Fossils require certain conditions to form. Are you certain this friendship is going to die in a suitable place? Generally speaking, someplace low on oxygen is a good start.
Dina may eventually figure out that the best way to fossilize their immortal friendship is to trap them in a place with low oxygen and just wait; eventually they will be perfect.
The overly long transformation sequence would be adorable. She’d spin around in a cascade of sparkles, and the words “Clever Girl” would appear on her shirt and the hat would materialize on her head.
Except she’s always wearing the hat, so another one appears on top of it. By episode 26 she has so many hats on she needs to duck to go through doors.
…I seem to be very silly tonight. Perhaps consuming all my leftover candy for trick-or-treaters before bed was a poor idea.
Amber, Ethan
What are we going to do.
You guys can’t stop having opposing points of view.
It won’t be a humble friendship.
A few choice words could end this.
because what you lack
calls the kettle black
in a closet built for two.
But if the fourth wall is gone, what’s to stop Dina from coming into the real world? 😀
*Realizes what most of the internet would do with a real life Dina*
LEMME HELP YOU PROP THAT WALL UP
Dina is actually a non-sentient puppet being that is under complete control of the hat. She lacks basic human social abilities because she has HAT social abilities!
Now I want to go back through the archive and read every post where the tail points to the hat (as opposed to some other part of Dina) as being the hat talking. I find myself suspecting that it would result in coherent characterization and many things making disturbing sense.
I think I have to side with Amber. I don’t see why she should air out her personal history with anyone but close friends. I didn’t know any of that stuff about my floormates (or really anyone I met) in first year.
Indeed. Ethan is in a position where he has a relationship based on lies and/or lying to himself. It’s not like Amber is denying or lying to anyone by keeping this in the dark or leading them on.
She has Deadpool’s special 4th wall peering power, if Willis ever included little yellow plot boxes in his comic, Dina could totally interact with them.
That might be, and even more like Deadpool she may have trouble knowing if she is using the yellow box (for internal monologues) or the speech bubbles, unless she asks someone nearby if they heard something she thought she said in her head.
When a comic artist as realistic as Willis draws two people with rage smoke clouds above their heads, you know it’s serious.
Also: which seems more likely, Ethan and Amber learning to make healthy decisions, or Dina learning basic social graces?
Out of the three of them, Dina’s the one that’s making the most progress.
Ethan is in “a relationship based upon a mutual revulsion of fuckin'” and Amber is in a relationship with Danny purely because he’s the exact opposite of her father.
Dina meanwhile is learning about sarcasm and the strange patterns Known as Facial Expressions.
…did i just get quoted?
Sweet. I had no idea that comment had even been posted properly, let alone been read or remembered by anyone.
…
Great, now I’m all paranoid that that comment started a flame war i just never saw.
I feel like Amber’s problems are more that she’s channeled her violent urges into a vigilante identity that she tries to keep totally divided and separate from her “real” one than that she’s dating Danny.
Of course, this is because I am a filthy heretic who doesn’t recognize Danny as Danus Iscariot, the Ur-Traitor whose every word blasphemes and every act is sacrelige.
What Willis had done with Amber is similar to the arc of dissociative identity disorders. It’s always a response to a long term abusive situation that begins in childhood. It’s controversial whether such individuals are in fact more than one person, it also doesn’t matter. The biggest difference is that in true sufferers the separate personalities don’t stand alone as coherently as Amber’s do (or as popularized accounts would have you believe). The attempt to cope by separating into different people is a strategy of desperation that only works relative to the terrible circumstances it’s trying to deal with. Good integration is a key element in mental health. De-integrating yourself is a express ticket to becoming a hot mess.
I’ve wondered if Willis used knowledge about the disorder to construct this character.
Are we sure she actually has Asperger’s? Because having worked with someone who did, she seems far too coherent. I just suspect she was never properly socialised, and just hasn’t learned the proper social cues.
Asperger’s or not, alls I know is she’s been so much more rational about her decision making than anyone else in the cast. Amber’s situation is understandable and what’s on her mind is less escapism and more damage control. Ethan’s behavior and self-awareness are at Danny levels of impairment.
Which brings me to my next subject of debate. If it turns out Dina could tell Amazi-girl was Amber before Danny could, does that make Danny worse at reading people than the self-described autistic?
It might actually help that Dina can’t read all the social cues and body language, because I suspect those all change unconsciously when Amber puts on the mask. Dina’s just seeing Amber’s actual face shape and hair and build and so on, and not being misled by all the extra information that everyone else gets.
Yeah, this is suggested by the way Amazi-Girl speaks with blue speech bubbles. Here we see her losing her facade briefly and her speech bubble is white, but shifts back to blue quickly.
Unless Pendagress is some kind of mind-altering music, I don’t see how that would help anybody. It’s not like people have any shortage of opportunities to talk, and yet still they fail to do so.
That comment about mommy and daddy fighting sorta reminds me of that one scene from Adventure Time where Finn and Jake were arguing and BMO is just sitting there…watching the whole thing. I think it’s the episode where this bear is emulating Finn.
It’s funny because he’s already back in there and she doesn’t know it yet. Also totally just outed him to Dina. She’s probably okay with it though, I’m sure there were gay dinosaurs. They wore feathers after all.
Nah, Dina is just wondering why Ethan would want to be in the closet. She tried it one time but kept hitting her head on the rod, so she went back to standing behind the door. And Ethan is way taller than she is.
Back in where? The closet? I’m pretty sure Amber knows he’s back in there, thus her comments… If you mean back in the game, I wouldn’t agree with you as all he did was flirt with a dude who turns out isn’t a dude, while still covering up with his fake relationship.
