Graham Linehan, a raving TERF, right wing bigot, and all around horrifying English pillock who blew up a highly successful writing and producing career to be even more reprehensible that Laurence Fox.
Oh 😩 Actually thinking about it, there was a Trans* woman character on it in one episode who the womanising idiot boss fell in love with, misheard her trying to tell him this, she thought he was surprisingly chill, he didn’t know why she thought it might be a big deal she was born in Iran (“a man” being misheard as “Iran” should have been a BIG clue by four thinking about it actually 😬) and it descended into physical violence…
yeah that’s the episode which had a pretty negative reaction, which Graham thought was unwarranted and doubled down, and still has never recovered from
It’s a scene in The IT Crowd where the two lead geeks prank their non-geek boss by giving her a small box with a light on it and claiming it’s “The Internet”. Like, the actual internet, which is a physical item they were allowed to borrow so she could show it off in a presentation (and humiliate herself).
The joke backfires because all the execs she shows it to are as dumb as she is and actually impressed. And then panic when the box accidentally gets damaged because they believe the internet was just destroyed.
At this point, I assume every reference I don’t get is to The IT Crowd, a Terry Pratchett book, or that thing with the hot dog guy who’s all trying to find out who did this.
I assume the only Pratchett novel Taffy’s read is The Colour of Magic, which is easily the weakest Discworld novel (easy to do, considering that it’s the first one). But eh, not their fault. (Even if I’m wrong, and they have in fact read some good ones.) Gotta read one of the good ones. I’m especially partial to Guards! Guards!
I like them, my brother doesn’t. Not the messaging, just the style isn’t his thing.
If you get people hyping them all the time, I can see how that’s not actually encouraging. There is an ersatz-Christmas movie made from one of the books, called Hogfather. If you were inclined to expose yourself to Discworld and his style without committing to a book, that’s what I’d watch. The humor is pretty corny sometimes, but corny in a different way than “I think you should leave”
I wanted to give the Discworld books a fair shot, so I read the first twenty of them. Of them maybe four were tolerable and none were good. I’ve discovered that I have little tolerance for authors who discard character in favor of dad humor.
It took me actually years to understand that what I had taken for depth were cheap pop cultures references that covered darwinist libertarian views (libdem at best?) with a humor varnish (and yeah I’m ashamed it took me so long, but in the other hand, I had culturally no way to understand them as cheap refs since I’m from across the channel and don’t watch TV). Not counting the YA/teen novels, there are actually like four books where the intrigue is good enough, four where the hidden message is interesting enough, and four that are written well enough. Those are not the same four books, and all along he can’t write that many good female characters while thinking of himself as a feminist. His best are imo the YA/teen novels, by far…
Well I read Lapsus clavi.
summary:
-why public school is awful
-why do you keep taxing me?
-that time I got honoured and made a funny/moving speech
-I’m ill
-that time I got honoured and made a funny/moving speech
-taxes aren’t well used
-being a fantasy author doesn’t mean you can’t write but critics that understand literature should go to hell because they are living thanks to my work and they pay me no royalties
-taxes
-I like tech and since I can afford it it makes me a pioneer.
-I like Australia
-taxes taxes taxes taxes
I think I’ve read one proper Pratchett novel in my teen years, but could not tell you which one or much thoughts on it beyond it was alright. Good Omens by Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is an absolute treasure though (but given how much I enjoy Gaiman generally, that is not surprising)
Okay, the conversation about whether Terry Pratchett is Bad Actually is one I literally cannot be part of (and if you seriously think the guy who inspired the Vimes Boots Index was a right-winger I don’t know what to tell you), but I totally get “Everyone keeps going on about these and it puts me off”, because I did exactly that to my dad, who eventually told me he was sure he would have liked them if I hadn’t built up this weight of expectations that would be hanging over him if he tried to read one.
@Formedras
The only Pratchett novel I’ve read is Good Omens.
It was fine. Not really my thing.
I know that comment wasn’t directed at me, but I’ve had people trying to get me to read Discworld / more Pratchett for years, so I understand how Taffy feels.
Daibhid
It depends how you define right winger. If being for women’s rights and antiracist makes suffices to make you left wing, so be it.
To me the Vimes index is a sign of a left sensibility, but in the same time, much of Pratchett, especially late ones, are about how rich men (and an aging female vampire that learnt from a rich man) lead the advance of society thanks to technical progress, being some sort of benevolent economic tyrants. In the two first Vimes novels, Vime is a poor and almost powerless vigilante and develops the theory you mentioned. But as soon as he becomes an economic forces, while a chaotic one, he cease to appeals to solidarity and replaces it with charity which is pretty much what right wing is: it is even developed literally when he goes to the Counties to get lectured (and finally agree) that giving money while torturing is OK because then you have the impression to have earnt it and that it’s better to get more money from a jerk than less from someone OK. That sensibility pervades his whole work, where it’s always some kind of merit that make people go up and the role of inheritance is downplayed (Vetinari himself, Vimes, Henry, Wordes, Lipwig). In the Lipwig novels, he goes so far to demonstrate that Lipwig can’t be a crook without causing deaths, but after that he and Henry can moguls, exploiting people, without showing any death resulting of extreme labor exploitation (that pseudo antiracist stance where it’s positive that migrants work more is severely undermined but the fact you employ them *because* they are willing to bypass protective rules and put more hours than people that somehow get a kind of choice). In the one about economy, he totally reverses his former theory of value (as the sum work being able to be produced, hence the power of possible workforce of golems) to pursue a monetary theory where it’s nothing short of neo-classics: and in fact, most of Pratchett revolves around innovation being the main factor rather than the reproductive process of capital based on the exploitation of workers. The same change happens also between Feet of Clay (one of my favorites, well until a few pages to the end where it becomes NCABIRL: No Cop Is a Bastard If Rightfully Led refusing the systemic aspect of undemocratic law management) and the Lipwig novels: suddenly, people who worked to free themselves from oppression (no gods, no masters, literally) now are a temp agency perfectly fine with unethical labor as long as they’re paid and considered people. I will not speak longer for now his silencing of homosexuality in Monstruous regiment and his picking of equal rights orgs.
@Taffy – It’s absolutely understandable to not appreciate something – just a shame if you haven’t made that decision for yourself. We have friends IRL who have not and may never watch Firefly for similar overhype reasons. I’d happily sit down and no-judgement just stream it with them, but others have pushed them too far off it already. So I understand… but I hope you can find a way in someday if that pressure loosens up.
If there’s any chance you did eventually push past the forced hype and try Pratchett out, I do think you’d be marvellously surprised. It’s less about those single pithy sayings and more about the care shown to characters and situations both alongside some real nuanced understanding of our world translated into comic fantasy. And Pratchett is equal parts loving and righteously angry, so tends to handle subjects sympathetically and cuttingly at once, somehow. His earlier works have a few content snafus given their time and his demographics but most of these are addressed later on.
FWIW, if that does occur, Mort is a fun early introduction to the series, if you can ignore size commentary. Or Monstrous Regiment is probably one of the best but may be a bit dense for a brand new reader – Men at Arms, Guards Guards, or similar first, maybe. One good thing about Discworld is there are actually 4 or 5 concurrent sub series with different tones and focii.
@khn0 fair points, I think, but given the development of his works over his lifetime, I think your characterisation is less fair for the later parts of the series. He starts libdem/leftish centrist but moves farther left and into deeper character study as the books go on (at least in my reading and opinion). Which honestly was a nice match for me as I shifted the same way after university and unpacked my prejudices at the same rate alongside it.
It’s this kind of thing that makes me not want to bother with the books. “It’s a shame”, “You’re missing out”, “find a way in”, as if there’s something fundamental that’s inherently missing from my life because I haven’t read books by one specific author. I can’t even say I haven’t read them without multiple people jumping down my throat with this crap, like that simple fact alone is evidence of some sinister outside force keeping me away from these precious tomes, or some kind of petulant contrarianism in my part.
I haven’t read them. I’m not interested in reading them. The people who tell me to read them are too damn pushy (and honestly kinda condescending) about it, and that doesn’t help, but it’s not the important factor. I’m sorry if people feel personally harmed and offended that I haven’t read their favorite books, but they’re just not something that grabs my attention enough to bother reading one. I can barely make myself read books I am interested in.
I regret even bringing them up in passing, as part of a short list of other things I haven’t consumed.
yeah, i get why people do this, because i do get that glowing feeling from introducing a thing i love and the other person goes “wow tysm, that was fab”
but also. there’s a ton of incredible art that never get the level of hype that (eg, and no offense) Pratchett does, and so many books that few people will ever read even though they are just as worthy (whatever that means~). like, i’m sure Pratchett’s actually great. but like you said Taffy, does he really needs *more* hype, like what does this achieve at this point.
in fact *maybe* our time spent not reading Pratchett is spent reading other very cool books, or going on walks with top-notch doggies or taking super tasty naps or whatnot. who’s missing out now! lol!
