384

Kerning
Posted on June 18, 2025 by David M Willis

384 thoughts on “Kerning”

  1. NGPZ

    first off, faulty reasoning, as expected from a repugnant reactionary

    second

    …

    I Mary gets fucking TRAMPLED out there D:<

    *plays “Boondocks Remix” by Metaphor The Great on hacked muzak*

  2. JA

    Down is up, east is west, cats and dogs coexisting peacefully!

    1. xronium

      1. xronium

        LOL i cant do html apparently
        everything you know is wrong!

    2. Shade

      Honestly its cats and other cats that tends to be the problem. They just love randomly hitting each other.

  3. ZombieKyrik

    Ouch, hit Carla in a way she can’t fight back from. If it was anyone else I feel like Carla can shut them down, but Mary’s disgusting attitude is hard to deal with, and look at.

    1. Charles Phipps

      Carla’s existence is a torment to Mary.

      But her parents being war profiteers is a stopped clock being right twice a day.

      1. Zaxares

        Yeah, I was not expecting this twist. At all. O.o

        But at the same time, I do appreciate Willis being willing to dip into such complicated situations. Like, of COURSE Israel has a right to self-defense, and I dare say that for a lot of us, we have no idea what it’s like living surrounded by countries who hate your very existence and the kinds of ever-present dangers we need to watch out for. (I will NEVER excuse Hamas for what they did in Oct 2023, for example.) But at the same time, Israel’s gone too far in Gaza, and some of their right-wing politicians’ rhetoric is eerily close to what the Third Reich itself was spouting.

        The one saving grace out of all of this is that, watching the protests from Israelis themselves (as well as the No Kings protest in the US, which was actually attended by some of my own friends), is that there are always good people everywhere willing to stand up and push back against those who want to take humanity down a very dark path (that we’ve been down tragically all too often before).

        1. thejeff

          1) The obvious problem is as you suggest that Israel’s response to 10/23 goes far beyond “self-defense”.
          2) The parallel question though would be whether Palestine has the right to defend itself?
          3) And is it really self-defense when Israel was not just established as a settler colonialist state, but continues to expand settlements onto more Palestinian land?

        2. Astariel

          1.This is true.
          2. It does, but the actions of 10/23 were not defense, nor were the constant missile attacks on civilian areas.
          3. How can the Jews be settler colonialists in their own homeland, which they inhabited for more than 1000 years before the Arabs arrived via violent conquest and settlement themselves?

        3. bridgebrain

          As for 3, real talk? Because it was 1000 years ago. I understand that the history of the middle east is a 4000+ year long blood feud, but we don’t accept that logic from Russia given the soviet unions holdings 100 years ago, or chinas claim to own everything adjacent to their coast due to holdings 1500 years ago, why would Jews still have claim to Israel? It was conquered, the land was lost, and then post WWII the UN arbitrarily decided they owned it again as part of war reparations.
          You could make lots of arguments about the UNs rights to do that or not, and whether that’s colonialism, but pointing to 1000 year old precedence is always a wild argument to me

        4. Casi

          Even according to their own holy book that describes their history, they were colonizers of the area of Palestine, and came to Israel from egypt and settled amongst the tribes that were already in Israel, like the Caananites. So even in their own history they are settlers in a foreign land.

        5. Jamie

          Ah, yes. We prefer the evidence of a book full of made-up stories over the archaelogical evidence because it’s convenient to your argument.

          Nice.

        6. thejeff

          And it wasn’t even like “the Arabs” came in, conquered and replaced the indigenous Jews who ruled the land. That was the Romans 600 years earlier. That’s when the Jewish Diaspora really began. While there were still Jews living there for the Arab conquest, the region had been mostly Christian for centuries. Nor was there ever really population replacement, under the Romans, the initial Arab empires or the later Ottomans. The modern “Arab” inhabitants are certainly mixed through millenia of being the crossroads of empire, but they still have genetic ties to the “indigenous” Bronze Age peoples of the region.

        7. thejeff

          2. Not really any less than Israel’s approach to “self-defense”.
          3. See the other responses, but I really shouldn’t have used “settler-colonialist” since it prompts exactly this kind of response. Regardless of that phrasing, Israel continues to expand settlements on Palestinian land to this day. Driving Palestinians from homes their families have lived in for generations to do so.

        8. Proxiehunter

          3: Does someone who’s great great grandfather was born in France but who’s family have not even visited France for multiple generations have a right to go force a French family out of their home in Paris at gunpoint to reclaim an ancestral right to live in France?

        9. Freemage

          This gets into a thorny issue, though–how long do the conquerors have before it’s no longer a problem? After all, most of us are Americans, living west of the Appalachians. Do we get a pass for not returning our property to the remaining NatAm tribes and going back to Europe, Asia or Africa, or at least migrating back to the original 13 colonies?

          Part of the issue is that there is no serious Palestinian coalition that accepts the right of Israel to exist, even within the older borders. So there’s no-one on either side actually advocating for the two-state solution that outsiders all think would be the best option.

        10. thejeff

          Honestly? Pretty quickly. A couple of generations. You can’t undo history. Sending everyone back where some of their ancestors were even a hundred years ago isn’t feasible. It would require war and atrocity to equal the original conquests. All you can really do now is stop the ongoing discrimination and don’t do any more conquering.

          Even Israel. They’re not going anywhere. Maybe some compromise can be reached someday, but it’s not going to involve the Jews packing up and going “home”.

        11. yak

          >there is no serious Palestinian coalition that accepts the right of Israel to exist

          May I introduce you to the Fatah, who formally recognized Israel in 1993 and currently run the west bank. They haven’t been involved in any warfare with Israel or in any terrorist activity since 2006.

        12. Proxiehunter

          We don’t need to go anywhere to return the stolen land. We would just start paying property taxes to the proper owners instead of the government.

        13. thejeff

          An interesting proposal. Since property taxes, at least in the US are generally local, that would strip towns of most of their revenue, which would need to be replaced with other taxes to cover things like school costs.

          Who would set the rates for such taxes?

        14. zee

          Look imma just say this: if you’re beating down in a dude for hours, he manages to scratch your eye out, so you put on the brass knuckles and pummel him even harder than you were doing already. That’s not self defense. Even if there are a bunch of other dudes in the room who think you’re an asshole, because you do shit like this.

        15. zee

          Also it’s not “some of their right wing politicians”, the core of the country is fascist. There’s a whole holiday where they make pancakes to make fun of a reporter who was crushed by an Israeli tank. The iof soldiers are making tiktoks rifling through women’s panty drawers and mocking their victims. They deliberately shoot at medics treating children, they have snipers that go out of their way to kneecap kids to make sure they’re permanently disabled even if they survive. I’d highly recommend any of noa samsons videos on the topic as a beginner friendly introduction to the horrific war crimes of the Israel and the whitewashing of it in the media. They are harrowing though, so be prepared

    2. Bemisawa

      With just a wee bit of personal growth, Carla actually *could* fight back in a couple of ways. (Whether or not she would be successful is another matter.) But more appealing to Carla, she can deny that it was ever about anything more than spiting one of the worst people she knows personally.

      Is it super-plausible that Carla can convince her parents to stop supplying (what I take to be) a genocide? Maybe not the *most* plausible, but it could potentially happen. Would it be extremely funny for her to personally change the course of U.S. foreign policy in order to prank Mary? I would say resoundingly yes.

      It would still have fallout, drawing a lot of negative media attention to Carla, and a LOT of extra hatred from various groups who already hated her for no good reason. So I think it could make for good drama as well.

      1. someone

        Let’s assume this does happen. Here are the press titles:

        “Rutten to stop supplying Bulmeria with electronic doodads for their missiles, breaks a multi-billion dollar contract.”
        “In other news, Rutten signed a multi-billion contract to sell their full line of Missile-Ready™ electronic doodads to Mulberia, a staunch ally and direct neighbor of Bulmeria, which has just inaugurated the new high-speed freight railway between their main commercial port and Bulmeria’s missile factories.”

