You don’t have to actually ‘make use’ of the hookers, as it were. They just need to be there. It’s a show of extravagance, saying to the world that you can afford hookers.
I could totally see Carla paying a few working girls to stand around ornamentally as part of a maniacal power-trip.
Billie should be mad at Carla! The nerve of Carla for not caring about what people think in order to make sure Ruth actually gets something resembling help.
OMG! “See-lid“? Is that you?! I’ve missed you so much? I’m guessing you’ve finally graduated Avalon by now and gone on to university. Still having trouble with dryer sheets sticking to your back on the first day of the school year?
That is a seriously expressive new facial contortion Carla is wearing in the last panel. It speaks of displeasure and the lack of deep appreciation of her inherent awesomeness.
How does this solve the problem, though? Wasn’t the entire reason that Joyce couldn’t just buy shower shoes because they weren’t disposable? She didn’t want to bring them back to her room? These are just make-shift versions of those sandals, which would have to be remade each and every time Joyce showers. By Carla.
“Other magic compound words include ‘I am awed by your math abilities and general brillaince,’ and ‘these milk jugs were half-off at the dollar store.’”
…. maybe the point is that the straps had too MUCH tensile strength? Before they gave way, the sideways bend of the jug walls reached their elastic limit and were warped inwards, causing a cascade of fail? The straps could be the preferable point of failure.
Perhaps it’s just that “tensile” is a funnier word than “compressive.”
…And now I’m wondering if the relationship between the Goddess of Tensile Strength and the God of Compressive Strength is more Aphrodite-and-Ares or Aphrodite-and-Hephaestus.
While probably just a mistake on Willis’s part, a simple resolution could be that Joyce suspended her feet from the edges of the milk cartons with the straps and those failed due to inadequate tensile strength, letting her feet fall and crushing the cartons.
…. hmmm. Maybe if she cut some slits in the plastic and fed the straps through and around them, and the part of the plastic that it was looped around didn’t have enough tensile strength….
To be honest, something as flimsy and ductile as plastic can fail in all kinds of interesting ways.
Plastic deformation means permanent damage that won’t reverse when the loading leaves. Plastic (the material) is named after permanent damage because its the only type it experiences.
Carla can rebuild them. She has the technology. She has the capability to build the world’s first bionic shower shoes. Better than they were before. Better…stronger…faster.
Carla cheats at Scrabble? As a confirmed Scrabble buff, I was prepared to adore her utterly, but now? Curse her! Curse her with the twin ailments of the Tile Gods! Vowel disorders and in-consonants be upon her unworthy digestives!
On the other hand, I can forgive her as long as she doesn’t dis Tesla in favor of the marketing fraud Edison. And makes some more Rube Goldberg devices. THose may yet appease the Ones Who Lurk Between The Tiles.
I don’t cheat. I just perpetually play parallel to existing lines to produce a gajillion words that are two-and-three long, thus making it extra-hard to play after me.
Scrabble, per se, doesn’t reject (or accept) any words. The official rules of Scrabble are: pick a dictionary and stick with it. If your real words aren’t in your dictionary, that’s on your dictionary.
Wow Carla, no need to be such a jerk about it. Obviously Joyce wasn’t thinking about engineer tier math when taping straps onto the plastic bottoms of Milk jugs. That’s like getting mad at me for just taping my broken headphones instead of using a better adhesive.
Besides Doesn’t Joyce still have shower shoes? I feel like we’re solving a problem that already has a solution.
“Hey, Billie, could ya tone it down over there? Hard to convince the freshman I’m amazing at solving all problems with my relentless spontaneity when your reminding me how I might have fucked up solving a problem with my relentless spontaneity!”
Ash nazg durbatuluuk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluuk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
…
What? The inscription on the one ring counts as magic words right?
Strange, I could have sworn with the sheer concentration of nerdy interests apparent in us commenters that one of us had before. Then again, that’s probably just because I start muttering curses in a dialect of Orcish created by David Salo whenever Mary shows up. And the German I learned in college. And the Latin I learned in high school. And the Yiddish my mother’s aunt taught me as a teen. And the Quebec dialect of jouval that I picked up from my father, his brothers, and his mother. Mary just brings out my multilingual side.
Yeah but these are supposed to be disposable.
Not priceless art.
Carla needs to be told this, and take this into account while planning.
At worst like flatten them? and make sure the string wont fall out and the tie works?
