doors. You see there are certain societal pressures we are all influenced by and those pressures can change or personalities forcing us to put on “masks” for the lack of a better term in our need to be accepted. Mary is no different. The outwardly antagonistic, manipulative, self entitled, privileged, smart mouth is just a rouse to protect the kind hearted perfectly decent human being she actually is…….You buying any of this?That convincing enough?…Was I deadpan enough?…no….Well I tried.
Also why is she always wearing those wristbands? First guess would be she cuts herself but the truth is actually far sadder. Robot hands that replace a tragic birth defect that left her with arm stumps. Really puts her character in perspective doesn’t it?
Great, been in and class since 3rd grade, still know diddly squat about reading music. At the very least whatever it says there. Seems ominous though. I like ominous.
I know this is barely related to what’s going on, but it always baffles me when people whistle. Whenever I try it, it just sounds like high-pitched blowing.
Form your lips into an “ooo” shape, like a cartoon character sucking something out of a straw. Place the tip of your tongue against the back of your bottom-front teeth. Blow lightly.
The tricky part is you might have to adjust how tense your lips are, the size of the hole, how extended they are from your face, how tense your tongue is, your airflow, and any number of things before getting a feel for your specific mouth-acoustics.
I taught myself to whistle by remembering how you can blow air across the mouth of a bottle to make a tone: air is passing sideways across the opening. With the tip of the tongue planted behind the bottom teeth, raise the middle of the tongue just below the roof of your mouth. (It’s okay if you have to open your jaw to make room for this. The sides of the tongue may contact the roof of the mouth; this is okay too, as long as there’s a channel for air to pass through the middle.) Your tongue redirects the blown air into a steep upward arc within your mouth, and then into a sharp diagonal against the opening of your lips. This should make whistling sounds!
I didn’t so much forget as never know. I had someone else as her roommate in my head. I didn’t know we’d seen Roz outside the Gender Studies classroom.
I hope Carla knows, and will get Roz out of the way, since this apparently involves Mary’s room.
There was the part of Freshman Family Weekend where Mary had left her room early in the morning because Roz’s younger sister was sharing her bed with her and Mary was afraid of the younger sister (Riley) for the sole reason of “she’s a DeSanto, she’s gotta be bad”
And then do… NOTHING. Perfect revenge, your target will freak out as you continue doing nothing against them but it’s impossible for you to get in trouble for it as you’ve done nothing. owo
I can’t believe I’m even remotely defending Mary here, but it seems that her revulsion to Carla comes from an upbringing thing than a personal hate. I know people who would push, shove, and the like to Carla if Carla if she even talked to them.
Maybe it’s a little point, a shimmer of light for Mary. Or maybe she WOULD do all that, but she’s in college. Either are depressing and doesn’t excuse Mary for anything she’s done.
Also, my bet is on a form of trip-wire, into trampoline, into pie face first for what Carla is planning.
Quite likely, in that I’m pretty sure Mary would need to see Carla as a person and potentially as an equal to truly hate her personally. And that’s why this is actually much worse, because there’s literally nothing Carla could do to change it.
A personal dislike can be resolved through a sit down, maybe a step back to see the other person, or even a shifting of views on one person’s part. A bigotry like this, where Mary will never not just see Carla as the (slur for trans woman) that’s “polluting” her floor. Carla can do nothing to affect that and anything she does do will just be interpreted in that lens to justify further harm to her.
See Mary treating things like quietly holding a tape measure to the door and softly whistling or skating on carpet as personal attacks on her very sense of decency.
I mean it’s pretty reasonable to be baffled and vaguely concerned when someone starts measuring your door frame and person for no evident reason. Like, this is pretty much how I would respond to that event even if the person doing it WASN’T someone I had personally wronged who had every reason to be plotting some Rube Goldberg-esque revenge on me.
I meant before when she was just in the room and there was just the sort whistle and the shnk of the measuring tape to respond to. It is absolutely reasonable to freak out and want to know what’s going on when the target of your bullying is non-chalantly making measurements on your door and person.
Maybe I’m just overly nervous/inquisitive but any noise outside of “regular footsteps and maybe idle chatter” right outside my door is enough to make me investigate.
That actually kind of bothers me a little. She hates Carla. She thinks she’s better than Carla. That immediate reaction to a /command/ is sort of…telling.
Eh. The utter strangeness of the situation combined with an easily followable command that has no immediately perceivable downsides would cause obedience in probably 99% of the population. It’s just how we work.
She’s conditioned to respond to authority, or at least authoritativeness. Someone used to having everyone jump when they say frog, automatically jumps when someone says frog at them. Works evr\ery time.
YES! This is exactly what Crighton would whistle while in his madness place, writing out the equations for wormholes that were locked in his head. I REALLY hope this had some influence on why Willis chose that tune. I loved that show.
Wait, does Willis know music? Because that’s transposed to C, and written an octave lower, as whistling usually is (because the lowest note is otherwise in the middle of the staff).
Or did he just copy it from some bass clef instrument, and not know?
Salutations, Man of Scar. *Ahem.* Bad choice on my part, I’ll be snarky better next time.
On a more relevant note: I don’t read hair. A two foot long book connected to my head would be impossible to get to the end of without an annoyingly complex mirror system.
Plus I hate it when people change font color and word count before I finish.
seriously though, the Trunchbull Gambit is scarily effective. You think Principal Trunchbull was the only authority figure to get away with abusing those under their care because no adult would ever believe the kids?
I do remember, and felt really bad for Roz she either only sleeps there and tries to block her even more. She probably goes to other people places to have sex even if she is tired because is miles better than have to hear Mary…
I was just stricken by a realization. The perfect person for Carla to be with is Mike. Their great plotters and don’t really care about how others see them… Might break the universe though.
My initial guess is that the sex-repulsion has carried over as well as part of her sexuality. That being said, Ultra Car was also willing to be sexual in some very specific manners that involved low direct involvement with sexual activity, so I could also see that being carried over.
When whatever, cold ,swift and utterly ridiculous thing has happened, and the dust has settled, Roz will look up from her book and say… “what just happened?”
It KINDA is harassment though, but not on a very serious level (yet). Of course, it’s nothing close to Mary’s level of harassment.
Leaving Carla to “take care of the problem” on her own will never not be problematic, but since the official channels are closed this is the best thing they have, and of all the cast I trust Carla not to take a “sweet prank” too far..
COMPLETELY off topic, but the new Questionable Content character kinda reminds me of Malaya. Same sunny attitude to life, same complete lack of proportion, same sliver of a surprisingly warm heart if you are willing to dig through enough bullshit to get there.
In her interaction with Marcie. Trying to learn sign language to be able to communicate with the new, cool girl on the team is a nice thing to do in my book.
So the thing I like the most about this is that Mary is clearly freaked out and afraid. Mary: this is how all your victims have felt, only with less genuine emotional pain and the added bonus that unlike them you 100 percent deserve this.
Yup. And unlike her victims, she knows that she’s pretty much set this up to herself.
She was counting on Carla retreating back into the darkness, unwilling to show her face. She’s not at all sure to handle a Carla who is not only not doing that and clearly planning some sort of thing, but also one who is not even bothering with the sass and sarcasm.
I feel ultra-polite Carla is like a rattlesnake’s tail, a clear sign that shit has just become real and someone is getting bit.
It’s not the physical threat; it’s the implication that she’s planning something ultra-elaborate and not having any clue what it might be. Fear of an amorphous phantom that will appear at some undefined point in the future is far worse than fear of a quantifiable, visible threat.
Panel 1: Someone noted in the preview that Roz’s response kinda highlights how frequently Mary responds to the slightest noise and how little of a deal this shit is to a less sheltered student.
I mean, here, Mary is reacting to… what? Light whistling and the sound of a measuring tape? This is a woman who is not at all ready to be living with other people and seems to believe that angrily reacting to any minor disturbance outside with her patented all out assault of anger and accusations.
And Roz’s face. She’s just so done with all of Mary’s shit. Just a world’s worth of weariness.
Panels 2 and 3: Carla is so poised in this moment, just measuring out for her revenge prank, refusing to rise to Mary’s bait, and letting Mary stew in the paranoia of what Carla could be planning.
And that extends into Panel 4, just staying polite and on target, never reacting, just letting her know that she is there, she is not broken from her petty transphobic bullshit, and that she fully remembers and has something planned in response.
And that might be the bigger revenge. To let an authoritarian bigot know this completely that there insistence on the rules and their exploitation of social inequalities is not going to stop you, that you do not fear them, nor will you play their game.
That’s a giant taking back of power that makes the actual revenge just the cherry on the sundae.
And of course that last panel, oh yes, this among so many reasons is why I’ll never not squeal in fangirl joy every time we see Carla.
It’s required at a lot of schools…not sure if IU is one of them, but I’d not be surprised.
Unless her family lives in commuting distance, though, I don’t think not being in the dorms would be any better for her. She’d still have to deal with ‘noisy’ neighbours.
1) Skates on carpet is not loud
2) We’ve now seen evidence that Mary is a curtain-twitcher that responds to the slightest bits of noise outside her door.*
3) Fuck you.
4) Dorm rooms. People live. Noises happen. Quiet study areas literally down the hall if she seriously can’t handle the smallest amount of normal dorm noise.
5) No one else cared. Like no one. Also, middle of the day.
6) Fuck you.
7) Mary’s harassment was not “sitting quietly in her room”, it was escalating to fucking physical violence and ruining Carla’s skates because Carla dared exist in the hall and not immediately surrender to Mary’s authoritarian tantrum about rules or give in to her petty bullshit. And then, oh yes, let us turn to the blinking neon light in the sky.
8) That nasty bit of intentional bullying, where Mary intentionally misgendered Carla as a rather targeted attack in an act of vile bigotry and intentional hate. Deliberately calling upon the social power that carries, the reminder that every instance of that has for trans folks of reminding them of how often those intentional emotional attacks escalate to physical violence: http://mic.com/articles/142537/trans-woman-attacked-on-nyc-train-for-riding-while-trans#.HIhHhDrju
And calling on the type of societal bigotry that is at the root of bullshit nonsense like the bathroom bills, the staggeringly high murder rate of trans folks, and the heart-breaking suicide rate of trans teens owing to acts of bullying like this.
A genuine act of hate, neatly erased to present Mary the victim, Carla the victimizer and its not just not cool, it’s actively hateful and disrespectful and I’m fucking down pretending otherwise, not after all the bullshit assholes who poured out of the woodwork after that instance to try and neatly wash it away like you here.
And so, it is for that reason and the ones above, that my final response is unsurprisingly…
9) Fuck you.
*Which also explains the spying on Ruth and Billie, seeing as how the very presence of someone in the vague area of her door is enough to get her peeking out the door like it’s the most dimly lit curtain in suburbia.
What Bagge said. I figured the comment had been deleted (for good reason) and its not like I had to read it to know what it was about, I mean we’ve seen it all before.
Excellent response as usual.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Carla’s revenge in full. She doesn’t need to do anything else! Mary’s imagination will do what no amount of effort and creativity on Carla’s part could do: She’ll spend the next few days in a paranoid lather of fearful anticipation, jumping at shadows and generally acting crazy every time she leaves her room.