I’m fairly certain it’s a word people with Asperger’s use to refer to themselves. But the most exposure I’ve gotten to the disorder is Jodi Piccoult’s “House Rules,” and possibly this strip so I’m not good authority on whether or not aspie is offensive.
Black people refer to each other as N-words but we don’t want other races calling us that. But then again, there’s a bit more tension with that word’s history.
Agreed. So we have to use special gender-neutral pronouns to refer to Joyce’s trans sibling, but people who appear to have a spectrum disorder are fair game?
Gender neutral pronouns are VERY, VERY IMPORTANT. It doesn’t matter if you find them obnoxious, because there are people who do not identify as men or women, and the way English works, it is necessary for them to have pronouns that do not cause they distress.
Sure, it can be inconvenient adjusting to new words, which is why I prefer using and promote singular “they,” but respecting people is more important than mild inconveniences.
That’s actually really hard. Before I fully came out at work (uh… I also lived with all my co-workers, Shortpacked!-style), the one co-worker who knew that I used masculine pronouns tried this. It definitely sounds really awkward.
“Hey, have you seen Ethan? It’s just that tomorrow is Ethan’s birthday and I haven’t picked out a gift for Ethan yet. You know how Ethan is, always throwing a fit if you don’t get the right Transformer for Ethan. And it’s so hard to keep track of which figures Ethan has, what with Ethan always adding to his collection. Well, if you see Ethan, tell Ethan to call me or Ethan isn’t getting a birthday present.”
My longterm partner is trans and genderqueer, so maybe I can help explain. They have had top surgery and they are on testosterone, so they have a man’s chest, five o’clock shadow, a mustache, a broader face, coarser skin and a receding hairline. They also have a female body’s “center of gravity” and somewhat feminine hips and thighs. Because my partner doesn’t really have a gender “identity” (at least so far) and only desires a masculine expression and a masculine body, they don’t feel comfortable with “he.” However, looking at my partner and calling someone with beard, mustache, receding hairline a “she” also feels super weird. Most people go with “they” and they prefer “they”; however, I can’t bring myself to call my partner “they” because it sounds so emotionally distant–like how you’d refer to a stranger. Good thing my partner doesn’t care what pronoun you use, so long as it’s not “it” and as long as you’re not performatively inconsistent as in “HE, I MEAN SHE, I MEAN… HE/SHE, I MEAN HE, right?” which is generally some passive aggressive BS.
My take on it – regarding what pronoun I use to refer to you, you get to choose between male, female, and neutral. You do not, however, get to choose to have an “x” in it, since that crosses the line to dictating my vocabulary.
As someone who has never seen the appeal of unconventional pronouns (I’m familiar with ze/hir, though apparently that’s no longer advocated), I don’t know why anyone would choose them over singular “they,” which already exists in the language, but I’d like to believe I could accommodate for that if that’s what made a person most comfortable. So far I’ve only had requests for singular “they,” so that’s never been tested.
I’d need to have a heart to heart with a nuetral person, because I can at least understand trans people. I just don’t really get the mindset of wanting to be identified as nuetral pronouns.
You mean you can understand binary trans* people? Because androgynes, agender people and other non-binary people are trans* too.
Their reasons for preferring neutral pronouns will stem from how they see themselves, but it’s usually because they don’t identify within the gender binary, meaning they don’t see themselves as male or female genders, and therefore masculine and feminine pronouns do not apply.
I mean…you can explain it to me, but I guess I can’t understand why you’d not like gender itself. Like…is it because they don’t like being intimate with either gender? Or is it because they just don’t WANT to identify with men or women cuz humans are all jerks? I just need to talk to someone, i guess.
Gender isn’t about being male or female. It’s not necessarily that they don’t like gender, but that they don’t see themselves as male or female. For example, androgynous-identifying people see themselves as having aspects of both, so identifying one way or the other would not be accurate. There are people who identify as having no gender, though it’s been a while since I talked to someone like that and I don’t know how to explain it.
Gender identity has nothing to do with who you want to bang. People of all genders, man, woman, androgyne, bi-gender, whatever, can be attracted to men, women, be bisexual, be pansexual, be asexual, etc. No correlation 99% of the time.
Thinking all people are jerks makes someone a misanthrope. Misanthropes can also be any gender.
I think the main misunderstanding is you think gender is something that is a rational decision? It’s just which group of humans you feel you belong to. That group doesn’t have to be one of the big two.
I don’t think it’s like…a rational decision. I guess it’s because I’ve just always felt like I’m very happy being what I am. It’s one of the few things I’m at peace with.
I could at least see why someone who feels like a girl would want to be treated as such.
“…because there are people who do not identify as men or women…”
Then what do they identify as? Or is this a little like the assessment of Billy Pilgrim by the Trafalmadorians, who claim that there are seven sexes (five of which exist only in the fourth dimension)?
I’ve seen people identify as: androgyne, agender, neutrois, bigender, two-spirited, genderqueer and more. There’re a lot of non-binary identifications.
Me too. Call me an Aspie all you want (even though my official diagnosis badly translates to “PDD-NOS with features of Asperger’s”), I’ve never seen it as offensive.
What does tend to piss me off sometimes is people using “autistic” to say “lacking social intelligence” in much the same way people use “retarded”. Fuck ableist language.
I certainly don’t get bothered by being called an Aspie. Unless tone of voice makes it a clear insult, but tone of voice could make “you’re a wonderful person” into an insult.
Amber’s really having a rough time of it. Abusive father, relationship troubles, arguing with her ex / best friend… damn you, Willis! Give her a break!
Dina is the shortpacked equivallent of caboose when it comes to dealing with socializing with people…she means well but she doesn’t know what she’s doing in the slightest.