Looking for the simplest, most effective, cost-effective solution is the best engineering. Tacking on math where its not needed goes against that.
And Carla can make the wackiest shoes she wants, but if she doesn’t know the real problem and create a fix for it shes just wasting time and effort. That said I’m sure Willis will pull the perfect wacky solution out that somehow fixes everything. Like maybe having a frame that only touches the ground at one point, and uses bottle plastic to replace it.
But the mechanism of holding would have to be easy to use and also not touch the ground. You could try to curve the plastic up but itd be harder to cut, replace, hold and walk. I just keep coming back to cutting a few good holes (or using a hole puncher if access), tying the string well and making toss-able sandals. (removing the string each time if that is acceptable for Joyce)
Cardboard could be a cheaper/ more environmentally friendly option. Itd start to fall apart but might last a shower length. Worth an experiment at least.
Well, but the jug already exists. It’s effect on the environment is already part of the system, so repurposing the jug is environmentally neutral. Now if extra jugs were being manufactured for use in the shower, you would have a point, but that isn’t the case here.
Yeah I was thinking about that.
But it also depends how she gets them. Like are they being bought or recycled? If bought then the problem is real. If recycled then supply can run out if she goes through 2 a day. It can be hard to get that much consistency out of it unless she knows the right sources. (Form what experiences Ive had at least.
While that’s true Carla didn’t have the information necessary to make a better decision (or the experience with this kind of thing to a prevent immediate panic), it’s still understandable that Billie would end up feeling pretty mad / resentful towards Carla for her part in what (could have / might still) happened to Ruth.
That kind of anger – even when misplaced – can be difficult to let go of, even if she realizes that it’s not justified. Depression, stress, and general anger problems aren’t likely helping.
But at least Billie seems to be keeping that anger to herself. She’s not saying anything nasty or getting in Carla’s face. She’s just angrily stomping past her without looking at her. I’ve seen people handle their feelings a lot worse than that.
She didn’t ask for more information, either, though. She assumed she knew everything necessary to make a decision
It’s problematic to assign all the blame to either side here.
Also, being mad at someone doesn’t make you a bad person, even if the reason for your anger is bad. Now, if you constantly try to hurt that person, it can be bad.
But Billie has a begrudging respect for Carla. Unlike Raidah for Sarah. And that’s a huge difference.
There is literally no information Carla could have possessed that would have made her fall on the “let Ruth drink herself to death” side of this issue.
Carla might have been more willing to take a subtler approach if Billie’s response to her freaking out about “Ruthless wants to die!” hadn’t been “Well, that is, um, kind of normal.”
Well, we already knew Billie was a terrible person because of slamming Walky in lockers – or at least tolerating her friends doing it. And then there’s the whole alcoholic DUI thing. Wrapping up all her self-worth in the cheerleading thing at the start of the strip was kind of a problem too.
OTOH, we’ve also seen a lot of good things about Billie.
Hmm, maybe she’s actually a complicated person, not simple good/bad dichotomy. Nah.
Panels 1-2: Joyce stating with panicked pride that she’s good at math fills me with joy. Especially as she’s been trained for so long to diminish the value of her mind.
Also, Carla still trying to hide her kindness beyond the jerk persona. Because if she’s larger than life, conceited, goddess like, then she can’t be made to feel small and helpless. Or at least that’s her assumption.
Though there might be a piece that isn’t an affectation. I mean, she’s rightfully confident in her abilities and a bit of a know-it-all problem-solver type. And she’s also a bit of an asshole on top of all her abilities. But I’m going to guess more is an affectation than she’d care to admit.
Panel 4: Definitely more than she’d care to admit. But it’s really nice to see her going out of her way to help someone in need and freely giving that aid. It makes one think that with time, she might drop more and more of the mask and just let herself do right by people rather than assuming her air of “goddess you shall not offend” is the only thing saving her from a world of hurt. Though of course still with an edge of snark and assholery around the edges.
Plus, it’s just nice to see her smiling and joking around with Joyce on this. Given her previous “helping of someone” involved a lot of making a big show out of trying to back out, it’s nice to see her just relaxing and shooting the shit while helping out on a problem.
And a follow-up on confidence. Yeah, she’s being a bit of a stuck-up asshole or at least teasing in the guise of a stuck-up asshole, but I’m still just giddy that we get to see a depiction of a trans woman with this much confidence in herself and her abilities and who feels comfortable snarking at others from that place.