Eventually, Mary will work out that this was just a psych-out. However, until then, she’ll know what it is like to live in fear of what is outside. Maybe it will teach her a little empathy for the typical everyday life of a transperson.
Disagree. There’s commenting on a character being jumpy and fearful of a coming reprisal, and then there’s literally making it about the “danger outside [women’s] doors.” The latter is in extremely poor taste in this situation.
I think that you’re misreading my comment. I’m just noting that Mary may benefit from knowing what it’s like to have an unspecified threat at some point in the future hanging over her head. Carla lives with that every day.
Oh sorry, that wasn’t directed at you, that was directed at cardiemum.
And I agree that all Carla really needs to do is this or things like this, things that play on her paranoia and desire to see herself as the persecuted minority and which reverse the power dynamic between them.
That being said a pie to the face would also be nice.
Also, I’m sure I’m late to the game on this, but I noticed Mary has colored eyes, something I believe reserved for specific characters (Joyce and Jocelyn come to mind; there was one other?).
willis has explained that the coloured eyes are because the charscters are newer. older characters didnt have coloured eyes because of his style at the time he created them, and in his eyes they probably dont look like themselves with different kinds of eyes
I think it’s more complicated than that: Joyce was one of Willis’s earlier characters, and she’s the big-blue-eyed angel. Hank and Jocelyne have blue eyes because of their relation to Joyce (and Hank specifically because of Willis’s cross-gender standard). Ruth has green eyes because why not?, but used to have the dots because Willis’s style did change over time (with her at least) and when he realized that, decided to make the eye color symbolic of a change in heart. Mary is, quite simply, the anti-Joyce and gets brown eyes to Joyce’s blue. Penny, again, has green eyes, and she, in the old Walkyverse, was SPOILER hover to see. All the others, including characters created as late as Lucy, Malaya and Ken, have dot eyes – probably because they’re easier to draw.
First thing, I had to read the note to see what music it was about.
Ok, so, the good thing about all this, is at this point Carla could just do nothing for a whole week. Yes, absolutly nothing. And let MAry stew in her own aprehension of what may to come 😀
Roz has to deal with mary’s shit, Mary has to deal with condom hats. I’d say Roz probably has the worse end of the deal. Especially if she gets caught in the cross fire of mary vs. Carla.
Yup, she’s a curtain-twitcher waiting to happen. The sort of busybody neighbor that calls in police reports for “noise violations” when people have sex and writes endless letters to the editors surrounding minor annoyances that she’s decided are national menaces.
And you can just see how done with it all Roz is. Like, yup, cool, another blow-up for an imagined disturbance, cool, so looking forward to this, this is why I spend most of my time as far outside this room as possible.
The sort of jackass who turns the HOA from merely a way for the city to defray its expenses by pawning them off on the middle class, into a fucking suicide pact.
In reply to the alt-text: I don’t know if I feel sorry for Roz. However, I do know why she came on so strong to Joyce. I’m sure that Mary’s fanatical holier-than-everyone attitude must be driving her to the point of madness!
Mary’s behavior is surprising though. If she’s constantly nervous about anything moving outside her door like that – and she just gave us to understand she doesn’t fear Ruthless or Carla in den last comic and Roz response makes it clear she does – she has to be consumed by fears.
Is she carrying around a sin that makes her believe the devil will be after her?
I get the feeling that she’s used to a sort of dead-quiet suburbs kind of environment and that she’s the kind of busybody and narcissist that assumes that other people doing things are direct attacks on her.
And she’s got the personality that will eventually make her the sort of Christian suburban housewife that makes housing communities utterly miserable. The kind of petty rule-enforcer and moral scold that will write in complaints because kids are playing outside and this “has disturbed the peace greatly” or narcing on people that don’t exactly match the BS regs about lawn maintenance.
But yeah, it’s also why Mary is exactly the sort of person the rules against freshman living on their own their first year exist for. The type of people who desperately need to learn to live with people and especially people who are not exactly like her. And be able to handle minor noises midday on a weekend without freaking the fuck out.
Agreed. Even when Ruth’s got a ponytail, the styles are different, as are the length and shade of red. And Carla doesn’t have freckles or irises, and has a much rounder face. (Also, I think Ruth’s glasses might be larger, but that might just be Willis being a bit loose with the sizing between strips. I haven’t done a comprehensive comparison.)
I swear if Carla actually does something harmful and there are no consequences for her I will lose any modicum of respect I might have had for this storyline.
I feel hugely sorry for Roz as someone who spent time growing up in a house of conservatives. Living with someone like that is toxic, emotionally draining, and leaves you with this constant sense of sick tension of when that person might say something else awful. Just because she looks uncaring in this doesn’t mean that living with Mary isn’t affecting her.
Yeah, it’s exhausting. And it’s also probably even worse for her given that one of the things we know about Roz is that she’s an activist who cares a lot about a lot of issues to the point where she wanted to put things like “no ableist language” in the roommate agreement. And yet, it’s just constant bullshit and bigotry and her roommate death-glowering her 12 year old sister.
And yeah, that’s definitely affected her patience and tolerance for religious conservatism as we’ve already seen in her blowup with Joyce.
I feel like this is Carla’s way of saying, “you’ve now got my complete and undivided attention”. And I don’t think Mary’s fully appreciated what she’s started. Cause Carla is a perfect foil for her in that she also nurses grudges and doesn’t ever like to back down.
@SomeGuy411, Just as a point of interest, “thee” and “thou” are actually *informal*, like the “tu” form in French or Spanish. “You” is equivalent to “vous” or “Usted”.
Erik: For future reference, if you wish to reply to a comment without a “reply” link, find the nearest one above it in the thread that does. This will keep related comments together and increase the likelihood of getting found by the original commenter.
I hope this helps.
Not really. It depends on whether the second person formal form matches the second person informal plural form, as it did in English, but not in German (which uses a capitalized third person plural for their second person formal form). Basically, the grammar allowed the masses to feel snooty about themselves, and it got out of hand when people started getting offended by the perfectly polite use of “thy” instead of “your” so it became more politically expedient to abandon thou, thee, thy, thine.
Mary’s terrible and awful, but she makes all the best realistic faces.
I’d also like to offer… something to the transfolk in the commentariat, because I just heard the US DoJ told the NC scumbags that the retardedness that was HB2 is illegal and therefore fuck them. I’m not sure exactly WHAT is it that I’m offering, because it’s a shitty low bar for congratulations. Still, acting on the bigotry will be illegal so… that’s something? Maybe?
It’s a small comfort, but that’s more than we usually get. Sadly, the biggest damage of that law has already been done in how it has empowered bigots to feel more supported in “policing public spaces” and increasing suicidal ideation and fear among trans folk. But it’s nice that the DoJ is on our side.
Also, you should probably refrain from using the r-slur in the future.
In all honesty, I really hope Mary isn’t physically harmed by this and Carla’s plan is to just drive Mary paranoid. The further any punishment against her is taken, the more leverage she gets for her own retaliation. If she ends up punishing herself over her own rampant imagination, it should be harder to provide convincing evidence for her claims of being harassed.
I am offering three to one odds, however, that once this device is assembled and operational Willis will have Carla saying something like “I love it when a plan comes together”!
Hopefully, Carla’s plans don’t include anything even remotely explosive. The campus is still probably on high alert after Fundie’s exploits. Of course, the reference to the 1812 Overture could also be part of a terror campaign. As any parent knows (or will soon learn), the threat of punishment is far more effective than the actual punishment. “Go to your room” and “Turn off the TV” results in the child finding another way to entertain themselves. The threat lets them build their own version of the punishment and it’s always worse that what would have actually been done. Watching Carla psychologically take Mary apart brick by brick could be truly entertaining. But then, I could be building that up in my mind to be better that it actually will be.
Roz and Mary, in their own weird way, could kindof deserve eachother if Mary would just keep her judgement to snark judgments as opposed to vitriolic refuse.
I have a mild dislike for her personality just because she’s so argumentative and abrasive. But I also understand where she’s coming from with a lot of the stuff she says, even the mean stuff, and I appreciate the fact that she tried to help Joyce when she found out what happened at the party. I also admire the fact that she stands up for what she believes in. I just don’t think she always goes about it the right way. And I’d definitely never be friends with her in real life. I know she’d get on my nerves.
I definitely don’t think she’s bad enough to deserve MARY as a roommate, though. I think Roz is generally a good person. Just not a person I’d want to hang out with.
She is abrasive, but she’s also young. Can’t say I wasn’t the same at her age. But she means well, and that’ll stick around as she wears off the rough edges on her activism. I’m curious to see if that’ll happen within comic time.
Yeah, like I said, I think she’s a good person. I think she’ll probably end up doing a lot of good stuff, though. I mean, she already does, what with providing people with free condoms and trying to help out Joyce (who she kind of hates) by giving her a card for a therapist after the Ryan thing, and all that stuff. She just also yells at people who don’t need yelled at at the moment, and drags on arguments longer than she should. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s generally a good person. It just makes me dislike her a little bit. I don’t like EVERY good person in the world. But I’m not gonna go around calling her a bongo and saying she deserves to room with Mary. That seems way overly harsh.
(reads whistle notes, makes no connection – there goes one college course wasted – types them into search bar separated by hyphens – apparently Google never took music appreciation – finds piano-player.info – try it once, then once again – once more, with feeling – finally gets it)
I was really hoping for Powerhouse, the ‘key’ portion of which begins with nearly the same two notes, and would tie in nicely with “revenge plan” chalkboard panel from a couple of days ago.
I like Joe, I think hes a sympathetic character that deserves some development so I’m disappointed he only stopped by for a cameo…but now I really want to see what Carla has planned
“Let’s see, I need to make the box big enough to fit her in, but small enough that I can fit it through her door. I’ll have to get her weight later so I can figure out how much shipping will cost… and of course I’ll need to build a robot replica of myself to go skating in the halls while I’m shipping her out, so that I’ll have an alibi if anybody suspects me. Ooh, maybe the robot should be able to turn into a car in case her cover gets blown and she needs to get a quick getaway. And she should have a contraption to throw pies in people’s faces. Just for funsies.”
Carla has taken Mary’s measure!
And I hope this is not a psych, but actual Sweet Engineering.
…also, 16 commenters have asked about the music without reading the comments that would have answered the question. (if you don’t want to -read- all the comments, you can -search- them.)
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Oh shit, I do feel sorry for Roz
So say we all.
I wonder how much crap she gets from Mary for being the condom girl. How does Mary feel about condoms? (Barring Walkyverse jokes people)
Mary isn’t Catholic, so in terms of family planning, condoms should probably be okay? Although I’ll bet she’s the type to refer to birth control pills as “abortion pills” and talk at great length about shirking Eve’s curse.
Huh? What does that —
You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know what that means. My sanity will thank me for not learning the answer to that question.
I assume Ross is referring to the idea that child birth is painful for women as punishment for Eve eating the fruit in Eden.
Sorry to be mean and tell you.
I was curious so I’m glad
I read it more as periods, since birth control can let you have some control over old aunt flow, and in some cases skip it entirely.