@taffy I get what you mean. I have zero interest in consoles and handhelds. I have to look up what is what each time there’s one in the comic. Why would I want to play a racing game if there’s not an animatronic bear playing the banjo in the next room?
There is something fundamental that’s inherently missing from your life because you haven’t read books by this one specific author. But I respect your right to self diminish your cultural treasure house, you poor Taffy you.
Nah, I can’t do it with a straight face. Pratchett is a good read, but nothing to get worked up about. If you should ever suffer from amnesia and decide to give one a try, I recommend Equal Rites.
Have you all read the Tain? It’s nothing at all like Discworld. It’s iron age Irish myth. Plus: the hero goes supersayan and does a bunch of wire-fu martial arts moves and decimates an army, first in one-on-one fights, then they try sending groups at him. Con: it’s an iron age myth, passed down through oral tradition for like a thousand years until the middle ages, so it’s fragmented and there’s lots of lists of names and places that are probably shout-outs and story hooks that mean very little today.
I remember finding it really sexist when i tried to watch it again a couple years ago, like a lot of the humor relied on gender stereotypes? I found it super offputting and just, like, tedious
It relies heavily on stereotypes, and a lot of it is tedious. I think people tend to remember the redeeming moments, of which there are admittedly plenty.
Otoh, and though that one also unfortunately involves Linehan, ive recently rewatched a few Black Books episodes and i thought they held up really well <3
I tried watching it once relatively recently and couldn’t get far at all into it. Maybe there were some great moments in there but I just… couldn’t. It made me uncomfortable. And it just didn’t feel like it has any energy or charisma to it. Off putting and tedious we’re definitely my takeaway from it.
I agree. I’ll admit that I loved it on a first watch, an incredibly long time ago, but in more recent years I found some of the jokes kind of off-putting. Richard Aoyade is wonderful though
The premise you miss in the meme is that these are I.T. guys managed by someone who has no idea about tech. And she takes one of their pranks and presents it as if it were real.
The real twist will be that Carla isn’t giving her Switch away because Animal Crossing doesn’t support cloud saves. SACRIFICE YOUR ISLAND FULL OF DREAMIES FOR LOVE, CARLA
Boosters still what a freshman if someone offered up a car and deep dish pizza I doubt they or anyone else would turn it down they could flip the car beacuse ya know insurance is alot and eat the pizza
Actually, if you’re rich enough, car insurance isn’t mandatory at all (in the United States). You can be “self-insured,” which literally just means you have a stated plan to cover yourself in an accident, and the means to do so set aside.
Unless they changed it when I wasn’t looking, in Texas you can self-insure for liability insurance, but you have to leave a deposit to cover it with the state and they do not pay interest. Still cheaper than insurance if you can afford to let the state hang onto your money.
i mean even from an established ‘rich family’ i’d def raise an eyebrow at a non relative offering me a car (tho even if it was ‘tax deductible’ i wonder if ppl woudl be responsible if there was an accident or so lol) tho i odn’t drive and would want like a butler/personal driver instead 8D;
Of course, the Xbox is actually the only system of the main three that by default saves everything into the cloud instead of making that a premium feature so Booster was absolutely correct with their first instinct.
Regarding panel 3, I’d argue whether Carla can afford a game station or not shouldn’t matter when it comes to a gift. With that logic, no gift is meaningful unless it puts the person out or makes them unable to afford something easily and that’s… not great. What makes it meaningful should be related to Carla’s motivations, and whether Booster enjoys/wants the gift. Nothing more, as far as price goes. But that’s just me, as someone who’s love language is gift giving/receiving.
I think it more has to do with the fact that Carla is positing herself as so kind and thoughtful to give up her own property rather than just being like “hey I noticed you’re splitting a game system with your sister, do you want mine? I totally don’t mind it”
And if someone is giving a gift with the intention of making themself seem selfless it does kind of lessen their “selflessness” if giving requires no real effort on their part.
That second point is why I mentioned motivation behind the gift. Bringing up just the monetary part of it makes it seem like Booster’s just disappointed Carla could buy herself another if she wanted.
I think if you have a lot of money, an expensive but impersonal gift loses a lot of its meaning. Rather than giving it any thought, you relied on your money to make a good impression. Whereas if you are operating on a normal college budget, by default you will be putting a lot more thought into how to best spend your money on a gift. Carla giving up her save files proves that she’s not just throwing money at the problem, she wants Charlie and Booster to have the console more than she wants to continue playing it herself. It’s similar to her being unable to afford another but still wanting them to have it.
I think Carla giving up her save files is an unnecessary sacrifice. A gift should have meaning and a gift can have meaning even if it may cost money, if it is something that somebody has been saving for or has really wanted. When I was operating on a normal college budget, all I had to spare for my partner as a gift was a handmade art project from my art class, and a transformers hat because they really liked transformers. These gifts are, in my opinion, filled with just as much thought and care as the care packages I now send to my best friend, which are usually packed with things I know she enjoys or loves (such as toys for her cat, new nice smelling hand sanitizer because she goes out a lot and lives with an elderly person she cares for) and even though the budget I have to work with is now obviously bigger, that doesn’t make those gifts have less thought put into them.
Like, if I was Booster and Carla came to give me her console like this, I would immediately decline if I thought Carla was unable to buy either that same console or a new one to replace it, if she seemed like she wanted to play games still. Like, if it’s ‘I don’t like games anymore’ then sure but if she was trying to sacrifice for me by giving me a console, I would decline BASED ON “this doesn’t feel right, depriving you of something you enjoy and cannot replace”. The fact that Carla can replace it would be a GOOD thing in my book.
For me, with my experiences, a bad gift example would be when my aunt bought me, what she told me was a brand new laptop. Whether she could afford it or not, or even the price of it, didn’t matter. I appreciated getting a gift, especially a grand new laptop. However… I soon ran into issues with it. And began to put things together, such as how before she gave it to me she felt the need to ‘make an account to make sure it worked’, an account which became the admin account and gave me difficulty trying to make adjustments to the laptop. It turned out she did not buy me a new laptop, but a laptop sombody else had purchased and brought back to the store… probably because of the errors. If she had been honest with me, I wouldn’t have minded half as much as I did about being lied to about it.
Giving up her saves is a bit… misguided, but I get what she was going for. If she just brought them an xbox because everyone likes xbox and she can replace it anyway, it’s not a very meaningful gift. It’s not something she put her heart into like a handmade art project, or a gift basket that she specifically curated to match her friend’s interests. Carla thought about what she could do to convey sincere interest, and in her own self-centered way thought the best thing would involve a sacrifice on her part. That can’t be a monetary sacrifice, so this is the next best thing. That she is only thinking of herself and not about what Charlie or Booster would actually want is likely not lost on the recipient here.
The thing is that this is less about the gift and more a test of character. Booster doesn’t want Carla around their sister because she is a selfish self-absorbed prick. Giving the XBoX to Booster is cheap point scoring because she can just get 10 more with her pocket money. But if she includes the irreplaceable saves (assuming she doesn’t have them backed up in the cloud and can easily recover them) it shows that she is capable of sacrificing and her interest is genuine and not some momentary fancy.
I’m pretty sure booster’s deep into the Capitalism Bad train, and it has very little to do with the typical self absorbed nature of Carla. If Carla behaved identically but wasn’t rich, I think Booster wouldn’t have any issue, *even if* Carla didn’t do the save file thing here. This is a little more conjecture, but if it were a hypothetical Dorothy taking interest, civility and all, but who just happened to have megabucks, Booster would have equally huge issue. Perhaps more, because Dorothy’s politeness would come off as insincere.
Not really how I read Booster. They use Carla’s wealth more as a way to poke at her personality and see how she reacts rather than actually being upset with The Evils of Capitalism. They don’t really bring it up anywhere else. I might be wrong though.
Xbox sucks. Nintendo Switch is PORTABLE, dummy. PORTABLE! Do you know how much inherently better that makes the console? Yeah sure it’s graphics are shitty but I can play it EVERYWHERE. XBOX COULD NEVER. If you wanted to get them a real console you get them a Steam Deck.
I’m not as in-the-loop as I used to be but I think mobile gaming is most popular on phones as of 2023. Smartphone G- and CPUs are strong enough that even though most “gamers” will still look for a dedicated console capitalism has pushed casual (and therefore the most numerous) gaming to phones last I checked the numbers. Which again, has been a while.