      2. KtBear

        I feel you’re all missing the point. Charlie just found out (and I’m assuming she didn’t already know because she’s pretty oblivious about a lot of things) her girlfriend is the daughter of tech billionaires who are seemingly helping facilitate a genocide in Bulmeria. Going by the comments in here it seems unlikely thats going to go down well, so perhaps Carla’s personal growth will be driven by just how far she’s prepared to go to hold onto Charlie. Assuming Charlie even gives her that chance.

        1. AnonGrouch

          I really dont see why Charlie would have a negative reaction. Carla isn’t in charge of company and clearly feels bad about the situation when it has been brought to her attention. If anything Charlie is the sort of person to help Carla figure out how exactly to resolve the situation in a comically over the top way and that’s what this relationship is really all about. And love. And cars.

        2. zee

          I mean sure but I wouldn’t want to tie myself to a bunch of war mongers. If I found out the person I started dating like, three days ago had evil billionaire parents profiting off a genocide, even if they’re nice and loving parents (tried to think of a real life example but the ones that come to mind don’t actually love their children or pretend to be good people lol), I’d fully just cut and run. Not worth it. I’m not gonna be the one to tell someone to cut their parents off, and I’m not getting tied up in that family either. And while I wouldn’t be surprised in this fictional context IF Carla could convince her parents on this one ethical issue (nevermind the ten ton pile of other ones as monopolizing tech billionaires), if this were my real life? Id have no hope. Sorry babe, your folks are evil, call me if you ever separate yourself from them of your own accord.

        3. JC

          Really? I’d say it’s pretty hard to guess what her reaction to anything would be, if she even had or showed one. She’s not exactly a volatile or expressive person.

        4. AnonGrouch

          I feel like Charlie is fairly expressive though? It’s just not like… Always verbal?

      3. AnonGrouch

        I need Carla to succeed in this prank so bad for the love of nepo baby please.

    3. Amelie Wikström

      My venue of attack would be against her attitude precisely. Mary is so fucking smug and happy about the fact that (in her mind) she and Carla’s parents are on the same side against Carla when it comes to murdering lots of people for the benefit of the US empire. I’m 90% sure sometimes she lies awake at night wondering why her mom doesn’t love her and trying not to think it might be because of the rancid shit she makes herself believe in.

  4. Charles Phipps

    There’s no such thing as a good billionaire.

    Even when they make cures for polio, they try and patent it.

    1. Nono

      The inventor of insulin sold his patent for $1.

      The good billionaires aren’t billionaires.

      1. Uly

        Likewise the inventor of the system that allows car seatbelts to work.

        1. Charles Phipps

          Ayn Rand had the weird idea that inventors were paid a fair wage for their creations versus having them stolen by businessmen.

        2. Taffy

          Ayn Rand also died, so…

        3. Proxiehunter

          For which much rejoycing was had.

        4. Steamweed

          Yaaayyy!

        5. Pappenheimer

          Please do not eat Sir Robin’s minstrels. They have enough problems being his PR people.

        6. Embe13

          and the world lost a true hypocrite and was better for it (spent her final years happily accepting social assistance as she had not saved for retirement).

          seriously, economic/social philosophies only work on paper. real life is way to complicated for anything to work well

        7. Uly

          Look, Ayn Rand and I agree on two things, and that’s cats and atheism. I will not discuss Ayn Rand any further, ever.

        8. Taffy

          Y’know who else loved cats and atheism? H.P. Lovecraft.

        9. Uly

          Well, there you have it.

        10. Freezer

          Feeling better about being about dogs and deism.

        11. Needfuldoer

          Just don’t look up the cat’s name.

        12. Proxiehunter

          To be absolutely fair, while Lovecraft was in many respects worse than the background racism of his time period that was the most common name given to a pet with black fur for a lengthy period of time both before and after his death so unlike some things that can be put down to “He was a product of his time.”

        13. someone

          Is it really atheism if you posit that god exists, but is stupid and also doesn’t care at all about you and in fact is not even aware that humanity exists?

        14. Taffy

          May as well be.

        15. Freezer

          That’s misotheism.

        16. Sharizard

          To Freezer’s Misothesism comment:

          Oooh, TIL

        17. Disastroid

          And I’ve never seen them in the same room together.

        18. Mr D

          Lovecraft also didn’t understand math or air conditioning, or basically anything that wasn’t his hometown.

        19. Charles Phipps

          HP Lovecraft is kind of the Faz of the writing group that included Robert E. Howard (Conan), Robert Bloch (Psycho), and Clark Ashton Smith. During the build up to WW2, he became fascinated by fascism and then Howard and Bloch pointed out that the Nazis hated intellectuals, scientists, pulp writers, gays, and Jews (the latter two being people Lpvecraft notably had multiple friends among). HPL became a first proponent of wiping the Nazis out in his final years. Also a New Deal Democrat, which scandalized his remaining family.

          Dude had a long history of being a massive asshole but unlike a lot of these writers, actually changed when he met people like Bloch (Jew), Green (his wife, Jewish), Barlow (gay), and Loveman (gay).

        20. Steamweed

          Lovecraft was a much, much better author than Rand. Far more supportive of other writers; far better at plot and character; far more productive; totally less prone to lecturing.

        21. bridgebrain

          Plot I’ll take, but he’s notoriously bad at characters. His characters exist only as cardboard cutouts to experience whatever wild plot is going on, because otherwise it’d be a dull worldbuilding text instead of a story.

        22. thejeff

          Yeah, but in comparison to Rand?

        23. Steamweed

          Well, yeah, both Lovecraft and Rand had that flaw with most of their characters. But Lovecraft’s characters do react somewhat more realistically and in ways I can empathize with. I have trouble getting in the mindset of a Rand persona.

    2. Mollyscribbles

      Uh. Jonas Salk very specifically did not patent the Polio vaccine.

      1. Clif

        Hey, let’s not let facts get in the way of a good rant.

      2. Tan

        Worth noting that Jonas Salk was explicitly not a billionaire

        1. Mollyscribbles

          Yes, but he still kept any billionaire from getting their grubby mitts on it.

    3. Kyulen

      People don’t seem to realize just how much a billion dollars is. If your income was 100,000 dollars a year and you never had to pay taxes on it, in order to be a billionaire you’d have to have started making that much money a year 10,000 years ago.

      Nobody makes a billion dollars by being a good person. It’s either from exploiting a lot of workers, or being born to wealthy parents, or both.

      1. Clif

        So which is worse?

        1. Taffy

          Easy. The exploitation is worse. Nobody’s responsible for the circumstances of their own birth, even if their parents are parasites.

        2. Sharizard

          Yup, there is probably at least one billionaire’s child out there who over time realised the circumstances of their privilege and sort either to do good with their fortune, or break away from it.

          Whereas if you’ve exploited workers to become a billionaire you have simply failed to be/do good simply by doing so.

        3. alwayslurking

          Abigail Disney?

        4. zee

          Vivian Wilson (formerly and unfortunately Musk) seems to have some good opinions, but I don’t think she’s ever seeing any of that money anyway. Not that she’d even want to

        5. Proxiehunter

          Who I understand has tried to get rid of the billions but at the point I heard had so much money it was just making more money on it’s own faster than she could get rid of it.

      2. Yak

        There are some people who have made a really huge amount of money just by playing the finance game. Jim Simons comes to mind. You have to go to a pretty high level of abstraction to say that he exploited workers, since his actual employees have exclusive access to a better version of their money-printing product.

        1. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Making money in finance is the pinnacle of worker exploitation. You’re effectively providing loans that workers didn’t ask for, but their wages have to be depressed in order to pay the dividends and foster “endless growth”.

        2. yak

          This is why I said you have to go to a high level of abstraction to call it exploiting workers.