As an Aspie, I think saying Aspie is fine. It’s shorter than Aspergers Syndrome, which is really a long ass name of a syndrome to have and to pronounce. And yes, we are all different. Some of us can act totally normal for short intervals.
not as long as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, although granted that’s usually referred to as silicosis and was invented for the sake of having a longer medical word than that which had already held record as such at the time. yay google!
Uh, wow. Not to inject real-world logic into fantasy but if I was Ethan, I probably wouldn’t speak or be near her for a while. That was so uncalled for.
It doesn’t seem that awful to me, though she is saying it spitefully. He’s being massively hypocritical and she’s calling him out on it. You shouldn’t pressure someone into doing something you’re not doing.
Actually, given his behavior of late, it is REALLY called for. By him. He’s practically begging to be sat down and chewed out for this self-destructive little arrangement he has with Joyce.
Amber might not be in the right mood for it at the moment though.
At the end of the comic it will be revealed that Dina is actually perceptive and alert to the feelings of those around her, and that this has all been a years-long series of jokes played for dry ironic humor on everybody around her. Then she’ll say something witty, everybody will stand around and laugh, and then fade to black. Credits.
Disagree with that All Else, because….Ethan is a master at hiding what he is from himself and others, and it is beyond ironic that he is pushing Amber to be open about her problems and confront people with the way they see her.
She has had enough lecturing on a subject she doesn’t want to talk about from a person who obviously doesn’t follow his own advice…so being human, she hits him below the belt.
Being friends, I am guessing both will go crawl in a hole and take a break and be friends again….later.
That’s the thing about the self-deceiver. It takes full understanding of what you’re denying and how you’re denying it. It’s like avoiding contact with someone…it’s vital to know exactly where they are first and foremost.
Basically, in Spring we set our clocks forward one hour, and in Fall we turn them back by one hour. At least in the states that use Daylight Savings time. IIRC correctly, Arizona does not, and there may be a few other states that don’t.
Today we mourn the loss of Dina, who died tragically in a ripple effect caused by the Universe from having gone from being incredibly dramatically charged to being crazy hilarious in under 5 seconds.
Of course it’s happy. They were speaking in aggressive tones at one instance, and then in the next, they are silent, thus showing that the moment of intimidation has passed safely between them without need of physical confrontation.
No, I believe he said something along the lines of “Mostly wacky hijinks” for the rest of the year. The first word of interest being “mostly”. The second being that wacky hijinks in no ways implies that anybody has to be happy.
lol remember when we thought we’d get at least a couple of weeks of cute, harmless funny stuff after all the emotional trauma of family weekend? that was a nice dream^^
In this universe? The therapist would probably have enough of a dark and crazy backstory so to hammer in the theme of lunatics running the asylum. This is a crazy crazy place.
In Joe’s dorm room. The reason Danny spends so many nights outside isn’t because he’s waiting for Amazi-girl; it’s because of the omnipresence of the sock. And because the few times the sock’s not there, his old girlfriend keeps coming around trying to walk off with his clothes.
Amber and Ethan remind me that it is SO MUCH EASIER to solve other people’s problems rather than your own, even if the solution is essentially the same.
Her close friends are Ethan, who already knows and is trying to help, Mike, who already knows and may or may not be helping in his way, Dina, who already knows, but is unable to help, though she’s trying, and Danny, who cut off ties with her as herself because he’s an idiot who doesn’t realize that she’s Amazi-Girl.
She needs to follow Ethan’s advice and get some more friends among the other girls in her hall.
She also needs professional help as of several years prior to her current semester, but we all already knew that.
Once again… Danny has far more information available than anyone else in the comic, except maybe Ethan and Mike (and at least Ethan knows; I suspect Mike does too, just ’cause he’s Mike, but there’s no evidence either way).
Hardly anyone else realizes that Amber even exists, and the few who spend significant time with her (Ethan, Mike, Dina) have never met Amazi-Girl, that we’ve seen. And no one has had more than a brief chat with Amazi-Girl.
Except Danny, who has spent hours with Amber in both her guises, and not just brief encounters in stressful situations, but hanging out, talking, doing things with her, and even making close physical contact with both of her.
(And note that Sarah, who had only brief encounters with Amber in and out of costume, is having tinglings of recognition, though she’s not sure why.)
They both have valid points. Amber needs to come to terms with the abuse (not like, RIGHT NOW, but she should get some sort of help) and Ethan needs to fully be himself. He’s already discovered he’s not into girls, yet he strikes up a romance with one anyway, and not out of love and/or attraction! He strikes it up because he is afraid.
Loading ...
Yay Dina’s learning!
Next she’ll be digging up this fossil of a friendship for extended happy friend points!
Fossils require certain conditions to form. Are you certain this friendship is going to die in a suitable place? Generally speaking, someplace low on oxygen is a good start.
So you’re saying maybe a closet?
Suffocation in a basement closet seems pretty low in oxygen to me.
But would it get filled with rock layers?
if near some place with lots of mudslides/rockslides,yes!
Dina may eventually figure out that the best way to fossilize their immortal friendship is to trap them in a place with low oxygen and just wait; eventually they will be perfect.
Um…Dina….. Im gonna need to confiscate that shirt……
Pervert
HA, it says “Clever Girl” when it should say Clueless (^_^)
“Now they will bang!”
*holds fingers up*
“…aaaaaaand kiss.”
Your gravatar speaks volumes…
10/10
Woah Jen. Hell of a Gravi.
Hell of a Gravie.
You just now noticed it?
She’s had it for a while now.
It is awesome.
Since Marcie is involved, it deserves that rating. 😀
I concur
Where is your gravatar from? How have I never noticed it before?