That, or PC gaming with eSports stuff, which makes me wonder a little why Carla wouldn’t be a primarily PC gamer. I understand wanting a console if just for the flagships (Mega Man Legends, Tales of Xillia, and Final Fantasy X HD were bonuses, I bought a PS3 for The Last of Us), but I missed the Canon Fortnite Event so all I’ve really see Carla play is… Actually Nintendo stuff, I think? Has she been featured playing Mario Kart? I know she was over in Lucy’s room playing Switch.
I don’t think handhelds have much chance of catching on. Any handheld game is going to have an uphill fight with modern phones. Why buy a dedicated handheld unit when your phone has amazing colour and resolution, a touchscreen, an internet connection, and it is always with you?
These two. Oy. Why can’t Carla admit she is interested in Charlie, and why is Booster not letting their sister know about Carla’s interest, and why is they [are they?] being such a dillweed about class and wealth? They’re going to be that cranky person in their local co-op no one likes, who always complains about every non-local item in the store. As for Carla, is she so shocked about thinking about someone other than herself that she can’t even say the words? Then again, we’re given the impression that Charlie’s ADHD is so strong that she probably wouldn’t notice any of this. Which is probably a good thing.
Booster may be gery protective of Charlie also they are kind of shit stirrer, and Carla is a perfect subject (in that she beleives she is perfect) tbh Booster should just hold out for more gifts maybe a high end camera, a car or 203.32 gift card to Texas de Brazil steakhouse.
I used to have a few more orders on lockdown to the penny, but prices keep increasing so I keep having to shop around. Nice that my local burger place is priced out so that a 20% tip puts my bill at $17.99 with most of my go-tos.
Carla has been hurt before, so she puts up a lot of walls. She’s afraid to be vulnerable, so she can’t say how she really feels about Charlie. Booster on the other hand is waiting for her to be honest about her true intentions. They can deal with Carla being smug, but it might be harder on Charlie. Thus Booster is not impressed with Carla offering them an easily-replaced gift, and instead prompts her again to say that she likes Charlie.
Yotomoe’s step-kink arc is my new favorite comment section development, ever. Amber being full on “look at me as much as you want i dont give a shit bro” and Joe trying not to lose his mind fantasizing about either amber or stacy is PEAK CONTENT
I just had to figure that’s her general vibe since she just answers the door like that and gives less than a fuck. Like granted it was Walky (her ex) but still. Pretty blase.
Second off… yeah, that was pretty much me from my second year of college on. Spent a lot of time rocking the t-shirt and panties look. And I usually kept my dorm room door propped open so people could just walk in unless I was actually changing or something. So yeah, very blase.
Haha I’ve been itching to draw this since yesterday, I’ll have you know. Being at work was really anxious cuz I was itching to go home and draw thighs!
Not anymore. Not sure where I’ll post it now. Was considering maybe blue sky or something but maybe co-host. I dunno. Imgur banning lewd stuff really screwed me. And not in a fun “Las Vegas” Way.
Being the kind of person who actually SAYS “Scoff!” rather than just scoffing, only makes me like Carla more, and I already like her more than is reasonable.
Depends on the definition. Carla doesn’t seem like a person who would have the patience and time to grind or repeat levels, on the other hand, I can imagine Carla as a trash talker from some multiplayer game.
idk , mabye it’s cause i mostly lurk on tumblr but ifeel like it’s harder to find a trans girl who /isn’t/ a gamer let alone knowing a bit of programming too
tho you don’t have to be a hardcore gamer to own a gaming system, not like its’ some hard core decked out modded console or so
I wonder where Charlie lives. Even though there’s tens of thousands of undergrads there, I bet she lives near another character. Like a floor below Lucy, or between Agatha and Joyce.
still vulnerable by carla standards. but i imagine it’s building up to at least a friendship even if they don’t date. or carla being bored at the end b/c charlie only talks about seahorses and isn’t rly having a ‘proper’ convo and booster facepalming lol.
i mean they did rant about her billionaire parents, but it’d be an equally douchey move to be like, “thanks, yoink, still not helping you tho” and slamming the door on her
But man given the opportunity i’d totally try to milk it as much as i can like “oh sure pay for all my textbooks and degrees” and trip to (country of your desire) here and i’ll think about it.
It’s not about the gift or the money. It’s about Dedication. That’s why Carla brings up the saves. The XBox is pennies out of her pocket, she loses nothing. But Saves? Now that’s a show of dedication to her interest in Booster’s sibling.
sure! well i can point you in the right direction i think.
so in the early 20th century Marcel Mauss started a bit of a sub-discipline within anthropology with his paper called “The Gift” where he analyzed gift-giving practices in a Native American tribe from the pacific northwest i think.
his basic point as i recall is to draw attention to the fact that the giving and receiving of gifts is actually a very complex and socially codified type of activity. one of the concepts he used as an example is “potlatch” where rich people would basically engage in contests of literal destruction of stuff just to one-up one another. and as i recall Mauss thinks this is kind of an extreme case of gift exchange, but that social status is a big underlying factor to gifts generally.
of course (well, hopefully) the point is not just to go “wow these other societies sure are weird” but to also reflect back on your own practices and mores, and i think it quickly becomes clear that gifts are anything but simple.
another really interesting anthropologist who’s introduced the idea of a gift economy is David Graeber in his book “Debt: the first 5000 years”. i’m probably gonna butcher his argument because i’ve only read second-hand summaries, but i believe he argues that the basic form of economy in many societies historically has been just giving each other stuff, so that people within a community are all indebted to each other, and that strengthens to the social fabric.
all that to say, gifts are, in fact, complex social rituals, and it doesn’t feel frivolous to me to unpack their implicit significations
It’s also a common parenting quirk, giving you gifts you didn’t ask for to coerce something they want out of you. It’s not entirely wrong to look at Carla offering something that for her is literally disposable income and expecting attention in return and wonder to yourself, did you actually mean this as a gift to someone you like? Or is this just your avenue to having people talk about you?
i think the implication is that they’d restart and erase all of carlas save files, hence the ‘sacrifice’ assuming she doesn’t have everything backed up
Look, Microsoft is still on thin ice for discontinuing the Kinect, but these dweebs are also on thinner ice for stretching the notion of Charlie very thin.
I understand the irony of typing this on a Windows machine, but I feel like going after other independent-ish launchers on PC would involve some rolling heads. People freak out about having to use anything other than Steam, I can’t imagine seeing thayeah, I couldn’t get through that entire sentence, actually. Gamers will fold like soaking wet origami.
Man, is Microsoft vs Epic going to be a repeat of DeSantis vs Disney? “I don’t care if you win, I just want (x) to lose”?
Gamers are usually good little drones who obediently lick up whatever mess an executive has spilled on their floor, yes. And then they’ll defend the boiling antifreeze’s flavor and claim there’s never been another way of gaining nutrition.
That’s not actually what those emails said, at all. But whatever, most people are incapable of processing nuance on any of this stuff. Capitalism bad, whatever.
I mean, legit monopoly ain’t below them, they once had a legit monopoly on operating systems until the government forced Windows development into it’s own separate entity, whatever good that did 😮
No good reason, anyway. Remember, a fired employee is ~$20k the corporation won’t have to spend next year. Doesn’t matter that they have so much money that $20mil a year is practically nothing to them, number go up and that’s all they care about.
Receiving gifts from someone very richer than me, I aways feel lt is very uncanny, unnatural… I can’t explain exactly why.
It’s since I was a child. A colleague in school invited me to visit him in his house. It were enormous, having a pool and shit. He got a lot of consoles.
Even he trying hard, I never felt I could be friend of him. He was very friendly, of course.
But something never felt right to me.
If you spent any time wondering about my reaction to this strip, which you certainly should not do, you might posit that it would annoy me.
But Carla actually manages to not do any of the usual Carla things that irritate me here? This is just kinda straight up tsundere behavior and it’s cute. She’s about to pull out a giant cartoon mallet and perform assault and battery.
I wasn’t a fan of killing Mike because I thought it was kinda cheap to replace someone rather than simply grow them as a character, but Booster actually fills the role beautifully of being just as perceptive of weaknesses as Mike but lacks his cruelty. Booster actually just wants people to be more honest with themselves and exists to interrogate them, but they’re still complex and has their own wants and needs.
That’s an interesting perspective, but I don’t see that much of a difference in terms of cruelty. Booster seems just as antagonistic to me, just in a different style. They may have good intentions, but the kind of directness they approach everybody’s deep-seated issues with is way too broadly applied. And I don’t think their goals are really all that different from Mike’s, although often less directly self-serving.
Eww-ww… Carla’s second dialog balloon in the 4th frame makes her sound Trumpy as hell.
So glad the elastic time-line of DoA makes it impossible and impractical to get political. But she just skated real close to the edge there.
