I’ve been here for years. I just don’t post much. Usually because there’s 200+ comments already when I get to read it and I don’t know if there’s anything relevant I could add.
I think it depends on what the contents of the bag is made from, You could always test this by using a anonymous mailing service to send a bag of (gummy) phalluses to someone deserving who would eat them and observe the recipient for the physical signs of cannibalism, and there actually are health risks involved (particularly from eating the brains of others, and for such an individual that would be the phallus)….
Purely FWIW, I imagine the first kiss between Becky and Dina (that isn’t simply Dina trying to prove a point) will be shy, innocent and heartwarming. Mostly because the two of them will both be too nervous to risk anything more.
Will Dina be nervous, or will she be being careful with her observations? She is an aspiring paleontologist after all. Field work is a slow, exacting process.
Has she really? I don’t know the rules at this particular campus, but she’s not even been on campus more than two or three days which is not atypical for visiting a friend (most colleges and universities have no issues with that on a short term even in on campus housing).
Aside from that, as long as she’s at least 18 (not all freshmen are and I don’t remember it being mentioned in comic), he has no legal leg to stand on if he tries to force her to go anywhere and she refuses [i]and[/i] he was likely violating campus rules if he didn’t get prior permission to post those missing posters in a public place on campus (that alone can be enough to get you thrown off some campuses).
The problem with the commandments is that the traditional interpretation for honoring your parents is to basically be their slave, doing everything they tell you to do unless it violates one of Gods laws.
Yeah, well, the problem with some of those smart Christians is that there are the Smart Christians Who Actually Care and then there are the Christians Who Think They’re Smart and Think They Care. Unfortunately, my parents fall into the latter category. They’re the “either straight or gay” folks who refuse to believe asexuality (especially when paired with romantic orientations other than aromanticism) and bisexuality are real things. It sucks to keep it from them that I’m asexual, and that my romantic orientation isn’t aromantic, but I certainly wouldn’t trade my situation for Becky’s. I hope to be, in my adulthood, the kind of Christian who actually cares.
Christians are not the only ones who fall into that category of thought. falsely thinking they understand things they know (next to) nothing about.
This also happens commonly with several high skill professions (like doctors and engineers) because the skill and knowledge required for achieve success in those careers leads some of them (and other people unfortunately) to believe that they are smart on all things which leads to them forming opinions on things that they do not have the background to properly understand, and using their education to back up that opinion. This does not happen in every case, but society looks up to these peopel enough that it happens way to often.
True. In a much, much, much better world, Dina and Becky could spend this time exploring their relationship in in peace with much giggling and hand holding and paleontology or whatever rocks their kaboodels, instead of hiding from toedads and fearing for Becky being taken away.
I’m just glad she made it out of the house in the first place. A lot of LGBTAQ youth and young adults don’t, and speaking firsthand I can tell you it’s a terrible experience. 🙁
Its more than just lgbt kids. Sometimes parents are obsessive controlling nasties for no particular reason at all. Gotta get out ans fly free even if the winds of parents are harsh and heavy.
Considering that her speech is usually a mixture of palaeontology-speak and wide-eyed naivete (both being why we love her)…yeah, by comparison, “dickbag” is a swear.
Dina said that in regards to Amber’s Dad after that fateful encounter. She probably picked up dickbag from Amber since it seems like the kind of insult she’d use.
Not directly related to this strip, but does anyone know if Becky’s mom is really dead? Her dad said so a few strips ago, but when they were first moving in, Joyce said that Becky’s parents, plural, made her go to Anderson (nogreaterjoy.org/wordpress/f/201102_March-April.pdf). Has Becky made any reference to this one way or another?
According to Ross, Becky’s mom died a year ago. It’s very likely that Ross and his wife determined that Becky would be going to Anderson long before any sort of application process starts. So the use of parents plural isn’t that strange, as she was probably part of that decision.
