To be honest if she needed the last name she could have meerly asked Booster or Walky what the former’s last name is. However, given that Charlie and Carla have the same fairly small class together, I suspect this is not so much about Carla having trouble getting accesses to Charlie’s person and more about Carla being afraid to talk to Charlie (crushes are scary). She likely wants Booster to provide a good impression, an excuse to talk to Charlie, and a buffer when she does (AKA I think she has stomach butterflies and is hoping having a wing-person will make them go away).
That’s true, but it also just seems like she doesn’t know where Charlie lives. I think she’s decided to give up on the Booster route not that they were actually any help.
well she is self absorbed but she’s not malicious enough to attain info about charlie in any underhanded way but other than a day off/weekend, you’d think if she’s that desperate for charlie’s attention she’d just wait til their next class together and basically try to pester her all classroom
Didn’t she already attempt to pester her all class? With the CARLA sign and so on. Charlie didn’t notice it.
LiterallyJustSomeGuy
I don’t think that was all class, and Charlie didn’t notice *until after Carla left.* The funniest thing about this whole plotline to me is that all Carla needs to do to be acknowledged is to be a little more patient without storming off.
Angel
yeah, and the class before even without the ‘signage’ stuff it did look like she was either on her phone or so on top of that one girl being like “i already know everything!” so that almost seems like it’d be a group effort to ignore carla or so but it would be hilariously f’d up if they did talk and be like “she’s a little intense for me i’m just going to tune her out (on purpose) now” lol
Booster didn’t tell Walky to get rid of Carla.
They tagged Walky in so they wouldn’t have to deal with Carla themselves.
Other than closing the door in Carla’s face, which Booster could have done themselves, there’s nothing that can be done other than talking to and convincing her to leave somehow.
Tan
Booster specifically requested: “Engage our visitor at the door.” That is what Walky is doing.
Decidedly Orthogonal
After Booster passed along the favour of being woken up? Blaming Walky for any of this is incredibly myopic.
or fake a screenshot of charlie texting booster like “oh yeah that one girl in my class, but i don’t rly have time for any new relationships, even a platonic one”
On one hand, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t care who her son’s roommate’s sister is dating, but on the other I can see her being annoyed that someone adjacent to her family is dating someone rich when her kids aren’t dating rich people.
Pergola
If the notion of Walky x Carla ever entered Linda’s noggin, she’d be all over it like … like jimmies on cupcakes.
It’s not a thing and it’s not about to become a thing, but Carla is ungodly rich, so even if she disliked her personally I think Linda would be able to live with it. She and Chuck both feel like social climbers to me
I didn’t think about it until it was pointless to make a comment but does Carla’s comment about “the correct gender” yesterday strike anyone else as being a bit off? Like what would she have said if Walky said he was dating a guy? Would she have complained that he wasn’t dating the “correct gender”?
Honestly I think she would have just pulled a Becky, like ‘eh, guys, not for me, have fun’. The ‘correct gender’ seems to be more her playing up how sapphic she is due to her pride in it rather than actually thinking people should only ever date cute girls. Though I do agree, using the phrase ‘correct gender’ is eh… messy.
She would not likely have complained, but maybe made some joke about that instead. The point is just that she’s sapphic, it doesn’t really extend any deeper than that.
Carla is an egoist and is very silly. She’s also been up all night obsessing about Charlie. She might say a number of inappropriate things for the lols, but I think she was making a sleep-deprived joke about how she likes being a girl and wants to date girls. And therefore everyone should want to be a girl and want to date girls.
And I think she might have said something like, “Ick, boys are gross, don’t date one!” There are guys who are furious right now that three women are staring in a Marvel movie …shrug… “how dare they make any movies with women?!” Hopefully she doesn’t spend all her time online yelling about how boring it is that most movies are about guys.
It could just be overcompensating from her transition. She had a big, public fight to be recognized as a girl (a fight which she still has to have on a daily basis with people like Mary), and she’s also homoromantic (if asexual). So yeah, she’s fiercely defensive of ‘yeah girls are awesome, I’m a girl, have you noticed that girls are great?’.