        3. Charlotte

          I love that Simons uses his money to fund pure mathematics research, but running a hedge fund is the epitome of ill-gotten gains. All of that money is blood money pressed from people who actually earned it, while all he did was some mathematical wizardry that does nobody except the hedge fund managers and investors any good. Bah!

        4. Yak

          Most traders would argue that they are being paid for efficient allocation of funds — basically a privatized version of what Gosplan used to do for the USSR. In some cases they even have a point, such as when a trader profits from a discrepancy between an asset’s price and an accurate assessment of its value. Of course this is the exception rather than the rule, and the “efficiency” they are optimizing for is very different from what you or I might consider efficiency.

          My point is just that, except in the very abstract sense, not all capitalists make their money by exploiting workers. It hasn’t been that way since the 19th century.

      3. deliverything

        Perhaps also worth noting: regardless of how the hypothetical billionaire got their money, simply remaining a billionaire, in the world as it is, means hoarding more money than you need (by orders of magnitude, even) while others are suffering from poverty.

        1. Sharizard

          There are fascinating cases with this. Take Buffet. He legitimately seems intent on giving away 99% of his total wealth. At the same time, he *always* plays the long, slow, not directly involved game. So while he’s actually donated plenty and will donate more, he’s still making more at the same time.

          His methodology makes it complicated. He’s not just going to dump his billions into charity on a whim. He’s donating systematically, which is probably the better way to do it (he’ll give more away in the long run this way). At the same time, that sure does end up with a lot of money that he’s just sitting on.

          And he’s basically the prime exception. Most of the others just suck. We have about a handful of out of hundreds of them doing good with their money. Makensie Scott, Soros, Omidyar and Gates seem to be the ones with the better intentions. Most of the others seem to do it for PR and tax write-offs.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          It also means that he’s making personal elitist decisions about where the money he bilked from tax-payers goes, instead of the decision being made by the government for the people. The philanthropic billiinaire is just a balm on their egos to make up for their heinous behaviour in life.

        3. thejeff

          Like, it’s better than not donating it, but yeah, it has a huge distorting effect on policy. You saw a lot of that with the Gates Foundation.

        4. Felgraf

          If we really want to talk about one doing it mostly right, Bezo’s ex wife literally DOES just seem to be giving massive quantities to charity, few/no strings attatched
          (and she STILL can’t give it away fast enough.)

        5. yak

          Giving with no strings attached is probably worse. Pretty much every university, for instance, has a very long record of misallocating funds.

        6. Tan

          He will give more money away in the long run, but that is not the same as effectuating more good in the long run, for the record.

      4. Zaxares

        I remember reading this factoid that also said “Jeff Bezos could spend $50,000 A DAY for the rest of his entire life, and at his current wealth and income level, he would still never run out of money before he died.”

        1. Skink

          To take it a step further: his net worth is $230 billion. If he donated $200,000 to charity every day until he turned 100, he’d die with over $200 billion to his name.

          Suppose you wanted to leave him with “just” 1 billion at age 100. The man could spend $16 million a day for the next 39 years and still end up with more money than most people can fathom.

        2. thejeff

          If I did the math right, if he spent $16 million/day for the rest of his life, he’d die with more than the $230 billion he has now. Money makes money. Even if we assume he’s getting a very conservative 5% return, even $16 million/day isn’t dipping into principal.

      5. Andy

        Recommended reading. Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas. https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/c5841baa-389c-45c9-8032-64dbdd610150

      6. Steamweed

        Chuck Feeny. The closest example I’ve ever seen to an ethical billionaire. Donated his entire wealth before he died.

    4. BarerMender

      When Jonas Salk created the vaccine for polio, he didn’t patent it. He wanted it to be easily available to anyone. As someone who lived through the polio epidemic, and was one of the test group on the vaccine (I got mine in ’54), Salk is my hero. Don’t bad-mouth him.

      1. Arianod

        Are they talking about Jonas Salk, though? Salk was far from being a billionaire, and we still don’t have a cure for polio (a cure and a vaccine are two different things) It sounds like the “cure for polio” thing was just a hypothetical scenario.

    5. Freezer

      Dolly Parton. Taylor Swift. Oprah Winfrey. Rihanna.

      Maybe it’s just male billionaire that are the problem?

      1. JBento

        Parton isn’t a billionaire, and Winfrey is DIRECTLY responsible for conmen like Oz, Phil and Deepak Chopra having the influence they do.

        1. Allandrel

          Note that Parton is not a billionaire by choice, due to her massive charity efforts.

          Further solidifying “there are no good billionaires.”

        2. Proxiehunter

          Which is why I get enraged when anyone suggests Oprah run for President on the Democratic ticket as if that would be a good thing. I’d love to see a black woman as President of the United States, but not her. And Taylor Swifts constant use of her private jet is wrecking the environment. Not to mention her rubbing elbows with fascists.

      2. KtBear

        Hmmm. Meg Whitman, Sheryl Sandberg, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, Julia Koch, Alice Walton, Jacqueline Mars, Miriam Adelson, Rafaela Aponte-Diamant, Gina Rinehart. No Freezer, I don’t think it’s just male billionaires that are the problem. Assuming it IS a problem in the first place.

      3. thejeff

        Entertainers/celebrities are kind of a gray area for this particular problem with billionaires. They’re not really exploiting workers directly – at least not in anything like the same way a factory owner is. They’re more the product and generally others, doing the exploitation more directly, are also profiting often even more so.
        Which certainly doesn’t mean that some of them aren’t explicitly assholes, just for different reasons. Or that the “hoarding wealth” isn’t an issue – though it’s remarkably hard to not hoard that much money, especially if you want to keep making music/shows/whatever it is you do.

        1. Yumi

          I often think about how JK Rowling became a billionaire in probably one of the cleanest ways possible (which still isn’t 100% clean, but relatively) and then decided to be a huge piece of shit anyway.

        2. Plain Marie

          Yeah. That was a choice. I like to think that if I because a billionaire by writing a beloved children’s series which then turned into a grossly successful movie series, with a theme park and all related merchandise, that I’d spare many many thoughts on spending my money and influence for the greater good. Okay, JK, YTA.

      4. Mr D

        I think Bill Gates is donating a huge chunk of his wealth to Charity, set up a fund to keep doing it after he was dead.

        1. HueSatLight

          Weird how he gave away a “huge chunk of his wealth” and still has hundreds of billions of dollars. Almost like it was spending a small fraction of his horde on PR that isn’t as helpful as it claims.

      5. zee

        You didn’t mention her but as a Caribbean woman I have a lot of love in my heart for Rhianna. But her ass is still exploiting cheap labor in the global south to make garbage quality fast fashion trash with savage x Fenty to line her pockets so her head is rolling in the revolution too

    6. anon

      Wonder if we’ll see carla’s parents in universe (i know there was a patreon strip/flash back tho?) i wonder if it’ll be like “we love and support our daughter” but basically sociopaths when it comes to business/every other aspect lol

  5. not someone else

    Annnd the confirmation Ruttech is not squeaky clean Wayne Enterprises has been given.

    1. ZombieKyrik

      To be fair, Wayne Enterprises didn’t get relatively clean until after Bruce took hold of the company.

      1. Proxiehunter

        So what I’m hearing is Carla’s parents should take her to see Zoro?

        1. ZombieKyrik

          What’s the worst that could happen?

        2. Clif

          The Ruttech AI decides to end all human suffering and takes the logical approach.

        3. Nymph

          I really reject the idea that a super intelligent AI couldn’t come up with a more elegant solution than “kill all humans” or that it would feel the need to eliminate rather than mitigate, given the amount of joy humans are capable of feeling with certain (very solvable by something with that much power) stresses removed from their lives.

        4. Trut

          Agreed, I think “kill all humans” is more of a nasty impulse/base fear in some human minds than it is a plausible answer that a true super intelligence would arrive at. It would be more likely to force us to entirely change our way of life, which I imagine some people would see as worse somehow.

        5. Charles Phipps

          I take some bitter amusement that almost AI when fed human data become incredibly racist assholes.