Also it is awesome. Fully approve.
It’s not brand new — I remember it from a week ago or so. And I also give it two thumbs up.
It’s her Kickstarter reward. She chose pretty wisely.
Ugh, can’t decide if this one or the Ruth/Billie one is better. Probably this one ’cause we haven’t seen it in the strip (yet??).
I still like Galasso/Jason =3 but I wanted some variety…
Does not compute. Jason… And… Galasso…?
sorry, this
Wow! Do over! I’d donate for that. 😀
Dina, stop reminding me of me. It’s creepy.
Wait, you’re adorable?
Nailed it! (high fives Dina)
Well they’re just friends because they didn’t nail each other.
Dina, have you considered a career in being a detective?
She could be the next Batman.
The insight she has on emotions reminds me more of Sherlock myself.
That, and her…unusual approach to social interaction.
Dino Detective Dina kinda sounds like the name of a Magical Girl anime.
But those are lame, and this one would be awesome.
It would be the magical girl anime that would make me watch magical girl anime’s.
The overly long transformation sequence would be adorable. She’d spin around in a cascade of sparkles, and the words “Clever Girl” would appear on her shirt and the hat would materialize on her head.
Except she’s always wearing the hat, so another one appears on top of it. By episode 26 she has so many hats on she needs to duck to go through doors.
…I seem to be very silly tonight. Perhaps consuming all my leftover candy for trick-or-treaters before bed was a poor idea.
Little known fact: there already IS a magical girl show about Ruth:
http://youtu.be/_X6lAFlIjys
They made her blonde, but everything else is quite accurate.
what did i just watch
Magical Girl Ruth? Get me a new vault, stat. Ruth should be treated like an Amazon!
You have obviously never seen Nanoha of Madoka. Just because they’re magical girls, doesn’t mean they can’t make use of heavy artillery bombardment.
As Nanoha progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that it’s a Super Robot anime disguising itself as a Magical Girl anime.
Looks like my nightmares had come to past.
That or a kid’s mystery series.
Oh, Dina, never change.
Or heroically blow yourself up.
Especially don’t do that second thing (again) because you need to be in (many) more chapters.
Change is okay maybe.
If there was a song called “A closet built for two”, it could have been about these guys.
Amber, Ethan
What are we going to do.
You guys can’t stop having opposing points of view.
It won’t be a humble friendship.
A few choice words could end this.
because what you lack
calls the kettle black
in a closet built for two.
Absolutely perfect. Words can’t even describe.
Nailed it
Yaaay.
That is wonderful in ways I cannot even begin to describe.
Now KISS!!!!
Now press your lips together in a manner that suggests passion with a potential to lead up to fornication.
Dina totally uses packaging, Postage and a vehicle to cause this relationship to travel long distances.
*Sings “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” happily*
Aspie “squee” for Dina.
Be careful what you say Amber, that’s what David Carradine’s best friend told him.
I thought he told him to take an expositional role in a made-for-TV pilgrim-themed horror film.
Fair points on both sides. But just who is Dina talking to in this strip?
Hey! I could use some help propping up the 4th wall over here!
But if the fourth wall is gone, what’s to stop Dina from coming into the real world? 😀
*Realizes what most of the internet would do with a real life Dina*
LEMME HELP YOU PROP THAT WALL UP
As if her being fictional would stop them from doing things.
They can do things *with* a fictional Dina, but not *to* her. (Or something like that…)
Pretty much. You can draw “graphic fan art” of Dina all you want at the moment, but you can’t actually DO anything graphic to her.
that’s actually the dinosaur hat talking to her. She would never understand anything without its guidance.
Dina is actually a non-sentient puppet being that is under complete control of the hat. She lacks basic human social abilities because she has HAT social abilities!
This hat sorts everything moving into People or Dinosaurs.
Or, alternatively, drudges dinosaurs out of history to eat people.
She isn’t. That speech bubble is totally coming from her hat.
It tells her to do things sometimes. Dark things.
oh my god now that you’ve pointed it out it totally does look like the hat is the one talking!!! 😀
Now I want to go back through the archive and read every post where the tail points to the hat (as opposed to some other part of Dina) as being the hat talking. I find myself suspecting that it would result in coherent characterization and many things making disturbing sense.
Also the hat talks in a deep gravelly voice.
I think I have to side with Amber. I don’t see why she should air out her personal history with anyone but close friends. I didn’t know any of that stuff about my floormates (or really anyone I met) in first year.
Indeed. Ethan is in a position where he has a relationship based on lies and/or lying to himself. It’s not like Amber is denying or lying to anyone by keeping this in the dark or leading them on.
She has Deadpool’s special 4th wall peering power, if Willis ever included little yellow plot boxes in his comic, Dina could totally interact with them.
That might be, and even more like Deadpool she may have trouble knowing if she is using the yellow box (for internal monologues) or the speech bubbles, unless she asks someone nearby if they heard something she thought she said in her head.
CLEVER GIRL
Thought that last panel was thought bubble at first.
Dina is too awesome for thought bubbles!
But not too awesome to not use lists. I don’t think anyone’s that cool. Not even the Fonze.
Nay! Dear Dina…Nay!
When a comic artist as realistic as Willis draws two people with rage smoke clouds above their heads, you know it’s serious.
Also: which seems more likely, Ethan and Amber learning to make healthy decisions, or Dina learning basic social graces?
I’m pretty sure the day the characters start making healthy decisions is the day this comic ends. Or at least needs to change its title.
HealthiER life decisions, then!
Out of the three of them, Dina’s the one that’s making the most progress.