I don’t think she’s a misandrist or anything, she just has negative interest in anything to do with guys.
Misandrist, no. Obnoxious, narcissist, yes. It makes sense that she’d view any gender she associates with as the correct one. Carla also knows everything there is to know about gender which makes her automatically correct! I do think we should remember these characters are mostly young and deep in thier cringe era.
Regret
Wait, there’s a non-cringe era?
David DeLaney
am 59. hope to get there some day.
–Dave, am assured by myself that I am not gonna go Republican in my old age, let alone Tea Party/MAGA/whatever they are then, so at least there’s that
Daibhid C
Heh, when I was younger people kept telling me “As you get older, you’ll find your politics become more like your parents’.” Mostly people who didn’t know my parents.
They were right, though. I started out vaguely left-of-centre, and I’m well on the way to becoming as far left as my Dad, who would have been a Red Clydesider if he hadn’t been born a decade or so too late, and in Edinburgh.
Last two strips, Walky’s smiling a lot for some one a whose been woken up this early. My conclusion: Carla is acting more silly than mean. She’s got a case of the sleep-deprived, over the top, first-crush sillies. Carla is just half a step a way from throwing a toy at Charlie, a la Walky.
Oh I’m sure it’d be a case of “if it’s you it’s okay”. One thing about Carla is she’s never been malicious. Rude, self-centered, arrogant, narcissistic, unintentionally bigoted, inconsiderate, and all around a pain in the ass? Sure. But cruelty isn’t her thing.
it’s more or less a form of trans humour. a lot of trans people will joke that their transitioning gender is better for one reason or another, but it’s just that; a joke. (usually; there are outliers who should never be counted. another example, but for lesbian/gay, would be “why would you wanna date men when women exist,” and vice-versa.
carla being such an aggressive person, however, kind of makes it difficult and uncomfortable to read because of how she pushes her ideas on others and may be why it reads as ‘off’ specifically. i’ve never found this sort of humour funny and it can be hard to separate between someone who is joking and someone who seriously means it, having encountered many people in the second camp during my own transition.
All she has to do is wait in the right spot and when there’s someone with a beautiful face, that’s probably Charlie. She’ll be holding hands and/or getting stepped on in no time.
i mean ‘objectifying’ is a bit much b/c if she rly wanted to she could’ve just literally gotten more up in charlies face as opposed to being behind her with that sign with her name, but i imagine this arc is going to end with them having some kinda relationship, if not just a friendship b/c unless it’s played up comedically/for laughs i don’t see it being/ending with carla being liek “oh actually after talking to them ‘properly’ for five mins they’re kinda boring” or it’d feel like it was all for nothing
More like an idealised abstraction. Which arguably is worse for Carla since that makes it that much harder to realise “oh wait, this is a human”. Though for the rest of the world it is better, because all evil starts at treating people as things.
Heh, just the other day I had something that happens to me a lot: at an all-staff meeting a guy I worked with slightly 30 years ago came over to say hi, howyadoin’, and I instantly thought “I know you, now what is your name and why do I know you?” For me faces stick but names slip off.
I think this might be Carla’s first crush as she seems somewhat overwhelmed not only with how to go about asking somebody out, but by her own emotions. She appears to either to be actively deceiving herself or painfully unaware in regards to what she actually wants out of this relationship. Additionally, while Carla has always been one to resort to extremes to achieve minor goals, she seems to have invested a lot of effort and discomfort into meeting and impressing a girl she has never even talked to.
This makes me wonder what exactly led to Carla choosing to fixate on Charlie as opposed to any other girl. I bet it was the plaid shirt – plaid is sexy (why else would the Scotts traditionally cover their groins and bags with it).
IF (and that is several big ifs) this crush eventually progresses to actual intimacy rather than infatuation and fixation, at some point Carla is going to have to open up a crack in her carefully constructed defenses of performatively Not Caring, taking the risk of exposing herself to possible hurt by expressing sincerity.