After all, trans women aren’t really allowed that freedom of confidence most of the time. If we accomplish too much or take too much pride or get too competitive, that often means we’re about to be accused of showing our “male” side by some transphobic dingus.
And that’s before factoring in how we’re frequently barraged with messages that we’re worthless in general which makes it hard to feel pride and confidence in anything. So to see a trans woman depicted with so much confidence that she can be as forceful and rude as she is in Panel 2. That’s something special.
She’s never going to doubt her abilities. She’s never going to soft-peddle them. She’s never going to apologize for her confidence. Even if she ends up toning down the snark. And it’s nice to see a trans woman be that sort of force of personality that cis characters are frequently allowed to be.
Agreed. Carla fudging OWNS her abilities. She knows just how awesome she is and will waste no time letting the world know it. I also love the genuine offer to help if you dig deep enough under the posturing.
Panels 5-6: Billie’s words are still affecting Carla. Which is good in a way. It’s important to remember to find out the full contexts before jumping in with help and as we see here, her helper mode doesn’t really wait for things like consent to help out, which isn’t great.
And Billie is very much convinced that Ruth is going to end up in a very bad place and that the therapy and drugs aren’t really going to help. Which adds an extra layer of tension.
But I have to suspect it’s a complicated feeling for Carla. She thinks she did the right thing for Ruth given the information she had and early signs seem to back that up even though she took a helluva risk. But she seems to be acknowledging that Billie has at least a partial point given her quick deflection and sudden mood change from just a look. And regardless, it’s clear she’s internalizing more than she’s willing to let on. What her full views on the matter, we might not ever know or we’ll know when Billie and Carla next interact for real, but I’m very interested in that and what Carla is willing to begrudgingly acknowledge if anything.
Also, in the halls, in a short towel shortly after being targeted in transphobic harassment by the dorm bully. Carla is fucking fearless and I love that about her.
From the start, Willis emphasised that Carla has huge self-esteem issues leading her to her paradoxical behaviour of socially isolating herself and yet seeking attention through being a prankster. In the end, she wants to be appreciated for being herself but doesn’t quite know how to do it. I think that we’re seeing this paradox at work here. She wants Joyce to acknowledge her as being a smart fixer but doesn’t quite know how to do it without coming across as mildly bullying.
Unfortunately for her, Joyce is sufficiently aware of the social currents of this floor to know that Carla is still stinging about Billie’s feelings about her actions regarding Ruth so a lot o the effect is lost.
I think her self esteem is pretty good. She knows full well that other people can and will be shit to a trans woman, and acts accordingly. She believes in herself, she just doesn’t believe that the world will believe in her.
Between Carla being so incredibly Carla the way only she knows how, and the amount of dorky, dorky puns in Always Human, this is a really good Saturday!
Heh, I kinda think this is more than Carla standing up for proper engineering. I think she is trying to help the poor, chased-with-a-gun fundie in her own too-cool-to-say-it way.
This also speaks to one of Joyce’s more endearing characteristics. Despite how rude Carla is to her Joyce has no trouble accepting her help – and I really hope this will spark an interest in engineering for Joyce. Only great things can come from this.
Gotta love how Sunati has Austen’s phone number saved as “dad jokes are banned” and then making some puns that would make Carlos just be “You should marry my daughter right now!”
Also, in other languages (like Norwegian) it’s ridiculously easy to make a long compound word. Like, one could call Lenin “Oktoberrevolusjonshovedfigur” (October Revolution Main Figure) and get away with it.
You mean you don’t use micro-drones to spy on what letters the other players have and keep extra tiles up your sleeve to palm? What kind of cheater do you call yourself?
I thought maybe she hadn’t rinsed it out completely. Then I realized that coming from the showers it would still be somewhat wet and these are just highlights.
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There is still good in them.
They’re more machine now than jug. Twisted and evil.
I can’t do it, Carla.
You cannot escape your destiny. You must face the shower again.
Webster’s dictionary had a busy year
Carla is the ShowerLord, the true ruler of the showers. She will rule with the true iron grip of the engineering maestro.
“I can’t just throw away these jUggs!
“Then the shower has already won. You were our only hope.”
“Sarah said there was another.”
I am not throwing away my juggs!
I am not throwing away my juggs!
The shower is icky, and creepy and sticky
And I am not throwing away my juggs!
Jugs is British slang for breasts. So that’s a thing.
