273

Needs
Posted on May 18, 2016 by David M Willis

273 thoughts on “Needs”

  1. Doctor_Who

    Look on the bright side, Mary. At least that’s not “ACME” written on the box.

    1. inqntrol

      Now let’s associate each Doa character to a Looney Toons one:
      Mary-Coyote
      Carla-Roadrunner

      1. Doctor_Who

        Mary paints a door on the wall marked “Unisex bathroom”, Carla just walks right in.

        1. inqntrol

          “Carla comes out unharmed, Mary goes in to check”
          “KABOOM!”

        2. Cerberus

          😀

        3. Aeron

          The other side of the door is a sheer cliff face, she floats for five seconds before whistling to the ground.

      2. ninja_jesus

        Jennifer-ACME

    2. That Damn Rat

      If it had ACME on it she could relax, because whatever it was would backfire and squash Carla comically flat.

      1. Psi Baka Onna

        Nah, she’d still have to worry because Mary’s allergic to shenanigans. Acme products make her come out in hives.

        1. N0083rP00F

          ? BzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZzzzZZzZzZZZZzzzzzzz

  2. Ana Chronistic

    “would it help if I break out the cannons?”

    1. Opus the Poet

      My ROTC unit was asked to help a local orchestra perform the 1812. I was second howitzer loader.? And if someone could say if they see an emoji after the first sentence (and which one it was) I would appreciate it. I just dot an upgrade to ChromeOS that lets me put emojis in comments, but I have no idea if those emojis work for anyone else.

      1. The Articulator

        Looks like a halo with a smiley face to me, but then, I’m on Chrome.

        1. Opus the Poet

          Thanks.

        2. EvilMidnightLurker

          Current Firefox, Windows 8.1, I see the halo smiley.

          What’s the plugin?

        3. Opus the Poet

          Not a plugin, an OS update. The stuff they do so that people with disabilities can use the computer got a little extra so that ChromeOS users have access to emojis just like people using Android.♥? and?.

        4. N0083rP00F

          Congratulations.

          All I could find regarding things that go boom was ? ? ?

      2. psychoshen

        I see an emoji, smiley with a halo

        1. Opus the Poet

          What OS are you running?

        2. Dara

          I also do; Firefox on current-version OS X.

      3. Arianod

        I see what you did there.

      4. pyrpyr

        yup, smiley+halo

      5. SunshineTheif

        Halo smiley here as well, on mobile.

        1. Opus the Poet

          Thank You all.

      6. MichaelLanting

        The emoji shows up in IE11 too, so it’s not limited to chrome.

      7. Schol-R-LEA

        Shows fine on FF for Linux.

        1. Schol-R-LEA

          Oh, I checked Chromium and Opera, too, all good.

        2. biggo

          Safari too.

      8. trlkly

        I’ve looked at the code before. The comment plugin has code to handle emojis and convert them into regular pictures.

      9. NelC

        I see a smiley with a halo; I’m on Safari 9.1.1 on OSX 10.10.5

        1. Sudden Clarity Clarence

          I see… tentacles? Some kind of monster w̸i̸t̵h̶ shining eyes. He’s looking at m̡̨̥̳͎̻͎͊̎͋͂̊͝ͅẹ̷̟̘̬̙̒̾͌̓̂̆͒͂̚

          Ȏ̷̖̙̀̂ͅh̵̢̡̳́͆̌ ̵̗̜̳̍͘͝G̵͎̙͍̏́̀o̴̼̞̝̓̊͘d̶̠̪̬̿͊͠ ̴̫̠͖̆̽͝h̴̟͓͕̒̑́e̸͉̥̘͊̑̓r̴̢̨̲̈́͂̈́ë̶̛̫̱̣̑ ̴͇̫͛͐̈ͅh̷̛̜͓̞͒̐ë̷͙̘͘͠ͅ ̶͍̥̩̽͛̔c̵̢̨̡̛̋̀o̵͍̥̥͆̄͝m̵͇̩̦͂͒͛ë̷̪̜̫͗̉s̶̛͖̠͑͜͝

      10. Ana Chronistic

        I was gonna say how did you emote with a cannon, then I read the rest of the post =p

        It BRIEFLY put up some other emotey face before settling on a yellow halo smiley, tho? I have just enough loading slowdown on THIS SPECIFIC SITE now to see it…

  3. Cyntalan

    Glorious.

  4. Wheelpath

    The anticipation! You go Carla, give Mary the what’s what

    1. MutantSentry

      I don’t see Carla being this subtle… but what if she just keeps doing things that LOOK like preparations for shenanigans but are in themselves utterly bengin… until Mary just goes nuts from anticipation. ….*WHY IS SHE CARRYING A PLASTIC SACK FULL OF TOY SHEEP* *SHE DOESN”T TAKE CHEMISTRY, WHY DOES SHE HAVE A STACK OF OUTDATED CHEMISTRY TEXT BOOKS* *WHY IS SHE WEARING A WET SUIT* *SHE HELD THE DOOR FOR ME>>>AUGH!*

      1. Falling Star

        Mary perpetually screaming…
        Will she get a “GASP” face too?

  5. LimeSheep

    looking more and more likely for “there is no revenge”

    1. Doctor_Who

      There was a Discworld book where a guy robbed a witch’s house, so she did nothing about it. Every now and again when she saw him, she’d just smile slightly.

      Eventually he fled the country.

      1. MatthewTheLucky

        “Eventually, he took his own life. Specifically, he took it across the continent.”

      2. Idontcarenomore

        I’ve read all the Diskworld books and can’t remember that one incident in particular, but guessing the witch would be Granny Weatherwax, practicing ‘headology’?

        And yeah, that would be funny as Hell, Mary can’t stand not knowing what Carla is up too. Perfect vengeance.

        1. Cerberus

          I think the one stolen against might have actually been Nanny Ogg, but it was definitely in reference to headology and setting up a passage on how Granny Weatherwax is the master of it.

        2. Kim

          Sure sounds like a Nanny thing ^_^

        3. RedScharron

          It’s from Wyrd Sisters, and the witch in question isn’t named.

          The full quote for the curious:
          “Granny Weatherwax milked and fed the goats, banked the fire, put a cloth over the mirror and pulled her broomstick out from behind the door. She went out, locked the back door behind her, and hung the key on its nail in the privy.