Ethan is in “a relationship based upon a mutual revulsion of fuckin'” and Amber is in a relationship with Danny purely because he’s the exact opposite of her father.
Dina meanwhile is learning about sarcasm and the strange patterns Known as Facial Expressions.
Yes, but she thinks that Ethan and Amber are friends again right now.
Nobody’s perfect.
People are tricky bastards to read you know.
There’s often smoke rising above the heads of happy people. Though sometimes there are brownies instead.
Those would be HASH brownies. 😛
😀
Yeah, but that’s just two freinds being angry, not two people toggling between friend/non-freind.
Learning. Not learned.
…did i just get quoted?
Sweet. I had no idea that comment had even been posted properly, let alone been read or remembered by anyone.
…
Great, now I’m all paranoid that that comment started a flame war i just never saw.
I feel like Amber’s problems are more that she’s channeled her violent urges into a vigilante identity that she tries to keep totally divided and separate from her “real” one than that she’s dating Danny.
Of course, this is because I am a filthy heretic who doesn’t recognize Danny as Danus Iscariot, the Ur-Traitor whose every word blasphemes and every act is sacrelige.
What Willis had done with Amber is similar to the arc of dissociative identity disorders. It’s always a response to a long term abusive situation that begins in childhood. It’s controversial whether such individuals are in fact more than one person, it also doesn’t matter. The biggest difference is that in true sufferers the separate personalities don’t stand alone as coherently as Amber’s do (or as popularized accounts would have you believe). The attempt to cope by separating into different people is a strategy of desperation that only works relative to the terrible circumstances it’s trying to deal with. Good integration is a key element in mental health. De-integrating yourself is a express ticket to becoming a hot mess.
I’ve wondered if Willis used knowledge about the disorder to construct this character.
You know, it’s funny. Dina is the only Aspie person in that room, and yet she consistently acts the least Aspie of anyone in that room.
that’s if you really loosely defined the term, but you catch my drift
Are we sure she actually has Asperger’s? Because having worked with someone who did, she seems far too coherent. I just suspect she was never properly socialised, and just hasn’t learned the proper social cues.
That’s why I said she has Cheeseburgers, it’s a bit like Aspergers but makes for tastier charactisation.
Willis has said that Dina has not been diagnosed with anything.
Yes, but Aspies are all different!
How on earth could anybody justify armchair-diagnosing Dina as one, then, if you can’t do it based on declaring her similar to existing Aspies?
It has been said, Rat, and wisely, that if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.
A number of diagnosed Aspie’s (including me) think she is. Though I haven’t heard anyone identifying as a professional psychologist say that *shrug*
Asperger’s or not, alls I know is she’s been so much more rational about her decision making than anyone else in the cast. Amber’s situation is understandable and what’s on her mind is less escapism and more damage control. Ethan’s behavior and self-awareness are at Danny levels of impairment.
Which brings me to my next subject of debate. If it turns out Dina could tell Amazi-girl was Amber before Danny could, does that make Danny worse at reading people than the self-described autistic?
It might actually help that Dina can’t read all the social cues and body language, because I suspect those all change unconsciously when Amber puts on the mask. Dina’s just seeing Amber’s actual face shape and hair and build and so on, and not being misled by all the extra information that everyone else gets.
Yeah, this is suggested by the way Amazi-Girl speaks with blue speech bubbles. Here we see her losing her facade briefly and her speech bubble is white, but shifts back to blue quickly.
Coherent? I *am* a diagnosed aspie and I am way more coherent than Dina.
I like that Dina is straight-up just commenting to herself as this happens.
Kind of reminds me of Brick, from The Middle in this instance.
Technically yes. They’re just angry friends right now.
Angry friends are the best friends.
Yes, just watch/read any form of fiction. The angrier the friends, the friendlier they are.
Billie is the friendliest of all.
Dina’s so cute.
Anyway, both Ethan and Amber need some help. Neither of them are making healthy decisions.
I knew what will fix their problems:
1. Comfy surface
2. Teddy Pentagrass CD
3. 2 hours alone in a room
4. A video camera
This way they can talk to each other about their problems in a quiet and pleasing environment and have no loud distractions and have video evidence 🙂
*Pendagrass. But you are otherwise absolutely correct. This would fix 99% of friendships on the planet. (Or at least in the US.)
*Pendergrass
Unless Pendagress is some kind of mind-altering music, I don’t see how that would help anybody. It’s not like people have any shortage of opportunities to talk, and yet still they fail to do so.
Mind altering music? You decide:
http://youtu.be/DSrEdpW3PoM?t=46s
This is probably what Joe’s Dad used on Amber’s mom.
used ON or used WITH?
“used on” has…kinda creepy connotations.
Joe’s dad is already pretty creepy as is.
Mood-altering, at the very least. And I also misspelled it. It’s P e n d e r g r a s s, which spells sexy.
C’mon, can’t she see the scribbles above both of their heads?
I think it’s been established that she can’t.
Sheesh, it’s as if she can’t see through the 4th wall when we all have evidence that she can!
I love you Dina.
I feel like mommy and daddy are fighting. It’s making me uncomfortable.Yessss….now let the hate flow through you!
That comment about mommy and daddy fighting sorta reminds me of that one scene from Adventure Time where Finn and Jake were arguing and BMO is just sitting there…watching the whole thing. I think it’s the episode where this bear is emulating Finn.
It’s funny because he’s already back in there and she doesn’t know it yet. Also totally just outed him to Dina. She’s probably okay with it though, I’m sure there were gay dinosaurs. They wore feathers after all.
The Cretaceous Period was one big mardi gras.
Nah, Dina is just wondering why Ethan would want to be in the closet. She tried it one time but kept hitting her head on the rod, so she went back to standing behind the door. And Ethan is way taller than she is.
