132

Fine fine fine
Posted on February 17, 2024 by David M Willis

132 thoughts on “Fine fine fine”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Charlie: *ends up being a lookalike*

    Carla: *thwarted*

    Booster: *completely unfazed, returns to eating*

    1. nobodybasically

      Charlie turns out to be a cardboard cutout that falls over comedically as Carla attempts to flirt.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Carla: “A representation of Charlie that will look at me endlessly?!”

        (The wedding is in two weeks)

        1. Steamweed

          “And will listen to me nonstop without interrupting?”
          *elopement ensues

    2. Kyrik Michalowski

      I need the comic to move away from food, because Booster’s fries are making me hungry and it’s 11:22

      1. HueSatLight

        mmm, Carb Station.

        1. TrueVCU

          You joke but this would be a holy shrine at most universities

        2. HueSatLight

          not joking. just thinking about french fries. and tater tots. and noodles.

        3. clif

          Pardon. I’m going to go snack.

        4. TrueVCU

          Goddammit now I want noodles

        5. NGPZ

          mmmm, fried egg on instant noodle would actually be pretty good right about now…

    3. Tawdry Quirks

      Plot twist: Booster and Charlie are triplets instead of twins, and this is the third triplet.

    4. anon

      i imagine carla will just be invisible to charlie til booster points her out

  2. Animedingo

    This will go about as well as I think we can expect

    1. Warcodered

      Or it will go really well, and Booster was an asshole for just completely disregarding his siblings ability to make decisions for themselves.

      1. Warcodered

        *their sibling* I always miss one.

      2. TerribleTransit

        I would argue that Booster was completely willing to let Charlie make her own decisions, and in fact that was their default course of action unless Carla made a compelling case why Booster should meddle in her affairs.

  3. Doctor_Who

    Carla is somehow doing panel 4 in Bullet Time, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      Why would I try to convince you otherwise when you are speaking objective reality.

  4. Sirksome

    Finding her was only half the problem though right?

    1. HueSatLight

      The small half of the problem. Carla has class with her the next day anyways.

  5. Cattleprod

    Is she flying sideways like she’s in a John Woo shootout?

    1. NubeTrasnochada

      I think she is trying to skate away as she usually does… while wearing sneakers…

      1. Dara

        She can always skate away as she usually does; the universe will contort itself to allow it, skates or no.

    2. Thag Simmons

      I was more thinking that scene in Disco Elysium where you run away flipping double birds and run backwards into an old lady.

  6. Blibdoolpoolp

    Damn thats a good line.

  7. Dante

    Please. Please, I’m begging, tell me this doesn’t work well for Carla /)_-

    1. Bryy

      Oh, I’m sure it won’t.

    2. anon

      i imagine she’s more balanced than the average skater but i half expect her to fall flat on her face as charlie walks past

    3. tunasammich

      I hope it does. I hope she and Charlie end up married in the comic epilogue lol

  8. Kyrik Michalowski

    Goddamnit Carla… The universe bends to your whim and you haven’t eliminated Mary yet? May I ask, why?

    1. BBCC

      She has to test her Rube Goldberg machines on someone.

    2. Opus the Poet

      Plus one!

    3. Time Sage

      Carla’s very existence pisses Mary off. It’s more fun to keep her around to intentionally piss off.

  9. Suet

    Ah, sure, but will she notice you now?!

    Let the false hope wash over her once again!

    1. anon

      even tho we learned she’s not technically deaf and it’s just a delayed reaction/other issues i wouldn’t be surprised if charlie’s somehow learned to tune out some noise above a certain level to where it doesn’t register since carla by herself is as loud as crowd lol

      1. Ed Callahan

        I just wonder what Charlie’s “condition” is. I’m hardly an expert on the DSM-V, but I don’t recall anything like what she goes through. It’s beyond simple absent-mindedness and it seems no one notices. Even her brother seems to feel she’s navigating IU just fine.

        1. Mark

          Maybe she’s a genius and just actually thinks that deeply.

          [Insert possibly apocryphal anecdote about Norbert Wiener forgetting his own home address.]

  10. DarkoNeko

    …oookay. Not sure what I expected.

  11. BBCC

    Oh if only the world worked like that. XD

  12. MisterJinKC

    Carla’s narcissism is getting way more annoying. It came off as quirky and a minor annoyance at first, but its progressed rather quickly into disrespect for everyone else while being so entitled her name should be Karen.