    2. Charles Phipps

      My headcanon was that Derek Powers could buy Wayne Enterprises because Bruce’s board members were always annoyed that he kept avoiding the most profitable corrupt options.

      The most recent Iron Man pointed out his board loved it when they were making Sentinels (under the latest villain) and weren’t going to let Tony opt out.

      1. wilddeath

        Until their literal souls were on the line. then it was a step too far cause the demons wanted to eat them for eternity.

        1. deliverything

          Well, guess we’re just going to have to implement this solution for company executives on a larger scale.

        2. Torgamous

          I’m all for eating the rich, but I don’t think don’t think we can rely on demons to get the job done.

        3. Charles Phipps

          Yes, they seem to vote Republican anyway,

        4. Pappenheimer

          Demons voting Republican? They would if they could, I guess…

        5. Astariel

          Do executives even have souls?

        6. Charles Phipps

          The hilarious thing was the demons decided that fighting Tony Stark was a losing cause and decided just to take the executives off to Hell as trying to cheat them.

    3. KM

      Pretty sure Wayne enterprises was also a US defense contractor, Bruce borrowed/leveraged that stuff for his own use…

      1. not someone else

        I mean probably, in some comic somewhere. In most of them they steer way away of getting into what exactly his company does, though.

        1. Veronica

          In the Nolan movies it’s very explicit theybwere defence contractors. The batsuit was a repurposed marine tactical armour thing and the batmobile was…for helping the army build bridges (yeah, that one was weird).

          I think the Nolan bat parents were very much “I do my doctor work, let the business people run the business” (Thomas eas anyway. I don’t actually know of any version if Martha with any kind if job because mum’s don’t matter in comics)

        2. not someone else

          Were those the ones where Bane wanted to nuke a football field and we were supposed to be really sad Joker and whoever killed a bunch of stock market bankers or the ones that had good costumes and camp?

        3. Veronica

          They’re the ones where Bane was going to nuke an entire city and the Joker blew up a hospital and tried to blow up two ferries full of people

        4. JBento

          Martha Wayne tends to have established and ran the multiple Wayne charities, like orphanages and whatnot.

        5. Charles Phipps

          To be fair, they were defense contractors after the company had been stolen from the Waynes. Which is something that happened in GOTHAM and other places.

        6. Proxiehunter

          Not sure Gotham is cannon to any Batman universe but it’s own. Unless you’re talking about something other than the TV show.

        7. Charles Phipps

          Batman Begins isn’t canon either. I thought we were discussing Batman as a mythos.

    4. anon

      Tbf booster did do their research presumably rather than just trolling Carla about charlie like “your billionaire parents are prolly monsters like every other one so i’m not introducing you” and just making a broad statement

  6. jeffepp

    Not pranked, just countered.

  7. Nono

    When the worst person you know makes a point.

  8. PB

    Iron Carla spinoff??????

    1. AGV/Ruby

      YES!
      “Carla was able to build this in her bunk bed! With a box of scraps and a pie!”

  9. Uly

    Okay, so. Um. Mary is not the first person to suggest to Carla that her parents might be good parents, but that does not make them good people. And sooner or later, Mary had to be correct about something.

    But I still want to punch her in her smug little face.

    1. Charles Phipps

      I’m sure those weapons will only be used in the defense of East Bulmeria from West Bulmeria.

    2. ZombieKyrik

      Make sure you permanently fuck up her jaw so she has problems talking shit.

    3. HueSatLight

      I am 100% sure that is not what Mary is suggesting.

      1. Uly

        That’s not what she intends to suggest, but given that it’s already been brought up in-comic I bet Carla is going to think about it.

        1. HueSatLight

          I don’t think “suggest” means what you think it means.

        2. Uly

          And I don’t think you actually had no idea what I was saying so I must confess that I’m baffled that you’re still talking to me about this.

    4. GreedOfGram

      I’m putting money on her getting punched by Joyce. Maybe by Dorothy.

      1. NGPZ

        please let her deck a Nazi
        please let her deck a Nazi
        please let her deck a Nazi

        1. Stanistani

          My favorite Christmas carol:

          Deck them all, those stinking Nazis!
          *thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump*
          Kick them in their stinking crotchzies!
          *thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump*

          Don’t you let them get a word out!
          *thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump*
          Show them you know what it’s about!
          *thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump*

          …

        2. NGPZ

          I’ll do ya one more brotha!

          *plays “Stomp Em In The Nuts” by Thugnificent on hacked muzak*

        3. butting

          The lesson from Miller vs Musk is that even Nazis think we should punch Nazis.

      2. PedanticJerkass

        I hope everyone there punches her at least once each.

      3. Astariel

        Now, now. Everyone can have a turn punching Mary.

    5. Kyulen

      Lots of parents can be good to their family and friends and terrible to lots of other people.

      1. JBento

        But enough about Dick Cheney.

        1. Florence

          Bu dum tss

    6. Tomn

      I mean, Mary is counter-protesting that there’s nothing wrong with funding Ruttech. That kinda implies that she doesn’t really see being the owners of Ruttech as making someone a bad person to begin with.

      It’s really more Carla realizing that she’s on the same side as Mary that’s forcing that realization. I’m not quite so sure why Mary’s enjoying it so much (after all, in some ways she’s probably disgusted herself that her own moral stance is forcing her to indirectly support Carla) but I guess the desire to own the libs is strong.

      1. Reltzik

        I’m guessing it’s less about the owners being good/bad people, and more about how Bulmeria’s geopolitics alligns with this or that roadmap for the rapture.

        1. Florence

          Tends to happen with conservatives that there’s one issue that matters more than most and they will in fact be okay with a lot as long as that issue they care about goes the way they wish it to

  10. jpnr

    A country founded by Goku’s friend?

  11. Raven

    I’m trying to figure out what Mary’s sign says but it’s too covered up

    1. Doopyboop

      My best guess is ‘Bulmeria has a right to defend itself’.

      1. Charles Phipps

        I think the fictional conflict isn’t a 1:1 but more like a 1.5:1.

        Since it seems to be a civil war.

        1. Veronica

          If it’s a civil war wouldn’t that be closer to…Syria or Sudan?

        2. Charles Phipps

          Maybe. I think the point Willis is making is very much about RL but I also think fans should accept that Bulmeria isn’t 100% it because it’s meant to be about the characters in the world’s reaction to a larger political awakening (which happens a lot).

          Tolkien would say The Lord of the Rings was applicable to talking about WW2 but not allegorical for it.

        3. Doopyboop

          I don’t really understand why you commented this to me when I didn’t bring up the conflict in Bulmeria at all. I just read the sign.

    2. Nono

      My guess is “Bulmeria has a right to defend itself”.

      1. NGPZ

        yeah that’s what it says indeed, this is very clearly a reference to the Palestine protests at IU

        1. Leorale

          Yeah, it’s traumatic for me, actually.

        2. 3oranges

          I can understand that. I’m really sorry.

        3. Kyulen

          That’s definitely is what this story arc is a reference to, and similar campus protests that were going on around the country last year.

    3. Ellen

      Bulmeria has a right to defend itself.

    4. Uly

      Based on what we can see it’s almost certainly “Bulmeria has a right to defend itself”.

  12. Masumi

    “impossible” is not in Carla’s vocabulary.

    1. Arianod

      Very well played, sir X’D

  13. NGPZ

    meanwhile in much more positive news,

    200 MakeShip supporters fulfilled for the Empress of Evolution!!!!

    DINA IS COMING IN PLUSH FORM!!! (*^-^*)

    LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

    *plays “Chou Super Dragon Power” from Dragon Ball Z on hacked muzak*

  14. Mr. Random

    Willis was really diving into the landscape of how economics and war and politics coincide last year.
    I wonder what was happening?
    …it’s not like a billionaire with ties to wartime tech was campaigning for a conservative hawk last Summer, right?