Dina knows closets are not for people (or skeletons).
Closets are for clothes.
Fabulous, fabulous clothes.
Skeletons go in museums! RARR!
I don’t think Dina understands gay. I don’t think Dina understands straight.
Dina may be closer to Galasso in terms of understanding sex in general than we’d like to think.
Dina been related to Galasso is a scary thought indeed.
I like to think that she’s secretly a huge pervert that makes faz look like a Buddhist monk.
Back in where? The closet? I’m pretty sure Amber knows he’s back in there, thus her comments… If you mean back in the game, I wouldn’t agree with you as all he did was flirt with a dude who turns out isn’t a dude, while still covering up with his fake relationship.
She doesn’t know he’s still with Joyce. She confronted him and assumed he’d do the right thing instead of being an idiot.
He did do the right thing. And then Joyce sabotaged it. And he let her, because he’s an idiot.
Also I feel perturbed by how much I’m seeing people use the word Aspie. I dunno IF it’s offensive but it sounds like it is.
I’m fairly certain it’s a word people with Asperger’s use to refer to themselves. But the most exposure I’ve gotten to the disorder is Jodi Piccoult’s “House Rules,” and possibly this strip so I’m not good authority on whether or not aspie is offensive.
Black people refer to each other as N-words but we don’t want other races calling us that. But then again, there’s a bit more tension with that word’s history.
Very true. You raise a good point.
Agreed. So we have to use special gender-neutral pronouns to refer to Joyce’s trans sibling, but people who appear to have a spectrum disorder are fair game?
No you don’t. You use normal female pronouns.
I personally find Gender nuetral pronouns obnoxious.
Gender neutral pronouns are VERY, VERY IMPORTANT. It doesn’t matter if you find them obnoxious, because there are people who do not identify as men or women, and the way English works, it is necessary for them to have pronouns that do not cause they distress.
Sure, it can be inconvenient adjusting to new words, which is why I prefer using and promote singular “they,” but respecting people is more important than mild inconveniences.
*cause them
If I’m ever in such a situation, I’ll just learn their name and always refer to them in the 3rd person.
That’s actually really hard. Before I fully came out at work (uh… I also lived with all my co-workers, Shortpacked!-style), the one co-worker who knew that I used masculine pronouns tried this. It definitely sounds really awkward.
“Hey, have you seen Ethan? It’s just that tomorrow is Ethan’s birthday and I haven’t picked out a gift for Ethan yet. You know how Ethan is, always throwing a fit if you don’t get the right Transformer for Ethan. And it’s so hard to keep track of which figures Ethan has, what with Ethan always adding to his collection. Well, if you see Ethan, tell Ethan to call me or Ethan isn’t getting a birthday present.”
I mean, in that case I would just stick to short sentences. Think out the best way to phrase, which is something I have to do already with people.
I do love my complex sentences…
My longterm partner is trans and genderqueer, so maybe I can help explain. They have had top surgery and they are on testosterone, so they have a man’s chest, five o’clock shadow, a mustache, a broader face, coarser skin and a receding hairline. They also have a female body’s “center of gravity” and somewhat feminine hips and thighs. Because my partner doesn’t really have a gender “identity” (at least so far) and only desires a masculine expression and a masculine body, they don’t feel comfortable with “he.” However, looking at my partner and calling someone with beard, mustache, receding hairline a “she” also feels super weird. Most people go with “they” and they prefer “they”; however, I can’t bring myself to call my partner “they” because it sounds so emotionally distant–like how you’d refer to a stranger. Good thing my partner doesn’t care what pronoun you use, so long as it’s not “it” and as long as you’re not performatively inconsistent as in “HE, I MEAN SHE, I MEAN… HE/SHE, I MEAN HE, right?” which is generally some passive aggressive BS.
I guess I can see that. I would probably just assume to call them a “he” though.
My take on it – regarding what pronoun I use to refer to you, you get to choose between male, female, and neutral. You do not, however, get to choose to have an “x” in it, since that crosses the line to dictating my vocabulary.
As long as “neutral” isn’t “it.”
As someone who has never seen the appeal of unconventional pronouns (I’m familiar with ze/hir, though apparently that’s no longer advocated), I don’t know why anyone would choose them over singular “they,” which already exists in the language, but I’d like to believe I could accommodate for that if that’s what made a person most comfortable. So far I’ve only had requests for singular “they,” so that’s never been tested.
I’d need to have a heart to heart with a nuetral person, because I can at least understand trans people. I just don’t really get the mindset of wanting to be identified as nuetral pronouns.
You mean you can understand binary trans* people? Because androgynes, agender people and other non-binary people are trans* too.
Their reasons for preferring neutral pronouns will stem from how they see themselves, but it’s usually because they don’t identify within the gender binary, meaning they don’t see themselves as male or female genders, and therefore masculine and feminine pronouns do not apply.
I mean…you can explain it to me, but I guess I can’t understand why you’d not like gender itself. Like…is it because they don’t like being intimate with either gender? Or is it because they just don’t WANT to identify with men or women cuz humans are all jerks? I just need to talk to someone, i guess.
Gender isn’t about being male or female. It’s not necessarily that they don’t like gender, but that they don’t see themselves as male or female. For example, androgynous-identifying people see themselves as having aspects of both, so identifying one way or the other would not be accurate. There are people who identify as having no gender, though it’s been a while since I talked to someone like that and I don’t know how to explain it.
Gender identity has nothing to do with who you want to bang. People of all genders, man, woman, androgyne, bi-gender, whatever, can be attracted to men, women, be bisexual, be pansexual, be asexual, etc. No correlation 99% of the time.