Trumpy. Wow. How so? Am i missing a specific thing that Trump said? Or is she just full of herself in a way that is actually self-aware and purposefully OTT, ie a retorical depth and playfulness Trump doesnt actually have the computing resources to achieve
I can see it just from the phrasing.
Trump’s fond of that kind of “I’m probably more X than anybody” boasting. Almost always a complete lie of course. Like his “I am the least racist person that you have ever met” bit.
Carla just admit you like Charlie.
That’s almost certainly what Booster’s looking for here!
A little sincerity will only hurt your brain for a few days, maybe two weeks tops.
A problem with this kind of indirect courting is how does Carla tell the difference between “Booster doesn’t think you are right for Charlie” from “Charlie is not interested in you”?
I think that’s part of the appeal. Carla can never actually be rejected by Charlie, only by a proxy that she doesn’t care about. If she really wanted to talk to Charlie she could just do it.
Nitendo? X Box? Bah! If Carla were really hip she’d give Booster one of the many mid-late ’70s Pong TV games. My dad recently found one we had around the house way back when, but it went off to the electronics recycler since parts were missing.
It’s not a great demonstration of generosity. It’s the thought that counts, and the thought is “you’ll do what I want if I pay you.”
This isn’t a gift, it’s a transaction (ba-dum-tish)
First, game data stored on the cloud tends to not get lost, and if we’re talking an original xbox rather than a current up to date that’s more an artifact than a gaming device.
Second, we can clearly tell booster isn’t poor enough to say “well doesn’t this not count because you’re well off?” to whoever is giving them gifts (in this case carla).
Third, as has been supremely obvious, carla’s got some kind of lady-boner making her head over heels. The real question is what specific flavor of interest willis has cultivated inside carla to make this all work.
There are maybe 2 or 3 titles in the Xbox library that I’m actually interested in. “Nintendo’s for babies” is a line spoken by people with no respect for gaming history
And just like that, Carla has fallen to the bottom of the rankings in my favor
okay not like the bottom bottom, there’s some really trash behaviour going on in this campus, but the old nintendo=baby line is a personal attack on me
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As it turns out, Carla has played the system exactly zero times, so it TECHNICALLY contains all her save data, while also not
Everybodys looking for nothing, but nobody looks harder for nothing than Carla.
It goes well with her complete disinterest in Boomer’s sister.
No! Another victim of autocorrect! (I presume…)
s/oom/oost/
Damn, I was hoping for a DoA/Bubblegum Crisis crossover…
Booster: Wait, I thought you were good at tech. Surely you know your save data is actually in the cloud, right?
Carla: Of course! That’s why I’m bringing the cloud too!
(she produces a small nondescript box)
Booster: Okay, you mean a backup. Whew, for a second there I thought you had the actual cloud in your possession somehow.
Carla: …
Booster: Carla, I really need you to tell me that isn’t the actual cloud. Please say these words, I must hear them.
Carla: ^_^
This … is the Internet.
(From a show I never actually watched.)
It’s a good show, shame the creator turned out to be a bit of a git.
That was unfortunate
Also
0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
I’ve had a bit of a tumble….
Four I mean five I mean Fire!
That could be so many different creators… it’s kinda sad.
Graham Linehan, a raving TERF, right wing bigot, and all around horrifying English pillock who blew up a highly successful writing and producing career to be even more reprehensible that Laurence Fox.
*Irish
Oh 😩 Actually thinking about it, there was a Trans* woman character on it in one episode who the womanising idiot boss fell in love with, misheard her trying to tell him this, she thought he was surprisingly chill, he didn’t know why she thought it might be a big deal she was born in Iran (“a man” being misheard as “Iran” should have been a BIG clue by four thinking about it actually 😬) and it descended into physical violence…
This probably shouldn’t have been a surprise…
yeah that’s the episode which had a pretty negative reaction, which Graham thought was unwarranted and doubled down, and still has never recovered from
At least Matt Berry himself has distanced himself from the character he played
I do not understand this reference.
It’s a scene in The IT Crowd where the two lead geeks prank their non-geek boss by giving her a small box with a light on it and claiming it’s “The Internet”. Like, the actual internet, which is a physical item they were allowed to borrow so she could show it off in a presentation (and humiliate herself).
The joke backfires because all the execs she shows it to are as dumb as she is and actually impressed. And then panic when the box accidentally gets damaged because they believe the internet was just destroyed.
execs huh? yeah that tracks XD
At this point, I assume every reference I don’t get is to The IT Crowd, a Terry Pratchett book, or that thing with the hot dog guy who’s all trying to find out who did this.
You can take or leave The IT Crowd, but if you’ve never read a Pratchett book you are really missing out.
See, people always say that whenever I bring it up, but I disagree.
I assume the only Pratchett novel Taffy’s read is The Colour of Magic, which is easily the weakest Discworld novel (easy to do, considering that it’s the first one). But eh, not their fault. (Even if I’m wrong, and they have in fact read some good ones.) Gotta read one of the good ones. I’m especially partial to Guards! Guards!
I haven’t read any of them. Only random sentences that are allegedly appropriate to whatever conversation they appear in.
I like them, my brother doesn’t. Not the messaging, just the style isn’t his thing.
If you get people hyping them all the time, I can see how that’s not actually encouraging. There is an ersatz-Christmas movie made from one of the books, called Hogfather. If you were inclined to expose yourself to Discworld and his style without committing to a book, that’s what I’d watch. The humor is pretty corny sometimes, but corny in a different way than “I think you should leave”
Personal taste is personal taste is personal taste is personal taste.
I wanted to give the Discworld books a fair shot, so I read the first twenty of them. Of them maybe four were tolerable and none were good. I’ve discovered that I have little tolerance for authors who discard character in favor of dad humor.
It took me actually years to understand that what I had taken for depth were cheap pop cultures references that covered darwinist libertarian views (libdem at best?) with a humor varnish (and yeah I’m ashamed it took me so long, but in the other hand, I had culturally no way to understand them as cheap refs since I’m from across the channel and don’t watch TV). Not counting the YA/teen novels, there are actually like four books where the intrigue is good enough, four where the hidden message is interesting enough, and four that are written well enough. Those are not the same four books, and all along he can’t write that many good female characters while thinking of himself as a feminist. His best are imo the YA/teen novels, by far…
personal taste is personal taste, but lol @ “darwinist libertarian”
Well I read Lapsus clavi.
summary:
-why public school is awful
-why do you keep taxing me?
-that time I got honoured and made a funny/moving speech
-I’m ill
-that time I got honoured and made a funny/moving speech
-taxes aren’t well used
-being a fantasy author doesn’t mean you can’t write but critics that understand literature should go to hell because they are living thanks to my work and they pay me no royalties
-taxes
-I like tech and since I can afford it it makes me a pioneer.
-I like Australia
-taxes taxes taxes taxes
Lapsus clavi?
I think I’ve read one proper Pratchett novel in my teen years, but could not tell you which one or much thoughts on it beyond it was alright. Good Omens by Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is an absolute treasure though (but given how much I enjoy Gaiman generally, that is not surprising)
Lapsus Clavi seems to be a French translation of a collection of Pratchett letters and essays. Not sure what the English title would be.
Lapsus Clavi is indeed the french title for Pratchett’s nonfiction essay collection A Slip of the Keyboard
Okay, the conversation about whether Terry Pratchett is Bad Actually is one I literally cannot be part of (and if you seriously think the guy who inspired the Vimes Boots Index was a right-winger I don’t know what to tell you), but I totally get “Everyone keeps going on about these and it puts me off”, because I did exactly that to my dad, who eventually told me he was sure he would have liked them if I hadn’t built up this weight of expectations that would be hanging over him if he tried to read one.
@Formedras
The only Pratchett novel I’ve read is Good Omens.
It was fine. Not really my thing.
I know that comment wasn’t directed at me, but I’ve had people trying to get me to read Discworld / more Pratchett for years, so I understand how Taffy feels.
Daibhid
It depends how you define right winger. If being for women’s rights and antiracist makes suffices to make you left wing, so be it.