          This was quite sufficient. Only once, in the entire history of witchery in the Ramtops, had a thief broken into a witch’s cottage. The witch concerned visited the most terrible punishment on him.*

          * She did nothing, although sometimes when she saw him in the village she’d smile in a faint, puzzled way. After three weeks of this the suspense was too much for him and he took his own life; in fact he took it all the way across the continent, where he became a reformed character and never went home again.”

          (I’m not sure if I’m proud or slightly concerned about how quickly I remembered which book that was from considering that I can barely remember my own phone number on the first try.)

        4. Ntrovert60

          Nice. Very appropriate to the matter at hand, and a reminder that a good old fashioned mindfck is often the best revenge…

        5. LazarusLong

          but you’ve read the books.(If you are like me numerous times.) but how offten do you call yourself?

      3. Mkvenner

        #GNUSIRTERRYPRACHETT

    2. Dr. T

      This reminds me of the MASH episode where Hawkeye and BJ had a bet as to whether BJ could get the entire staff with pranks, with all of the staff falling victims to prank after prank while Hawkeye started getting paranoid about what BJ had in store for him. It ended with Hawkeye thinking he won, when in fact he was the only one pranked as all of the other pranks were fakes that everyone was in on to drive Hawkeye over the edge. It worked too.

      1. Needfuldoer

        “You’re the tops, you’re the Tower of Pisa…”

        1. Schol-R-LEA

          And of course, it is just as Hawkeye is dropping trou (to make good on the the bet) that the adjutant who was there to observe the 4077’s performance walks into the mess hall…

      2. Tomas

        I’m reminded of that old episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents where Bob Newhart does subtle things to make his wife think he’s planning to kill her, so she tries to kill him first and goes to prison for attempted murder.

    3. Deanatay

      I’m convinced that there IS a revenge in the works, but psyching Mary up for it is part of it.

      Dis gun be gud.

      1. Rycan

        That’s what I’m hoping for. An elaborate distraction from a simple, yet completely ridiculous revenge.

      2. Jhon

        I’m happy to see Mary jumping at shadows, but I want there to be actual Sweet Engineering.

  6. Mr. Random

    The wait makes it all the more fun.

  7. serenityNeko

    Can somebody clarify for me: do most actually hate Danny, or is it just an affectionate kind of constant ragging on him? Legit curious.

    1. Boxilar

      A lot of the Danny hate was carryover from his character the Walkyverse. This Danny is showing real signs of not being the tool Walkyverse Danny was. Or is at least moving in a different direction, character wise.

    2. Leorale

      Some of each. It rapidly went out of fashion when we learned that his parents emotionally/verbally abused him.

      1. Emily

        In pretty much the exact same way the commenters in question did as a matter of fact.

    3. Dean

      A lot of people were impatient with his clinginess toward Dorothy, I think, as well as his inability to see that Amber was Amazi-Girl. But now I’m pretty sure that busting on Danny is just a running joke.

    4. Quinctia

      I don’t think Danny’s a bad kid, but I’d hate to deal with him in real life.

    5. Nate

      I don’t know about most, but I think Danny’s a sweet kid and wish the best for him although his… ineptitude makes me cringe a bit sometimes.

    6. Leorale

      Also a fair amount of the serious dislike/impatience was from ex-Dannies who had outgrown his behaviours. It made them cringe to see how they used to be.

      1. StClair

        This here.

    7. trlkly

      My read has been that it’s always been that sort of “joking hate” like sometimes happens in a group of friends. You know, you have that one friend who you love to riff on, but you still ultimately care for them.

      If you’ve ever watched VideoGamesAwesome, it’s like Deacon, especially in the older days.

  8. TrueVCU

    I can’t tell what’s better: Carla’s inevitably spectacular vengeance or the Chinese Water Torture on Mary leading up to it

    1. pyrpyr

      The torture on the commenters as they try to guess at Carla’s machinations, of course.

      1. That Damn Rat

        I see some people, myself included, suspect that there is no revenge, or rather the suspense in anticipation of the coming revenge IS the revenge, rendering Mary terrified and jumping at shadows.

        1. Sam

          Personally I think this. I think the measurements were just to make her aware but now whenever she sees Carla she’s getting paranoid and freaking out at people.

        2. timemonkey

          Carla’s waaay too petty to not take actual physical revenge.

        3. Leorale

          I want it to be both, where Mary is going nuts, but reassures herself that it’s all just a head game, right before receiving the full force of Carla’s excessively complex revenge.

        4. Cerberus

          This. I think it’s a bunch of stuff designed to pique Mary’s snoopiness and paranoid curtain-twitcher ways that will build to an actual revenge which will be a bunch of elaborate setup to a pie in the face.

        5. Bicycle Bill

          And the best part of it is going to be that whatever it is, it will be triggered by Mary herself — she’ll be snooping someplace she shouldn’t be, and hijinks shall ensue.

        6. Cerberus

          Yup! I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this box later just sitting in the hall with nothing in it, just because Carla knows that Mary seeing it will feel she “has” to investigate it and sneak up real close to the “x” that marks the spot.

        7. pyrpyr

          A. I’m with Leorale, and B. see, I haven’t been proven wrong about the curiosity/anticipation-torture yet 🙂

        8. Doctor_Who

          I like to think something WILL happen but either:

          A) it will be so minor as to be harmless, and the REAL goal is to make Mary have a shit fit and lose her temper over nothing.

          B) it will happen so far from now (time moving as slowly as it does in the DoAverse) that we will completely forget about it and ASSUME the goal was just to freak Mary out, and then the actual result will be a surprise.

        9. Random832

          Pie in the face.

        10. J

          Perfect. And likely, plural. And likely, at all the wrong times & places.

        11. TrueVCU

          Sudden realization that Mary’s public meltdown would also discredit any future attempts to out Billie and Ruth as more ravings of a madwoman.

      2. Boxilar

        I remember seeing an interview with Vincent Price where he was upset with a movie he was in where originally you were never supposed to see the monster. Then the director stuck a guy in a rubber monster suit in at the last minute. Which ruined the movie in Vincent’s opinion. His thought was that the audience would invent something far more horrible in their minds than the rubber monster the director came up with. Whatever Carla comes up likely won’t be half as bad as what Mary imagined.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Was this before or after Jaws? That’s exactly what made it so scary, you hear about this monster shark but don’t actually see it until the end.