Wait, no – that’s like, step 3, minimum. First she has to identify (or be told of) that necessity; then she has to decide if she wants to/if it’s worth it. Then she can act on it… or not.
Yeah, I won’t hold her being pissy about Ultra Car against her, since he was for sure being an idiot in that conversation. On the other hand, I also think people take “characters willfully joking” too literally, that she and Walky don’t hate each other or anything like that and are just both flippant people.
133 thoughts on “Tech-head”
Ana Chronistic
Good ol’ Charlie Sanchez…
BarerMender
Talk about a call back.
PASchaefer
Wow, classic reference.
Lokitsu
I wish I could give this 1000 upvotes.
Ed Callahan
It deserves ten times that.
Sirksome
I feel like maybe Carla could’ve just asked Leslie for Charlie’s last name or something and worked from there.
True Survivor
To be honest if she needed the last name she could have meerly asked Booster or Walky what the former’s last name is. However, given that Charlie and Carla have the same fairly small class together, I suspect this is not so much about Carla having trouble getting accesses to Charlie’s person and more about Carla being afraid to talk to Charlie (crushes are scary). She likely wants Booster to provide a good impression, an excuse to talk to Charlie, and a buffer when she does (AKA I think she has stomach butterflies and is hoping having a wing-person will make them go away).
Sirksome
That’s true, but it also just seems like she doesn’t know where Charlie lives. I think she’s decided to give up on the Booster route not that they were actually any help.
Grimey
How do you explain to a narcissist that fixate on someone they can’t have?
True Survivor
I’ll go with … puppet theater?
jflb96
Ooh, you’ve got to be a real psychologist to pull off that sort of thing
Angel
well she is self absorbed but she’s not malicious enough to attain info about charlie in any underhanded way but other than a day off/weekend, you’d think if she’s that desperate for charlie’s attention she’d just wait til their next class together and basically try to pester her all classroom
Leorale
Didn’t she already attempt to pester her all class? With the CARLA sign and so on. Charlie didn’t notice it.
LiterallyJustSomeGuy
I don’t think that was all class, and Charlie didn’t notice *until after Carla left.* The funniest thing about this whole plotline to me is that all Carla needs to do to be acknowledged is to be a little more patient without storming off.
Angel
yeah, and the class before even without the ‘signage’ stuff it did look like she was either on her phone or so on top of that one girl being like “i already know everything!” so that almost seems like it’d be a group effort to ignore carla or so but it would be hilariously f’d up if they did talk and be like “she’s a little intense for me i’m just going to tune her out (on purpose) now” lol
NGPZ
Okie Carla. We believe you. ?
Ray
Carla is peak one of my favorite imaginary humans. (Well, obviously, she’s the best.)
shrub
Booster should throw a jug of water over both of them and lock both of them out of the room
DailyBrad
Why Walky? He’s the one doing Booster a favor currently.
shrub
No he’s not, he’s still talking.
cbwroses
Booster didn’t tell Walky to get rid of Carla.
They tagged Walky in so they wouldn’t have to deal with Carla themselves.
Other than closing the door in Carla’s face, which Booster could have done themselves, there’s nothing that can be done other than talking to and convincing her to leave somehow.
Tan
Booster specifically requested: “Engage our visitor at the door.” That is what Walky is doing.
Decidedly Orthogonal
After Booster passed along the favour of being woken up? Blaming Walky for any of this is incredibly myopic.
Angel
i mean at this point i’d just text charlie.
or fake a screenshot of charlie texting booster like “oh yeah that one girl in my class, but i don’t rly have time for any new relationships, even a platonic one”
jeffepp
So, how will Linda react to this pairing? Assuming she knows Carla’s “secret”.
RassilonTDavros
…to CarlaxCharlie? Not sure why she’d be particularly interested in two young adults dating when neither of them is Walky or Jennifer.