To me the Vimes index is a sign of a left sensibility, but in the same time, much of Pratchett, especially late ones, are about how rich men (and an aging female vampire that learnt from a rich man) lead the advance of society thanks to technical progress, being some sort of benevolent economic tyrants. In the two first Vimes novels, Vime is a poor and almost powerless vigilante and develops the theory you mentioned. But as soon as he becomes an economic forces, while a chaotic one, he cease to appeals to solidarity and replaces it with charity which is pretty much what right wing is: it is even developed literally when he goes to the Counties to get lectured (and finally agree) that giving money while torturing is OK because then you have the impression to have earnt it and that it’s better to get more money from a jerk than less from someone OK. That sensibility pervades his whole work, where it’s always some kind of merit that make people go up and the role of inheritance is downplayed (Vetinari himself, Vimes, Henry, Wordes, Lipwig). In the Lipwig novels, he goes so far to demonstrate that Lipwig can’t be a crook without causing deaths, but after that he and Henry can moguls, exploiting people, without showing any death resulting of extreme labor exploitation (that pseudo antiracist stance where it’s positive that migrants work more is severely undermined but the fact you employ them *because* they are willing to bypass protective rules and put more hours than people that somehow get a kind of choice). In the one about economy, he totally reverses his former theory of value (as the sum work being able to be produced, hence the power of possible workforce of golems) to pursue a monetary theory where it’s nothing short of neo-classics: and in fact, most of Pratchett revolves around innovation being the main factor rather than the reproductive process of capital based on the exploitation of workers. The same change happens also between Feet of Clay (one of my favorites, well until a few pages to the end where it becomes NCABIRL: No Cop Is a Bastard If Rightfully Led refusing the systemic aspect of undemocratic law management) and the Lipwig novels: suddenly, people who worked to free themselves from oppression (no gods, no masters, literally) now are a temp agency perfectly fine with unethical labor as long as they’re paid and considered people. I will not speak longer for now his silencing of homosexuality in Monstruous regiment and his picking of equal rights orgs.
@Taffy – It’s absolutely understandable to not appreciate something – just a shame if you haven’t made that decision for yourself. We have friends IRL who have not and may never watch Firefly for similar overhype reasons. I’d happily sit down and no-judgement just stream it with them, but others have pushed them too far off it already. So I understand… but I hope you can find a way in someday if that pressure loosens up.
If there’s any chance you did eventually push past the forced hype and try Pratchett out, I do think you’d be marvellously surprised. It’s less about those single pithy sayings and more about the care shown to characters and situations both alongside some real nuanced understanding of our world translated into comic fantasy. And Pratchett is equal parts loving and righteously angry, so tends to handle subjects sympathetically and cuttingly at once, somehow. His earlier works have a few content snafus given their time and his demographics but most of these are addressed later on.
FWIW, if that does occur, Mort is a fun early introduction to the series, if you can ignore size commentary. Or Monstrous Regiment is probably one of the best but may be a bit dense for a brand new reader – Men at Arms, Guards Guards, or similar first, maybe. One good thing about Discworld is there are actually 4 or 5 concurrent sub series with different tones and focii.
@khn0 fair points, I think, but given the development of his works over his lifetime, I think your characterisation is less fair for the later parts of the series. He starts libdem/leftish centrist but moves farther left and into deeper character study as the books go on (at least in my reading and opinion). Which honestly was a nice match for me as I shifted the same way after university and unpacked my prejudices at the same rate alongside it.
It’s this kind of thing that makes me not want to bother with the books. “It’s a shame”, “You’re missing out”, “find a way in”, as if there’s something fundamental that’s inherently missing from my life because I haven’t read books by one specific author. I can’t even say I haven’t read them without multiple people jumping down my throat with this crap, like that simple fact alone is evidence of some sinister outside force keeping me away from these precious tomes, or some kind of petulant contrarianism in my part.
I haven’t read them. I’m not interested in reading them. The people who tell me to read them are too damn pushy (and honestly kinda condescending) about it, and that doesn’t help, but it’s not the important factor. I’m sorry if people feel personally harmed and offended that I haven’t read their favorite books, but they’re just not something that grabs my attention enough to bother reading one. I can barely make myself read books I am interested in.
I regret even bringing them up in passing, as part of a short list of other things I haven’t consumed.
yeah, i get why people do this, because i do get that glowing feeling from introducing a thing i love and the other person goes “wow tysm, that was fab”
but also. there’s a ton of incredible art that never get the level of hype that (eg, and no offense) Pratchett does, and so many books that few people will ever read even though they are just as worthy (whatever that means~). like, i’m sure Pratchett’s actually great. but like you said Taffy, does he really needs *more* hype, like what does this achieve at this point.
in fact *maybe* our time spent not reading Pratchett is spent reading other very cool books, or going on walks with top-notch doggies or taking super tasty naps or whatnot. who’s missing out now! lol!
@taffy I get what you mean. I have zero interest in consoles and handhelds. I have to look up what is what each time there’s one in the comic. Why would I want to play a racing game if there’s not an animatronic bear playing the banjo in the next room?
There is something fundamental that’s inherently missing from your life because you haven’t read books by this one specific author. But I respect your right to self diminish your cultural treasure house, you poor Taffy you.
Nah, I can’t do it with a straight face. Pratchett is a good read, but nothing to get worked up about. If you should ever suffer from amnesia and decide to give one a try, I recommend Equal Rites.
Have you all read the Tain? It’s nothing at all like Discworld. It’s iron age Irish myth. Plus: the hero goes supersayan and does a bunch of wire-fu martial arts moves and decimates an army, first in one-on-one fights, then they try sending groups at him. Con: it’s an iron age myth, passed down through oral tradition for like a thousand years until the middle ages, so it’s fragmented and there’s lots of lists of names and places that are probably shout-outs and story hooks that mean very little today.
It’s aged very badly i’m afraid. Except for Richard Aoyade who is a timeless delight
It hasn’t aged badly at all, though? It’s still absolutely hilarious, I’ve shown it to several new people in the last few years and they all loved it.
Meh!
I remember finding it really sexist when i tried to watch it again a couple years ago, like a lot of the humor relied on gender stereotypes? I found it super offputting and just, like, tedious
It relies heavily on stereotypes, and a lot of it is tedious. I think people tend to remember the redeeming moments, of which there are admittedly plenty.
Yes, rewatching the comedy of your youth can be brutal. I’d forgotten exactly how homophobic “Blackadder” gets, for instance.
Otoh, and though that one also unfortunately involves Linehan, ive recently rewatched a few Black Books episodes and i thought they held up really well <3
I always thought that was them making fun of homophobia.
I tried watching it once relatively recently and couldn’t get far at all into it. Maybe there were some great moments in there but I just… couldn’t. It made me uncomfortable. And it just didn’t feel like it has any energy or charisma to it. Off putting and tedious we’re definitely my takeaway from it.
I agree. I’ll admit that I loved it on a first watch, an incredibly long time ago, but in more recent years I found some of the jokes kind of off-putting. Richard Aoyade is wonderful though
Good show. Hilarious episode.
The premise you miss in the meme is that these are I.T. guys managed by someone who has no idea about tech. And she takes one of their pranks and presents it as if it were real.
The real twist will be that Carla isn’t giving her Switch away because Animal Crossing doesn’t support cloud saves. SACRIFICE YOUR ISLAND FULL OF DREAMIES FOR LOVE, CARLA
you forgot to say “ho ho ho!!!”, Carla! ;P
that’s how earthlings do it, right?
Not when you are trying to prove you are girl friend material.
(They might think you like gardening – which according the stereotypes means you are already a grandmother).
I can confirm that anyone who says ho ho ho!!!, Carla is likely to be an earthling.
Present company excepted.
That’s exactly what an undercover Teegardenian alien would say.
Well that is just baseless slander, implying that I would have anything to do with those idiotic pustules on the gala-
I mean… Who are the Teegardenians? I’ve never heard of them!
this is like an extended courtship ritual but for getting a wingman
Well, depends on how much booster considers it as being manipulated/guilt trippy
Hold out Booster you can probably get a Prius, and deep dish pizza out of this.
Well, they just said that it’s ‘easily replaceable’/not meaningful so would booster rly accept it? aside from the pizza
Boosters still what a freshman if someone offered up a car and deep dish pizza I doubt they or anyone else would turn it down they could flip the car beacuse ya know insurance is alot and eat the pizza
Insurance doesn’t cost anything if you don’t have it.
With the caveat that not having insurance can get very expensive if you roll snake eyes.
Ah, but unlike other insurance car insurance is mandatory.
(specifically liability insurance, exact requirements vary depending on country and state)
Actually, if you’re rich enough, car insurance isn’t mandatory at all (in the United States). You can be “self-insured,” which literally just means you have a stated plan to cover yourself in an accident, and the means to do so set aside.
Definitely depends on country then – it’s flat-out illegal to drive a car in the UK without active insurance and road tax.
Unless they changed it when I wasn’t looking, in Texas you can self-insure for liability insurance, but you have to leave a deposit to cover it with the state and they do not pay interest. Still cheaper than insurance if you can afford to let the state hang onto your money.
i mean even from an established ‘rich family’ i’d def raise an eyebrow at a non relative offering me a car (tho even if it was ‘tax deductible’ i wonder if ppl woudl be responsible if there was an accident or so lol) tho i odn’t drive and would want like a butler/personal driver instead 8D;
Was there meant to be a semicolon in your emoji at the end there
Just a little drool, don’t worry abt it
yeah habit sometimes it’s meant to be a ‘sweatdrop’ lol
I would have jumped at the opportunity of making a point to the magnitude of turning down a bribery car.