    1. shrub

      Carla is what I’d imagine a young, trans Donald Trump would be like

    2. GholaHalleck

      It didn’t feel like narcissism when her targets were assholes. We’re starting to realize she treats everyone like how she treats assholes and the thin vaneer is starting to peel off her.

      She’s pretty much a Veruca Salt expy at this point.

    3. anon

      well at least we know charlie wouldn’t go outta her way to flatter her

      tho makes me wonder how charlie would act if it wasn’t an unrequited (for now) love lol

  13. egon

    i hate carla so much

  14. Kelli217

    …This ought to be fun and/or interesting.

  15. anonymsly

    Ignore her, Charlie, or otherwise make this not go Carla’s way. Here’s a line: “You just called my twin a fucker, get lost.”

    1. DailyBrad

      I mean, they’re Booster’s twin. I LIKE Booster, and they are (probably by their own admission) kind of a fucker.

      See: any of the Amber hijinks, for instance.

    2. anon

      tbh charlie kinda ignores ppl by default but i don’t think she’d esp care unless carla treated booster too far/offended them more so

  16. RassilonTDavros

    I love it when the characters can outright tell when something unlikely happens just because God/Willis thinks it’ll be more interesting that way.

    1. Zero

      People can do that in reality as well. And this isn’t even unlikely. It’s not like it’s the first time she’s ever seen her.

      That’s how she knows she exists, after all.

  17. Opus the Poet

    I have lost count of the trans people in both directions and enby people I have taken in off the street and let them establish themselves, and none of them have been anything like Carla. I don’t know if that’s because my sample is skewed by only knowing people who have been living in their cars and trucks, or if Carla’s character has no basis in reality.

    1. Zero

      I mean, of course she doesn’t, but they’re also not a hive mind.

    2. HueSatLight

      Maybe she is a person, who is obnoxious, and her transness is incidental.

    3. DinaJoyce

      Carla transcends everything. Reality. Gender assignments. Societal norms. Everything. The universe contorts itself to please her. She said it herself. Weren’t you listening to her? You should always be listening to Carla.

    4. John Campbell

      Carla was living as a car or truck.

      1. GholaHalleck

        Was more of a minivan. But it DOES feel like a transformers joke.

        1. John Campbell

          Ultra Car started out as an SUV, which are legally trucks for fucking-over-the-environment purposes, and later got transferred into a compact hatchback EV, and then into the girlbot chassis resembling the DoA Carla we all know and… know.

    5. APW

      How many of those you met were raised by giant tech company owners?

      1. HueSatLight

        who are supportive

        1. Now

          Yeah, exactly. Carla’s not just trans, she’s rich and pampered – and good for her. But it means that class plays a role in how she behaves.

        2. HueSatLight

          Whether it’s because her parents’ money and power keep her safe, or she doesn’t want to disappoint them because they love her and accept her, she’s different than people who’ve been abandoned by their families. https://www.dumbingofage.com/forbidding/

          It affords her some license to “act the role of the asshole“, because there are two people for whom she’s not an acceptable loss. And she’s the kind of asshole who has her family’s name on motorcycle jackets.

    6. Bash

      I’ve never met any actual human who acted like Carla, trans or not. She’s clearly a caricature.

      1. Jamie

        I have encountered such humans, but I always knew better than to meet them.

    7. Lee

      The key difference is probably that you took those people in off the street (good of you) where they presumably lacked familial support and a stable lifestyle, whereas Carla has the back of supportive parents and a presumably privileged lifestyle given their business.

      1. Lee

        That said, I do love Carla, even with her character flaws. It’s refreshing to see a trans character with so much healthy euphoria in themselves and their identity.

    8. Bittersweet

      I mean, Carla acts just like my favorite sibling who helped raise me (one who is a narcissist by their own admission, but he doesn’t do toxic things he just is legit in love with himself). Carla maybe swears more. 99% of people who meet him irl like him a lot, but he acts very much like Carla with maybe less cartoon logic [standing in one spot for 10 hours, Rube Goldberg machines to pie people, similar unlikely things for a real human would do but are funny]

      He’s not trans, but it’s proof people who act like Carla exist.