        2. Boxilar

          Well before. What’s funny is that the reason that Bruce (the crew named the shark Bruce) didn’t appear on screen all that much is that it kept malfunctioning. So they had to work around it. What’s even funnier is that the production was so plagued with problems that Spielberg and the studio were convinced they had a disaster on their hands. But halfway through filming Robert Shaw, who played Quinton, offered to waive his salary in exchange for a percentage of the profits. The studio accepted because they figured they’d never have to pay up. Shaw was convinced Jaws was going to be huge. And of course, he was right.

    2. Schol-R-LEA

      I’m with the ‘build up to drive Mary crazy, then wait until she calms down to actually hit her with it’ school of thought.

      I just hope it is at least as epic as Mary’s fall from grace in Roomies, ‘cos this Mary deserves it a lot more than the original did. The original was a prick, but too minor a character for the readers to really feel the impact, even if it was perfectly earn by her hypocrisy; this time, Mary has been a genuine bongo, and a real threat to Ruth, Becky, and Carla (and Billie, if she manages to put two and two together and her relationship with Ruth).

      1. Schol-R-LEA

        Bongo? Interesting choice of substitution, there, let’s see if it consistent. bongo bongo bongo!

        1. Schol-R-LEA

          Yep. It might have been funnier if it used different words each time, though, using a list of subs. Kind like Nick’s filter program in Skin Horse.

        2. John

          Needs adaptive learning like Nick’s.

          “Bongo. ‘Bongo’? Bongo. Hmm. Bongo bongo bongo bongo kumquat.”

    3. Joe

      I just hope it all comes out as a grand homage to Fred and George Weasley.

      1. merbrat

        The swamp appears right on front of Mary’s door.

  9. inqntrol

    The look on Mary’s face in the fourth panel is priceless.

  10. Stephen R. Bierce

    *plays Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” on the hacked Muzak*

  11. dailybrad

    Genuinely one of my favorite punchlines in DoA history

  12. Skizz

    The Acme jingle

  13. Peny

    1812? The song that fired cannons in the orchestra halls?
    Yeah I can’t wait for shit to go down.

    1. Boxilar

      Reminded me of this. http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2011/11/23

  14. Cheshrin

    Plot twist: Carla isn’t actually planning anything, she’s just pretending to do evil stuff to drive Mary up the wall because you know how Mary is, wanting to shove her righteous nose into everyone’s beeswax.

    It’s the perfect crime.

    (Or she’s using her engineering practice to replicate the pie-throwing antics of her favorite cartoon character. Either one.)

    1. Mollyscribbles

      No, no. Too many have called that one. It’ll be a double-twist and she’ll actually do something. BUT she’ll draw out the suspense long enough that a) it’ll freak Mary out and b) eventually Mary will accuse Carla of doing just that.

      Then once Mary gets smug at lets her guard down . . .

      1. timemonkey

        Just as Mary has convinced herself that Carla’s just been messing with her and drops her guard that’s when she’ll find out the entire area has been ripped to hit her in the face with pies. Over and over and over and over. And she won’t be able to accuse Carla without confessing she gave Carla motive.

        1. Cerberus

          Totes. I think it’ll be something on these lines.

  15. Regina Phalange

    Is panel 4 fear or incomprehensible rage?

    1. JDavis

      Yes.

  16. Proxy

    With the mount of anxiety Carla is causing Mary, I think it’ll almost be a relief to Mary when the revenge finally comes.

    1. Proxy

      *Amount

      1. Reltzik

        Which is why I’m calling paranoia gambit.

        The revenge NEVER comes, and that’s the revenge.

        …

        …. but that means that the revenge does come, but that means…. um…

        MONKEYS!

        1. Renadt

          Ah, like Brian did to Stewie. Made Stewie so paranoid over the revenge, and then, when he least expected it…

          Revenge!

        2. Cerberus

          “Paranoia, paranoia
          Everybody’s coming to get me”

        3. Reltzik

          Just say you never met me!

  17. Mr. Mendo

    I do believe Carla is gaslighting Mary! That’s so deliciously evil! ^_^

    1. Cerberus

      Nah, she’s not denying anything is happening. She’s just playing Mary’s paranoia and being unflinchingly polite until her trap is set. After all, Mary doesn’t actually need to be following her or trying to confront her about things.

    2. ninja_jesus

      I’ve never really heard the term “gas lighting” in anything but a negative connotation, so labeling her tactics as such is a bit off-putting.

      1. Lolly

        I don’t think this counts as gas lighting, that would be trying to convince someone that their experiences weren’t real or that they were imagining things and that they are crazy. This is just not letting Mary know what’s going on which drives her crazy due to her (terrible) personality type.

      2. Bagge

        To be perfectly clear, this is NOT a friendly prankwar between buddies. Mary and Carla are involved in a very real powerstruggle with very real stakes.

        Carla is obviously in the right here. She is fighting for survival, Mary is fighting for the right to discriminate against people. Carla is keeping it classy (and Mary is not), but this kind of conflict is never unproblematic, no matter how harmless the prank, especially since Mary has closed official channels.

        1. ninja_jesus

          Thanks for the plot recap.

        2. Bagge

          The point I tried to make was that, regardless if gas lighting is the correct term or not, I think Carla’s behaviour SHOULD be off-putting. Not unreasonable, nothing near Mary-level bad, but still off-putting.

        3. Boxilar

          Others have said it, but not gaslighting, since Carla hasn’t actively told Mary “Your being paranoid,” or “you’re imagining things,” or something to that effect. She’s just cheerfully going about her business. And Mary has been an asshole, so she’s getting increasingly nervous. She’s waiting for the other shoe to fall.

        4. Cerberus

          It reminds me of all the racists who get super nervous and angry about black people getting more rights, because they know how they’ve treated black people over the years and are worried that if black people ever get equal rights, they’ll treat white people with the same awfulness and venom.

          Mary knows she’s earned herself something and because she’s awful, she assumes it will be awful as well.

        5. StClair

          mind you, there’s probably some truth to that; witness, as just one example, how some people in the LGBT community promptly turned around and started ****ing all over the other letters.