Funnily enough, it’s slang for the same thing in the United States…
Canada also… what an odd coincidence.
It came across the Atlantic with the prehistoric pyramid builders.
That slang is also occasionally used in the US as well.
As I am not British and this comic is not set in Britain, the point is moot.
“They’ll have blackjack, and hookers! In fact, forget the shower shoes!”
Yeah, sorry, I still think of Carla as Ultra-Car sometimes, who I always imagined sounding like Bender before she got her new body.
Pretty sure she’d be flattered.
Maybe, but I doubt she has much use for hookers.
You don’t have to actually ‘make use’ of the hookers, as it were. They just need to be there. It’s a show of extravagance, saying to the world that you can afford hookers.
I could totally see Carla paying a few working girls to stand around ornamentally as part of a maniacal power-trip.
Flattered? I think not. I think Ultra Car would be all “Bender wishes he was half as cool as I am!”
Agreed.
Billie should be mad at Carla! The nerve of Carla for not caring about what people think in order to make sure Ruth actually gets something resembling help.
And ruining a perfectly good sexy lesbian suicide pact in the process.
Hey, don’t knock sexy lesbian suicide pacts! Some of the coolest people I know are only alive due to sexy lesbian suicide pacts!
CARLA JOYCE BONDING TIME HOORAY
😀
hear hear
Huzzah
Oh wow, wearing nothing but a towel in the hallway… I would be terrified. Carla is badass.
I know, right? Carla is fucking fearless!
Also, it’s a well engineered towel. You know this to be true.
Definitely a hoopy frood who knows where her towel is.
Especially considering she has more reason than MOST to be terrified about being seen without clothes. =/
She has absolute trust in her towel engineering skills.
hyphens are basically the duct tape of language, after all
No – hyphens are mere scotch; the true duct tape is the semi-colon.
Semicolons are what happens when a grammarian get a partial colostomy. Do you even medicine?
And youtube comments are what you get after a partial lobotomy.
Or am I mixing cause and effect?
It’s one of those classic conundrums we may never be able to answer.
See and here all this time I was thinking that the ellipsis was the duct tape.
http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-1897
A very creative use of semicolons (SFW)
Carla must have German ancestry, they love making mile-long compound words.
Those rebuilt shoes better have pie-throwing capabilities or I will be very disappoint.
never ending pie-throwing shoebots
I’m looking forward to seeing what Carla does with the contraption.
Roboshower
…but that doesn’t mean she’s not gonna still do it.
Carla you spiky little teddy bear
Ok I am totally using this one at work. I have just the spiky little coworker in mind.
OMG! “See-lid“? Is that you?! I’ve missed you so much? I’m guessing you’ve finally graduated Avalon by now and gone on to university. Still having trouble with dryer sheets sticking to your back on the first day of the school year?
That is a seriously expressive new facial contortion Carla is wearing in the last panel. It speaks of displeasure and the lack of deep appreciation of her inherent awesomeness.
Abracadabra!
“Carla you are great and I stand in your shadow as a bug a terrible pitiful bug.”
Obviously this is going to be the title of the next book. 😀
How does this solve the problem, though? Wasn’t the entire reason that Joyce couldn’t just buy shower shoes because they weren’t disposable? She didn’t want to bring them back to her room? These are just make-shift versions of those sandals, which would have to be remade each and every time Joyce showers. By Carla.
I guess she could make them self-cleaning instead…
Its almost like Carla gives a fuck.
I mean, she does, but she would never admit it. Like Sal. Or Sarah.
They could form a crew that disinterestedly leans against walls, smoking and staring into the setting sun.
“Give” a fuck? No. But she’ll let you have one or two, if you bribe her sufficiently.
“Other magic compound words include ‘I am awed by your math abilities and general brillaince,’ and ‘these milk jugs were half-off at the dollar store.’”
If you’re crushing something, it’s compressive strength that matters, not tensile strength. Tensile is when you’re pulling something apart.
That’s why the goddess of tensile strength is laughing – laughing that she didn’t need to involve herself with this travesty of hubris.
So maybe the goddess is laughing because she knows it’s not her problem?
Yeah I was about to say. The goddess of Tensile strength should mind her own business.
I thought tensile because of the pulling along the cut upwards facing rim?
Like that’s where it has to pull apart to break right?
Shearing strength (I think its called) would also play a role there.
Did it just COMPRESS, though? Maybe the plastic tore/ripped along a seam as well?