…yours makes more sense
Too bad for your innocence! Depending on the sect birth control pills can be both preferable to condoms and evil abortion pills! See, if you aren’t having sex then severe periods are gross and icky and distasteful unto the Lord. Gotta get that weird lady-business hidden and under chemical control! Once you’re having sex, though, anything that even maybe sort of possibly intentionally blocks fertilized eggs is a murderous no-go. Plus without marriag. you’re a harlot. Unmarried people shouldn’t use birth control because failure rates and STDs and interfering with GOD’S PLAN. Married couples have it a bit different. Condoms, spermicide, and diaphrams are kind of ok for married folk because it’s all pre-fertilization cockblocking and because typical failure rates are high enough to say it’s in God’s hands (note the hypocrisy). No IUD sin-sticks for anyone. Vasectomies and tubal ligation are studiously not talked about. All this was covered in great depth in my “progressive” fundamentalist sex-ed and puberty books, and now you know it, too!
Hormonal birth control doesn’t “block” an already-fertilized egg. It keeps the eggs in the ovaries. No ovulation = no fertilization happens = no conception = not an abortion. It’s “pre-fertilization cockblocking” (lol!) for women. So yes, massively hypocritical.
Not sure from your phrasing if you already know that and were being illustrative, sorry if so. 🙂
To quote Kevin Swanson, host of Generations Radio:
“Swanson: I’m beginning to get some evidence from certain doctors and certain scientists that have done research on women’s wombs after they’ve gone through the surgery, and they’ve compared the wombs of women who were on the birth control pill to those who were not on the birth control pill. And they have found that with women who are on the birth control pill, there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb. They’re just like dead babies. They’re on the inside of the womb. And these wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies.
Peeples: We’ve actually heard on both sides of that. We’re researching that and want to make sure we speak correctly to that in our second film. But we have medical advice on both sides of the table there, so we want to make sure that we communicate that properly.
Swanson: It would seem, and I realize that people are a little split on what are all the effects of the birth control pill, but it would seem that there’s a tremendous risk in the use of it for the life of children.”
It’s a newer tactic in the culture wars over birth control and abortion. Hormonal birth control pills *primarily* work by preventing ovulation. But as a secondary effect/backup feature, they also make the uterus inhospitable to implantation in the unlikely event that an ovum is released and fertilized. Thus, we get anti-choice activists yelling about how Obamacare supposedly restricts religious freedom because it forces the health insurance plans covered by companies like HobbyLobby to provide access to “abortion pills” to their employees.
Welp THAT is something I hadn’t run into and I’ve done a lot of looking into both sides of it, and that’s certainly not been mentioned by my doctors in the past. (I’ve not been on hormonal BC for several years though.)
If true, it doesn’t change my stance on it personally, but I’d be interested to check out some links if you have some relevant ones on the average frequency of occurrence compared to non-BC users, or if/how the uterus reacts differently when on BC than it would without. (Even with no form of birth control, a fertilized egg does not always successfully implant.)
Not as interested in sources using “baby graveyard” type of rhetoric but I know it’s a topic people feel strongly about. Appreciate the new info; it’s good to be up to date.
Everywhere I see discussing it points out that the pill works strictly by blocking ovulation. EXCEPT for the inserts in the packages, which assure you that, even should ovulation and fertilization happen, implantation is unlikely. (Anecdotally there does seem to be a higher miscarriage rate for women on the pill, so that might make sense? However this could also be due to women not realizing how high the miscarriage rate in general is.)
Registered just to say that the content quoted by Wanderso is utter and absolute BS, for anyone that is wondering. (They may have already known that, but I didn’t see a sarcasm marker.)
Right, ChrisHerself. Hormonal contraception blocks sperm and egg from ever meeting. Columbia University has a really excellent site called GoAskAlice with more information for anyone who’s interested.
@Wanderso: That quote is legitimately my favorite bit of ridiculous fundie wtf. It’s like…(addressing Swanson, not you) no one told you that. No actual scientist made that claim at you. You just made that up out of your own head and banked on no one knowing how ludicrously scientifically inaccurate and impossible it is. You strange little man.
It’s seriously like something a small child with no understanding of…anything would say.
My doctor told me essentially what L!ghtn!ng said: that the main effect was to prevent ovulation, but that it also made implantation less likely if fertilisation did happen to occur.
My assumption is that it reduces the thickening of the lining of the womb: my periods have certainly got progressively shorter and lighter through my child-bearing years, especially in the period of time after I stopped having children, and so was on the pill without a break. This is unlikely to be solely the result of aging, seeing my youngest was born when I was 26.
So I believe that both effects exist.
I agree Lumin, what I’m most interested in is the statistics of the frequency of a fertilized egg being rejected in HBC versus non-HBC users. And the risk of such an event occurring in HBC users.
If it’s significantly higher, then that certainly gives me insight into the ongoing suppression of women’s right to birth control. If it’s not, then to me it’s simply another scientific fact re-purposed into anti-choice propaganda. Good information to have either way I think. 🙂
*reads all the information, goes back to TweeBopALula* Wait did you just use the word harlot? I don’t think that word has been used since 1911. But hey since we seem to be sliding back in time maybe that word is going to be back in fashion again. Ooo! maybe, we can use prithe and thee and thou and Scoundrel!
Forsooth, there is no need to be so formal as you use thees and thous. Prithe and scoundrel are informal, and thus may be used by today’s miscreants
For the record (and in case you didn’t catch Erik’s message way at the bottom of the page) thou, thee, thy, thine are second person informal singular form. That’s why they are used to refer to God (which is probably where the air of formality is coming from); Medieval European Christians liked to think of Him as a friend they could be palsy with. The Germans still do, too, using du, dich, dir, dein to refer to Gott, and well as friends, family, children and animals.
Like No Name said, “thee”, “thy” etc. are informal, not formal. That’s why you refer to royalty as “your majesty”, not “thy majesty” and judges as “your honor”, even in period pieces.
As of 1 Jan 2014 there were something like 1.025 million words in the English language. So there’s lots of words like ‘harlot’ and ‘trollop’ and ‘strumpet’ (a couple other good ones that are also underutilized or ignored today) out there we could — and should — be using.
I know you don’t live in Indiana by that statement, that’s all I’m saying.
Given Mary’s previous comments she probably hate Roz for being “catholic” almost as much as she hates her fo hanging sex posters in her room.
Actually on reflection being stuck in a room with Roz explains a lot about Mary.
Yes, the two couldn’t deserve each other more. Satan’s ironic punishment team have outdone themselves this time.
Aaand the Roz hate crew didn’t take long today…
Nah. Roz is slightly more redeemable than Mary. Satan only knows what Mary’s reaction to hearing about what happened to Joyce at the party would have been. Probably something that would make me want to reach through the fourth wall and strangle her till rigor mortis set in
“I don’t understand! James Coco went mad in fifteen minutes!”
“More.”
Why does everyone hate my favourite character?
Roz seems to have the right general idea and she genuinely cares about and wants to help people. I know some people get into activism to chase power, but I don’t think she’s one of them.
Her execution isn’t perfect and she can be abrasive, but she doesn’t deserve the backlash she gets from Leslie. I know that she can be frustrating to watch. But man, that’s so not the way to deal with an exceptionally passionate student.
I can understand Roz’s frustration at…having to take that class, tbqh, as well as Leslie’s frustration at having Roz in her class. But even though Leslie may be marginalized cuz she’s gay, she’s still much older than Roz and, as her professor, has a lot of (institutional) power over her. In a lot of their interactions it seems like Leslie is trying to put Roz in her place, which is Not Okay.
Yup.
In fact, I’d argue that it’s entirely because she’s roomed with Mary that’s responsible for her weary take-no-shit, fuck-off-with-your-fundie-bullshit approach to Joyce that makes the comment thread freak out at her.
When your regular exposure to fundie culture is the likes of Mary and her constant slurs and hating on your baby sister for being related to you and picking fights with anyone she views as walking too loudly past her door…. well, is it any surprise she went off on Joyce and has a low threshold for fundamentalism in general?
Especially when you also note that she blames that general culture for the electoral success of her sister.
Thou art truly wise.
Mary’s only been in one fight with someone due to what they were doing outside her door, to my knowledge, and it was Carla who picked it.
I’d have imagined Roz and Mary could at least bond over their shared predilection for nudity
Yyyup.
We’ve seen her do this half-head poke out for a number of other hallway disturbances, one of which to the even more quiet example of Billie sneaking her laundry basket into Ruth’s room which served as the basis of Mary’s blackmail plan against Ruth.
And Carla picked jack shit. She did some skating on carpet and didn’t immediately kowtow to Mary’s demands. That’s not “picking a fight” though Carla did commit the fatal sin of being *gasp* rude to a person who fundamentally does not respect the existence of queer individuals and especially trans individuals as we saw later.
Here’s every Mary head-poke, either around a door or a panel, the most reasonable assumption for why she’s doing so, and what happens next:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/survey/ Having had several visitors, Mary overhears yet another one musing directly outside her door, and gives her information, first in the hope that Dorothy will leave, then more in the form of venting
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/clinkclink/ Mary wonders what there could possibly be so many of in Billie’s bag to make such a clatter. Bottles do make a lot of noise when packed together, and it is unlikely that Mary has encountered a post-binge garbage run before. She gets an answer and the joke ends.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/unsuspicious-3/ Mary, who happens to be in the corridor, observes Ruth shoving Billie to the ground and looks worried.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/sterling/ Mary gives Amazi-Girl her alibi, as requested
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/clear/ Ruth just yelled at Dorothy, Walky, and Joyce, then slammed her door. Mary looked out to see what was the matter and found unexpected gloating material.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/expelled/ Ruth and Billie had a loud argument in the middle of the hall, which also attracted Agatha’s attention. Admittedly, she was attempting to observe the goings-on between Billie and Ruth (see http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/lead-2/ , off-screen), but she, like Agatha, left her room for the show
None of these involved any altercations
Oops, I missed (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/joke/), where Mary goes to the door of her room because she, like other humans, might like to be invited to a party. Slight rudeness back and forth; Mary’s gauche, then rejected by Roz and Becky, then makes a snarky comment, possibly to hide her hurt feelings.
(A longer one’s being moderated)
I absolutely fail to see how Mary’s making imperious demands in http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/skff/
She wonders what the annoying noise is, like in http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/clinkclink/, observes that Carla is making it on purpose, begins to ask her to keep the noise down, and gets shut down.
As regards Mary’s attitude, she and Carla had never previously spoken to each-other. Mary had only mentioned queer individuals once, to subtly accuse Billie of hypocrisy http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/dvr/ and Carla was not part of that conversation.
It’s actually hard not to see Mary’s ‘attack’ as upping the ante, having previously sunk to Carla’s level of childishness by first lying down in the hall and then gluing her skates.
We’ve all been guilty of, in the heat of an argument, saying something deliberately spiteful that had no relation to the topic of dispute other than to make the other person feel awful, which feels a little like winning until you realise what you’ve done.
Mary is not a nice person, but to treat Carla as some sort of martyr of blithe-spirited transsexual youth bullied by a bigot is pretty innacurate
So sorry, Mary is absolutely a bigot. What I meant was that she was nasty to Carla for other reasons than pure bigotry, even if her attack was expressed purely as bigotry.
It seems that I’ve been moderated. My sincere apologies for breaking the chat rules; could someone tell me where to find them so I don’t do it again?