    9. tunasammich

      This statement is…extremely weird to me, like people have genres of personalities like the ninja turtles or something and for the subset of trans people you think you’ve seen them all

      1. thejeff

        I think it’s tied to some people suggesting her obnoxious persona is at least partly a defense mechanism as a result of being trans. Basically, “let them hate me for being a jerk, it’s better than them hating me for being trans”.
        In that context, it makes sense to point out you haven’t seen trans people take that approach.

  18. Sleepy Hailey

    I love Carla and the universe clearly does too.
    Everyone who disagrees with her greatness is fighting the universe itself.

    1. PedanticJerkass

      The universe is a yawning chasm filled with emptiness and the puerile meanderings of sentience. Why should you deserve special consideration within it, Carla, above all else?

      1. Jeremiah

        Speaking like someone whose the universe doesn’t contorn itself to please./j

      2. Mark

        plays Life Sucks, Then You Die on an old boombox found in the back of the closet.

        1. Schpoonman

          …that’s why we get high.

    2. Twitcher

      If Carla were real, I’d dislike her, even if her transness is technically an excuse for jerkassery, which I know all about as a fairly cranky disabled person. As fiction, she’s hilarious.

    3. tunasammich

      Carla 5eva

    4. Jamie

      I’m always down for fighting the universe. I’ll lose, but how would that be different from anything else?

  19. Pocky

    Good luck; Carla, the universe seems fickle, and may just side with Booster again for some sort of unwelcome moral superiority and snark, headed your way.

    1. anon

      hard to picture being snarky but it would be hilarious if they got to know each other better and charlie was even more snarky to the point that carla disliked it

      or ends up being straight (unlikely in this series but still lol)

  20. Doc Harleen

    How is Carla doing that in the last panel with no wheels on her shoes? Is she throwing herself backward through the air, or is it just an angle where we wouldn’t see the wheels?

    1. anon

      it’s cartoon logic, dont’ think too hard about it

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/ipso/

    2. eh, whatever

      Backward? Sideways!

    3. Amós Batista

      She’s executing Down Evade (pressing Low Punch + Low Kick).
      (Yes, The King of Fighters fan here)

  21. HueSatLight

    Charlie in Read Hall Food Court. It would be ironic if she lived in the same building, but since Booster took the Nintendo™ to her in class, I doubt it.

  22. sdrainbow

    *the deepest, heaviest sigh*

  23. Serendipity

    This feels like a very specific Disco Elysium moment.

    1. PedanticJerkass

      For reference.

      One of the best moments in a huge list of great moments in that game.

      (Too bad ZA/UM is essentially dead now, and we’ll almost assuredly never get another game in that setting.)

    2. CombustibleLemons

      I recently played the game for the first time so I was thinking the same thing!

  24. Cmasta1992

    Praying for Carla’s downfall so mf hard

    1. anon

      I mean as far as downfalls go, having a crush unreciprocated is pretty mild

      tho be hilarious if charlie ended up with someone exactly like carla but somehow more obnoxious

      1. Da Boy

        To be fair desperately wanting someone’s attention and getting ignored must be pretty high on Carla’s “Living Nightmare” list.

  25. Reltzik

    Panel 1 Carla: “Okay, I’m going to tell you.”

    Panel 3 Carla: *show don’t tell*

  26. AGV

    Carla, their name is Booster, not “Fucker”. The least you can do is get that right.

    Btw, this’ll still backfire. Just you wait.

  27. Bash

    Damn, she was almost genuine for a moment there.

    1. Steve C

      Your avatar really fits the comment.

      1. Bash

        That didn’t occur to me and now I’m laughing at the idea of Jacob watching this situation and shaking his head.

  28. Hazel

    But Carla, Charlie still doesn’t like you. Or rather, she pays no attention to you at all. You’ve had uour chance and she’s clearly not interested.

    1. Needfuldoer

      She just has to stick around long enough so the communication doesn’t time out despite Charlie’s high ping, that’s all.

    2. anon

      she was willing to respond during the ‘delayed reaction’ but she was like “sorry got distracted thinking about–” (whatever she was thinking of, don’t re call off the top of my head)

      That said despite her promise to be ‘patient’ with carla i imagine a one on one date, a usual convo that’d take 5 minutes would prolly take two hours to finish lol (but at least it’s not like it’s too debilitating to where she’d end up not eating without realizing [tho i notice i’ve also gotten slower at eating as i’ve aged lol not that i eat huge portions tho])

      1. Mark

        Or was Charlie concentrated rather than distracted? I get the feeling that if she were concentrating on Carla, even Carla might find it a bit too much.