It’s also possible that since she appears to have only died a year ago, the habit of referring to Becky’s parents in the plural hasn’t been broken yet.
Aww, my compersion centers are going wild for Becky and Dina falling more in love. That smile on Becky in Panel 6 and that wide-eyed admiration in Panel 4 is just utterly adorable. They’re definitely building something greater than just scientific exploration and kissing kapoodles.
Also, I want to give Dina all the hugs for Panel 5 and how she believes she needs to carry the weight of Amber’s dickbag of a dad. She really took it hard not being assertive enough to dissuade an abusive asshole.
And heh on Becky learning the most important lesson from Anderson. Doors should always be closed when with one’s girlfriend.
Yeah, I’m happy things are going better with Becky and that the thing with Dina is going so well. I remember a bit ago when people were getting annoyed with Becky, and it’s nice to see that whatever questionable things she did were because she wasnt at her best, and that better circumstances bring out an even cooler character.
I feel for Willis sometimes, cause it seems like if a characters too much of a dick they’re “unlikable” and if they’re not enough of a dick they’re “not realistic.” It seems there’s a sweet spot for dick, and it must be difficult to find all the time without making things boring.
Suddenly, I can see Dina in her raptor hoodie, kneeling in a circle of candles and holding her Katana point down between her knees whilst growling: “I must reclaim my honour!“
if you look at dina’s face carefully, in a few of these panels she is clearly projecting hypnotic beams from her eyes that scream ‘trick me into believing that an egg has been fertilized’
Not really, there would still be two sets of X chromosomes per person, just that there would be a 50% chance of any one X from either parent “making the team” so to speak. Just like when one of the parents has a Y chromosome. There have been good results with mice in creating embryos with two female parents, I’m not aware of any human experiments yet. But now that SCOTUS legalized same-sex marriage I don’t see anything preventing lesbians from being the biological parents without the use of a male.
Yeah. That’s not how that works. There would still be 50% dimorphism.
What you two are thinking about is direct genetic cloning.
98.5% of women prefer hot schnitzengruben with juice, most of the time.
Everyone can be treated with respect, as equals, and genetic diversity will be just fine…
Heh! A ‘dickbag’. A Jurassic dickbag? If there ain’t some smokin’ hot smoochin’ goin’ on between these two when things settle down, I’m gonna be one pissed off trooper.
And suddenly Dinah is a character taking risks to further a moral ethical vision of the world around her, rather than a blank slate reacting or standing apart from the world.
Hooray.
Okay, random art note :
I don’t usually have a problem with seeing the eyes through hair (a la panels 1 and 3). But panel 4 looks … weird to me. Just, angle + hair + eye feel like they come together funny-like.
“Chill out. …Dickbag.”
“That’s great! See, you’re gettin’ it! And if you really wanna shine someone on, you just tell ’em ‘Hasta la huego, Alfredo.'”
“…Are you certain these catchphrases are accurate?”
“Sure they are! I saw that movie like once five years ago. At night. On an old TV. With the volume way down so nobody could hear. But I totally remember it like it was yesterday, I swear!”
“Well then. ‘No probalo.'”
Interesting that Dina believed that her error with Blaine left her with an obligation to potentially risk her own safety to prevent it from ever happening again. That and Ross just rubbed her up the wrong way, of course!
Now, is this the first time that Dina has used an obscenity to describe someone?
It’s interesting that, like Joyce, Becky uses alternatives to cuss words but isn’t so dramatically and comedically overt about it. It reminds us that the two young ladies come from basically the same cultural background.
Through trial and error, I’ve found that relating events out of order is sometimes best, if you want to avoid unnecessary freakouts. Tell them that everything is okay first, then explain why they might have assumed otherwise.
Ok, I just noticed this just now, and I want you to know that this is a legitimate question, and not an insult of Willis’s art.
Is Dina supposed to be cross-eyed? I just noticed that she’s the only character (of the ones that have scleras), whose pupils frequently don’t look aligned.