I think the tensile strength goddess is laughing because the straps snapped. Or would have snapped.
…. maybe the point is that the straps had too MUCH tensile strength? Before they gave way, the sideways bend of the jug walls reached their elastic limit and were warped inwards, causing a cascade of fail? The straps could be the preferable point of failure.
Oh, wait, I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!
…. it means that the cartoonist majored in art rather than anything STEM-related.
*flees for dear bannable life*
Perhaps it’s just that “tensile” is a funnier word than “compressive.”
…And now I’m wondering if the relationship between the Goddess of Tensile Strength and the God of Compressive Strength is more Aphrodite-and-Ares or Aphrodite-and-Hephaestus.
I think they’re more Artemis and Apollo because lovers can split up at any time.
They have a child, the god of composite materials. Which doesn’t preclude them being siblings, given what gods are like.
I agree that tensile is a funny word.
Makes no difference. The world still operates according to his laws.
While probably just a mistake on Willis’s part, a simple resolution could be that Joyce suspended her feet from the edges of the milk cartons with the straps and those failed due to inadequate tensile strength, letting her feet fall and crushing the cartons.
…. hmmm. Maybe if she cut some slits in the plastic and fed the straps through and around them, and the part of the plastic that it was looped around didn’t have enough tensile strength….
To be honest, something as flimsy and ductile as plastic can fail in all kinds of interesting ways.
Plastic deformation means permanent damage that won’t reverse when the loading leaves. Plastic (the material) is named after permanent damage because its the only type it experiences.
As an engineer, fuck plastic.
Joyce could just use the disposable shower sandals Sarah bought, but Carla’s solution to the problem sounds far more amusing.
My first thought about those is they’d get expensive fast, wouldn’t they? As a daily expense?
They come in packages. Buy in bulk?
If they only need to hold together for a single use, they can be made out of incredibly flimsy, cheap materials
Look, when live gives you a chance to kludge, you kludge. The path of the engineer is not about whether you need to, it’s about whether you *can*.
+1 for using a great word.
Carla can rebuild them. She has the technology. She has the capability to build the world’s first bionic shower shoes. Better than they were before. Better…stronger…faster.
“The Six Million Dollar Jugs.”
Didn’t japan do that show (or cartoon) at some point or another?
I confused my grandparents when i used my (shorter) name only to prove that it is actually a word.
Carla cheats at Scrabble? As a confirmed Scrabble buff, I was prepared to adore her utterly, but now? Curse her! Curse her with the twin ailments of the Tile Gods! Vowel disorders and in-consonants be upon her unworthy digestives!
On the other hand, I can forgive her as long as she doesn’t dis Tesla in favor of the marketing fraud Edison. And makes some more Rube Goldberg devices. THose may yet appease the Ones Who Lurk Between The Tiles.
As if any true engineer (or physicist) would favor that Menlo hack instead of the Serbian father of AC!
I don’t cheat. I just perpetually play parallel to existing lines to produce a gajillion words that are two-and-three long, thus making it extra-hard to play after me.
…. also, I hate the game, because random draw always sticks me with unworkable sets of letters, and that ain’t fun.
Anyhow, my point is, stop hating on Carla and start hating on me.
I hate scrabble because it rejects a lot of real words. >:(
Then you’re using the wrong rules.
Scrabble, per se, doesn’t reject (or accept) any words. The official rules of Scrabble are: pick a dictionary and stick with it. If your real words aren’t in your dictionary, that’s on your dictionary.
Me, I’m on team SOWPODS.
Drew this yesterday. Forgot to post it.
NSFW
Missed these, where you been?
Elsewhere. I just do fanart offsite mostly 😛
Leave a link maybe? I enjoy seeing snippets of your work.
Seeing as how Sarah bought her disposable shower shoes Joyce has alternatives. No need to grovel.
The need: To see the spectacle that Carla produces.
Wow Carla, no need to be such a jerk about it. Obviously Joyce wasn’t thinking about engineer tier math when taping straps onto the plastic bottoms of Milk jugs. That’s like getting mad at me for just taping my broken headphones instead of using a better adhesive.
Besides Doesn’t Joyce still have shower shoes? I feel like we’re solving a problem that already has a solution.
Why settle for *A* solution when you can have one that’s ridiculous?
Don’t forget cold and swift, too! Or is that her revenge?
That’s how I make love. 😀 That’s why it doesn’t happen often.