How bad is the parking environment for first-years at IU?
Of course, the Xbox is actually the only system of the main three that by default saves everything into the cloud instead of making that a premium feature so Booster was absolutely correct with their first instinct.
Regarding panel 3, I’d argue whether Carla can afford a game station or not shouldn’t matter when it comes to a gift. With that logic, no gift is meaningful unless it puts the person out or makes them unable to afford something easily and that’s… not great. What makes it meaningful should be related to Carla’s motivations, and whether Booster enjoys/wants the gift. Nothing more, as far as price goes. But that’s just me, as someone who’s love language is gift giving/receiving.
I think it more has to do with the fact that Carla is positing herself as so kind and thoughtful to give up her own property rather than just being like “hey I noticed you’re splitting a game system with your sister, do you want mine? I totally don’t mind it”
And if someone is giving a gift with the intention of making themself seem selfless it does kind of lessen their “selflessness” if giving requires no real effort on their part.
That second point is why I mentioned motivation behind the gift. Bringing up just the monetary part of it makes it seem like Booster’s just disappointed Carla could buy herself another if she wanted.
At this point it’s more of a ‘bribe’
I can absolutely agree on this, it is definitely a bribe.
I think if you have a lot of money, an expensive but impersonal gift loses a lot of its meaning. Rather than giving it any thought, you relied on your money to make a good impression. Whereas if you are operating on a normal college budget, by default you will be putting a lot more thought into how to best spend your money on a gift. Carla giving up her save files proves that she’s not just throwing money at the problem, she wants Charlie and Booster to have the console more than she wants to continue playing it herself. It’s similar to her being unable to afford another but still wanting them to have it.
I think Carla giving up her save files is an unnecessary sacrifice. A gift should have meaning and a gift can have meaning even if it may cost money, if it is something that somebody has been saving for or has really wanted. When I was operating on a normal college budget, all I had to spare for my partner as a gift was a handmade art project from my art class, and a transformers hat because they really liked transformers. These gifts are, in my opinion, filled with just as much thought and care as the care packages I now send to my best friend, which are usually packed with things I know she enjoys or loves (such as toys for her cat, new nice smelling hand sanitizer because she goes out a lot and lives with an elderly person she cares for) and even though the budget I have to work with is now obviously bigger, that doesn’t make those gifts have less thought put into them.
Like, if I was Booster and Carla came to give me her console like this, I would immediately decline if I thought Carla was unable to buy either that same console or a new one to replace it, if she seemed like she wanted to play games still. Like, if it’s ‘I don’t like games anymore’ then sure but if she was trying to sacrifice for me by giving me a console, I would decline BASED ON “this doesn’t feel right, depriving you of something you enjoy and cannot replace”. The fact that Carla can replace it would be a GOOD thing in my book.
For me, with my experiences, a bad gift example would be when my aunt bought me, what she told me was a brand new laptop. Whether she could afford it or not, or even the price of it, didn’t matter. I appreciated getting a gift, especially a grand new laptop. However… I soon ran into issues with it. And began to put things together, such as how before she gave it to me she felt the need to ‘make an account to make sure it worked’, an account which became the admin account and gave me difficulty trying to make adjustments to the laptop. It turned out she did not buy me a new laptop, but a laptop sombody else had purchased and brought back to the store… probably because of the errors. If she had been honest with me, I wouldn’t have minded half as much as I did about being lied to about it.
Giving up her saves is a bit… misguided, but I get what she was going for. If she just brought them an xbox because everyone likes xbox and she can replace it anyway, it’s not a very meaningful gift. It’s not something she put her heart into like a handmade art project, or a gift basket that she specifically curated to match her friend’s interests. Carla thought about what she could do to convey sincere interest, and in her own self-centered way thought the best thing would involve a sacrifice on her part. That can’t be a monetary sacrifice, so this is the next best thing. That she is only thinking of herself and not about what Charlie or Booster would actually want is likely not lost on the recipient here.
The thing is that this is less about the gift and more a test of character. Booster doesn’t want Carla around their sister because she is a selfish self-absorbed prick. Giving the XBoX to Booster is cheap point scoring because she can just get 10 more with her pocket money. But if she includes the irreplaceable saves (assuming she doesn’t have them backed up in the cloud and can easily recover them) it shows that she is capable of sacrificing and her interest is genuine and not some momentary fancy.
I’m pretty sure booster’s deep into the Capitalism Bad train, and it has very little to do with the typical self absorbed nature of Carla. If Carla behaved identically but wasn’t rich, I think Booster wouldn’t have any issue, *even if* Carla didn’t do the save file thing here. This is a little more conjecture, but if it were a hypothetical Dorothy taking interest, civility and all, but who just happened to have megabucks, Booster would have equally huge issue. Perhaps more, because Dorothy’s politeness would come off as insincere.
Not really how I read Booster. They use Carla’s wealth more as a way to poke at her personality and see how she reacts rather than actually being upset with The Evils of Capitalism. They don’t really bring it up anywhere else. I might be wrong though.
carla dissing nintendo is both cringe and in character
Especially since her crush is clearly a fan.
Is this a geeky form of negging?
Xbox sucks. Nintendo Switch is PORTABLE, dummy. PORTABLE! Do you know how much inherently better that makes the console? Yeah sure it’s graphics are shitty but I can play it EVERYWHERE. XBOX COULD NEVER. If you wanted to get them a real console you get them a Steam Deck.
Could be Carla actually agrees that the xbox sux. Hence.
She’s keeping her Switch. https://www.dumbingofage.com/lonely/
Huh. That strip just reminded me of when I was in college and my ex’s roommate was a good friend so she kept inviting me over. Heh.
Au contraire! She’s obviously trying to sell it to Lucy. Look, she says “Buy it or not.”
For some people, the graphics are the only thing that matter, all other factors be damned. I can never be friends with one of those people.
Psh yeah, like a TI-82’s not good enough for them?! Snobs.
You have my virtual upvote.
(shades of me pleading with my mom to buy me a TI-83 in high school)
nintendos asidei ‘m sureprised there aren’t more portable game consoles (i think the playstation has one?) tho i’m not much of a ‘gamer’ o begin with
tho i’m surprised carla’s parents’ companies wouldnt hav already made their own
Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck are the only current ones. Playstation had the PSP but that hasn’t been around for years.
Playstation does have a portable system but it only streams games from your PS5 so it’s basically just a wireless screen and controller
There was also the PSVita but uh-
that was a very ironic name. More like PS Necro nowadays.
I’m not as in-the-loop as I used to be but I think mobile gaming is most popular on phones as of 2023. Smartphone G- and CPUs are strong enough that even though most “gamers” will still look for a dedicated console capitalism has pushed casual (and therefore the most numerous) gaming to phones last I checked the numbers. Which again, has been a while.
That, or PC gaming with eSports stuff, which makes me wonder a little why Carla wouldn’t be a primarily PC gamer. I understand wanting a console if just for the flagships (Mega Man Legends, Tales of Xillia, and Final Fantasy X HD were bonuses, I bought a PS3 for The Last of Us), but I missed the Canon Fortnite Event so all I’ve really see Carla play is… Actually Nintendo stuff, I think? Has she been featured playing Mario Kart? I know she was over in Lucy’s room playing Switch.
I don’t think handhelds have much chance of catching on. Any handheld game is going to have an uphill fight with modern phones. Why buy a dedicated handheld unit when your phone has amazing colour and resolution, a touchscreen, an internet connection, and it is always with you?
Whichever console adds official support for browser games is the one that’s gonna be most popular.
Steam Deck, but also are browser games still a thing now that Flash is dead
They are, thanks to HTML5!
They will hopefully become much more of a thing if I can help it! 😉
Every game system is portable. All you have to do is add a car battery, an inverter, and a handcart.
…and a 50 inches screen. You know, a small screen makes it hard to play these console games.
These two. Oy. Why can’t Carla admit she is interested in Charlie, and why is Booster not letting their sister know about Carla’s interest, and why is they [are they?] being such a dillweed about class and wealth? They’re going to be that cranky person in their local co-op no one likes, who always complains about every non-local item in the store. As for Carla, is she so shocked about thinking about someone other than herself that she can’t even say the words? Then again, we’re given the impression that Charlie’s ADHD is so strong that she probably wouldn’t notice any of this. Which is probably a good thing.
Because it’s fun that’s why.