Did you have a comment with multiple links? Those tend to be temporarily moderated and approved by Willis when he wakes up. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
Thanks. And I like your site!
Actually, it depends. Some strains of American fundamentalism are very ‘be fruitful and multiply’ heavy.
Yeah, fundies tend to hate condoms because, as best I can remember, having condoms or teaching safe sex is actually temptation to have sex and implanting the demonic idea of sex before marriage and so a person, and especially a woman who has condoms is a (slur for sexually active woman) because she actually planned ahead for sexual intercourse and so planned to sin instead of being carried away by Satan’s influence.
Shockingly, this also leads to one hell of a rape culture where showing any sign of actually being interested or enjoying sex as a woman was basically the equivalent of putting a sign over your head saying “I am a sinner and I’m going straight to Hell now”.
So yeah, between that and the premarital hanky panky, Mary’s got reasons for days to despise her. Not that Mary needs much help to hate someone.
I once saw somewhere that linked to CCLI (couple-to-couple league, a Catholic family planning group), with the caveat that the site they were linking to was excessively birth-control friendly. So yes, when the conservative Catholic approach to family planning is considered too birth control friendly, condoms are definitely not going to fly.
(Of course, as I write this it occurs to me that condoms tend to be associated more with safer sex than with birth control, so there might be a bias against them. On the other hand, all the public health stuff you get after having a baby tends to work against that, and having babies earlier would be more common, so who knows.)
There’s also a not insignificant number of fundie types that hate condoms because they see them as “defying God’s plan” to punish (perjorative for sexually active women) women who think they can have sex without receiving the punishment of childbirth promised to women in Genesis (according to their world views).
And more horrifyingly, as defying “God’s plan” to wipe out the queer folk through the “righteous plague” of HIV.
Anti-sex activists tend to be scary fucks that way.
Agreed
Uh, it’s kinda problematic to call them that since there are, like, actual abortion pills.
There are fundie types who literally do think that contraceptive pills are on par with abortions, I think that’s the point here.
There are also plenty who think Plan B (“morning-after-pill”) is a form of abortion which couldn’t be further from how the pill actually works.
A fact they exploit in order to expand their anti-abortion campaign more transparently into a general anti-contraception campaign.
Despite having read ALL of Shortpacked and still keeping up with DoA, I’ve gotta admit I’m a wee bit surprised to learn Mary ISN’T hardcore Catholic. I’d appreciate any and all insight into this character’s mindset OTHER than raging c*nt.
I bet Mary calls birth control pills “whore-pills”
Does that make Condoms into ‘sex pipes’?
nah, that’s bongs
Sex socks
**nods**
So way we all.
So say we all!
not knowing is half the battle
G.I. Joe…?
(that isn’t a question, that’s my attempt to finish that phrase/soundbite, but with a questioning tone due to the fact that you put a “not” in front of the phrase).
/explaining the joke
PORK CHOP SANDWICHES!
Who wants a body massage?
Hey kid, I’m a computerrr.
I believe COBRA!!! is the appropriate response for NOT knowing
This is going to be both fun and illegal, isn’t it?
define “be”
Also, what the definition of “is” is.
I’m thinking this is the whole of the vengeance scheme here.
Part 1
Measuring for a casket or……?
Reminds me a scene from one of Clint Eastwood’s “spaghetti westerns”. Fistful of Dollars, or maybe Few A Few Dollars More?
Fistful of Dollars is one of the most overrated westerns, but that scene is wonderful.
Personally, I’m more partial to For a Few Dollars More.
How about the hanging scene in Blazing Saddles?
Maybe not. It’s overplayed, but Carla could easily just loiter around Mary, make hmm noises, and start talking in non-sequiturs for a week(no, no, the airspeed of a watermelon is far to low. A cantaloupe, perhaps?). By the end of it Mary’s had a nervous breakdown and Carla hasn’t technically done anything wrong.
For evidence, here she’s measuring Mary’s door when her own door is 100% identical. Why, if not to make Mary crazy?
You act like building plans are always followed 100% perfect. Any true evil plan requires precise measurement of the right door, no silly avoidable mistakes.
She’s an engineering major after all, it’s important to measure twice, cut once, and leave adequate signage that a major works will be coming to her area.
That sounds more like carpentry.
Engineers (PEs) don’t generally cut, mount, install or…
oh, never mind 🙂
I think that driving Mary crazy trying to avoid Carla’s revenge prank probably is the plan. Why else title her plans on the chalkboard the way she did unless Mary was meant to find that board. He’ll, I bet the plan is to get Mary to panic, break into Carla’s room, see that board, tell on Carla and in effect tell on herself for breaking into Carla’s room, and have Mary be the criminal who gets in trouble.
Slightly too subtle, I think. Methinks the plan is “drive Mary insane with worry over a nonexistent revenge, wait til she either breaks or is at the edge of apathy, and then pie her in the face.”
And then while she’s unconscious, load her onto a plane bound for Seattle.
Ooh! Unconsciousness pie!
The amazon*
Definitely the Amazon.
Isn’t Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, so win-win.
Yeah, this seems like the most likely (and probably the most effective) revenge strategy to adopt but I’m not sure how “Carla” it is. It seems a bit too understated for her.
The best revenge is the one that can’t be traced back to you.
…but that pretty much everyone, especially including the victim, is sure you were responsible…somehow.
Alternately, only the victim has a clue, and no one else buys the truth for a minute. That’s probably harder to pull off, though.
If Carla takes her revenge that far, she wouldn’t need a casket.
“They’re gonna bury what’s left of ye’ in a soup can!”
-Demoman
*plays some Doors on the hacked Muzak*
And in honor of Mr. Random’s thought, “Let’s Do Something Cheap And Superficial”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNKwX8DpDiw <- 'Ere ya go.
Is that’s what Carla’s whistling in the last panel?
It’s the 1812 overture.
I thought that was it! I just wanted to see somebody else validate it.
I came to the notes specifically to see what music nerd would show up and tell me what song that was first. Thank you!
I haven’t been able to read sheet music since I was 15 so I came looking for exactly this comment. 😀 I was hoping for Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf but the notes don’t fit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe4yTxbOTi4
1812 Overture is even better though
The song that makes use of actual cannons? This is getting more and more promising.
Saw it performed in the Royal Albert Hall in London with real cannons. Can’t really claim I heard it because my ears were ringing for days afterwards. The cannon fire adds quite a touch…
To quote comedian Guy Branum, “The 1812 Overture was the first gay anthem.”
Now I want people to think that Tchaikovsky wrote the Smokey and the Bandit soundtracks. Even the third one.
Mary’s got some some strange days coming.
Wish I had my piano to figure out what song she’s singing
She is whistling the 1812 Overture.
I am irrationally happy that not one, not two, but FOUR people in the comments not only knew the answer from the notes alone, but knew it fast enough to ninja one another giving it.
**heartfelt applause** Bravo, comment’s section. Bravo.
Also impressed with Willis for putting in specific notes instead of random. A Bravo to you as well.
Willis is good with his musical notation, I agree – Jurassic Park, for example.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it has symbolic meaning too, insofar as this was the music used in V for Vendetta during the detonation.
So, y’know, there’s a nice theme of sabotage and/or cunning plans coming to fruition there.
In the overture, that tune seems to represent the Russian army. Turns up for the second time just after France (The Marseillaise) sorta trips over and runs away, and just before the bit with the cannons. Translation: “IT’S ON, [bongo].” (In real life, the Russian army mainly just hung around waiting for Napoleon to over-reach himself.)
I was hoping it was the anvil chorus.
It’s Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture (the one with the cannons).
I didn’t get it in my head, but when I grabbed an instrument it took about five seconds to recognise it and think “… will there be cannon? I hope there’ll be cannon.”
WAITING FOR THE CANNON, WILLIS.
oh, it’s canon all right.<__> ^_^
Here’s a link to — as the video says — “the dramatic part” (grin); naturally, with real cannons too.
Lost in all the hubbub about the cannon fire, though, is the fact that Tchakovsky also included a massed chorale. I remember one year when we performed this at the college I attended; they combined the campus men’s and women’s choruses with the community Choral Union (of which I was a part), resulting in almost 200 voices onstage with the University Orchestra. No cannon, unfortunately; we subbed someone firing 10-gauge shotgun blanks into an empty oil drum instead.
I remember playing 2nd howitzer (reloader) for the 1812 overture back in the ’70s. BIG badda boom.
Like this? (That’s during a Boston Pops 4’th of July performance a few years ago.)
I did that too, for an annual outdoor concert the symphony used to do, last time was a few years ago, it was great fun, even got to be the one pulling the lanyard a couple of times.
It’s part of the 1812 Overture
It’s the William Tell Overture. The part where they usually shoot off cannons.
1812, not William Tell. William Tell doesn’t have any cannons.
His son never would have survived having the apple shot off with a cannon.
Head cannon confirmed
New headcannon.
That’s the second time I saw this link today.
If it were the William Tell Overture, Carla would be in a black mask, astride a white horse, and meting out justice against the desperadoes of the Wild West.
“An intellectual is someone who can listen to the WTO without thinking of the Lone Ranger.”
No intellectuals here then.
(In the voice of Vyvyan Basterd): They sound very, very boring!
*1812 Overture. Sorry.
It’s the 1812 Overture.
It’s the 1812 Overture
with quite a bit of reverb, apparently …
‘arently …
‘ently …
Roz, I’m pretty sure you need to be looking at the page in order to read it.
Yo-you’re just staring at the ceiling at this point.
Also that room is too dark for reading. They should turn on a light. No wait Mary would burn.
Wait, I think that’s a window behind Roz, she’s on those people that likes to read with natural light.
….
Wait who the hell still reads Books these days?
They’re called “textbooks” and generally colleges require you to read them to the tune of several hundred dollars apiece.
Or ya’ could just download them all for dirt cheap off one of the official sites that do that.
I mean, as long as it’s not 1998 that is.
*I* still read books these days. Although I’m running out of storage room, I prefer the feel of a physical book in my hand instead of staring at a screen. I’ve looked into getting an e-reader, but the sites where I buy the majority of my books (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Military Fiction, Mil History) don’t offer e-versions of the books they sell.
(I’m also old, which might play a part)
Your snarky comments do not reflect reality.
Yes, there is growing access to digital “open-source” books, but the requirement of real, very expensive textbooks is still an ongoing concern. From USNews&WorldReport: “The U.S. Public Interest Research Group found the average student spends as much as $1,200 each year on textbooks and supplies alone.” Students who offset that average amount tend to be participating in nontraditional college environments, but the characters in this webcomic are going to a plain ol’ face-to-face university. Students find themselves using their financial aid on textbooks instead of focusing their financial aid on tuition, which drains their funds quicker, and is a very real and current problem.
YARR! Me thinks this landlubber is not considering, shall we say, “alternative” forms of “acquisition”.
I hope you weren’t thinking about this “alternative” http://somethingpositive.net/sp04192016.shtml
Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card
Whatever captain weirdbeard. Sounds to me like you have never actually tried to go through a semester like that. Not every textbook has .pdf versions floating around waiting for everyone to take, and often they come bundled with ‘essential’ software which is necessary to turn in homework, making the purchase mandatory.