    1. Charles Phipps

      Part of what threw me about the Bulmeria thing was because I was really thinking about Ukraine. Musk’s Starlink was something that was a big help to the freedom fighters there.

      And of course Musk immediately destroyed any good will there by deciding Russia was the better bet and to hamstring them.

      1. CrazyJ

        That might be giving Musk too much credit, it’s more likely Elon Musk is compromised by Putin.

        1. PedanticJerkass

          If so, that would be something that Sissy SpaceX has in common with Mango Mussolini.

        2. Proxiehunter

          I realize that “Sissy SpaceX” is partially a pun on actress Sissy Spacek. However, it’s unlike that’s why calling the Elongated Muskrat something starting with “sissy” is supposed to be insulting. Is flinging the word sissy around as an insult something you really want to be bringing back into common use?

        3. Charles Phipps

          I mean he goes to such lengths to appear manly, it would be an insult to him.

        4. Proxiehunter

          So would calling him a f*g. Should we start using that synonym for sissy to insult him too?

    2. Kyulen

      A lot was happening last year, including the US president and VP at the time supporting a genocide by sending money and weapons to the state doing it. And lots of college students were protesting their colleges’ support for military companies that were making those weapons.

      Of course, the current president also supports the same, but sadly a lot of people in this country are willing to ignore when their preferred politicians support evil things, even though the politicians they don’t like often support the same evil things.

      1. Li

        I mean US presidents have had an unbroken streak of doing that since Israel’s inception, probably bc the US was instrumental in putting Israel there in the first place.

        1. thejeff

          I don’t think the US was that instrumental. They certainly didn’t create Zionism. Britain controlled the Mandate. It’s not clear to me how much the US drove the UN process that divided the land, but though things would have played out differently, Zionists were already strong enough within the Mandate to have been able to claim territory when the British withdrew.

          US military aid didn’t start until a couple decades later after the Yom Kippur War.

        2. Li

          I’ve already said elsewhere that I’m not knowledgeable enough on this topic, heh. One of few things I thought I was clear on was post-WWII setting up a territory for everyone to deport their unwanted Jewish population to for a “Jewish homeland” on land that just so happened to already have people living there, oh whoops we did yet another colonialism, was a combined effort from various allied powers.

          It’s not where we are right now exactly, but when I see my fellow white people from the US or UK in particular start talking like the theft of Palestinian land has nothing to do with us, I get a headache.

        3. thejeff

          It’s pretty obvious that post-Holocaust helped convince the new United Nations to get behind supporting Israel, but the Zionist movement goes back decades before that. Really building during the British Mandate, but explicitly Zionist migration had begun even while the Ottoman Empire still held the area.

      2. Nymph

        Yeah yeah, we get it. You say this on every strip lately. You think people are unfairly mean to the fucking Nazi in Chief and not enough people were mean to Biden. You weren’t paying attention to the protests that happened under Biden or any of the things said about him, because the Nazi is getting it worse and you think that’s hypocrisy for whatever reason.

        1. Proxiehunter

          That is not remotely what anyone in this comment section has said.

        2. Nymph

          I’m responding here to several days worth of almost identical comments from this one specific person. I am not generalizing about people in the comments section at large, so what others have said is irrelevant.

          Thanks for playing.

        3. Yumi

          Well, Kyulen would still be under “anyone in this comment section.” I really don’t get your interpretation of their comment or those over the last few days, especially “You weren’t paying attention to the protests that happened under Biden” when they explicitly mention those protests on this and other comments.

        4. Nymph

          I think I was pretty specific that I meant “I am not generalizing, I am talking about this person specifically” rather than “this person is not someone in the comments section”

          I get that you disagree with what I’m seeing, but I’m not trying to convince you. So that’s okay with me.

        5. Proxiehunter

          You’re responding to several days of them not saying anything remotely like that.

        6. Nymph

          I understand that you disagree with what I am seeing. That’s fine. I’mma keep talking about it. Have a good one.

        7. Kyulen

          This is a ridiculous misinterpretation of what I’ve been saying. I don’t say this stuff in the comments of every strip, only sometimes in the ones where we’re talking about politics. I have no problem with people criticizing Trump for the evil things he does, but I wish more people would realize that Biden (and several other previous presidents) did most of the same evil stuff too. I’ve been paying attention to the protests under Biden for a very long time, I suspect for far longer than most people here, and I’ve been talking about them on multiple websites, not just the DoA comments. Oddly enough, people can dislike and criticize multiple presidents when they do evil things, especially when they continue the evil actions that the previous president did.

        8. Nymph

          Again, who said you couldn’t? Who is it that’s here not disliking or criticizing Biden?

    3. Reltzik

      It feels like more of a parallel for the Israel/Gaza conflict. People haven’t been protesting to get universities divested from Ukraine.

      1. thejeff

        The thing that might be confusing some is that the protest was originally described as about “the genocide in Bulmeria”, which would imply Bulmeria is a Gaza stand in, but “Bulmeria has a right to defend itself” makes Bulmeria the Israel stand in.
        But that’s just a matter of not coming up with two fictional names and having to do more to detail the relationship.

  15. Derek

    I feel like Carla has hit a wall creativity-wise, because this shoelaces thing is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. I know the “pie-in-the-box while 1812 Overture plays and a laser show displays her name” was a special occasion to fuck with Mary specifically, but apparently she doesn’t have a middle ground between that and this kindergarten level shit.

    1. Bogeywoman

      Imo, she’s teaching Charlie to prank, so she’s got to start with the classic and building up.

  16. darkoneko

    Blumeria has a right to ….. itself ?

    1. ZombieKyrik

      Defend

    2. Bryy

      To fuck itself.

      1. Clif

        One or the other.

      2. Nymph

        It’s this one.

    3. Effie

      has a right to defund itself

    4. SillyGoose

      I’m going with “Bulmeria has a right to adopt an elf”.

      1. Proxiehunter

        And put it on a shelf.

    5. anon

      i’m surprised they wouldn’t have used a diff name unless they don’t really care. or mayb we’ll get a plot twist of Blumeria playing both sides

  17. Opus the Poet

    I’m willing to bet that Ruttech has plenty of civilian contracts to keep the company afloat.

    1. Charles Phipps

      Maybe they started making electric vehicles before moving into space rockets and AI.

      1. darkoneko

        oh come on.

      2. PedanticJerkass

        Well, at least Carla is still on good terms with her parents, as far as we know, so that’s one difference.

    2. anon

      i wonder if carla’s paretns would consider listening if she wanted to make changes or so, we don’t rly know if she plans to ‘take over’ or so

      Tho who knows, maybe dorothy could make more of a diff if carla introduced them or so

  18. Acebender

    Side effect of having billionaire parents, there is not a god billionaire.

    1. Acebender

      Good* (it’s 6am don’t mind me)

      1. Proxiehunter

        They all seem to think they’re gods though.

        1. GreedOfGram

          Please see Ted Faro for the embodiment of this concept to hilarious proportions.

        2. PedanticJerkass

          Obligatory “Fuck Ted Faro.”

    2. Wack'd

      iiiiiiiiiii built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working claaaaaaaass

  19. HueSatLight

    Terrible Kerning is another name for Jordan Peterson.

  20. Suet

    I shan’t be examining the kerning further whenever Mary’s sign pops up

    but imagine a strip with poor keming<abbr title="In other news, this prank arc is under w h e l m i n g"

    1. Pergola

      Teach someone to see bad kerning and you have just made their world uglier.

  21. Scolopendra

    FINALLY

    Mary needs a W once in a while if she’s to be remotely entertaining

    1. NGPZ

      *provided it’s followed by a very big L, preferably in the form of getting decked twice at the very least D:<

      1. Mr. Random

        Nah, the L can’t be in the form of a decking until after the intellectual decking.
        Otherwise it’s using violence to silence someone else with a valid point. Choosing to harm when you can’t stand to be wrong, or rather, thst there exists another viewpoint is childish.
        So once SHE realizes things are going badly against all protesters, not just her counter protest, THAT’S when it’d be more fun to deck her.