Booster may be gery protective of Charlie also they are kind of shit stirrer, and Carla is a perfect subject (in that she beleives she is perfect) tbh Booster should just hold out for more gifts maybe a high end camera, a car or 203.32 gift card to Texas de Brazil steakhouse.
I used to have a few more orders on lockdown to the penny, but prices keep increasing so I keep having to shop around. Nice that my local burger place is priced out so that a 20% tip puts my bill at $17.99 with most of my go-tos.
The arbitrary price is beacuse Carla would do this just beacuse Carla
Carla’s too emotionally constipated for that lol
Tho it’d be nice if they did have a genuine heart to heart.
Carla has been hurt before, so she puts up a lot of walls. She’s afraid to be vulnerable, so she can’t say how she really feels about Charlie. Booster on the other hand is waiting for her to be honest about her true intentions. They can deal with Carla being smug, but it might be harder on Charlie. Thus Booster is not impressed with Carla offering them an easily-replaced gift, and instead prompts her again to say that she likes Charlie.
yeah, and there’s a loooot that Carla really should unpack before she tries to start any kind of relationship; sexual, romantic, or friendly.
I wonder if she knows anyone who would be willing to help.
Ok fine I’m gonna draw this cuz I really want to.
Joe and Amber Part 1?
Yotomoe’s step-kink arc is my new favorite comment section development, ever. Amber being full on “look at me as much as you want i dont give a shit bro” and Joe trying not to lose his mind fantasizing about either amber or stacy is PEAK CONTENT
I just had to figure that’s her general vibe since she just answers the door like that and gives less than a fuck. Like granted it was Walky (her ex) but still. Pretty blase.
First off – LOVE IT. Can’t wait for part 2.
Second off… yeah, that was pretty much me from my second year of college on. Spent a lot of time rocking the t-shirt and panties look. And I usually kept my dorm room door propped open so people could just walk in unless I was actually changing or something. So yeah, very blase.
Woo! Go Richard and Stacy! Also yay, very cute comic Yotomoe, thanks.
I fully believe you typed that first sentence, drew this strip, then tacked on the link and hit post. you beast
Haha I’ve been itching to draw this since yesterday, I’ll have you know. Being at work was really anxious cuz I was itching to go home and draw thighs!
Sometimes you just.. really need to draw thighs 🤷♀️
8-)}
Thighs are important.
Okay, so it’s just my phone I can’t post from. Odd.
Ruth would agree, considering their unparalleled femurs-to-other-stuff ratio
Speaking of Ruth, I don’t think we’ve seen enough of her, lately. In the appearances sense and in the skin visibility sense.
Well Willis has a patreon for that sorta thing 😛
That’s true, but I worry $10/month might not (un)cover enough Ruth for my personal tastes.
plus what if there’s Jason, instead of a sexy lady tow-truck driver?
Not to mention the adopting a pet octopus sense! It’s been way too long
I don’t know about the idea of Ruth being near any sort of tentacle or tentacle-adjacent life form. She seems more like a jaguar type of person.
Ooh, i like that. I like that
Although she seems quite committed to her Canadianity. I could see her with a mountain lion or something.
Well, something has to keep your knees away from your hips.
🤣 🫠
do you have a collection of all your DOA stuff somewhere?
Not anymore. Not sure where I’ll post it now. Was considering maybe blue sky or something but maybe co-host. I dunno. Imgur banning lewd stuff really screwed me. And not in a fun “Las Vegas” Way.
Being the kind of person who actually SAYS “Scoff!” rather than just scoffing, only makes me like Carla more, and I already like her more than is reasonable.
Shut the fuck up and take the Xbox, dumbass.
I didn’t really take Carla to be a gamer.
Really?
Really?
Depends on the definition. Carla doesn’t seem like a person who would have the patience and time to grind or repeat levels, on the other hand, I can imagine Carla as a trash talker from some multiplayer game.
She canonically plays *Fortnite*, so you’re not far off.
idk , mabye it’s cause i mostly lurk on tumblr but ifeel like it’s harder to find a trans girl who /isn’t/ a gamer let alone knowing a bit of programming too
tho you don’t have to be a hardcore gamer to own a gaming system, not like its’ some hard core decked out modded console or so
I wonder where Charlie lives. Even though there’s tens of thousands of undergrads there, I bet she lives near another character. Like a floor below Lucy, or between Agatha and Joyce.
She lives in Indiana.
like the state?!?
In a broad sense, maybe. She lives in the hearts and minds of anyone who’s aware of Indiana.
Yes, she lives in the entire state. She just wanders into houses to sleep on occasion and wanders out with snacks and then somehow she is in class.
That’s a lovely image <3
genius (loci)
I had assumed McNutt
Nice seeing Carla be voluntarily vulnerable for once. Even the fun characters need to let their guard down every now and then
still vulnerable by carla standards. but i imagine it’s building up to at least a friendship even if they don’t date. or carla being bored at the end b/c charlie only talks about seahorses and isn’t rly having a ‘proper’ convo and booster facepalming lol.
Ah yes, because of course gifts are only meaningful if they were a financial burden to the giver.
Get the hell over yourself, Booster.
i mean they did rant about her billionaire parents, but it’d be an equally douchey move to be like, “thanks, yoink, still not helping you tho” and slamming the door on her
But man given the opportunity i’d totally try to milk it as much as i can like “oh sure pay for all my textbooks and degrees” and trip to (country of your desire) here and i’ll think about it.
so how is gift this meaningful?
It’s not about the gift or the money. It’s about Dedication. That’s why Carla brings up the saves. The XBox is pennies out of her pocket, she loses nothing. But Saves? Now that’s a show of dedication to her interest in Booster’s sibling.
It’s an entirely fair point that a gift with no real sacrifice on your part means less, and everyone knows Carla is a huuuuuuuuuge attention whore!
Are you serious? Gifts are gifts. What is this Widow’s Mite BS?
The anthropology literature tells us that gifts are a whole lot of things other than gifts
I don’t recognize that term and Google keeps pushing me to a database – can you please explain?
sure! well i can point you in the right direction i think.
so in the early 20th century Marcel Mauss started a bit of a sub-discipline within anthropology with his paper called “The Gift” where he analyzed gift-giving practices in a Native American tribe from the pacific northwest i think.
his basic point as i recall is to draw attention to the fact that the giving and receiving of gifts is actually a very complex and socially codified type of activity. one of the concepts he used as an example is “potlatch” where rich people would basically engage in contests of literal destruction of stuff just to one-up one another. and as i recall Mauss thinks this is kind of an extreme case of gift exchange, but that social status is a big underlying factor to gifts generally.
of course (well, hopefully) the point is not just to go “wow these other societies sure are weird” but to also reflect back on your own practices and mores, and i think it quickly becomes clear that gifts are anything but simple.
another really interesting anthropologist who’s introduced the idea of a gift economy is David Graeber in his book “Debt: the first 5000 years”. i’m probably gonna butcher his argument because i’ve only read second-hand summaries, but i believe he argues that the basic form of economy in many societies historically has been just giving each other stuff, so that people within a community are all indebted to each other, and that strengthens to the social fabric.
all that to say, gifts are, in fact, complex social rituals, and it doesn’t feel frivolous to me to unpack their implicit significations
It’s also a common parenting quirk, giving you gifts you didn’t ask for to coerce something they want out of you. It’s not entirely wrong to look at Carla offering something that for her is literally disposable income and expecting attention in return and wonder to yourself, did you actually mean this as a gift to someone you like? Or is this just your avenue to having people talk about you?
I mean only if you equate gifts with sacrifice.
We now return to “The Secret Dating Life of the LBGTQ (and kind of awful)”
Carla definitely said the word “scoff”, hey. Like she didn’t *do* a scoff, she said it.
Also Booster, chill a lil please.
Is playing other people’s saves actually fun? It doesn’t sound fun to me.
It’s not that Charlie will be able to play Carla’s saves, it’s that Carla won’t have access to them
i think the implication is that they’d restart and erase all of carlas save files, hence the ‘sacrifice’ assuming she doesn’t have everything backed up
Oh right, them! 🙂
…
Oh right, them. 🥲
Look, Microsoft is still on thin ice for discontinuing the Kinect, but these dweebs are also on thinner ice for stretching the notion of Charlie very thin.
Microsoft is on a boiling hot geyser at this point, with latest Windows versions sending userdata without permission and loads of bloatware and shit 😤
That and they’re basically trying to create a monopoly in the video game industry. Just nothing good from them whatsoever, honestly.
And those wondering, this isn’t an exaggeration. Notes leaked that they have even discussed how to acquire the juggernauts Sony and Nintendo
Microsoft legitimately is aiming for a monopoly
We need to get to whichever part of the 20th century that we’re repeating involved a whole lot of anti-trust legislation.