I can’t enough appreciate the fact that Dina is helping Becky because she genuinely likes her. Becky – who has to hide and lie all the time just to stay safe – was nothing but herself with Dina, and that’s the exact reason why her butthole dad is now put on a bus and this most adorable dinosaur chick is doing everything she can to help her.
Dina seems like she is so out of place with the world. Finally she has found someone who seems to accept her as she is. At the same time, becky seems to be finding the same person in Dina.
I hereby petition for the adoption of D. saruyamensis triceradina for the specimen formerly known only as D. saruyamensis, as it is much more specific to this particular example and may in fact be a definite evolutionary step from the primary species.
I don’t know why, but for some reason I really want Ross “Dickbag” MacIntyre to be in the right on this. Maybe he’s still a dickbag- he certainly carries himself in a manner deserving of comparisons to a satchel filled with dismembered penises- but at the same time, he never outright says he’s looking for Becky because of her recent self-discovery.
The only evidence we have that he’s a faith-conversion bigot is because of Becky, and she has a history of jumping to conclusions that fit her emotional desires (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/hindsight/). It’s not impossible that her father really is looking for her with good, healthy intentions.
Maybe I’m a sucker for a good character misdirect. Maybe I’m just a contrarian. But it would be an interesting story decision.
Did you completely ignore everything the father actually said? “Void was occupied by the evil one, who filled her mind with vile desires” Nothing good or healthy there- “I will not lose faith that she can be corrected“. Yeah, yep sounds perfectly reasonable..*cough*. Then “I know what she needs, and I will rehabilitate her though any means necessary”- yep, totally a “pray away the gay camp” *shudder.
So yeah- I would say he sort of proved himself to be the bad guy through his words in the last comics alone. If he HAD said something reasonable and not batshit crazy perhaps dina wouldn’t have been so tough. But frankly the way I see it she had no other chance.
And unless you think Becky was outright lying, we know he took her out of school after she was caught with Kaitlin, and said he’d find a way to “discipline” and “fix” her. There is no positive interpretation here.
Why is there so many people in the “Becky is lying about her dad’s reaction to her homosexuality?” (Okay it’s not a lot of people, but I’ve seen a post or two each day since Ross showed up). Not everything needs to have some massive twist, where we find out that everything we knew was wrong. Sometimes a dickbag is a dickbag. We know that Ross is a fan of the idea of trying to “fix the gays.” He has the same religious beliefs as Joyce’s family, and we know Joyce also thought homosexuality was something that had to be fixed. And we know his beliefs haven’t changed like Joyce just based on what he said a couple strips ago. (And this is all consistent with Becky’s story three chapters ago. It’s like she telling the truth or something!)
It’s because Becky has been occasionally annoying since she became a main character and not a perfect, quiet, contrite gay victim, so obviously there must be a valid reason as to why she deserves to have toedad heap terrible shit onto her.
I mean the OP says our only evidence that Ross supports conversion therapy is Becky. But even if we assume the worst of Becky at all times, and that there is a possibility that she’s mistaken or lying, we still have the context of Joyce’s religious views and that she was in a homeschool group with Becky. And we have Ross’s own words. Like lots of stuff about changing Becky, “correcting” her and “rehabilitating” her. I’m at a complete loss on how you infer that could mean anything other than trying to make Becky straight.
TL:DR version: Even if you hate Becky, you have to admit that Ross is a complete dickbag, and that he has wronged Becky here.
You’re exaggerating, people always act like this when an abuser who isn’t an outright and obvious monster shows up. It’s true to life as well, which is why so many of them get away with it. Nobody wants to believe a parent would be that harmful to their child so they look for reasons for it not to be true.
That Becky tends to jump to conclusions and overreact is simply minor evidence they cling to in their desperate hope that it’s all okay and they don’t have to deal with it.