Yup, that’s pretty much how that works.
Part and parcel of more and more colleges treating colleges like businesses and nickel and diming the students for every cent they can squeeze.
Also, e-texts are worse for learning from. “According to scientists”, at least. Something about it being easier to find things again in a printed text than a digital one, as your memory handily links the words to a rough physical location in the book.
This is truth. I graduated in 2009, and during my last year was able to make ~$3K over the course of the year from a part-time job on campus. Blew through like 50% of it on textbooks, studio fees and necessary art supplies in that year alone, all of which were required for me to complete my studies. The other 50% went to my groceries for the year (my parents graciously covered my rent and tuition, I am absurdly fortunate that they could). Anyway, it would have been really nice to have had some of that left over, considering that I was graduating into a recession with a Fine Arts degree. :/
No, they require you to purchase them (Though I see rental is a thing these days). Some profs, having caused you to make your wallet cry, then assign you maybe a chapter and then assign the bulk of the reading from a reserve list at the library.
Then at the end of the semester they’re worth nothing on the secondhand market because the school mandates the new edition with the questions at the end of each chapter rearranged. Sometimes the professors mandate you purchase the latest version of their own book, and they’re the only source.
I am so glad I got out of college in the nick of time before textbook manufacturers really doubled down on this crap. What a racket.
I signed up for my school’s honors program specifically to take the honors speech section and avoid the regular speech section, whose professor ran exactly that scam.
I’m pretty sure she’s rolling her eyes up at whatever deity there might be, and asking what exactly she has done so wrong in her life that she got stuck with Mary a roommate. I mean, she’s kind of terribly obnoxious, but it’s not like she’s gone around kicking puppies, or anything.
She had sex with Joe.
AND DIDN’T POST PICS!
dundunDUN
She posted a VIDEO. What more do you people want!?
I want a frame by frame commentary done by Morgan Freeman and Clancy Brown.
Morgan Freeman and Clancy Brown. You sir are asking for too much! Society can’t deliver on your pipedream narrated college pornumentary fetish.
To be fair, Roz might just be hoping that if she holds a textbook open in front of her that Mary won’t try to make conversation.
It’s clearly failing, but the attempt was made.
Better to be staring at the ceiling than talk to Mary.
1812 Overture, Tschaikovsky.
Perhaps we should expect cannons.
That’s the one with the cannons, fyi.
I can’t hear that song without thinking if this commercial. https://youtube.com/watch?v=OKwDC0OOygA
hot dang! i wasn’t imagining it fast enough! thanks a bunch!
Thanks. Been way too long since I played or wrote any music to remember the approximate sounds of those notes without an instrument.
I know nothing about musical notes. What’s she whistling? Is there any significance to it?
It’s a measure from the end of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.
You know.
The cannon song.
Heh heh heh. Brilliant. Thank you. 😀
It’s Tschaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, the song used in V for Vendetta when things started exploding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8&feature=youtu.be&t=13m59s
roz’s…shall we say, aggressiveness *does* make more sense now, yes
*plays those notes on muzak*
*fires cannon*
This is gonna be good.
ok. I gotta ask. what is she whistling?
1812 Overture, by Tchaikovsky!
Whistle while you work! Looking forward to this. XD (and yes, feeling mighty bad for Roz)
Yesssssssssssss. Keep her unsettled and on her guard, make her tiptoe around you wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. You wonderfully evil girl. 😀
Plus it serves as a potent reminder that she’s not just going to be slapped down by some cynical penny-ante transphobia and that she hasn’t forgotten that nor the destruction of her skates.
This is as much, oh hi, look at me up and about and not at all scared of your bullying bullshit as it is, oh hi, don’t mind me, just clearly setting up some completely ridiculous revenge plan that could be enacted at any minute, don’t mind me.
Yessss, perfect 😀
The finale from 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky: https://youtu.be/VbxgYlcNxE8?t=13m57s
Engineers are the best at revenge.
Revengeneering.
Oops no, revengineering. That’s much better.
Adding this skill to my CV brb
“must not think of TF2, must not think of TF2”
Carla’s comin’ to town and Hell’s comin’ with her.
Measure twice, prank once.
That doesn’t sound like very much fun.
Nobody wants a half-assed prank
when dealing with an asshole you have to use your whole ass
Very ominous and cryptic, Carla. I approve.
I very much love this.
Feel sorry for anyone stuck with Mary as a roomie.
Love the Mary profile in last panel.
Not sure how ‘good’ this is gonna be, but it’s gonna be interesting.
I’m just going to hope that’s the Empyrean Suite.
The last time that played, a bunch of people got smelted…
it’s the famous ending of the 1812 overture
I was about to say the same thing…
And I see this as when Mary begs for Ruth’s help, and Ruth gets to set all her demands, and Mary has to sit back and take it, or risk Carla.
More like Mary demands Ruth stop Carla, and Ruth looks over whatever Carla’s obviously up to responds with “nope! can’t see anything going on here!”
Oh dear. Much as Mary is a completely hateful person, and I would not be sorry if someone slapped her, I don’t want Carla to do something that could get her thrown out of the college.
I’m hoping that we have a Matilda scenario here, and Carla’s revenge will be so completely bizarre that no one will believe it actually happened.
No one will understand what happened. Even the witnesses will find themselves incapable of forming a coherent sentence describing the events.
I doubt it’d be something illegal. I mean her plan is called, “Carla’s Cold, Swift, And Absolutely Ridiculous Revenge Against Mary Plan.” I’m expecting something like a pie to the face.
that does make it sound like the above mentioned Matilda scenario
That’s probably still illegal. And definitely still against the college’s rules.
1) The point is that they will never trace it back to Carla if she does it right
2) Sometimes, the rules are wrong
Geez I just realized how freakin’ tall Carla was. Have we seen her among anyone that wasn’t a shorty mcshort person like Mary or Mayonnaise?
Is Mayonnaise Agatha’s roomie?
Crap that was supposed to be Malaya, don’t know how that one happened.
I am totally fine with nicknaming Malaya some form of Mayo. Malaise?
Mayonnaise Malaise sounds like a rejected Sugar Rush character.
Rejected for a good reason though!
Sal remarked on how tall she is in their conversation when Sal suggested she join the roller derby team.
I’d be fine if Carla just instilled paranoia into Mary too. Whatever’s in store is just the cherry topper.
Best prank I ever played on a co-worker involved simply letting her overhear me hint that I had set one up on her. She spent the afternoon tearing her desk apart.
She should just place a sign across the hall from Mary with the words “Soon” on it and occasionally poke around outside Mary’s door. And that’s it. Just get her more and more paranoid.
Sometimes just reminding someone “… when you least expect it …” is enough to drive them bananas.
This is gonna be good. Also, I’m given the impression by Carla’s “Thank you” that Mary did indeed stand up straight. Guess Carla has mastered the use of the Bavarian Fire Drill as well as welding.
I think it’s also her being unfailingly polite and not rising to any of Mary’s bullshit. Like Mary is already halfway off on a rant about what she’s doing when Carla does the “stand up straight please, thank you” bit. It’s a great moment of just taking control of the situation back and leaving a passive note that Carla’s willingness to clown around with her is now at a firm end.
Is Roz a camgirl in this universe? Does Mary know? Is that why she was topless in her first speaking panel?!
Mary was topless. Not Roz.
I imagine Roz isn’t a camgirl yet, though she did enjoy filming herself and Joe. Maybe after college. Gotta pay back those student loans.
In a shocking twist, Mary is the camgirl.
I dare say Mary know about the sextape, and I dare say that didn’t make them any friendlier towards each other.
I’d say that’s pretty likely seeing as how the sextape literally made the campus paper.
And how she told Dorothy that people wouldn’t stop asking her about the sex tape.
Mary, Mary
Quite contrary
You are truly fucked.
For sparks do fly
(and so does pie)
And femurs will get plucked
You are a wonderful person.
+1
We can ship it!
wholesale.
Carla’s probably measuring her for a coffin.
this is a lot of buildup for carlas revenge.
i feel like its not going to go well.
I wonder if she’s actually making a prank machine for Mary or if she’s just doing all of this in order to make her nervous and think that something’s going to happen but it never does
I’m open to both options
It seems Mary forgot that she can’t just attack people without consequences, even if those consequences don’t come from the official channels.
Also, that Mary forgot that Ruthless said she didn’t care who did what to her now.
NO REFUGE FOR YOU MARY
And the rock cried out, no hiding place
Mary went to the rock, to hide in disgrace
But the rock shot a pie right in her face
Pie right in her face, down here
Looks like Carla is RAMPing up the Revenge Against Mary Plan!
I’ll see myself out
Were it not for the earlier comic showing her welding in private, I might’ve supposed that Carla’s revenge plan consisted simply of darting around like this, doing weird things, in order to make Mary think she was up to something… thereby ultimately turning Mary into a nervous wreck.
I’m happy for it to be both. Extra points if Mary reassures herself that Carla is just trying to make Mary paranoid for no reason, right before getting the full force of Carla’s absurdly complicated revenge.
Even the previous comic could be Carla’s red herring, an object that looks threatening but ultimately does nothing.
I don’t feel sorry for Roz. Mary is a genuinely pleasnat person to be around.
…this is convincingly deadpan sarcasm, right?
I’m sure the Mary we know is nothing like the Mary behind closed doors. You see there are certain societal pressures we are all influenced by and those pressures can change or personalities forcing us to put on “masks” for the lack of a better term in our need to be accepted. Mary is no different. The outwardly antagonistic, manipulative, self entitled, privileged, smart mouth is just a rouse to protect the kind hearted perfectly decent human being she actually is…….You buying any of this?That convincing enough?…Was I deadpan enough?…no….Well I tried.
I was buying all of that and was Very Concerned. You must only use your powers for good.
Also why is she always wearing those wristbands? First guess would be she cuts herself but the truth is actually far sadder. Robot hands that replace a tragic birth defect that left her with arm stumps. Really puts her character in perspective doesn’t it?
High five!
…oh, wait, this is a computer.
I don’t feel sorry for Roz because well, Roz is awful.
Great, been in and class since 3rd grade, still know diddly squat about reading music. At the very least whatever it says there. Seems ominous though. I like ominous.
According to the rest of the commentators, it’s the 1812 Overture. Y’know, the song with the cannons.
The William Tell Overture…
*pause*
OH MY GOD, CARLA IS GOING TO PIE MARY!
PIE!
PIE!
PIE!
1812 Overture, not William Tell.
came to the comments looking for this info. thanks!
Okay, I’m pretty sure, but where are you getting “pie in the face” from “the lone ranger song”?
PIE-OH, SILVER! AWAY!
… no? No. *sigh*
I thought it went:
Have a Pie, have a pie, have a pie to – day!
I’m hoping she shortens the doorframe to just below Mary’s height. (Engineers can do that with their magic skills right?)
I mean…
Maybe nail in a panel right under the top of the frame?
isn’t that carpentry?
Well, she knows this Jeshua guy…
Think she’d be able to pull off that plan from The Twits where you convince someone they’re slowly shrinking?
I know this is barely related to what’s going on, but it always baffles me when people whistle. Whenever I try it, it just sounds like high-pitched blowing.