Oh gods, wasn’t that the 80s?
Also the early 1900s and previous decade, marked with the Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1890.
ah yes, Sherman’s Hammer
I understand the irony of typing this on a Windows machine, but I feel like going after other independent-ish launchers on PC would involve some rolling heads. People freak out about having to use anything other than Steam, I can’t imagine seeing thayeah, I couldn’t get through that entire sentence, actually. Gamers will fold like soaking wet origami.
Man, is Microsoft vs Epic going to be a repeat of DeSantis vs Disney? “I don’t care if you win, I just want (x) to lose”?
Gamers are usually good little drones who obediently lick up whatever mess an executive has spilled on their floor, yes. And then they’ll defend the boiling antifreeze’s flavor and claim there’s never been another way of gaining nutrition.
That’s not actually what those emails said, at all. But whatever, most people are incapable of processing nuance on any of this stuff. Capitalism bad, whatever.
I mean, legit monopoly ain’t below them, they once had a legit monopoly on operating systems until the government forced Windows development into it’s own separate entity, whatever good that did 😮
There’s no need to be an ass about it, damn.
Oh and also, the fact that they fired 10,000 employees not to long ago FOR NO FUCKING REASON.
No good reason, anyway. Remember, a fired employee is ~$20k the corporation won’t have to spend next year. Doesn’t matter that they have so much money that $20mil a year is practically nothing to them, number go up and that’s all they care about.
This makes me wonder what sort of games Carla likes.
I mean, gonna say Armored Core’s a must, as well as Front Mission.
You just know she’s got Jet Set Radio on that thing.
Part of me thinks Strategy games, another part of me thinks she wouldn’t have the patience for that.
Jet Set Radio for sure.
Receiving gifts from someone very richer than me, I aways feel lt is very uncanny, unnatural… I can’t explain exactly why.
It’s since I was a child. A colleague in school invited me to visit him in his house. It were enormous, having a pool and shit. He got a lot of consoles.
Even he trying hard, I never felt I could be friend of him. He was very friendly, of course.
But something never felt right to me.
Slight problem Carla.
The Xbox Series has auto cloud save with the only requirement being internet access.
Unlike Playstation and Nintendo that requires a subscription xbox just….does it
Maybe it’s an older Xbox. She didn’t say which version after all :p
Way too small to be an OG Xbox (unless she modded it. And she’d mention THAT). The 360 was white. That’s clearly a Series S.
Which is surprising. She seems like the type to get the Series X just for the flex.
it’s a square prism, not a rectangular prism, which indicates it’s a Series X.
That’s definitely the series X, it’s too boxy to be the others
If you spent any time wondering about my reaction to this strip, which you certainly should not do, you might posit that it would annoy me.
But Carla actually manages to not do any of the usual Carla things that irritate me here? This is just kinda straight up tsundere behavior and it’s cute. She’s about to pull out a giant cartoon mallet and perform assault and battery.
I wasn’t a fan of killing Mike because I thought it was kinda cheap to replace someone rather than simply grow them as a character, but Booster actually fills the role beautifully of being just as perceptive of weaknesses as Mike but lacks his cruelty. Booster actually just wants people to be more honest with themselves and exists to interrogate them, but they’re still complex and has their own wants and needs.
That’s a beautiful way to put it.
That’s an interesting perspective, but I don’t see that much of a difference in terms of cruelty. Booster seems just as antagonistic to me, just in a different style. They may have good intentions, but the kind of directness they approach everybody’s deep-seated issues with is way too broadly applied. And I don’t think their goals are really all that different from Mike’s, although often less directly self-serving.
Narratively, that’s precisely my point. Booster does things Mike can’t.
awkwaaaaard
Eww-ww… Carla’s second dialog balloon in the 4th frame makes her sound Trumpy as hell.
So glad the elastic time-line of DoA makes it impossible and impractical to get political. But she just skated real close to the edge there.
Trumpy. Wow. How so? Am i missing a specific thing that Trump said? Or is she just full of herself in a way that is actually self-aware and purposefully OTT, ie a retorical depth and playfulness Trump doesnt actually have the computing resources to achieve
I can see it just from the phrasing.
Trump’s fond of that kind of “I’m probably more X than anybody” boasting. Almost always a complete lie of course. Like his “I am the least racist person that you have ever met” bit.
yeah ok, i can see that. still feels like a stretch but iunno
I wouldn’t have thought of it (didn’t think of it really), but once pointed out I could see it.
sure fair enough!
Almost always? Has there ever been a time that man’s opened his mouth and not told a complete lie?
I don’t think he pays enough attention to the truth to be sure he doesn’t accidentally tell it sometimes.
She’s a rich narcissist and habitual liar.
The differences being she’s actually rich and the lies are mostly amusing rather than infuriating.
I would be annoyed as heck by Carla IRL, but I love her to bits as a character. Always entertaining.
This is exactly how I feel about Carla.
The Feast of Stephen is December 26th. The Feast of Carla is, what, February 4th?
Carla just admit you like Charlie.
That’s almost certainly what Booster’s looking for here!
A little sincerity will only hurt your brain for a few days, maybe two weeks tops.
Sincerity means letting yourself be vulnerable, showing (potential) weakness.
A problem with this kind of indirect courting is how does Carla tell the difference between “Booster doesn’t think you are right for Charlie” from “Charlie is not interested in you”?
Or indeed, “Charlie still doesn’t know you exist and Booster can’t be bothered to tell her.”
I think that’s part of the appeal. Carla can never actually be rejected by Charlie, only by a proxy that she doesn’t care about. If she really wanted to talk to Charlie she could just do it.
Nitendo? X Box? Bah! If Carla were really hip she’d give Booster one of the many mid-late ’70s Pong TV games. My dad recently found one we had around the house way back when, but it went off to the electronics recycler since parts were missing.
in her next iteration she’ll become Carlactus: Devourer of Attentions
So it isn’t a proper gift unless you suffer for it? Like art?
It isn’t a proper Booster interaction unless the person interacting with Booster is suffering.
It’s not a great demonstration of generosity. It’s the thought that counts, and the thought is “you’ll do what I want if I pay you.”
This isn’t a gift, it’s a transaction (ba-dum-tish)
Carla is less than perfect because she has an xbox instead of the clearly superior playstation, for shame.
no booster has an xbox. keep up
Knowing Carla she probably has All the consoles but is oferring the Xbox because… I dunno, American Patriotism?
If she gave Booster her Switch then she couldn’t play 2-player games with Charlie?
First, game data stored on the cloud tends to not get lost, and if we’re talking an original xbox rather than a current up to date that’s more an artifact than a gaming device.
Second, we can clearly tell booster isn’t poor enough to say “well doesn’t this not count because you’re well off?” to whoever is giving them gifts (in this case carla).
Third, as has been supremely obvious, carla’s got some kind of lady-boner making her head over heels. The real question is what specific flavor of interest willis has cultivated inside carla to make this all work.
You can tell it’s not an original Xbox because Captain America isn’t trying to stop HYDRA from aiming three of it at the nearest city.
Going by that shape, I can’t tell what generation that is supposed to be.
“Going by that shape, I can’t tell what generation that is supposed to be.”
I imagine that’s deliberate due to the sliding time scale.
She’s certainly looking that gift horse in the mouth, and perhaps giving some dental advice as well.
(no i don’t know what that means i’m just sassily extending the metaphor uhh maybe it’s the psychoanalysis angle idk)
oh fuck *They’re
it is a large wooden horse
Beware of Greeks bearing gift horses, but be careful where you look, because the attack may come straight from the horse’s mouth
I really super want to know why Booster is Like This. I’m very excited to learn more about theirs and Charlie’s family and history.
I wonder if this is the first Really Serious Crush for Carla.
I certainly think it’s the first we’ve seen.
That xbox isn’t much use without the power cord, other cables and peripherals.
Carla not liking Nintendo?
0/10 character
(though people can like and dislike whatever they want)
There are maybe 2 or 3 titles in the Xbox library that I’m actually interested in. “Nintendo’s for babies” is a line spoken by people with no respect for gaming history
That makes it more of a sacrifice, but doesn’t it also make it a worse gift?
A better gift, because that means it will have Carla’s name and information on it, so as to better help “insert person here” that Carla exists.
Just remember to imagine Carla wearing her roller skate dutifully this conversation. I like the image and prefer that to boring shoes
Instead of coal, Carla Claus puts spring-loaded pies into naughty kids’ stockings.
And just like that, Carla has fallen to the bottom of the rankings in my favor
okay not like the bottom bottom, there’s some really trash behaviour going on in this campus, but the old nintendo=baby line is a personal attack on me
Carla Claus is such a good concept. I want everywhere to have a Carla Claus. Santa is boring.