        1. Mturtle7

          I don’t think Carla could ever find somebody concentrating on her, “a bit much”…UNLESS that concentration included any honest analysis of her flaws and insecurities. And considering Charlie is Boosters’ twin, I think that may be more likely than not if they ever interact seriously!

      2. deliverything

        Seahorses.
        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/03-joementum/mynameis/

  29. thumb

    Great takeoff. Watch the landing.

    1. Da Boy

      Roll and land on top of Charlie, that always works for anime protagonists… that or they get slapped

      1. J.Gawain

        Often times it’s both.

  30. Mark

    Once again Carla escapes having to figure out, and admit to herself, what she is feeling.

  31. Shaith86

    I really hope this goes poorly for Carla, she’s as unpleasant to be around as Mary just for different reasons…

  32. Mr. Random

    I mean… it’s more like Willis is rewarding her for being willing to confess or punishing Booster for putting hoops for Carla to jump through.

    1. Bash

      Or maybe it’s just supposed to be funny.

  33. Ed Callahan

    I didn’t mean to report Shrub’s comment. I actually don’t think Trump and Carla have anything in common, even overlooking the minor point that Carla is fictional and Trump is an orange shitgibbon.

    1. Da Boy

      Well they do have one thing in common, to quote Mr. Crabs “Money, Money Money.”.

    2. NGPZ

      I mean at this point it’s like comparing a fictional papercut to a real-world fucking tumor.

      1. thejeff

        Also with a lot less actual crime and rape.

        1. Taffy

          Carla gave beer to minors that one time, so she’s basically the devil.

    3. shrub

      Wealth, rampant narcissist, 100% belief shes better than everyone else, that everyone is enamoured by her

      There’s some similarities there

      1. The Oracle

        You could have gone for a movie star, musician, or even a YouTuber. Plenty of them are like that. We don’t always have to jump directly to the worst comparison we can think of for everything, and comparing a college student whose brain isn’t done forming to a genocidal rapist is fucking stupid.

        1. Mark

          So, Godwin’s Rule part II?

        2. shrub

          I think its quite apt but who do you think is a better comparison?

  34. Jackie

    So weird how you based Carla on me

  35. Diane

    Ah but Carla, this is the universe you’re dealing with. They are very fond of pulling the “You almost had it!” Like that one fisher with a dollar in I think a State Farm commercial? I’m old, the memory’s going, but I can still remember silly stuff like a woman desperately trying to grab money off a hook.

  36. NGPZ

    I had pumpkin spice latte today in an attempt to channel Willis’s autism, I just HAVE to get a Dumbing of Age game idea at this point…

    1. Taffy

      Jet Set Radio Future, but with street roller derby instead of graffiti.

      1. Jamie

        Tbh, I think it’d work fine if you just replaced the graffiti assets with DoA characters being iconic. I might be biased after seeing the GDQ run.

  37. Taffy

    Is she wearing the same outfit still?

    1. HueSatLight

      It’s her double-bird sweater. https://www.dumbingofage.com/completelywithout/

      1. Taffy

        No, I meant Charlie.

  38. bcb

    Carla, you think the universe is giving you want you want, but you’re going to be disappointed when Charlie rejects you (as I am guessing she will).

  39. poyo

    oh Carla. You celebrate now but in about 5 seconds youre gonna realize the universe is making you be Genuine about your Feelings

    1. anon

      well at least if she’s like “hi im carla and may or may not have a crush on you” charlie prolly won’t register that til five minutes after she leaves lol

  40. BorkBorkBork

    Hm.

    Either:

    A) Carla is a Dark Souls character and just naturally dodge rolls everywhere,
    B) The Universe is about to contort itself to provide a conveniently placed mattress / trampoline / random bystander for her to rebound safely off of, or
    C) Carla legitimately forgot that she isn’t wearing skates, pushed off at a weird angle, and is about to get a faceful of cafeteria floor.

    If it’s B, then maybe theres something to all this “motherfucking goddess” stuff, and what we’ve been seeing as incredible narcissism is actually just an accurate reflection of her ability.

  41. Kazuma Taichi

    someone forgot that the goal wasn’t to have Charlie be found, but rather for Charlie to be informed of someone’s existence

  42. Steelbright

    Carla is Carla, but i gotta say her outfit is really cute

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