          “Power corrupts” isn’t just a pithy saying. However, someone’s always going to have it, so withholding it from some (with the excuse that they’d abuse it) isn’t a solution either.

          Some people are good. Some are terrible. Power is the ability to inflict what they are on others.

        6. thejeff

          That’s a different pattern though. A much more common one.
          That’s people moving one step up the social ladder and promptly finding people still lower down to stomp on, in the same way those higher up had been doing all along. Partly it’s just them sharing the common prejudices of the society, except those directly pertaining to them. Partly it’s a way of ingratiating themselves with the majority groups by beating on the same people.
          Another example would be the Irish and Italians in the US joining in on discrimination against blacks, even as they started to be accepted as “white”.

          An actual oppressed minority group turning on the dominant majority when they’re allowed equal rights is a very different scenario. It’s happened in cases where they seized power violently, but not usually in more gradual cases.

          It certainly doesn’t make sense in the LGBT/Christian situation in the US, despite the persecution complex of some Christian groups. LGBTQ people aren’t a distinct enough minority. They are usually closely related to non-LGBTQ people, often have close friendships with non-LGBTQ people. Many of them are even Christian!
          What’s likely to happen if the prejudice and discrimination fades away over time is that LGBTQ people will cease to be a distinct political group. They won’t be able to exercise power as a group because, aside from protecting themselves from discrimination, they don’t have strong shared interests.

        7. StClair

          thejeff: Agreed.

        8. Cerberus

          Bagge-

          I read this at first as “very real skates” and it actually works with that reading since part of the ill-feelings on Carla’s part is not just the naked transphobia and smug dismissal of humanity Mary threw at her, but that Mary straight up destroyed something important to her simply because Carla was being cheeky and a bit of an asshole and refusing to cower to the authoritarian asshole (this last being the most important part to Mary).

      3. DSL

        By your own admission, that’s on you, not the user of the term.

        1. ninja_jesus

          …I didn’t say it was on anyone else? I was expressing my discomfort with the term because I do not wish to think that Carla is doing something wrong.

        2. ninja_jesus

          I’m still quite puzzled at the reason for this kind of response. I wasn’t appealing for a change in terms to fit my own comfort. Did I do something wrong? What was the tone of your reply? I can’t help but think you were trying to correct or scold me for implying something. So what gives?

  18. Romanticide

    I am guessing they are now going for the “Make Mary really paranoid strategy”

    1. Viktoria

      She is. Though I agree with a commentator from the first 1812 strip, after its all over and Mary has gotten herself kicked out by freaking out so much over nothing, in that moment, the ashes of her life around her…that’s when Mary gets hit with the pie.

  19. miados

    Part of me hopes she is doing nothing but random stuff to stress/freak her out. another part of me wants to see her royally mess that bongo up!.

    Also carla right now is my fave character.

  20. Shiro

    I love that the whistling is very pointedly directed at Mary. Can’t wait to see what she comes up with 😀

  21. Bickendan

    Billie recognizing 1812. My kind of gal!

    1. Leorale

      It’s always great when she’s a little nerdy after all.

      1. Stephen R. Bierce

        She’s a cheerleader! She would have attended/participated at least one pep rally with fireworks at the end of the festivities, probably choreographed to classical music. It can’t all be Souza.

        1. Leorale

          Right, but she didn’t call it “the cannon song” either.

  22. Jesse

    “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

    1. Kingmonster

      You know, I was about to correct this phrase, but then I realized that I had been reading too much Schlock Mercenary.

  23. Tacos

    Yes, make Mary super paranoid before you spring your totally ridiculous vengeance upon her Carla.

  24. Lord of Waterdeep

    Karla’s got Foxtrot Lips

    1. Doctor Bees

      ahhhhh I was thinking the same thing!

  25. magicallady

    i was thinking of the star wars march theme

    1. J

      That could work, but I love that Willis actually put a visibly recognizable score segment in the speech bubble she whistles.Here’s the spot.

    2. Undrave

      I was hoping it would be the Empyrean Suite.

      1. Tacos

        I’m actually kinda curious what the Empyrean Suite would sound like in real life.

  26. Shiro

    Anyone know why it’s been taking an age and a half for this site to load lately? For a value of “lately” that’s like…two, three weeks now probably.

    1. timemonkey

      You’re probably visiting during high visitation times.

      1. StClair

        Nope. I’ve tried checking the site at all times of day, and the comments section – not the main page, just the comments – takes forever to load and frequently times out.

        1. timemonkey

          Weird, it’s been running abnormally well for me the last week or so.

        2. TamiDOA

          May depend on where you are. Most of the failed connections I get are to a cloud server in the UK. A few are to wordpress servers (West Coast, USA). Problem started for me the same time the page changed to have the comment box above the name box at the page bottom.

          (Hoping these details helps someone to fix it.)

    2. TamiDOA

      Same problem here, regardless of peak times. Frequent hangs and failed connections. Tried other browsers, even in virtual machines. No joy. No problems with other wordpress sites. Given up commenting. May give up reading anything but the comic itself. Sometimes that even takes 3-4 reloads.

  27. Saaaam

    Ah good ol’ psychological warfare

  28. Arianod

    The 1812 Overture is probably Satanic in Mary’s books. Or at the very least Sinful.

    1. Jess

      Well, it’s a thing of beauty, so of course it’s sinful.

      1. Arianod

        I knew it!

      2. Arianod

        “A thing of beauty -destroy it forever!!”
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQZgaxLET3k

  29. AgentKeen

    Man, when do we get to see her army of mini Clanks that look like Ultra-Car?

    1. Kingmonster

      Or maybe a small robot that just happens to be named Mr. Zurkon?

      1. Abel Undercity

        Quickie cloned army of Jaegers, complete with the comic-opera accents.

        “Hai think we’ve hed chust about enuff uff yoo, Miz Mary!”

        1. Harvey Janus

          Prussian accents.

        2. merbrat

          Hoy! Dun forget dey need nize hats, too!

  30. Just Here

    My money’s on all of this being nothing more than good old-fashioned mind-fuckery. Done right, Carla can keep this shit up for a long, long time.

  31. Pastafarian

    I too, have wondered what song Carla was singing.