Thinking all people are jerks makes someone a misanthrope. Misanthropes can also be any gender.
I think the main misunderstanding is you think gender is something that is a rational decision? It’s just which group of humans you feel you belong to. That group doesn’t have to be one of the big two.
I don’t think it’s like…a rational decision. I guess it’s because I’ve just always felt like I’m very happy being what I am. It’s one of the few things I’m at peace with.
I could at least see why someone who feels like a girl would want to be treated as such.
> Gender identity ….
I have read it put this way:
Gender is what’s between your ears.
Sex is what’s between your legs.
Sexuality is who’s between your legs.
(and then each of the three goes to be super complicated by itself)
“…because there are people who do not identify as men or women…”
Then what do they identify as? Or is this a little like the assessment of Billy Pilgrim by the Trafalmadorians, who claim that there are seven sexes (five of which exist only in the fourth dimension)?
I’ve seen people identify as: androgyne, agender, neutrois, bigender, two-spirited, genderqueer and more. There’re a lot of non-binary identifications.
Speaking as an Aspie, I’m fine with it. It’s so much shorter than “person with Asperger’s Syndrome”, after all.
Me too. Call me an Aspie all you want (even though my official diagnosis badly translates to “PDD-NOS with features of Asperger’s”), I’ve never seen it as offensive.
What does tend to piss me off sometimes is people using “autistic” to say “lacking social intelligence” in much the same way people use “retarded”. Fuck ableist language.
I certainly don’t get bothered by being called an Aspie. Unless tone of voice makes it a clear insult, but tone of voice could make “you’re a wonderful person” into an insult.
The preferred term around these parts is “Serpent-American”.
Dina makes everything better.
I was hoping that would come up…
I was hoping that Ethan would fall quiet due to a sudden bout if introspection, rather than anger, but still…
Amber’s really having a rough time of it. Abusive father, relationship troubles, arguing with her ex / best friend… damn you, Willis! Give her a break!
In the next comic Amber gets a kit-kat bar, her favorate candy.
Her favorite candy is Nerds.
Because she’s a nerd.
I need sleep.
Amber, you’ve been cranky all day…
Here, have a Snickers™
… better?
Give her a Kit-Kat.
There are no breaks. There is only suffering and drama at the hands of their great and terrible author.
Surely it’s not that bad. I mean, we’re talking about Willis, not Joss Whedon.
Willis posted this on his Tumblr.
The only way he could have make it clearer would have been switching his own face instead of Martin.
…have you read Mr. Willis’ other work?
On top of that, when she just wanted to be alone, she had to start teaching Dina about reading emotions and expressing sympathy.
*looks at buffer*
nnnope?
OW Dina, stop making me cringe >_<
Dina’s not even in a panel, she’s now joined us in the commentary.
Dina has transcended to a realm beyond the strip. She has become one with us.
We are the commentary. Prepare to be incorporated.
Resistance is futile. Your internet presence will adapt to comment with us. Your desires are irrelevant.
Wow…what a way to make me want to facepalm and prevent me from doing so with cuteness…
Dina is the shortpacked equivallent of caboose when it comes to dealing with socializing with people…she means well but she doesn’t know what she’s doing in the slightest.
caboose is my favorite shortpacked
it just hit me what i wrote here…i meant dumbing of age….god dammit brain! where were you when i typed this out?
As an Aspie, I think saying Aspie is fine. It’s shorter than Aspergers Syndrome, which is really a long ass name of a syndrome to have and to pronounce. And yes, we are all different. Some of us can act totally normal for short intervals.
I love Dina.
not as long as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, although granted that’s usually referred to as silicosis and was invented for the sake of having a longer medical word than that which had already held record as such at the time. yay google!
Keep working on it Dina. At least you noted that they were yelling at each other. That’s a start.
Uh, wow. Not to inject real-world logic into fantasy but if I was Ethan, I probably wouldn’t speak or be near her for a while. That was so uncalled for.
She’s speaking from a place of anger, and it is a sore topic for Ethan, but she’s got a point.
The fact that she has a point doesn’t make it any less awful to say.
It doesn’t seem that awful to me, though she is saying it spitefully. He’s being massively hypocritical and she’s calling him out on it. You shouldn’t pressure someone into doing something you’re not doing.
If points weren’t pointy, they wouldn’t hurt, but they would also no longer be points.
Actually, given his behavior of late, it is REALLY called for. By him. He’s practically begging to be sat down and chewed out for this self-destructive little arrangement he has with Joyce.
Amber might not be in the right mood for it at the moment though.
This really illustrates just how bad Dina is at reading people.
At the end of the comic it will be revealed that Dina is actually perceptive and alert to the feelings of those around her, and that this has all been a years-long series of jokes played for dry ironic humor on everybody around her. Then she’ll say something witty, everybody will stand around and laugh, and then fade to black. Credits.
So DoA is Third Impact?
But without the orange goo.
Then Danny will say, “I think we’ve all learned a lesson from this. I know-”
And he won’t get any farther because Ruth will hit him with a truck.
Disagree with that All Else, because….Ethan is a master at hiding what he is from himself and others, and it is beyond ironic that he is pushing Amber to be open about her problems and confront people with the way they see her.
She has had enough lecturing on a subject she doesn’t want to talk about from a person who obviously doesn’t follow his own advice…so being human, she hits him below the belt.
Being friends, I am guessing both will go crawl in a hole and take a break and be friends again….later.
If you hit the “reply” button next to comments your comment will show up under theirs. Easier to follow that way.
That’s the thing about the self-deceiver. It takes full understanding of what you’re denying and how you’re denying it. It’s like avoiding contact with someone…it’s vital to know exactly where they are first and foremost.