Just kidding it’s never happened“Hey, Billie, could ya tone it down over there? Hard to convince the freshman I’m amazing at solving all problems with my relentless spontaneity when your reminding me how I might have fucked up solving a problem with my relentless spontaneity!”
Ash nazg durbatuluuk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluuk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
…
What? The inscription on the one ring counts as magic words right?
Never before have any dared to utter that speech in the Dumbing of Age comments section.
Strange, I could have sworn with the sheer concentration of nerdy interests apparent in us commenters that one of us had before. Then again, that’s probably just because I start muttering curses in a dialect of Orcish created by David Salo whenever Mary shows up. And the German I learned in college. And the Latin I learned in high school. And the Yiddish my mother’s aunt taught me as a teen. And the Quebec dialect of jouval that I picked up from my father, his brothers, and his mother. Mary just brings out my multilingual side.
No bathtubs in the dorm, and thus no rings.
Yeah but these are supposed to be disposable.
Not priceless art.
Carla needs to be told this, and take this into account while planning.
At worst like flatten them? and make sure the string wont fall out and the tie works?
Its not a math-necessary problem.
People who ask whether math or engineering are necessary are people who don’t do math and engineering because they’re awesome.
Looking for the simplest, most effective, cost-effective solution is the best engineering. Tacking on math where its not needed goes against that.
And Carla can make the wackiest shoes she wants, but if she doesn’t know the real problem and create a fix for it shes just wasting time and effort. That said I’m sure Willis will pull the perfect wacky solution out that somehow fixes everything. Like maybe having a frame that only touches the ground at one point, and uses bottle plastic to replace it.
(Complex math and complex systems not like measurements)
I’m pretty sure torque calculations are necessary for this sort of design, and that uses complex math.
…. also, I’m rooting for the contact points to be 3-4 replaceable and disposable plastic bottle caps.
So like a flip flop with replaceable plastic at the bottom I guess.
Just gotta gut the plastic daily and not think about the environment.
But the mechanism of holding would have to be easy to use and also not touch the ground. You could try to curve the plastic up but itd be harder to cut, replace, hold and walk. I just keep coming back to cutting a few good holes (or using a hole puncher if access), tying the string well and making toss-able sandals. (removing the string each time if that is acceptable for Joyce)
Cardboard could be a cheaper/ more environmentally friendly option. Itd start to fall apart but might last a shower length. Worth an experiment at least.
Well, but the jug already exists. It’s effect on the environment is already part of the system, so repurposing the jug is environmentally neutral. Now if extra jugs were being manufactured for use in the shower, you would have a point, but that isn’t the case here.
Yeah I was thinking about that.
But it also depends how she gets them. Like are they being bought or recycled? If bought then the problem is real. If recycled then supply can run out if she goes through 2 a day. It can be hard to get that much consistency out of it unless she knows the right sources. (Form what experiences Ive had at least.
Okay, you know what…SCREW BILLIE.
She did not even mention fully what was going on with Ruth and just at random put in all on Carla’s shoulders.
Billie just comes across as a terrible person to me.
While that’s true Carla didn’t have the information necessary to make a better decision (or the experience with this kind of thing to a prevent immediate panic), it’s still understandable that Billie would end up feeling pretty mad / resentful towards Carla for her part in what (could have / might still) happened to Ruth.
That kind of anger – even when misplaced – can be difficult to let go of, even if she realizes that it’s not justified. Depression, stress, and general anger problems aren’t likely helping.
But at least Billie seems to be keeping that anger to herself. She’s not saying anything nasty or getting in Carla’s face. She’s just angrily stomping past her without looking at her. I’ve seen people handle their feelings a lot worse than that.
She didn’t ask for more information, either, though. She assumed she knew everything necessary to make a decision
It’s problematic to assign all the blame to either side here.
Also, being mad at someone doesn’t make you a bad person, even if the reason for your anger is bad. Now, if you constantly try to hurt that person, it can be bad.
But Billie has a begrudging respect for Carla. Unlike Raidah for Sarah. And that’s a huge difference.
There is literally no information Carla could have possessed that would have made her fall on the “let Ruth drink herself to death” side of this issue.
Carla might have been more willing to take a subtler approach if Billie’s response to her freaking out about “Ruthless wants to die!” hadn’t been “Well, that is, um, kind of normal.”
Besides, we already knew Billie was a terrible person because cheerleader.