    1. Bicycle Bill

      That is, in fact, a motif from the “1812 Overture”; specifically, the ‘dramatic portion’ when they fire the cannons.
      As an aside, can you imagine the reaction of the audience the first time Tchaikovsky first conducted this piece?  Remember, nobody had ever used artillery as part of an orchestra before.

      1. Bagge

        “Remember, nobody had ever used artillery as part of an orchestra before.”

        …I try to come up with something funny to say, but I can’t top that.

      2. Bicycle Bill

        Posting to add — Apparently Tchaikovsky never got to perform the piece with the synchronized cannon fire, because in the late 1800s matching up live cannon fire with music proved to be almost as difficult as splitting the atom due to the lag time between touching off the powder in the muzzle-loading cannon and the actual sound of the discharge from the muzzle.

        It wasn’t until 1954 that a solution was found, and a studio recording featuring Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and using the authentic French muzzleloading cannon that Tchaikovsky had asked for in his score was produced that would be the definitive version of the piece for the next twenty years — until Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops performed it for their 4th of July concert on the Boston Esplanade in 1974, using more modern breech-loading howitzers.

        1. Jhon

          Wait… The cannon are actually scored? As in “Yatatatta tatatat dat daah (boom)” ?
          Gonna hafta check this out now…

        2. Jhon

          Yep. Wikipedia is my friend.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      Question for the Music majors out there …..
      What would you get if Johann Pachelbel had been a contemporary of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and they had worked together?

      The “Cannon in D”.

      1. merbrat

        Oh, Boooooooooo(m)!

  32. Bicycle Bill

    She’s ba-ack!!

  33. Some1

    There is currently a 50/50 chance that this ends with Mary as a super villain.

    “The metal has fused with my body! Ahahahahaahahaahhaaahaha!”

  34. Rukduk

    1. The 1812 overture always reminds me of Claptrap.
    2. I just cannot wait for how this is going to turn out.
    3. Can we officially call Billy and Carla friends, or are they still just comrades of convinience at this point?

    1. Flame_Warp

      Hello, traveler!

  35. Lan

    Carla’s going on a tear. Please tell me she’s gone full Destro.

  36. Some1

    Carla: And now Mary, face my revenge….an working robotic diorama that teaches you about accepting others!

    Mary: Wow, that does not sound that scary.

    Carla: To be fair, the voices are really annoying.

    Alternatively:

    Carla: (Talking to Ruth) Not to 50!

    Mary dies.

    1. Bicycle Bill

      But she will only be mostly dead.

      1. Some1

        However I don’t remember Carla killing anyone’s father, but it would be a pretty huge reveal if she did.

        Hello, My name is Faz, you killed my father, as you can see by referring to these handy charts!

        1. Cerberus

          Haven’t you heard the GOP politicians in NC and Texas of late? Carla is killing everyone’s family everywhere simply by existing and occasionally pooping.

        2. Dara

          I write a song about the Pee Police last week, just uploaded it to Bandcamp and YouTube. It’s, uh, not real worksafe. XD

    2. Some1

      I now realize that I said “an working” there is a good reason for this, I was originally going to say autonomous, but I couldn’t figure out how it was spelled, and then I forgot to change the a.

    3. StClair

      An hour listening to “It’s a Small World After All” will destroy almost anyone.

  37. Cerberus

    Just when I feel I can’t love Carla more, she just keeps on getting better!

    Okay, fangirl squee out of the way, let’s do some comic analysis:

    First up, I love how Carla is playing this, because it’s so fucking clever. Like, not only is it driving Mary up the wall with paranoia, but the reason it’s driving her up the wall is because it’s playing on the exact traits Mary has shown Carla and tried to use against her and her new “friends”-ish… kinda (begrudgingly).

    First, Carla uses the thing that birthed the first confrontation, the way Mary reacts with paranoia and anger to the notion of any form of noise, no matter how minor outside her door, by simply whistling softly outside her door and measuring things.

    Carla knew from before that Mary would poke her head out and angrily demand compliance with her weird rules, so she used that to lure her out and then defused the attempt to escalate by being professional and polite and being just weird enough to keep her on edge (by measuring her personally and her door frame and whistling the 1812 Overture).

    And then here, she exploits Mary’s other big thing, which Mary revealed when she revealed all the blackmail material on Ruth. And that is her obsession with spying on people from a distance, especially those entering Billie’s room. She keeps the conversation low enough that Mary won’t be able to easily hear it from her position, knowing that the uncertainty will continue to freak her out and knowing that this acquisition of materials will be seen but not understood.

    And that’s only because Mary is Mary. Someone like Sarah if they bothered to check out the door in the first place would chalk it off to “fuckin’ college kids” and go back to bed or studying, but Mary is a stalker who likes to spy on people who “offend her sensibilities” so it was a guarantee that she would rise to the bait and that she would continue to follow Carla on her morning tasks.

    And we know that Carla is counting on the spying, because she’s keeping up the unflinchingly polite mode from earlier and intentionally walks back past the creeping Mary singing the song from earlier.

    The best part of it all is not just that this trap so far would only work on someone as paranoid and snoopy as Mary, but it shows the real fallout of that moment in the hall. Mary now has all of Carla’s attention and this is what that means. Carla is bothering to pay attention to all of Mary’s mannerisms to exploit them here and is playing homage to the things that marked their first encounter.

    And it’s also just a beautiful little passive power play. Like, Carla here is not rising to Mary or shouting at her, isn’t trying to get Mary into trouble, doesn’t even really have a physical revenge object yet if there’s one coming at all, is just overall refusing to even play Mary’s little cat-and-mouse game of control and dominance. Instead, she’s just doing what she’s doing, publicly, on Mary’s radar, being visible, so that Mary knows she can’t just bully her back into the closet.

    And it’s extra beautiful, because it means her roaming the halls this morning was also intentional as a means of being seen in case Mary decided to head out into the world early. So that Mary could see that Carla was not cowed by her threats and her intentional misgendering.

    And because Mary’s response will be a flailing attempt to appeal to authority, to get Carla in trouble, but there’s nothing to report yet. Carla’s not actually done anything wrong or actionable. And Mary trying to push it, will just make her look biased and unhinged if she tries to escalate to the elusive “bosses downstairs” and thus ruin all her future leverage surrounding Ruth’s drinking or Becky’s technically illegal residence.