Cattleprod
On one hand, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t care who her son’s roommate’s sister is dating, but on the other I can see her being annoyed that someone adjacent to her family is dating someone rich when her kids aren’t dating rich people.
Pergola
If the notion of Walky x Carla ever entered Linda’s noggin, she’d be all over it like … like jimmies on cupcakes.
Jo_Cubstar
Or do you just mean Walky being friends with Carla?
James
That feels like a real strong assumption, honestly
Thag Simmons
It’s not a thing and it’s not about to become a thing, but Carla is ungodly rich, so even if she disliked her personally I think Linda would be able to live with it. She and Chuck both feel like social climbers to me
BBCC
Whoever this ‘Charlie’ person is!
Some1
I didn’t think about it until it was pointless to make a comment but does Carla’s comment about “the correct gender” yesterday strike anyone else as being a bit off? Like what would she have said if Walky said he was dating a guy? Would she have complained that he wasn’t dating the “correct gender”?
Doopyboop
Honestly I think she would have just pulled a Becky, like ‘eh, guys, not for me, have fun’. The ‘correct gender’ seems to be more her playing up how sapphic she is due to her pride in it rather than actually thinking people should only ever date cute girls. Though I do agree, using the phrase ‘correct gender’ is eh… messy.
clif
I assumed that it was a sarcastic use.
BarerMender
I still haven’t figured out what she was on about.
DailyBrad
She would not likely have complained, but maybe made some joke about that instead. The point is just that she’s sapphic, it doesn’t really extend any deeper than that.
Vanessa
Carla is an egoist and is very silly. She’s also been up all night obsessing about Charlie. She might say a number of inappropriate things for the lols, but I think she was making a sleep-deprived joke about how she likes being a girl and wants to date girls. And therefore everyone should want to be a girl and want to date girls.
And I think she might have said something like, “Ick, boys are gross, don’t date one!” There are guys who are furious right now that three women are staring in a Marvel movie …shrug… “how dare they make any movies with women?!” Hopefully she doesn’t spend all her time online yelling about how boring it is that most movies are about guys.
Needfuldoer
oh no it’s Ghostbusters (2016) discourse all over again
shrub
Hating on The Marvels because it has three female leads is completely ridiculous
Hating on The Marvels because its a really bad movie is an entirely different story
GreyICE
I truly doubt Carla spends any time online telling people they’re wrong. Of course they’re wrong, they’re not Carla. That’s to be expected.
Nono
It could just be overcompensating from her transition. She had a big, public fight to be recognized as a girl (a fight which she still has to have on a daily basis with people like Mary), and she’s also homoromantic (if asexual). So yeah, she’s fiercely defensive of ‘yeah girls are awesome, I’m a girl, have you noticed that girls are great?’.
I don’t think she’s a misandrist or anything, she just has negative interest in anything to do with guys.
Sirksome
Misandrist, no. Obnoxious, narcissist, yes. It makes sense that she’d view any gender she associates with as the correct one. Carla also knows everything there is to know about gender which makes her automatically correct! I do think we should remember these characters are mostly young and deep in thier cringe era.
Regret
Wait, there’s a non-cringe era?
David DeLaney
am 59. hope to get there some day.
–Dave, am assured by myself that I am not gonna go Republican in my old age, let alone Tea Party/MAGA/whatever they are then, so at least there’s that
Daibhid C
Heh, when I was younger people kept telling me “As you get older, you’ll find your politics become more like your parents’.” Mostly people who didn’t know my parents.
They were right, though. I started out vaguely left-of-centre, and I’m well on the way to becoming as far left as my Dad, who would have been a Red Clydesider if he hadn’t been born a decade or so too late, and in Edinburgh.
Pergola
Thanks for the neat reference!
milu
Psh, it was a joke
Chubsius
Last two strips, Walky’s smiling a lot for some one a whose been woken up this early. My conclusion: Carla is acting more silly than mean. She’s got a case of the sleep-deprived, over the top, first-crush sillies. Carla is just half a step a way from throwing a toy at Charlie, a la Walky.