Form your lips into an “ooo” shape, like a cartoon character sucking something out of a straw. Place the tip of your tongue against the back of your bottom-front teeth. Blow lightly.
The tricky part is you might have to adjust how tense your lips are, the size of the hole, how extended they are from your face, how tense your tongue is, your airflow, and any number of things before getting a feel for your specific mouth-acoustics.
I can’t whistle with my tongue in contact with any part of my teeth. I can whistle with my tongue sort of curled up just behind them.
Same. And even then I can only whistle at one pitch.
I worked out how to use my lips for the tone and pitch.
I taught myself to whistle by remembering how you can blow air across the mouth of a bottle to make a tone: air is passing sideways across the opening. With the tip of the tongue planted behind the bottom teeth, raise the middle of the tongue just below the roof of your mouth. (It’s okay if you have to open your jaw to make room for this. The sides of the tongue may contact the roof of the mouth; this is okay too, as long as there’s a channel for air to pass through the middle.) Your tongue redirects the blown air into a steep upward arc within your mouth, and then into a sharp diagonal against the opening of your lips. This should make whistling sounds!
It took me a long time to get any good at it. And I’m only a little good.
If you can’t whistle on the exhale, try to do it on the inhale. That’s how I first learned to whistle.
PIE ATTACK INCOMING!
I am here for Carla in overalls
Whatever anyone says I love overalls on girls. <3
overalls and tight sweaters are my true kinks
If someone wore both, I don’t think I would be able to survive the resulting blood loss
A part of me wants to just leave it at that. Like make the whole revenge angle Carla doing some of this weird shit to fuck with Mary’s head a lot.
If Mary was paying more attention she’d realise Roz is reading a new translation of the Kama Sutra.
Carla, you wonderful person you.
Look at Mary’s face. Carla has already won.
Justice will be swift.
And sorry if my vulgarness over the last few…what, months at this point–has gotten out of hand.
Whistling the William Tell Overture, this is going to be a show for the ages
I didn’t so much forget as never know. I had someone else as her roommate in my head. I didn’t know we’d seen Roz outside the Gender Studies classroom.
I hope Carla knows, and will get Roz out of the way, since this apparently involves Mary’s room.
There was the part of Freshman Family Weekend where Mary had left her room early in the morning because Roz’s younger sister was sharing her bed with her and Mary was afraid of the younger sister (Riley) for the sole reason of “she’s a DeSanto, she’s gotta be bad”
We’ve known Mary was Roz’s roommate for a long time.
I’m not saying it was never shown. I’m saying I never put it together. Probably because I was still binging at that point, and going fast.
I forget, is there a reason it’s always dark in Mary and Roz’s room?
The windows probably face north or south, so it doesn’t get full sun, or there’s a tree right outside that shades it.
They’re both vampires.
There are two types of people…
Their antagonism for each other generates stormclouds, which block out all light. It’s a very localized effect.
And then do… NOTHING. Perfect revenge, your target will freak out as you continue doing nothing against them but it’s impossible for you to get in trouble for it as you’ve done nothing. owo
I love how Mary just… stands up straight. even though it’s CARLA telling her to do so.
look im capable of saying things that aren’t just criticisms from a tired bi trans dudeish type of person
I can’t believe I’m even remotely defending Mary here, but it seems that her revulsion to Carla comes from an upbringing thing than a personal hate. I know people who would push, shove, and the like to Carla if Carla if she even talked to them.
Maybe it’s a little point, a shimmer of light for Mary. Or maybe she WOULD do all that, but she’s in college. Either are depressing and doesn’t excuse Mary for anything she’s done.
Also, my bet is on a form of trip-wire, into trampoline, into pie face first for what Carla is planning.
Quite likely, in that I’m pretty sure Mary would need to see Carla as a person and potentially as an equal to truly hate her personally. And that’s why this is actually much worse, because there’s literally nothing Carla could do to change it.
A personal dislike can be resolved through a sit down, maybe a step back to see the other person, or even a shifting of views on one person’s part. A bigotry like this, where Mary will never not just see Carla as the (slur for trans woman) that’s “polluting” her floor. Carla can do nothing to affect that and anything she does do will just be interpreted in that lens to justify further harm to her.
See Mary treating things like quietly holding a tape measure to the door and softly whistling or skating on carpet as personal attacks on her very sense of decency.
I mean it’s pretty reasonable to be baffled and vaguely concerned when someone starts measuring your door frame and person for no evident reason. Like, this is pretty much how I would respond to that event even if the person doing it WASN’T someone I had personally wronged who had every reason to be plotting some Rube Goldberg-esque revenge on me.
I meant before when she was just in the room and there was just the sort whistle and the shnk of the measuring tape to respond to. It is absolutely reasonable to freak out and want to know what’s going on when the target of your bullying is non-chalantly making measurements on your door and person.
Eh, it doesn’t strike me as terribly weird to check when you hear unusual noises outside your door even if just out of idle curiosity.
That’s not so much what I see as weird, so much as her incredibly low threshold for what she considers weird “need to investigate” noises.
Maybe I’m just overly nervous/inquisitive but any noise outside of “regular footsteps and maybe idle chatter” right outside my door is enough to make me investigate.
That actually kind of bothers me a little. She hates Carla. She thinks she’s better than Carla. That immediate reaction to a /command/ is sort of…telling.
Eh. The utter strangeness of the situation combined with an easily followable command that has no immediately perceivable downsides would cause obedience in probably 99% of the population. It’s just how we work.
She’s conditioned to respond to authority, or at least authoritativeness. Someone used to having everyone jump when they say frog, automatically jumps when someone says frog at them. Works evr\ery time.
That really doesn’t look like standing up straight to me.
I love how Mary just…stands up straight. even though it’s CARLA telling her to do so.
——————
Well, Carla *DID* say “please” and “thank you”.
Sadly, it’s just Mary’s nature to always perform straight on demand.
…and I’ll see myself out now.
I assumed she just did it as a reaction, and didn’t mean to. Kinda like she jumped back.
Reminder: Roz also has to put up with Mary being mostly naked at 3PM.
In my head that was Mary Poppins’s measuring tape. She just needed a little confirmation before proceeding with revenge plans.
So… I’m the only one who thinks of 1812 from Farscape? Frell! Guess I’ll just go crazy in a spaceship all by myself then.
YES! This is exactly what Crighton would whistle while in his madness place, writing out the equations for wormholes that were locked in his head. I REALLY hope this had some influence on why Willis chose that tune. I loved that show.
Oh, I remembered Roz was Mary’s roommate. Polar opposite roommates are hard to forget.
Also, my immediate reaction to a lady in overalls building something while making music was Agatha Heterodyne.
YES
yes!
Carla is a Spark/Sparky Construct (in Shortpacked) confirmed!
Mary’s picked the wrong person to make an enemy of.
Wait, does Willis know music? Because that’s transposed to C, and written an octave lower, as whistling usually is (because the lowest note is otherwise in the middle of the staff).
Or did he just copy it from some bass clef instrument, and not know?
http://www.8notes.com/school/scores/piano/tchaikovsky_1812.gif
this is going to end beautifully, and it could not happen to a more deserving character, well except Blane or Toedad.
If it was them, I want a Joker-style acid pie to be involved
You keep making that Danny avatar seem terrifying… I’m starting to associate his smile with evil plans…
…but then again, it’s Danny, so maybe if he tried evil, he could do some good.
terrifying? good, I’m doing what I set out to do. Also, he kinda looks like me in a way. i read the hair as a dull orange.
Also, hi Wadey!
Salutations, Man of Scar. *Ahem.* Bad choice on my part, I’ll be snarky better next time.
On a more relevant note: I don’t read hair. A two foot long book connected to my head would be impossible to get to the end of without an annoyingly complex mirror system.
Plus I hate it when people change font color and word count before I finish.
soon…
Proper punishment for them involves incarceration. Mary’s not nearly to that level.
Welp, as the kids say these days: Dis gon’ be good.
Measure twice, cut once.
I call paranoia gambit.
I call Trunchbull Gambit. Revenge plan so ridiculous that no one will believe you did it and the pranked one will be seen as crazy
Two good names on two good pranks!
seriously though, the Trunchbull Gambit is scarily effective. You think Principal Trunchbull was the only authority figure to get away with abusing those under their care because no adult would ever believe the kids?
Does anyone else find the 4th panel to be strangely adorable? Thats a lot of shipping fuel right there.
But Some1, weren’t you just making fun of the Ethan/Danny shippers yesterday?
And to that I say….
….you’ll never catch me!
I never would have before I saw that damn art by Yotomoe but now it’s stuck in my brain and resisting all of my attempts to ignore it.
Why would you want to put Carla through something like that? I’d rather die than date Mary. If I was transgendered I’d probably rather die even more.
I do remember, and felt really bad for Roz she either only sleeps there and tries to block her even more. She probably goes to other people places to have sex even if she is tired because is miles better than have to hear Mary…
Damn that outfit. Never have I so wished I could be a pair of work gloves…or a pair of overalls
Gotta say I love the look on Mary’s face in the last panel.
they’re roommates?
man I hope carla’s bricking off that room now
I was just stricken by a realization. The perfect person for Carla to be with is Mike. Their great plotters and don’t really care about how others see them… Might break the universe though.
I’m up for Mike being aromantic.
Carla is homoromantic.
I know she is in Shortpacked, but is that canon here too? Cause that would be nice
Yep. Asexual homoromantic transwoman. It’s only what she transitioned from that’s different.
Then they need to meet and become friends/conspirators atleast
Willis said it was canon on his tumblr and he’s also said sexualities from the old comics carry over to the new.
So yeah, very excited to see that we haven’t lost the one trans ace character depiction in pretty much any medium.
ok. Cool then. Representation is still there
Do we know if she’s sex-repulsed or indifferent or what?
My initial guess is that the sex-repulsion has carried over as well as part of her sexuality. That being said, Ultra Car was also willing to be sexual in some very specific manners that involved low direct involvement with sexual activity, so I could also see that being carried over.
When whatever, cold ,swift and utterly ridiculous thing has happened, and the dust has settled, Roz will look up from her book and say… “what just happened?”
CARLA IS AWESOME!!!!!
You know, I kinda hope this kind of thing *is* Carla’s revenge.
If she just keeps this up, it isn’t necessarily harassment. But, Mary gets to be uncomfortable and await the revenge.
It KINDA is harassment though, but not on a very serious level (yet). Of course, it’s nothing close to Mary’s level of harassment.
Leaving Carla to “take care of the problem” on her own will never not be problematic, but since the official channels are closed this is the best thing they have, and of all the cast I trust Carla not to take a “sweet prank” too far..
Yeah, she’s anti-physical attack so it’s not going to escalate to violence on Carla’s part at least.
And now for jokes with Some1
Why did Amazi-Girl help save Becky?
Because it was an Amber alert!
Carla’s revenge seems like it should be one of psychological terror, not physical violence.
Why not both? Except replace violence with something else…comedy, maybe? Physical comedy?
Slapstick violence?
Pies in ALL the faces!
COMPLETELY off topic, but the new Questionable Content character kinda reminds me of Malaya. Same sunny attitude to life, same complete lack of proportion, same sliver of a surprisingly warm heart if you are willing to dig through enough bullshit to get there.