    1. StClair

      Brava. *claps*

    2. Liliet

      Cerberus Is The Best confirmation #…googolplex probably

    3. Kingmonster

      This is why I’m convinced that no matter what universe she is in, Carla is a Decepticon.

  38. Professor Fate

    Kahlah (channelling Cliff Claven), Mistress of the Mindfuck. Princess of Psyops. Duchess of Diabologic; The art of driving people nuts. She’s gonna have Mary scared to go into any room that isn’t brightly lit.

    1. Harvey Janus

      I have a theory, it might be bunnies!

      Sorry had to make the reference. I have a theory: the revenge will be, effectively, a pie throwing device triggered by Mary’s door opening.

      Which will be sad for Roz, but collateral damage happens in war.

      1. Harvey Janus

        What the… I was not trying to reply to this.

  39. Some1

    The scary thing is that this is a comic about college kids set in a realistic environment, with minimal action, and someone like Mary is still only the 4th at most evil character there. But really, Mary is more of an ass then really evil, unlike Blaine, Ryan and Toedad, who are actual monsters.

  40. Cerberus

    Comic Analysis Part 2, specific panel reactions:

    Panel 2: I love the practiced smile and careful phrasing here now that she notices that Mary’s crept within range. “Right size for my needs” is just such an innocent phrase that can seem so menacing when one is convinced the person is plotting against them.

    Panel 3: The 1812 Overture whistling is rapidly becoming my favorite running gag/theme. Not just because it’s vaguely menacing in a building anticipation/getting you amped up way. And not just because the notes on the page is visually beautiful. But because it’s serving as a complex shorthand for everything Carla is keeping silent about with regards to Mary. Just a little musical version of a fuck you and a “I notice you standing there”.

    The fact that Mary doesn’t know jack all about music and so doesn’t recognize it just makes it better, because it means she has literally no compass for how to take it and that just allows Carla to fully take the power back in their interactions and put Mary on the defensive.

    Panel 4: I want this panel blown up. Because I’m petty sometimes, and the way Carla is just getting in Mary’s head and letting Mary do the hard work right now of driving her mad is just beautiful. That right there is the face of an authoritarian with no idea what to do next. The KKK member seeing his rally protested with clowns, the bigot openly mocked and dismissed.

    Carla is just doing what she’s doing and is refusing to directly engage, but is not backing off and hiding either and Mary has literally no clue what to do with this situation and that means she’s going to be sloppy and make mistakes that are going to undo a lot of the position she has crawled herself to.

    Panel 5: I feel like a lot of Billie’s childhood was being taken with Walky as the “replacement daughter” to cultural events and distracting herself from the awkwardness of that by genuinely focusing on the music or the art.

    I dunno, it’s a really random shot-in-the-dark on this one, but it would be cute if this was a little sliver of life that she actually had some nerdiness about.

    Ahhh, Bob damn do I love Carla!

    1. hellofriends

      Expansion theory: The actual revenge is something pretty harmless that isn’t enough to get Carla in trouble, but since Mary was so distracted trying to figure out what she was up to, she never studied and ends up getting bad grades in all her classes.

      1. Cerberus

        I’m still betting on elaborate setup to a pie in the face… possibly fired out of a mini cannon (just for the in-joke). But not before Mary completely melts down and torches some of her leverage on Ruth and credibility.

        1. TheGrammarLegionary

          Honestly, in terms of what the revenge actually is, I’m seriously hoping for such a ridiculous amount of pie to the face that no one actually believes Mary unless they actually see it. Then she goes to the authorities, tries to get Carla kicked out, their eyes glaze over, and then the question is asked: “… And why is she launching pastry at you?”

          Cue awkward silence and a painfully transparent “No reason”.

    2. Bagge

      Panel 1: Mary sticking out her neck is such a clear visual of – as you say – her curtain-twitching habit.

      I like the idea of Billie as a music nerd. Fits with her Cheer Leader activities.

    3. Cerberus

      Oh, wanted to add that I also love the whistling, because she does it as she’s leaving Mary’s field of vision, so that Mary doesn’t have an opening to convince herself that she’s winning over Carla and has her scared. She can’t even go, oh, Carla tried to be weird, but when I yelled at her, she left, I’ve got her on the run!

      Which just adds another awesome element to the brilliance of how she’s handling the setup of her prank.

  41. Palamdrone

    bongoes love cannons!

  42. Betty Anne

    1812 Overture aka “Fuck You, Mary.” 😀

  43. Tenzhi

    I’m disturbed that I whistled the notes and knew what it was before reading the last panel.

  44. cmd1095

    Gotta love how Carla is getting Mary all worked up by just whistling and looking like she’s up to something nefarious. She doesn’t really need to do anything, she can let Mary destroy herself

    1. Cerberus

      And that’s the simple beauty of it. So far, it’s just Carla letting Mary destroy Mary. Just using Mary’s paranoia, way of taking people’s existence personally, and curtain-twitching snooping and letting it fester into something toxic in Mary’s head.

      It’s psychological judo and it’s just beautiful to watch!

    2. Bagge

      And even more importantly – not being broken down or angry or afraid of Mary. Mary DIDN’T win their last confrontation. In Mary’s mindset it means she lost, and she is not sure why.

      1. Cerberus

        Yup! Carla is the perfect foil for Mary, because she refuses to play by the script Mary has in her head for how these sorts of interactions are supposed to go. In her mind, she did everything she needed to to win, but Carla is not acting like she lost, so Mary must not have won and that doesn’t fit for her.

  45. caesaria82

    So I just listened to the 1812 Overture, because the name meant nothing to me and for the first 10 minutes I was convinced I had never heard it in my life. Then it got to the end part and I was like…. ‘oooooh it’s the V for Vendetta song’. I have context now xD

    1. Bicycle Bill

      You should have picked up on it earlier than that; the motif first appears around 4 minutes into the piece.  The cannons, on the other hand….

  46. Mishyana

    Whatever this ends up being, it will be a thing of terrible, wondrous beauty, I am sure.

  47. JetstreamGW

    I legitimately think Carla’s not doing anything. I think she’s just trying to make Mary super paranoid and lose her goddamned mind.