Well, we already knew Billie was a terrible person because of slamming Walky in lockers – or at least tolerating her friends doing it. And then there’s the whole alcoholic DUI thing. Wrapping up all her self-worth in the cheerleading thing at the start of the strip was kind of a problem too.
OTOH, we’ve also seen a lot of good things about Billie.
Hmm, maybe she’s actually a complicated person, not simple good/bad dichotomy. Nah.
She has her good points but she does have a lot to work on.
I am an engineer. I am going to steal the “Goddess of Tensile Strength” reference. Deal with it.
“throughzmpq” cheats or “jozxyqk” cheats?
Yes.
‘It’s a robot word. It’s the sound you make when you get your charging cord trapped in something.’
Carla is really beautifully drawn in this strip (not that she isn’t usually beautiful)!
I know she probably wouldn’t like my saying so, but this is so sweet of Carla.
I wonder how much time Carla has dedicated to getting Mary to say that line in the fourth panel.
Her current ideas involve either leaving a series of cryptic notes that leads Mary to accidently say it or inventing a shrinking/mind control ray.
Will saying that return her to her home dimension?
How is Carla SO CUTE, like, I can’t even deal. Her smile in panel 4 is E V E R Y T H I N G.
I actually think she’s at her cutest in the last panel, without the smile. I don’t think we’ve seen any other character look like that.
Comic Reactions:
Panels 1-2: Joyce stating with panicked pride that she’s good at math fills me with joy. Especially as she’s been trained for so long to diminish the value of her mind.
Also, Carla still trying to hide her kindness beyond the jerk persona. Because if she’s larger than life, conceited, goddess like, then she can’t be made to feel small and helpless. Or at least that’s her assumption.
Though there might be a piece that isn’t an affectation. I mean, she’s rightfully confident in her abilities and a bit of a know-it-all problem-solver type. And she’s also a bit of an asshole on top of all her abilities. But I’m going to guess more is an affectation than she’d care to admit.
Panel 4: Definitely more than she’d care to admit. But it’s really nice to see her going out of her way to help someone in need and freely giving that aid. It makes one think that with time, she might drop more and more of the mask and just let herself do right by people rather than assuming her air of “goddess you shall not offend” is the only thing saving her from a world of hurt. Though of course still with an edge of snark and assholery around the edges.
Plus, it’s just nice to see her smiling and joking around with Joyce on this. Given her previous “helping of someone” involved a lot of making a big show out of trying to back out, it’s nice to see her just relaxing and shooting the shit while helping out on a problem.
And a follow-up on confidence. Yeah, she’s being a bit of a stuck-up asshole or at least teasing in the guise of a stuck-up asshole, but I’m still just giddy that we get to see a depiction of a trans woman with this much confidence in herself and her abilities and who feels comfortable snarking at others from that place.
After all, trans women aren’t really allowed that freedom of confidence most of the time. If we accomplish too much or take too much pride or get too competitive, that often means we’re about to be accused of showing our “male” side by some transphobic dingus.
And that’s before factoring in how we’re frequently barraged with messages that we’re worthless in general which makes it hard to feel pride and confidence in anything. So to see a trans woman depicted with so much confidence that she can be as forceful and rude as she is in Panel 2. That’s something special.
She’s never going to doubt her abilities. She’s never going to soft-peddle them. She’s never going to apologize for her confidence. Even if she ends up toning down the snark. And it’s nice to see a trans woman be that sort of force of personality that cis characters are frequently allowed to be.
Agreed. Carla fudging OWNS her abilities. She knows just how awesome she is and will waste no time letting the world know it. I also love the genuine offer to help if you dig deep enough under the posturing.
Panels 5-6: Billie’s words are still affecting Carla. Which is good in a way. It’s important to remember to find out the full contexts before jumping in with help and as we see here, her helper mode doesn’t really wait for things like consent to help out, which isn’t great.
And Billie is very much convinced that Ruth is going to end up in a very bad place and that the therapy and drugs aren’t really going to help. Which adds an extra layer of tension.
But I have to suspect it’s a complicated feeling for Carla. She thinks she did the right thing for Ruth given the information she had and early signs seem to back that up even though she took a helluva risk. But she seems to be acknowledging that Billie has at least a partial point given her quick deflection and sudden mood change from just a look. And regardless, it’s clear she’s internalizing more than she’s willing to let on. What her full views on the matter, we might not ever know or we’ll know when Billie and Carla next interact for real, but I’m very interested in that and what Carla is willing to begrudgingly acknowledge if anything.