I have a good feeling of where that is going.
No, not Barry.
Where is this sliver? I don’t mean that it a doubting way I just can’t recall ever seeing it myself but I have a notoriously terrible memory.
In her interaction with Marcie. Trying to learn sign language to be able to communicate with the new, cool girl on the team is a nice thing to do in my book.
Ahhh okay I completely bungled my Reading Comprehension check and thought you were talking about Mary. You can imagine my confusion I should think.
Mary… draws nicely.
…welp. She totally is Malaya. I now expect Pintsize to come to DoA.
That’s what Carla is constructing.
Unleashing him on Mary would be a terrible vengeance, indeed.
So the thing I like the most about this is that Mary is clearly freaked out and afraid. Mary: this is how all your victims have felt, only with less genuine emotional pain and the added bonus that unlike them you 100 percent deserve this.
Yup. And unlike her victims, she knows that she’s pretty much set this up to herself.
She was counting on Carla retreating back into the darkness, unwilling to show her face. She’s not at all sure to handle a Carla who is not only not doing that and clearly planning some sort of thing, but also one who is not even bothering with the sass and sarcasm.
I feel ultra-polite Carla is like a rattlesnake’s tail, a clear sign that shit has just become real and someone is getting bit.
It’s not the physical threat; it’s the implication that she’s planning something ultra-elaborate and not having any clue what it might be. Fear of an amorphous phantom that will appear at some undefined point in the future is far worse than fear of a quantifiable, visible threat.
Totes!
Comic Reactions!
Panel 1: Someone noted in the preview that Roz’s response kinda highlights how frequently Mary responds to the slightest noise and how little of a deal this shit is to a less sheltered student.
I mean, here, Mary is reacting to… what? Light whistling and the sound of a measuring tape? This is a woman who is not at all ready to be living with other people and seems to believe that angrily reacting to any minor disturbance outside with her patented all out assault of anger and accusations.
And Roz’s face. She’s just so done with all of Mary’s shit. Just a world’s worth of weariness.
Panels 2 and 3: Carla is so poised in this moment, just measuring out for her revenge prank, refusing to rise to Mary’s bait, and letting Mary stew in the paranoia of what Carla could be planning.
And that extends into Panel 4, just staying polite and on target, never reacting, just letting her know that she is there, she is not broken from her petty transphobic bullshit, and that she fully remembers and has something planned in response.
And that might be the bigger revenge. To let an authoritarian bigot know this completely that there insistence on the rules and their exploitation of social inequalities is not going to stop you, that you do not fear them, nor will you play their game.
That’s a giant taking back of power that makes the actual revenge just the cherry on the sundae.
And of course that last panel, oh yes, this among so many reasons is why I’ll never not squeal in fangirl joy every time we see Carla.
Carla is just pure joy.
I love that. The best way to get to someone who’s trying to get to you is by showing them beyond a shadow of a doubt how little they affect you.
Yup, even if you have to stoically pretend they don’t actually affect you…
Which, hey, I think we’ve figured out a large part of why Carla presents the front she does all the time.
Kind of wondering why Mary is even living in dorms if she has this much difficulty dealing with it.
It’s required at a lot of schools…not sure if IU is one of them, but I’d not be surprised.
Unless her family lives in commuting distance, though, I don’t think not being in the dorms would be any better for her. She’d still have to deal with ‘noisy’ neighbours.
Roxanne is Mary’s roommate? My god, the fireworks that must ensue!
Ruth Goldberg Machine of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
…I want to say that should be Rube Goldberg… but I guess a Ruth Goldberg machine extracts your femurs in the finale?
Either that, or it’s entirely fueled by alcohol and/or spite!
……years from now Mary runs for president and Roz talks a lot of shit about her on twitter.
Roz and Mary’s room continues to be unaccountably dark.
It matches Mary’s heart.(yes I know this is a cheesy insult I don’t care.)
1) Skates on carpet is not loud
2) We’ve now seen evidence that Mary is a curtain-twitcher that responds to the slightest bits of noise outside her door.*
3) Fuck you.
4) Dorm rooms. People live. Noises happen. Quiet study areas literally down the hall if she seriously can’t handle the smallest amount of normal dorm noise.
5) No one else cared. Like no one. Also, middle of the day.
6) Fuck you.
7) Mary’s harassment was not “sitting quietly in her room”, it was escalating to fucking physical violence and ruining Carla’s skates because Carla dared exist in the hall and not immediately surrender to Mary’s authoritarian tantrum about rules or give in to her petty bullshit. And then, oh yes, let us turn to the blinking neon light in the sky.
8) That nasty bit of intentional bullying, where Mary intentionally misgendered Carla as a rather targeted attack in an act of vile bigotry and intentional hate. Deliberately calling upon the social power that carries, the reminder that every instance of that has for trans folks of reminding them of how often those intentional emotional attacks escalate to physical violence:
http://mic.com/articles/142537/trans-woman-attacked-on-nyc-train-for-riding-while-trans#.HIhHhDrju
And calling on the type of societal bigotry that is at the root of bullshit nonsense like the bathroom bills, the staggeringly high murder rate of trans folks, and the heart-breaking suicide rate of trans teens owing to acts of bullying like this.
A genuine act of hate, neatly erased to present Mary the victim, Carla the victimizer and its not just not cool, it’s actively hateful and disrespectful and I’m fucking down pretending otherwise, not after all the bullshit assholes who poured out of the woodwork after that instance to try and neatly wash it away like you here.
And so, it is for that reason and the ones above, that my final response is unsurprisingly…
9) Fuck you.
*Which also explains the spying on Ruth and Billie, seeing as how the very presence of someone in the vague area of her door is enough to get her peeking out the door like it’s the most dimly lit curtain in suburbia.
Well, that’s awkward. Comment this was in response to disappeared.
Still a magnificent answer, though. And it’s sadly all too easy to figure out what you responded to.
What Bagge said. I figured the comment had been deleted (for good reason) and its not like I had to read it to know what it was about, I mean we’ve seen it all before.
Excellent response as usual.
it’s weird how tonight there were like a dozen new commenters all with different usernames but sharing that same ip, pretty weird, so weird
update: also same ip as that weird creepo who used to be further down the page
Figured it was aimed at something deleted. If *you* feel compelled to use ‘fuck you’ more than once, it must have been way over the line.
Fuck you
…really?
…fuck you too?
Is this a bit? Are we doing a bit? Does one of us need to break out the Lily Allen?
Like I need the excuse :D:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0i2lIU7idQ
“….very, very much.” Wow, I won’t get THAT tune out of my head in a long time. Incredibly catchy 🙂
It’s probably my favorite pop song. And like most pop songs, it’s like glitter in that you’ll never ever get rid of it.
I’m hoping this one stays just because it’s such a beautiful and comprehensive refutation.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Carla’s revenge in full. She doesn’t need to do anything else! Mary’s imagination will do what no amount of effort and creativity on Carla’s part could do: She’ll spend the next few days in a paranoid lather of fearful anticipation, jumping at shadows and generally acting crazy every time she leaves her room.
Eventually, Mary will work out that this was just a psych-out. However, until then, she’ll know what it is like to live in fear of what is outside. Maybe it will teach her a little empathy for the typical everyday life of a transperson.
do you really think women are generally unaware of the possibility of danger outside their doors?
For fuck’s sake, there is no need to compare what (at worst) will be a little physical comedy that harms no one to that kind of thing.
benrg very explicitly already made that comparison.
Disagree. There’s commenting on a character being jumpy and fearful of a coming reprisal, and then there’s literally making it about the “danger outside [women’s] doors.” The latter is in extremely poor taste in this situation.
Oh yay, cool, let’s take this in the direction of “women don’t know the threat trans women pose to them”. Awesome. Yay. So happy about this.
I think that you’re misreading my comment. I’m just noting that Mary may benefit from knowing what it’s like to have an unspecified threat at some point in the future hanging over her head. Carla lives with that every day.
Oh sorry, that wasn’t directed at you, that was directed at cardiemum.
And I agree that all Carla really needs to do is this or things like this, things that play on her paranoia and desire to see herself as the persecuted minority and which reverse the power dynamic between them.
That being said a pie to the face would also be nice.
Or a glitterbomb. Tried and tested method of trans protest.
There is definitely something wrong with WordPress recently. Reply stacks are getting all messed up and it’s difficult to follow threads.
Very nice use of the 1812 Overture, Willis.
Also, I’m sure I’m late to the game on this, but I noticed Mary has colored eyes, something I believe reserved for specific characters (Joyce and Jocelyn come to mind; there was one other?).
Ruth and Penny. Hank, but you pretty much covered him with his daughters.
willis has explained that the coloured eyes are because the charscters are newer. older characters didnt have coloured eyes because of his style at the time he created them, and in his eyes they probably dont look like themselves with different kinds of eyes
I think it’s more complicated than that: Joyce was one of Willis’s earlier characters, and she’s the big-blue-eyed angel. Hank and Jocelyne have blue eyes because of their relation to Joyce (and Hank specifically because of Willis’s cross-gender standard). Ruth has green eyes because why not?, but used to have the dots because Willis’s style did change over time (with her at least) and when he realized that, decided to make the eye color symbolic of a change in heart. Mary is, quite simply, the anti-Joyce and gets brown eyes to Joyce’s blue. Penny, again, has green eyes, and she, in the old Walkyverse, was SPOILER hover to see. All the others, including characters created as late as Lucy, Malaya and Ken, have dot eyes – probably because they’re easier to draw.
YES! IT WORKED!
irrespective of anything else, carla’s overalls are sweet
and the gloves are too
You don’t want to ruin the surprise, Mary. 😀
First thing, I had to read the note to see what music it was about.
Ok, so, the good thing about all this, is at this point Carla could just do nothing for a whole week. Yes, absolutly nothing. And let MAry stew in her own aprehension of what may to come 😀
Dosen’t matter if you don’t believe in Karma because Karma believes in you.
Roz has to deal with mary’s shit, Mary has to deal with condom hats. I’d say Roz probably has the worse end of the deal. Especially if she gets caught in the cross fire of mary vs. Carla.
I feel really bad for roz here; you can tell from the look on her face that this is the eighth thing mary has freaked out about that day 🙁
Yup, she’s a curtain-twitcher waiting to happen. The sort of busybody neighbor that calls in police reports for “noise violations” when people have sex and writes endless letters to the editors surrounding minor annoyances that she’s decided are national menaces.
And you can just see how done with it all Roz is. Like, yup, cool, another blow-up for an imagined disturbance, cool, so looking forward to this, this is why I spend most of my time as far outside this room as possible.
Today I learned a new word! Cerb, you continue to educate the ignorant.
“Abner! Abner!”
The sort of jackass who turns the HOA from merely a way for the city to defray its expenses by pawning them off on the middle class, into a fucking suicide pact.
This is the first time overalls have been a good look in one of your comics.
I thought Ruth looked pretty good in them.
Don’t feel bad for Roz. She tells Mary constantly that she’s too busy for any of her nonsense.
Suddenly, I can see Carla, post-graduating, getting a job as an assistant to a certain Agatha Heterodyne. She has the right costume.
SCIENCE!!!!
Helping you get revenge with style!