    1. WingedBeast

      I think someone else said that the welding was related to a class project unrelated to any revenge. Under that theory, she’s just using this as an opportunity to make Mary paranoid.

      If so, I approve and wish to watch.

  48. jaimehlers

    It would be extremely ironic if this whole thing was intended to make Mary respond in a way which gets her in trouble that she can’t squirm out of by having blackmail material.

  49. Bagge

    Heh, it’s the walkerton racist cookie box. Waste not, want not.

  50. Gamaran Sepudomyn

    Okay, quick question: I know there’s probably no reason for it besides “Mary is an idiot”, but dorm rooms have noise. Mary knows she can’t study well with noise. Why does she live in dorms?

    1. Cerberus

      Freshman at IU are required to live on campus for their Freshman year, specifically to teach new students on how to live with others without pulling a Mary.

      1. Fwip

        So very thankful my uni didn’t require that.

        1. ischemgeek

          Mine didn’t require it, but strongly encouraged it for the “experience” of having drunk Business students face-plant into the wall next to your room at 3AM on a Friday morning when you have a mid-term at 8:30 and now you have to waste an hour of sleep time applying first aid to a drunk guy who woke you up by smashing head-first into the wall and is now drunk and concussed and trying to pick a fight with whoever “sucker-punched” him as you try to convince him to go to the hospital for his broken nose and tooth and likely-dislocated jaw (business students had Fridays off hence they started getting drunk on Thursday).

          …. er, not that it’s an actual thing that happened to me. Or that my prof said, “Sorry, you still have to write the mid-term because nothing in the academic regulations covers that.” Or that the prof went with me to the student advocate’s office and got the policy changed to include all emergencies not just “family emergencies” as a result (awesome prof was awesome, no complaints there, but yeah the policy was bullshit and the only reason I did OK on the midterm was because the course was something I knew in my sleep and even still my result on that midterm probably dropped my course mark half a letter grade.

          Other things that happened when I was in res: First, I – about the biggest nerd you could ever meet, and autistic to boot (which makes it harder to deal with chaotic environments and noise, by the way), and someone who’d requested a quiet floor in the nerdiest house on campus – got stuck in the biggest party house in the university. To this day, the only way I can explain it is that the residence admin person must’ve been very bored and playing a game of let’s see what horrible matches I can make, because my roommate was also someone who was probably never going to be compatible with me. A guy across the hall from me had someone take a crap on his desk chair. Literally. I had a roommate who was fond of 3AM phone conversations and also of letting her friends lay on my bed and use my shit without permission – hence why I got in the habit of sleeping with earplugs and always paying with a card and never leaving cash lie around after money went missing on more than one occasion and the proctor did jack shit about it. I woke up with my roommate and her boyfriend both naked across the room from me (I am very thankful I am a heavy sleeper but still what the fuck?). The food court kept poisoning me by feeding me stuff I’m allergic to after I disclosed, even if I checked with the chef (he thought it “didn’t hurt” to “make me try” stuff I “don’t like” because my food allergy is weird and to a widely-hated vegetable. But I don’t just “don’t like” it, it makes me violently sick for three days!) to the point that I just started eating off the sandwich and salad bar and didn’t eat anything that they didn’t prepare right in front of me. About a month after I went exclusively to eating off the sandwich and salad bar, that very cafeteria got shut down over flagrant health code violations (stuff like, if mice got into the bread they’d only throw out the stuff that had visible chew marks) so I bought a microwave and ate exclusively in my room with stuff that could be microwaved or eaten raw. They actually had to have a hall meeting over it not being okay to purposefully break windows even if you’re drunk and pissed because your girlfriend dumped you. Then I got fined with the entire hall because people kept breaking windows because they were drunk (protested to the residence admin and got the money back because fuck you I’m not paying for something that happened when I was out of the damn province, which I was).

          I could go on.

          Res life. Don’t miss it. At all.

        2. Cerberus

          The bad mismatch might have been intentional. A lot of schools are keen on using people’s roommate card information to set them up with someone as different as them to “promote understanding of living with people of diverse backgrounds”. Needless to say, it’s almost always a complete disaster when that happens. My freshman roommate was a very evangelical Christian who loved to blast pop music at all hours and was convinced I was an evil Satanist because I listened to metal and was getting more and more into lesbian culture. I woke up to him literally praying over my bed for my soul once, so that was fun. I spent a few fair nights sleeping in the study room instead.

        3. Leila

          Ditto. I went to community college for two years on scholarship, and then transferred to the University of (?) almost specifically to avoid dorms.

        4. Leila

          Was replying to Fwip

    2. Bagge

      Because the world is supposed to carter to HER needs. Everyone in the dorm is supposed to live up to HER standards and do as SHE wants. Anything else is a direct attack on her (and, by extension, on Jesus) which makes her Justified… no, Required, to answer in kind.

      …or in other words, because Mary is an idiot.

    3. trlkly

      Living in dorms makes sense, for the reasons given. The real question is why she studies in her dorm, and the answer is likely the one given by Bagge.

      My dorm didn’t get loud all that often, but, when it did, I went to the library if I needed the quiet.

  51. KSClaw

    1812 overture… does that mean something is gonna go kaboom soon? :3

    1. Bagge

      You just know it.

    2. StClair

      No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow.

      1. Cybersnark

        Not a pessimist. Just Russian.

      2. thejeff

        What? Look, somebody’s got to have some damn perspective around here!

    3. Abel Undercity

      An Earth-shattering kaboom. Carla just had to borrow Billie’s Illudium PU-36 explosive space modulator.

  52. JTD

    Psychological torture is best torture.

  53. Rex Vivat

    I’m guessing none of you ever saw Los Simuladores, right?

    1. Hielario

      Argentinian or Spanish version?

    2. Rex Vivat

      Argentinian. I have no idea if the Spanish version has the thing with the 1812 Overture too.

      1. Hielario

        What thing? Using it to underline an important moment or the fact they’re building up to one? I barely remember how the show sounded, so i don’t remmebr if they used that overture or not – SIGH.

        1. Rex Vivat

          There was one episode… I think it was called “El Joven Simulador”. Watch it.

  54. zmm

    I loe the random super knowledge Billy has of uncommon but common things

  55. DarkoNeko

    …a pair of cheerleader shoes ?