Angel
would make it messed up if charlie ended up being transmasc later on lol
GreyICE
Oh I’m sure it’d be a case of “if it’s you it’s okay”. One thing about Carla is she’s never been malicious. Rude, self-centered, arrogant, narcissistic, unintentionally bigoted, inconsiderate, and all around a pain in the ass? Sure. But cruelty isn’t her thing.
Mark
I’ve decided that she’s just being mysterious so we’ll all talk about her.
Lucian
it’s more or less a form of trans humour. a lot of trans people will joke that their transitioning gender is better for one reason or another, but it’s just that; a joke. (usually; there are outliers who should never be counted. another example, but for lesbian/gay, would be “why would you wanna date men when women exist,” and vice-versa.
carla being such an aggressive person, however, kind of makes it difficult and uncomfortable to read because of how she pushes her ideas on others and may be why it reads as ‘off’ specifically. i’ve never found this sort of humour funny and it can be hard to separate between someone who is joking and someone who seriously means it, having encountered many people in the second camp during my own transition.
HueSatLight
can’t picture her beautiful face, eh?
milu
Your diagnosis strengthens
HueSatLight
All she has to do is wait in the right spot and when there’s someone with a beautiful face, that’s probably Charlie. She’ll be holding hands and/or getting stepped on in no time.
Angel
“stupid sexy flanders”
DailyBrad
She’s big-time infatuated, it seems.
Bryy
Yet still act like Charlie is an object.
Angel
i mean ‘objectifying’ is a bit much b/c if she rly wanted to she could’ve just literally gotten more up in charlies face as opposed to being behind her with that sign with her name, but i imagine this arc is going to end with them having some kinda relationship, if not just a friendship b/c unless it’s played up comedically/for laughs i don’t see it being/ending with carla being liek “oh actually after talking to them ‘properly’ for five mins they’re kinda boring” or it’d feel like it was all for nothing
Regret
More like an idealised abstraction. Which arguably is worse for Carla since that makes it that much harder to realise “oh wait, this is a human”. Though for the rest of the world it is better, because all evil starts at treating people as things.
Bruno
me every time a trans woman likes somebody
milu
omfg its comedy. COMEDY
..they yelled at the internet, like a fool
Opus the Poet
Yeah, it really sounds like she forgot Charlie’s name.
Mark
Heh, just the other day I had something that happens to me a lot: at an all-staff meeting a guy I worked with slightly 30 years ago came over to say hi, howyadoin’, and I instantly thought “I know you, now what is your name and why do I know you?” For me faces stick but names slip off.
True Survivor
I think this might be Carla’s first crush as she seems somewhat overwhelmed not only with how to go about asking somebody out, but by her own emotions. She appears to either to be actively deceiving herself or painfully unaware in regards to what she actually wants out of this relationship. Additionally, while Carla has always been one to resort to extremes to achieve minor goals, she seems to have invested a lot of effort and discomfort into meeting and impressing a girl she has never even talked to.
This makes me wonder what exactly led to Carla choosing to fixate on Charlie as opposed to any other girl. I bet it was the plaid shirt – plaid is sexy (why else would the Scotts traditionally cover their groins and bags with it).
StClair
IF (and that is several big ifs) this crush eventually progresses to actual intimacy rather than infatuation and fixation, at some point Carla is going to have to open up a crack in her carefully constructed defenses of performatively Not Caring, taking the risk of exposing herself to possible hurt by expressing sincerity.
Wait, no – that’s like, step 3, minimum. First she has to identify (or be told of) that necessity; then she has to decide if she wants to/if it’s worth it. Then she can act on it… or not.
Dang, this stuff is hard.
DarkoNeko
She opened up to Walky, once.
DailyBrad
Yeah, I won’t hold her being pissy about Ultra Car against her, since he was for sure being an idiot in that conversation. On the other hand, I also think people take “characters willfully joking” too literally, that she and Walky don’t hate each other or anything like that and are just both flippant people.
Mark