Carla in overalls… Be still, my beating heart!
This is the second time I hummed something correctly but still had no idea where the fuck it came from
In reply to the alt-text: I don’t know if I feel sorry for Roz. However, I do know why she came on so strong to Joyce. I’m sure that Mary’s fanatical holier-than-everyone attitude must be driving her to the point of madness!
Mary’s behavior is surprising though. If she’s constantly nervous about anything moving outside her door like that – and she just gave us to understand she doesn’t fear Ruthless or Carla in den last comic and Roz response makes it clear she does – she has to be consumed by fears.
Is she carrying around a sin that makes her believe the devil will be after her?
Clear she does react like this constantly
I wanted to say, sorry for the garbled sentence.
I’m not sure I’m getting “nervous” so much as “People shouldn’t be doing things! All things are bad, and they must be told so!”
I get the feeling that she’s used to a sort of dead-quiet suburbs kind of environment and that she’s the kind of busybody and narcissist that assumes that other people doing things are direct attacks on her.
And she’s got the personality that will eventually make her the sort of Christian suburban housewife that makes housing communities utterly miserable. The kind of petty rule-enforcer and moral scold that will write in complaints because kids are playing outside and this “has disturbed the peace greatly” or narcing on people that don’t exactly match the BS regs about lawn maintenance.
But yeah, it’s also why Mary is exactly the sort of person the rules against freshman living on their own their first year exist for. The type of people who desperately need to learn to live with people and especially people who are not exactly like her. And be able to handle minor noises midday on a weekend without freaking the fuck out.
This will truly be a prank of epic proportions.
1812 Overture? Classy Ruth…classy.
What’s with the mixups between Ruth and Carla? They look pretty different to me.
Agreed. Even when Ruth’s got a ponytail, the styles are different, as are the length and shade of red. And Carla doesn’t have freckles or irises, and has a much rounder face. (Also, I think Ruth’s glasses might be larger, but that might just be Willis being a bit loose with the sizing between strips. I haven’t done a comprehensive comparison.)
No, Ruth’s are definitely larger and squarer.
I swear if Carla actually does something harmful and there are no consequences for her I will lose any modicum of respect I might have had for this storyline.
And she ends up throwing her a birthday party.
Or building bars in front of her door after Roz has left.
Both ideas are entertaining.
Where’s your Messiah now?
I feel hugely sorry for Roz as someone who spent time growing up in a house of conservatives. Living with someone like that is toxic, emotionally draining, and leaves you with this constant sense of sick tension of when that person might say something else awful. Just because she looks uncaring in this doesn’t mean that living with Mary isn’t affecting her.
Yeah, it’s exhausting. And it’s also probably even worse for her given that one of the things we know about Roz is that she’s an activist who cares a lot about a lot of issues to the point where she wanted to put things like “no ableist language” in the roommate agreement. And yet, it’s just constant bullshit and bigotry and her roommate death-glowering her 12 year old sister.
And yeah, that’s definitely affected her patience and tolerance for religious conservatism as we’ve already seen in her blowup with Joyce.
That *almost* explains why Roz blew up at Joyce like that…
… Carla said please and thank you.
CARLA SAID PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
ALERT ALERT MARY DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THE SHIT IS GOING ON
I feel like this is Carla’s way of saying, “you’ve now got my complete and undivided attention”. And I don’t think Mary’s fully appreciated what she’s started. Cause Carla is a perfect foil for her in that she also nurses grudges and doesn’t ever like to back down.
ROZ! ROZ, LOOK! YOU’RE MISSING IT! ROZ!
I think that Roz can live with that.
It’s probably for the best if Roz continues to miss it, and vice versa.
@SomeGuy411, Just as a point of interest, “thee” and “thou” are actually *informal*, like the “tu” form in French or Spanish. “You” is equivalent to “vous” or “Usted”.
Erik: For future reference, if you wish to reply to a comment without a “reply” link, find the nearest one above it in the thread that does. This will keep related comments together and increase the likelihood of getting found by the original commenter.
I hope this helps.
Hm. Could have sworn it was the other way. Oh well, one point on the “things learned or corrected” column for the day
So that means the FORMAL use was the one adopted by the masses? huh. Atypical
Not really. It depends on whether the second person formal form matches the second person informal plural form, as it did in English, but not in German (which uses a capitalized third person plural for their second person formal form). Basically, the grammar allowed the masses to feel snooty about themselves, and it got out of hand when people started getting offended by the perfectly polite use of “thy” instead of “your” so it became more politically expedient to abandon thou, thee, thy, thine.
Destroy heeerrrrrr
At this point you don’t have to actually do anything to Mary — just let her imagination run wild and enjoy her stewing in her paranoia.
So, is Mary is going to be surgically taken apart and put into a car?
Mary’s terrible and awful, but she makes all the best realistic faces.
I’d also like to offer… something to the transfolk in the commentariat, because I just heard the US DoJ told the NC scumbags that the retardedness that was HB2 is illegal and therefore fuck them. I’m not sure exactly WHAT is it that I’m offering, because it’s a shitty low bar for congratulations. Still, acting on the bigotry will be illegal so… that’s something? Maybe?
It’s a small comfort, but that’s more than we usually get. Sadly, the biggest damage of that law has already been done in how it has empowered bigots to feel more supported in “policing public spaces” and increasing suicidal ideation and fear among trans folk. But it’s nice that the DoJ is on our side.
Also, you should probably refrain from using the r-slur in the future.
Wops, my bad. The equivalent word is not as loaded in my native language, so occasionally I forget.
No worries.
She’s HETERODYNING. Run, Mary. Run. >:D
In all honesty, I really hope Mary isn’t physically harmed by this and Carla’s plan is to just drive Mary paranoid. The further any punishment against her is taken, the more leverage she gets for her own retaliation. If she ends up punishing herself over her own rampant imagination, it should be harder to provide convincing evidence for her claims of being harassed.
Carla’s previously established she’s not violent, so it’s probably goiing to be an elaborate prank, possibly involving a pie to the face.
This. We DO know it’s not just psychological though, otherwise there’d be no point to her soldering panel last strip.
I have a music degree… took sight reading classes… I should know this… I should know this… I should get this joke…
DANG IT
*plunks it out on the piano*
Ooooooooooo, I am looking forward to this plan~
Whatever it will be, it will certainly be canon.
It’ll happen with a bang.
A revenge of the highest caliber.
i had kind of forgotten how tall Carla is even without skates.
To me almost everybody looks that tall, so I hardly ever notice that stuff. But I guess Carla is sort of even taller than normal.
No A Team? Although I suspect it’s still under copyright.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nfHetknnaY
It probably is, but I don’t think that would matter — after all, Willis depicted an excerpt from the “Jurassic Park” theme by John Williams here. I think this either falls under “fair use” or “parody usage” protection.
I am offering three to one odds, however, that once this device is assembled and operational Willis will have Carla saying something like “I love it when a plan comes together”!
I am almost certain Carla is whistling the 1812 Overture and nothing has ever made me happier.
Hopefully, Carla’s plans don’t include anything even remotely explosive. The campus is still probably on high alert after Fundie’s exploits. Of course, the reference to the 1812 Overture could also be part of a terror campaign. As any parent knows (or will soon learn), the threat of punishment is far more effective than the actual punishment. “Go to your room” and “Turn off the TV” results in the child finding another way to entertain themselves. The threat lets them build their own version of the punishment and it’s always worse that what would have actually been done. Watching Carla psychologically take Mary apart brick by brick could be truly entertaining. But then, I could be building that up in my mind to be better that it actually will be.
if i had to guess it’s going to be an overly complicated rube goldberg machine which will just try a pie in her face
Roz and Mary, in their own weird way, could kindof deserve eachother if Mary would just keep her judgement to snark judgments as opposed to vitriolic refuse.
Why the dislike for Roz? Shes a strong, opinionated women and is willing to help people when she sees them down
I really don’t get the dislike for her
Ditto, even when she yelled at Joyce I totally understood where she was coming from.
I have a mild dislike for her personality just because she’s so argumentative and abrasive. But I also understand where she’s coming from with a lot of the stuff she says, even the mean stuff, and I appreciate the fact that she tried to help Joyce when she found out what happened at the party. I also admire the fact that she stands up for what she believes in. I just don’t think she always goes about it the right way. And I’d definitely never be friends with her in real life. I know she’d get on my nerves.
I definitely don’t think she’s bad enough to deserve MARY as a roommate, though. I think Roz is generally a good person. Just not a person I’d want to hang out with.
She is abrasive, but she’s also young. Can’t say I wasn’t the same at her age. But she means well, and that’ll stick around as she wears off the rough edges on her activism. I’m curious to see if that’ll happen within comic time.
Yeah, like I said, I think she’s a good person. I think she’ll probably end up doing a lot of good stuff, though. I mean, she already does, what with providing people with free condoms and trying to help out Joyce (who she kind of hates) by giving her a card for a therapist after the Ryan thing, and all that stuff. She just also yells at people who don’t need yelled at at the moment, and drags on arguments longer than she should. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s generally a good person. It just makes me dislike her a little bit. I don’t like EVERY good person in the world. But I’m not gonna go around calling her a bongo and saying she deserves to room with Mary. That seems way overly harsh.
(reads whistle notes, makes no connection – there goes one college course wasted – types them into search bar separated by hyphens – apparently Google never took music appreciation – finds piano-player.info – try it once, then once again – once more, with feeling – finally gets it)
I was really hoping for Powerhouse, the ‘key’ portion of which begins with nearly the same two notes, and would tie in nicely with “revenge plan” chalkboard panel from a couple of days ago.
Is it weird i just want to know what the song she’s whistling is?
Can we get more walky Dorothy? Haven’t had then in a bit.
Is she whistling ‘The Godfather’?
1812 overture.
The one with the cannons in it.
I’d find someplace else to sleep, Roz. Maybe stay and screw joe a while; I wouldn’t want to be in the target zone when she finishes setting up.
Yes, Mary. It’s called “living”.
I like Joe, I think hes a sympathetic character that deserves some development so I’m disappointed he only stopped by for a cameo…but now I really want to see what Carla has planned
This is going to get messy, isn’t it?
If this ends up being some elaborate method of transporting Mary to the middle of the Amazon, I will be thoroughly pleased.
I mean, the possibilities of that are nil, but that is all the more reason to believe in it just because of the sheer incredulity.
“Let’s see, I need to make the box big enough to fit her in, but small enough that I can fit it through her door. I’ll have to get her weight later so I can figure out how much shipping will cost… and of course I’ll need to build a robot replica of myself to go skating in the halls while I’m shipping her out, so that I’ll have an alibi if anybody suspects me. Ooh, maybe the robot should be able to turn into a car in case her cover gets blown and she needs to get a quick getaway. And she should have a contraption to throw pies in people’s faces. Just for funsies.”
I’m expecting some Slappy Squirrel levels of revenge bullshit here Willis. Please don’t let me down.
Carla has taken Mary’s measure!
And I hope this is not a psych, but actual Sweet Engineering.
…also, 16 commenters have asked about the music without reading the comments that would have answered the question. (if you don’t want to -read- all the comments, you can -search- them.)
V for Vendetta.
Carla is whistling Carmen.
Why does that seem ominous?