    1. Bagge

      …never worn. #BilliesCollegeExperience

  56. BenRG

    I did say before that Mary’s paranoia would end up doing Carla’s work for her and here we see that in action.

    Mary, meanwhile, is slowly coming to realise that she has made fe w friends and plenty of enemies at IU. So, few have sympathy or any particular desire to help her. I mean, given what she did, she must be borderline delusional to think that Billie would be helpful in any way!

    1. Cerberus

      Yelling angry demands at people or glaring at them with judgment seem to be Mary’s only two modes.

  57. Also Becky

    Seeing Mary so distressed gives me life <3

  58. RavenRyy

    I’m calling it now. Carla’s roaring rampage of revenge will end or start with Mary getting pie on her face.

    1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

      It could be a bookend affair,

  59. Liliet

    I think Carla’s revenge is going to consist mostly of getting Mary paranoid and nervous whenever she’s close…

  60. BenRG

    Just a small aside: It suddenly occurred to me that Carla might be doing something like building herself new roller skates. Billie’s contribution is a pair of never-worn go-go boots that she packed in a moment of insanity whilst getting ready for college and is happy to be rid of.

    Of course… Mary doesn’t know that and what she doesn’t know most certainly can hurt her.

    1. CianM1301

      Well, we did see the board with her revenge plan in the back while she was welding what was probably some part of the contraption. The boots may just be a side project.

  61. CianM1301

    Half of this prank will be giving Mary a heart-attack from stress, I know it.

  62. Aprion

    and the mind games continue. *a certain voice* Excellent.

  63. Lordess of Madness

    Maybe it was nothing and they’re just trying to freak Mary out until she has a nervous break down.

  64. AutobotDen

    You know what would be hilarious? If it really DID turn out that Mary was being trolled hardcore by Carla, Billie, and Ruth. That would be completely and utterly hysterical to me, because she’s such a bongo queen.

  65. Dan

    I know her plan… drive her mad with paranoia until she does something stupid like break into her room searching for evidence.

  66. Tomas

    Mary’s eyes in the second panel. o_O

    1. Leila

      Fourth panel for me!

  67. Jimmy

    One of the best musical compositions of all time!

  68. Mandy

    Hey Mary, what about all that studying that you just HAD to do? You should focus on that.

    1. Cerberus

      But people are existing in her halls that she’s decided shouldn’t exist there and so that clearly trumps. Same as it did when Carla was skating, which is why she doesn’t just head down the hall to the study room instead of stalking Carla.

  69. showler

    David said that Carla might be taking Intelligent Systems Engineering.

    The website for that major states “The Bachelor of Science in Intelligent Systems Engineering teaches you to use small-scale solutions to solve big problems.”

    Carla does not apply that philosophy to Revenge.

    1. Willoughby Chase

      Nothing ever went wrong with a touch of over-engineering 🙂

    2. Jhon

      I want to take whatever courses Carla is taking!

  70. doomprix

    For those that need a little background music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8

  71. JasonAW3

    They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. And Carla just needed to barrow a ultra low temperature Cryogenic pump.

    Mary is going to learn to really “chill out”…

  72. skdk

    if carla is actually going to do something else than play on marys paranoia, it has to have something to do with marys door

  73. Meamoi

    Please tell me that when her plan goes off, the comic will include the music and the there will be gifs capturing any of the more colorful explosive-like movements involved.

  74. skdk

    i just realized, it says “jennifer” on the box. its the cookie box. theres probably nothing in the box, its just a box

    1. Cerberus

      Yup. It’s literally just a big empty box and means Carla must have noticed that Billie having care package cookies means there must have been a care package and thus a big empty box Billie probably had no need for.

      Hell, Carla may not even have a need for it, other than using it to further drive Mary into paranoia.

      1. Meamoi

        Carla is loving the psychological build up.

        … what’s the fear-inducing equivalent of a hype train?

      2. Commodore Jeep-Eep

        The worry about that is that making Mary paranoid might backfire and make her escalate again, in an attempt to assert some domination.

        1. Lyssie

          Well, if she does, Carla knows that:

          1. She has done nothing actually wrong or actionable yet. If she has a plausible lie for the door thing, she’s untouchable.
          2. Ruth is no longer blackmailable.

          If Mary does freak out and escalate, that puts her solidly in the wrong, potentially with witnesses, and certainly with an authority figure (Ruth) to testify if they have to take it to Ruth’s bosses. Carla still wins.

  75. UselessComments

    Mary’s eyes are poop colored. She’s so full of sh*t her eyes are brown.

  76. Stormcaller3801

    I’m reminded of Caddyshack and the war on the gopher, particularly the finale of the movie. Which just so happens to involve the Overture.

  77. Mx Miki

    I’m actually hoping that Carla isn’t actually doing anything, except driving up paranoia.

    1. Henry

      I’m hoping driving up paranoia is just one of the steps. Then she lets Mary relax, thinking she got worked up for nothing. Then, when she least expects… *pow*

      1. Mx Miki

        I’m figuring that if the paranoia is driven high enough, Mary will shoot herself in the foot.

  78. Chris D

    I cannot wait for the pie to the face that this is building up to. Literal or Figurative.

  79. Falling Star

    Now every time Mary hears that song in the future, she’ll start freaking out.
    Mental conditioning at its finest.

    1. ninja_jesus

      Ahahaha, that’s something I never thought of. Carla is ruining the 1812 overture for Mary by associating it with the idea of vengeance. I have no doubt that when/if it actually plays over the PA or maybe in front of her dorm door, Mary will be all kinds of freaking out.

  80. Amake

    Hey, she’s asking questions. I thought Mary thought she knew everything about everything.

  81. Dylan

    Anyone else think Carla is running a paranoia gambit? I mean, yes, we saw her building something, but still…

  82. Charles Phipps

    I totally think she’s going to remove Mary’s brain and put it in a car.

    1. Dara

      1 point to House Phipps

  83. Mr. Random

    And so the wait and anticipation builds.

  84. gkheyf

    is it just me, or does she look a bit like riley in that last panel?

    …i am so, so sorry

  85. Joy Baker

    WRITHE, MOTHERFUCKER, WRIIIIITHE

  86. Onion

    I was starting to think it was the Sailor’s Hornpipe.

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