        1. NGPZ

          “””valid point”””, wth are you talking about,

          fascists like Mary actively weaponize hate and so called “”ideas”” against people they want DEAD, to them a viewpoint is but a tool to pick up and drop on a dime depending on it’s current utility towards their bigoted aims

          they don’t care about “”ideas””, they care about POWER

          the idea that they need “””intellectual decking””” cuz of freeze peach and shit is literally a right wing tool, they exploit it to garner attention and further legitimize themselves and their aims

          not to mention, this wouldn’t be the first time Mary’s been decked, hardly

        2. not someone else

          I believe the “what the hell” they’re talking about is “narrative satisfaction”, which yeah, is very different from how one should deal with actual literal real-life fascists.

        3. Li

          Could be wrong but I think they just mean that Ruttech being involved in this… idk. It doesn’t reflect well on Carla’s parents. Which isn’t really what Mary was trying to say with it, so I’m not sure I’d call it her having a point, so much as tripping over a sore spot for Carla?

        4. Li

          “A broken bully still strikes a nerve twice a day”???

    2. ZombieKyrik

      The only thing Mary needs is a long walk on a short pier.

    3. Bryy

      Not at fucking all. She is literally a fascist sympathizer and a downright horrible person.

      1. sisterofdarkoneko

        That doesn’t mean it’s not good for the character to have the occasional W and get to feel superior. It’s a key element of drama for antagonists to get the upper hand on occasion. Mary hasn’t gotten to be truly smug for a good long while, and that is arguably THE key component of her character, going all the way back to Roomies! (even if the smugness was initially unintentional). It is okay for people who do bad things to feel good and affirmed in fiction.

        1. Scolopendra

          At least there’s one person in the comments section who understands antagonists in fiction lmao. You are a balm to my beleaguerment.

        2. Bryy

          Tension is one thing.

          Actively rooting for the villain is another.

          “Because it’s a trope of fiction” is a lame cop-out to feel intellectually superior.

        3. Scolopendra

          I don’t know how to explain to you that fiction is not real.

    4. Taffy

      What W? No W in sight.

      1. Clif

        If you stand on your head, Mary ends with a W.

      2. NGPZ

        well, depends

        to bigots like Mary, *victory* and seeing people they hate losing and suffering are one in the same ?

    5. Tomn

      It’s kind of a weird W, though, because Mary’s whole point here is “Ha ha, isn’t it terrible that I, the person you hate, am supporting a cause that supports you?”

      Which, sure, that could twist the knife in Carla. But by the same token it can be turned around on Mary – “Isn’t it terrible that the cause you support is also supporting Carla, the person you hate?”

      Like frankly both of them have reasons to be somewhat disgusted by the situation, Mary’s’ just overlooking her own disgust for the sake of being smug.

      1. Scolopendra

        I do also agree with this, tbh. Mary’s writing is not good and makes her into an incomprehensible pod person for the sake of punchlines. But I take what I can get.

        1. Proxiehunter

          No more of an incomprehensible pod person than the real life people who drank milk to somehow “own the libs”.

    6. Nadamás

      I don’t follow that logic.

    7. 3oranges

      Cobra Commander never killed any of the Joes and it was fine.

    8. zee

      It’s barely a W considering she basically slapped a “and that’s a good thing” at the end of that speech. Unless you mean shocking Carla. Bc I think the last time she got a “w” on Carla was targeted transphobic harassment

  22. Dave Van Domelen

    Ah yes, Bulmeria. Another fictional location, like “Indiana.”

    1. AbacusWizard

      Bulmeria is totally real; it borders Ruritania to the west and Syldavia to the east, with a coastline on the Nonestic Ocean.

    2. Kyulen

      In Willis comics, sometimes Bulmeria is a fictional place, and other times it’s a stand-in for a real place. In this case it seems pretty clear that Bulmeria is a stand-in for Israel.

      1. sisterofdarkoneko

        Pretty sure it’s the other way around

        1. thejeff

          Sometimes it’s a real place and sometimes it’s a stand-in for a fictional place?

          If you mean that Bulmeria is a Gaza stand-in, not an Israeli one, Mary’s support and her sign make it pretty clear that’s not the case. More I think that the situation has been a little compressed so that Willis doesn’t need two fictional place names.

  23. Bryy

    If Mary were a dude, she’d have “Executive Producer of Zack Snyder’s Justice League” in her Twitter bio.

  24. John Campbell

    Next time, on DoA: Carla solves the whole Bulmerian crisis by convincing her parents to stop supplying them with weapons, just to spite Mary.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Needs more ultra-sugared Robin to be plausible.

    2. Alongcameaspider

      This of course assumes Carla’s parents love her more than they love money, which is hard to assume with billionaires

      1. Veronica

        You can love your child and also think they’re a teenager who has no idea what they’re talking about and shouldn’t be deciding the direction of your business.

      2. thejeff

        It also assumes that the crisis is actually so simple that it can be resolved by one arms manufacturer pulling out.

        1. Taffy

          Hey, a pullout is a pullout. Even if the large-scale problem isn’t fully solved, at least someone’s not doing any more damage.

    3. Veronica

      Rich people: famously receptive to the ideas of teenagers

  25. Brasca1

    Good point Mary even if it was provided by a Fox News talking head. We also would’ve accepted the opposition to Bulmeria’s appalling record on LGBT rights as an invincible comeback.

    1. Bryy

      The Worst Person You Know is never right.

      1. Brasca1

        A broken clock is always right twice.

        1. Taffy

          Not if I rip its hands off.

        2. Pappenheimer

          Military broken clocks are only half that good.

        3. Taffy

          Like most military equipment, really. Dollar Tree materials, at Louis Vuitton prices.

  26. Kyulen

    Well these comments are going to be fun and not have anyone defending a settler-colonial state that’s committing genocide, surely.

    1. Reltzik

      We would we be defending Bulmeria? Mary’s sign clearly says that Bulmeria should defend ITSELF. We wouldn’t want to interfere with that right by getting involved in its defense.

      1. Kyulen

        The past few strips about “Bulmeria” and the campus protests related to it, there have been at least a few commenters who felt the need to defend it, even though the state it’s clearly a reference to is a settler-colonial state that’s been committing genocide. So I would be surprised if that doesn’t happen again today.

    2. not someone else

      I for one am really, really hoping Bulmeria is Not Israel in the sense that it’s just some goddamn country somewhere and not a colony meant to hold one of the world’s longest-running-that-we’re-sure-about oppressed minorities, except in a way that benefits the countries that wanted to kill them in the first place and also is currently run by a far-right wannabe-dictator who might start playing Global Thermonuclear War.

      1. Bruno

        get a load of holden bloodfeast over here

      2. Torgamous

        Mary’s sign is literally Israel apologia with the name changed.

    3. Bruno

      There’s literally a guy with a Ukrainian trishulstika as their DP on here. I just assume all the commenters on here are on board with one to three currently-occurring genocides at all times.

      1. thejeff

        Am I missing some subtlety here? Why is the Ukrainian image showing support for genocide?

        1. thejeff

          Oh. Yeah. Fuck right off then.

  27. AGV/Ruby

    I’m sorry Carla but you’ve brought this on yourself. You should know that Mary requires a modicum of strategy.

    1. PedanticJerkass

      You forget: Charlie is also there.

  28. Aquila

    For a supposed (or self-proclaimed) genius, Carla has a remarkably poor grip on the meaning of the word “prank”.

    1. Foolissa

      This! Like…shouldn’t she know the difference between a prank and an insult?

  29. Van Jealous

    Interesting that today’s panel “Title” has it’s own Kerning issue as it reads: “KERMING” (are you just playing with us, Willis?)!!!

    1. Van Jealous

      And I have a “Spelling Issue”….I meant to type “KEMING”.

    2. Plain Marie

      Kermi-ing? More frog?