Also, in the halls, in a short towel shortly after being targeted in transphobic harassment by the dorm bully. Carla is fucking fearless and I love that about her.
Yup, any would-be harasser can take one look at her attire and fudge off. Carla is here to STAY.
From the start, Willis emphasised that Carla has huge self-esteem issues leading her to her paradoxical behaviour of socially isolating herself and yet seeking attention through being a prankster. In the end, she wants to be appreciated for being herself but doesn’t quite know how to do it. I think that we’re seeing this paradox at work here. She wants Joyce to acknowledge her as being a smart fixer but doesn’t quite know how to do it without coming across as mildly bullying.
Unfortunately for her, Joyce is sufficiently aware of the social currents of this floor to know that Carla is still stinging about Billie’s feelings about her actions regarding Ruth so a lot o the effect is lost.
I think her self esteem is pretty good. She knows full well that other people can and will be shit to a trans woman, and acts accordingly. She believes in herself, she just doesn’t believe that the world will believe in her.
Is this something Willis emphasized in words, or is this something you read into the comic?
It’s how I understood the bio in the ‘cast’ entry for Carla.
Between Carla being so incredibly Carla the way only she knows how, and the amount of dorky, dorky puns in Always Human, this is a really good Saturday!
Heh, I kinda think this is more than Carla standing up for proper engineering. I think she is trying to help the poor, chased-with-a-gun fundie in her own too-cool-to-say-it way.
This also speaks to one of Joyce’s more endearing characteristics. Despite how rude Carla is to her Joyce has no trouble accepting her help – and I really hope this will spark an interest in engineering for Joyce. Only great things can come from this.
You mean, only greater things can come from this, since Carla and Joyce are respectively already great.
That is, indeed, a fact.
Awww, I love how Joyce slip into helper mode as well.
Speaking of great things becoming greater, you seen the amount of pure ADORKABLENESS in Always Human’s latest update yet?
It’s suitably doofusy! And yeah, adorkable is a very apt description.
Gotta love how Sunati has Austen’s phone number saved as “dad jokes are banned” and then making some puns that would make Carlos just be “You should marry my daughter right now!”
Also, in other languages (like Norwegian) it’s ridiculously easy to make a long compound word. Like, one could call Lenin “Oktoberrevolusjonshovedfigur” (October Revolution Main Figure) and get away with it.
This is, infamously, the way all new German vocabulary is formed.
Is Carla a Greek Goddess by any chance because Holy Smokes look at all that Ego and Jerk XD
She’s a mother-fucking goddess.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/todo/
So definitely Greek, then
+1
Yup. That lot was big on incest.
How DARE you cheat at scrabble.
Like anyone else: With some extra blank tiles and a wood burning tool.
You mean you don’t use micro-drones to spy on what letters the other players have and keep extra tiles up your sleeve to palm? What kind of cheater do you call yourself?
That is some German level compound-wording.
It’s Old Germanic. Big difference.
The alt text is brilliant
Sarah had the most practical solution to Joyce’s problem, but I can’t wait to see what Carla comes up with.
She is great in the literal sense.
The new and improved Ruttech shower shoes will also have an “Annoy Mary By Reminding Her of Carla’s Existence” feature.
I wonder if the Ruttech brand is protected in the RealWorld (TM).
I like this development.
Whateves, Billy.
Okay, okay, I understand where she is coming from.
Carla, we all love you and you’re awesome, but “math” IS NOT A FUCKING VERB!
It is when you’re Englishing.
Anything is a verb when you believe!
Any noun can be verbed and counterwise nounification is a thing.
Any excuse to link to Calvin and Hobbes is a good one.
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25
All nouns can be verbed, but verbing does weird language.
*glares at everyone*
I love how the lighting on Carla’s hair is done in this scene!
I thought maybe she hadn’t rinsed it out completely. Then I realized that coming from the showers it would still be somewhat wet and these are just highlights.
Possibly setting Joyce up to learn about trans folks, and, then, eventually, about her sister. Let the journey begin!!
Dramatically, it would be better for her first actual contact to be with her sister. Ramp up the drama that way.
carla is a gift we dont deserve
She is the engineer we need now.
“Carla, you are a sad, pathetic human being who requires outside approbation in order to feel superior. I will try NOT to pity you.”