Wait, the time stamps said 12:00 a.m which usually, where I’m from would 12:00 p.m but today, it’s 1:00 p.m?
Daylight’s saving?
Right..I forgot about that. BTW, how does it work?
“Spring Forward. Fall Back”
Basically, in Spring we set our clocks forward one hour, and in Fall we turn them back by one hour. At least in the states that use Daylight Savings time. IIRC correctly, Arizona does not, and there may be a few other states that don’t.
And not all parts of the worls do it on the same day(s).
Well to save Daylight savings, you must travel through 8 worlds and defeat the evil King.
Thank you, Yotomoe!
But your correct time is in another castle!
Damn it Willis, I don’t want to squee!
Right, opening up, Ethan? You’re the one to talk.
It is so great to see Dina smile.
Even if it is for incorrect reasons.
Dina is like Chiyo, in some respect.
and like Osaka in others.
now kiss
bawhahahahhaha SHE TOLD YOU!
Hate to say it, Ethan, but you walked right the fuck into that one.
Today we mourn the loss of Dina, who died tragically in a ripple effect caused by the Universe from having gone from being incredibly dramatically charged to being crazy hilarious in under 5 seconds.
Noooo…. Damn you Willis I thought you said this would be a happy story arc
Ethan is getting totally burned. What could be happier?
Of course it’s happy. They were speaking in aggressive tones at one instance, and then in the next, they are silent, thus showing that the moment of intimidation has passed safely between them without need of physical confrontation.
Observe: Dina’s joy corroborates my findings.
Well, Willis is happy.
No, I believe he said something along the lines of “Mostly wacky hijinks” for the rest of the year. The first word of interest being “mostly”. The second being that wacky hijinks in no ways implies that anybody has to be happy.
Clever girl
lol remember when we thought we’d get at least a couple of weeks of cute, harmless funny stuff after all the emotional trauma of family weekend? that was a nice dream^^
Must still be dreaming because I’m still laughing.
Would getting at least one or a few of these train wrecks into therapy kill the comic?
In this universe? The therapist would probably have enough of a dark and crazy backstory so to hammer in the theme of lunatics running the asylum. This is a crazy crazy place.
But yes.
It’s funny because universities usually have counsellors available to students for free or for cheap. At mine you had 10 free sessions per year.
That’s my experience too. I could see having some/all of these characters as clients driving a graduate student therapist into engineering.
Ethan and Amber – two people insisting on being alone and unknown by the people nearest them. And Dina, who wants the opposite. Well played.
Let the hate-fucking begin!!!
It’s always hate-fucking around here. Where’s the love-fucking?
In Joe’s dorm room. The reason Danny spends so many nights outside isn’t because he’s waiting for Amazi-girl; it’s because of the omnipresence of the sock. And because the few times the sock’s not there, his old girlfriend keeps coming around trying to walk off with his clothes.
You can’t hate fuck if you can’t get a boner, genius.
Yes. You. Can.
Dina’s shirt has never been so perfectly appropriate, and likely will never be so again.
Oh, Dina, hunny, no, no… don’t think that out loud…
Amber and Ethan remind me that it is SO MUCH EASIER to solve other people’s problems rather than your own, even if the solution is essentially the same.
“I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.” – Oscar Wilde
Point for Amber. I do, however, hope she has some close friends she can open up to.
Her close friends are Ethan, who already knows and is trying to help, Mike, who already knows and may or may not be helping in his way, Dina, who already knows, but is unable to help, though she’s trying, and Danny, who cut off ties with her as herself because he’s an idiot who doesn’t realize that she’s Amazi-Girl.
She needs to follow Ethan’s advice and get some more friends among the other girls in her hall.
She also needs professional help as of several years prior to her current semester, but we all already knew that.
To be fair, nobody realizes that Amber is Amazi-Girl. Which still amuses me considering that this was obvious to everyone but Robin in Shortpacked.
Ethan knows who Amazi-Girl is.
That’s not the same as realizing it. Technically.
Ethan realizes Amber is Amazi-Girl.
Once again… Danny has far more information available than anyone else in the comic, except maybe Ethan and Mike (and at least Ethan knows; I suspect Mike does too, just ’cause he’s Mike, but there’s no evidence either way).
Hardly anyone else realizes that Amber even exists, and the few who spend significant time with her (Ethan, Mike, Dina) have never met Amazi-Girl, that we’ve seen. And no one has had more than a brief chat with Amazi-Girl.
Except Danny, who has spent hours with Amber in both her guises, and not just brief encounters in stressful situations, but hanging out, talking, doing things with her, and even making close physical contact with both of her.
(And note that Sarah, who had only brief encounters with Amber in and out of costume, is having tinglings of recognition, though she’s not sure why.)
Futurama reference?
They both have valid points. Amber needs to come to terms with the abuse (not like, RIGHT NOW, but she should get some sort of help) and Ethan needs to fully be himself. He’s already discovered he’s not into girls, yet he strikes up a romance with one anyway, and not out of love and/or attraction! He strikes it up because he is afraid.
Dina’s line and expression is perfect in this strip. I laughed like no-one was sleeping at 3am. Thank you, Willis!
Dina is a human robot who did not get the right data.
Support nothin’! I’d shake her hand and wish I could sock my abusive mom the way she did her dad!
I like to believe she’s said that loud enough for them to hear.
Amber doesn’t hold any punches. Ethan you lost this round.
Dina: By the way I’m pregnant with Faz’s kid.
Dina’s ironic shirt is the best.
eh, she’s trying, at this point thats all we can ask of Dina.
I think there’s an Agents of SHIELD joke in here somewhere…