      1. Van Jealous

        Maybe I had Jim Henson on my mind when I wrote the first post…after all I am a U of MD graduate….after all it’s not easy being green!!!!

  30. Dante

    Somewhere on campus, Booster is feeling vindicated and doesn’t know why.

    No but seriously I full-body cringed. My disgust was real. I commend Willis on his talent drawing smug faces because BIG YIKES.

  31. Taffy

    Mary’s so hot.

    1. Kyulen

      Her extremely terrible views make it hard for me to find her hot.

      1. Taffy

        With the magic of image manipulation software, you can easily remove her words and behaviors and clothes.

      2. 3oranges

        I have trouble thinking someone’s attractive when everything about them says I couldn’t stand to be anywhere near them, but apparently many people work differently.

        1. Taffy

          I don’t care about the most inner deepings of every porn person I see, but I still think the redhead in tiny shorts is hot.

        2. Plain Marie

          I had a massive crush dissolve as soon as I heard that they were in favor of declawing cats. Their adorability took a nose dive after hearing about their casual cruelty. I mean, they’re still hot on the outside, but I k.

        3. Plain Marie

          *ick

    2. NGPZ

      coming soon to SlipShine: Mary literally breaks an arm whilst jilling herself to picture of Ronald Reagan kneeling at the cross

      1. Nadamás

        It is probably Someone’s fetish.

    3. James

      I may regret asking this but I am genuinely curious what makes Mary in particular attractive, given the cartoony style of artwork in this series.

      1. Taffy

        Not to get too personal, but in 2008 I was 15 with unfettered internet access and a game called Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories had just been released, featuring a character called Larxene. Look up a few clips of her, imagine Mary instead, and there’s not a better way for me to explain it to you.

        1. Scolopendra

          you…. I understand you.

    4. Liara

      You certainly have interesting takes, Taffy…

      1. Taffy

        I’m the most capable of objectifying cartoon characters. Nobody else can do it like me.

    5. PedanticJerkass

      Do you enjoy anal? Because Mary is nothing but asshole.

      1. Taffy

        I’ve never been on the delivering end, but I’m a quick learner.

    6. Florence

      I support your terrible taste in women taffy, it’s your right gosh dangit!

      1. Taffy

        Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or stop Taffy from enjoying fictional bullygirls; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

        It’s literally in the Constitution of my country. All there, black and white.

        1. Florence

          Well I’m convinced, it’s in writing

    7. Amós Batista

      Well, Joe gave a 10 to her in his goddam list…

    8. Charles Phipps

      Wasn’t Mary meant to be the LI of the original Roomies before willis made her the embodiment of all things reactionary Right Wing?

      1. Taffy

        That’s not my fault, and I have no responsibility to deal with it in any way that involves clothes.

  32. AbacusWizard

    Dang, Carla, you’re gonna have to counter-prank Mary by becoming radicalized and pressuring your folks to completely re-tool RutTech to stop facilitating war and use its powers to promote peace instead.

    1. Bryy

      we_joke_but.exe

    2. Da Boy

      And while she is at it, she will perfect a small reactor tech and build a power suit around it that will allow her to monopolize peacekeeping.

      1. thejeff

        Which will have none of the horrific implications we’d actually expect from a private company monopolizing peacekeeping because Carla is a good person.

  33. True Survivor

    This conflict in Bulmeria seems to be a civil war, but the language is confusing. It seems that Bulmerian may have more than one meaning. The protests were said to be against the “genocide in Bulmeria” suggesting that Bulmeria is either a nation or a geographic region. If it is a nation then this conflict appears to be between the government and an non-Bulmerian minority ethnic (or religious) group inside their borders. Otherwise Mary’s reference to Bulmerian missiles here would make little sense, as it could reference both sides of the conflict and she clearly seems to favor one. Alternatively, if Bulmeria is a region then it could be one nation against another with one nation being called Bulmeria and its people Bulmerian.

    For example, the Emerald Isle is divided between the Republic of Ireland (usually and officially referred to as Ireland) and Northern Ireland (a part of the UK). Therefore, in a war between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, the latter would clearly be “the Irish” despite there being Irish individuals on both sides. Additionally, if the Republic of Ireland’s forces started trying to drive out all the Catholics of Irish decent it would clearly be a genocide taking place on the Emerald Isle. Heck, if the fighting was limited to Northern Ireland you would have a war in Ireland, with none of the fighting taking place in Ireland. Additionally, in this scenario most the combatants would likely be British (fighting for the UK), but all the forces would be technically be British as Ireland is a British Isle.
    Therefore, you would have the very confusing situation were the “genocides in Ireland” were being committed against the Irish by the Irish during a war in Ireland, but not in Ireland while most, but not all, the soldiers were British, but also every soldier involved was British.
    My point is without way more background information, it is impossible to tell what the hell is going in Bulmeria or if it is also a state, religion, ethnic group, and/or georpahic region. However, it seems to be a political allegory for Israel Gaza conflict based on time of writing or, um, drawing? … When it was penned! There we go.

    1. Torgamous

      Mary’s carrying an Israeli slogan around in this comic, and the protest’s specifically for BDS instead of generic anti-war stuff. This isn’t a hard one.

      1. thejeff

        It is, but it gets muddled a little by the “genocide in Bulmeria” phrasing, since we don’t normally describe the I/P situation as “the genocide in Israel”.

        It’s pretty clear what’s meant though, even if we can’t deduce all the details of the fictional geo-political situation.

        1. Charles Phipps

          Is it not be 1:1 a good thing? It seems like doing it 100% would be kind of exploiting an RL tragedy. It being a fictional conflict like Israel and Palestine avoids dating the comic, using it for comics, and allows Willis to end the story how he wants. Obviously, there’s many RL parallels too.

        2. thejeff

          Hard to say. It’s too close to be anything else. It’s echoing the specific IU protests, the divestment, the “right to defend itself” slogan.
          It almost just confuses people more to change it up at this point.

        3. Torgamous

          It’s not exploitation if you actually have something to say about it instead of just going “this is so sad, please donate to my Patreon.”

        4. Charles Phipps

          Willis has had a huge affect on my politics as an ex-fundamentalist seeking a outlet.

          He’s basically created my generation’s version of Doonesbury

    2. Adept

      It is obviously commentary on the war crimes of Israel. This is not hard.

    3. Pergola

      In two years, it will all make perfect sense and we will be praising Willis for his foresight.

  34. IntangibleMatter

    Carla, use one of your missiles on her please.

    It’s the right thing to do.

    1. PedanticJerkass

      Does Ruttech have a secret orbital ion cannon? If they do, this might be a good time, perhaps even the best time, to bust it out.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Well, we know that that DoA has crossed over with Questionable Content, and over on QC Station has threatened “Orbital Railgun Justice” in the past…

        https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3389

        (We will ignore the Harriet vs. Yelling Bird incident.)

  35. Zamperla

    Woah this might actually shift Carla’s morals.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      As with Anh Dang over in “Questionable Content” recently?

  36. Giffem

    parent’s company makes missiles? parent’s missiles shoved into face???
    plays Iron Man by Black Sabbath on hacked hamonoca

  37. Amelie Wikström

    Pranked by having defense contractors for parents. Boom!
    (I refuse to give Mary any credit for this.)

  38. Arianod

    …and then she never thought about the ethical implications of her parents’ business ever again 😀

    1. Nymph

      Seems unlikely, given the way that story arcs work. Why introduce it if you’re not going to tug on the thread?

  39. PedanticJerkass

    And Mary continues to be the X-Pac of the strip.

  40. Cloud

    I would poop on Carla’s parents but with how much money is offered in military contracts I more blame politicians for this one. Everyone has a number.

    1. Yak

      It’s both. They scratch each others’ backs.

    2. thejeff

      And just to complicate things, having a military is more of an unfortunate necessity than simple evil. Even in the US’s very recent past, having a military stockpile to help supply Ukraine was a good thing.

  41. Tessea

    “Well Rutech has… Better Kerning… Um…. Dammit, she’s gone already.”

  42. Da Boy

    Being on the same side as Mary. Carla will be washing and washing and the stain on her soul will still remain.

    1. Shade

      I mean, just because her parents are doing something doesn’t mean she’s on that side.

      1. Da Boy

        Oh it’s less about her parents and more about just being anywhere NEAR agreeing with Mary on anything.

  43. Da Boy

    On the positive side, those missiles are probably used by that one country that got invaded by its much bigger neighbour too.

  44. DashWallkick

    And now the entire comments section draws ascii art of the guy from the “HEARTBREAKING: Worst person you know just made a great point” piece.

  45. Florence

    Whoah! Fuck! I did not expect the comic to go there!

    *orc voice* serious Carla storyline is back on the menu folks!

    1. Amós Batista

      I want to find the comments that guessed out about Ruthech

      1. Florence

        Whoever they are they guessed a really juicy path

  46. thumb

    Been pranked by the horrible convergence of capitalism and politics.

  47. BorkBorkBork

    Oh sweet. Is this the storyline where we learn that Carla’s parents essentially had her Inspector Gadgetized? Skates popping out on command, bionic pie-slinging additional limbs, helicopter ponytail, etc?

    1. Nymph

      The 50 Million Dollar Woman, they have the technology.

      1. Steamweed

        Oh shucks fifty million won’t get you much cuttin’-edge (or should I say Rutten-edge) cyborg tech these days. Gotta blow up that budget another couple zeroes.

        1. Nymph

          THE FIFTY BAZILLION DOLLAR WOMAN!

  48. Adept

    Carla doesn’t seem to understand what a prank is.

    1. Astariel

      Yes, her definition of prank seems to have become extremely broad lately.

  49. Amós Batista

    Mary is defending Bulmeria, but will bulmerians defend her?

  50. Abel Undercity

    I do not like Smug Mary. No, I do not.

    1. Pergola

      Would you like her on a train? Would you like her in the rain?

      1. Proxiehunter

        I think most posters would like her in pain.

  51. Dizzy

    I think it’s just so nuts how Carla’s character and story was written years before Vivian Wilson was a public figure, and the parallels are nuts. (Before anyone comes for me, I am aware that the relationship with the parents is not analogous)

  52. CianM1301

    Ah, the one time a pie to the face (probably) won’t fix everything.
    Also, hooray, the Makeship petition succeeded!

  53. Andy

    DYW can’t make this too closely about current events and still keep his buffer. He probably wrote this before the November election. Events can move quickly so it’ll stay a bit vague and rhyme with current events.

    1. thejeff

      He absolutely did write this before November, but he wrote it about the Gaza protests. It’s still about current events since the conflict is still in a hot phase (and just escalated into strikes on Iran.)

      If it was written more recently it might have been about anti-Trump protests instead, but it still works.

      1. NGPZ

        my young cousins living there are now stranded without a caretaker indefinitely because their mother can’t get back after a business trip to Hungary, all while HELL is behind the wheel

        “still in a hot phase” doesn’t even BEGIN to cover it ?

  54. Steamweed

    And then Carla discovered ethical awareness of weapons manufacturing that day.

  55. Tatterhood

    I appreciate the effort in the title.

  56. Mr.Morningstar

    Oops sorry carla your parents are arms dealer’s.

    Like Tony Stark.

    Without the heel-face turn.

    1. Taffy

      I’ll be the bravest queer on the planet and say Carla’s parents should stop making stuff that goes into weapons, but only if they turn it into Iron Man suits and other goodies. And then their daughter and her girlfriend can have cool gadgets forever.

      Oh, and then they can fix the homelessness crisis overnight, because that’s Actually Easy To Do and we’re just not. Several empty houses per homeless person, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

      1. Wilde

        I’m just glad it’s not likely her parents will go full Elon and say, “What could little old obscenely-rich-us do about that?? We can’t! So instead of trying to do good with our power and influence, we’ll just be terrible”

        okay he didn’t say that last part out loud I guess, at least not in the same breath.

  57. Amós Batista

    Oh, and Carla is the one person that actually like her parents. ?

    1. Nevermaker

      Oh no, cognitive dissonance: the greatest enemy of this comic’s characters.

    2. Amelie Wikström

      She might have to like them for the respect and support they’ve given her while disliking the things they do. Alternatively convince them to act better. Oh hey this might turn into an allegory for a political party with dreadful ideology that’s still the best option to extract humane policy from.

  58. Charles Phipps

    Evangelicals only support Bulmeria because it’s mentioned as the site necessary for the apocalypse according to the badly translated King Charles version.

  59. Rosicrucian

    Carla’s got a lot to work through here.

    On the one hand, her parents genuinely moved heaven and earth, including a drawn out court fight, to get her the care she needed and have her recognized as her authentic self.

    And that’s huge for Carla, who understandably has a chip on her shoulder about people refusing who she is because it’s an incredibly shitty feeling. She maybe overcompensates for that, but it’s still coming from a real and perhaps raw place.

    And though she’s not neurodivergent in the ways that Charlie is, I doubt Carla herself is neurotypical.

    Now she has to square that circle with her parents doing a shitty thing. And not a minorly shitty thing, but one of the big ones.

    1. Nadamás

      Like, the biggliest of shit ones.

  60. Li

    Iiiii don’t mean to put the onus on any one person here, I’m literally just hoping someone already has some charities they could link to, but for relief efforts in Palestine? I know not to donate to the army of tumblr bots that suddenly switched from sick cats to This, but I’m not at all confident in the alternatives.

    1. TulipKitten

      Palestine Children’s Relief Fund is a 501(c)(3) organization helping kids get access to medical care in places like Palestine, Iraq, and Syria.

      1. Li

        https://www.pcrf.net/ Is this the right website?

    2. HueSatLight

      If nothing else, you can donate to UNRWA, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, MSF (doctors without borders), World Central Kitchen,
      It’s not correct to dismiss every plea on tumblr as from an army of bots. There are a few vetters, Palestinians who vet fundraisers as best as possible, who have no interest in a scammer getting donations that would otherwise go to desperate people. Many requests say they are vetted, and give a name of a vetter and their number on the vetter’s list. If you want to donate to a family fundraiser, go to the vetter’s list and follow the link to the fundraiser from there.
      The vetters tend to also have a list of a few mutual aid fundraisers, that are documented more extensively than family’s fundraisers.
      The vetter whose list I use suggests most people should focus on the mutual aid fundraisers. el-shab-hussein: fundraiser information
      el-shab-hussein: Mutual Aid Initiatives, includes some for Sudan too, as the Sudanese people are facing atrocities as well, carried out by the UAE and Saudi backed RSF.

      1. Li

        I mean, yes, there are certainly people who claim to vet the tumblr accounts. But they have made mistakes, and some of them have quit outright after admitting that they’d made too many mistakes.

        1. HueSatLight

          you asked a question. I answered it. don’t mistake that for me accepting an invitation for some argument.

        2. Taffy

          Everyone is not out to get you.

        3. Yumi

          You spent more words on “arguing” than they did, separate from the parts where you responded to their question. I would call it a discussion, but if responding to what you said counts as an argument, then yours certainly was.

        4. Taffy

          It’s only arguing if [everyone else in the entire world] does it, silly.

        5. Li

          ty both, orz

        6. Li

          I was providing information, or so I thought. I didn’t think everyone was aware of the problems with the vetters.

        7. Proxiehunter

          Some of them have even admitted to not doing any vettng at all, just saying “Yeah, they’re legit.” about anyone who contacted them for “vetting”.

        8. Li

          This too orz

      2. Li

        It would be one thing if the only consequence for giving money to a scammer was that someone you didn’t want to have your money got your money… but the bots are also a vector of identity theft. It is not safe to donate to people on Tumblr.

  61. Looney

    don’t buy hewlett-packard products, kids!

    1. Steamweed

      For many reasons: ethical, political, technical, etc.

    2. Nadamás

      Too late ?

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