The same thing happened back during the attempted rape story, ‘Oh, maybe he’s not that bad’, ‘Joyce is overreacting by hitting him’ ‘Sarah’s a monster for hitting him with the bat when he hadn’t actually done anything but roofie Joyce’.
People reject that which makes them uncomfortable and attempt to discredit the victims so they can go on pretending. It has nothing to do with Becky’s behaviour or whether people like her, if it was Dina they’d be blaming her trouble understanding people.
I want it to turn out Ross isn’t a bad guy precisely because this isn’t real life. This is all a fiction, and setting up a twist based entirely on the expectations of the characters and the audience of a character would be the most interesting way to take the story from here. We’re already suspending our disbelief to accept that Amazigirl’s superhero violence is somehow tenable in a functioning society. Is it really too much to ask that we suspend it a little further and reserve judgement of a character until they actually, you know, do something?
Oh, who am I kidding? Willis is an excellent at character building, but when it comes to plot twists he’s content with just saying “guess what this person thinks about sexual interactions? It’s not what you think!” Which is fine for the stuff he clearly wants to write.
A: Not everything in a story has to be a twist. Sometimes a character doesn’t have hidden motivations. We aren’t in an M Night Shyamalan movie. Twists aren’t obligatory. There’s still drama without a twist. (Mostly from Becky’s current situation being untenable. She can’t live in the dorms indefinitely, but for her to give up and go back with her dad would be a negative outcome she desperately wants to avoid)
B: Twists have to make sense. For Ross to be something other than a complete bigot at this point would literally make no sense. We’ve already seen some of the stuff he’s said. A literal 180 without further onscreen interactions would be completely out of nowhere. It would be unsatisfying.
C: I’ve read Roomies, It’s Walky, and Dumbing of Age. I think this comic has more of slice of life, day to day narrative going on. There’s no one antagonist that is at the center of the conflict. It’s more of a narrative that shows various characters being tested by various situations, and how they evolve over time. I don’t think that kind of format leads itself to big twists. We aren’t going to see stuff like the last few arcs of Its Walky. And there has been twists outside of “Character X’s sexuality is different than we thought!” I would say stuff like Sarah’s flashbacks, and Amber’s flashbacks were twists because they revealed previously unknown things about the characters. And those were well done in my opinion.
Are you… are you seriously complaining about Willis’s writin because he doesn’t write “turns out this person was LYING ABOUT BEING ABUSED” plot twists? Or because he writes LGBTQ characters who don’t show up with flashing signs reading “this character is not straight!” from the first appearance?
What Willis has here is the setup for one of the most difficult hat tricks in writing- a twist where a universally reviled character turns out to be in the moral right. Becky is a loveable, adorable, admirable character who at the same time is a demonstrably unreliable character. Ross is a thoroughly unlikable man who nonetheless has done nothing wrong within the scope of the audience beyond looking for his daughter for an unspecified wrongdoing that caused her to run from home.
Do I expect Willis to actually pull the trigger on it? Of course not. It would be entirely at odds with everything he’s done as a creator and social commentator. But he has, intentionally or not, created a story and cultivated an audience where such a twist could work in the confines of the story and trigger an enormous emotional response. It warrants being noted as such.
“Unspecified wrongdoing”? What the hell? We know exactly what the wrongdoing is! We’ve heard it from Ross’s own mouth. He wants to “correct” Becky because “The evil one has filled her with sinful desires”. To pull off a “He’s not so bad” twist would make everything said previously to be misleading nonsense. (I won’t say that it’s impossible for Ross to change his mind. I mean Joyce did. But that had a lot of setup, setup the plot allowed for because she’s the main character. For a secondary character like Ross to get development like that would require a complete change in focus of the comic)
That plot development would be an out of nowhere twist, one that would also completely solve the current conflict Becky is in. If her dad was suddenly accepting, Becky’s problems would pretty much evaporate. Ross having a sudden change of heart where he suddenly becomes a caring, understanding father would be a deus ex machina. And really bad writing. (To say nothing of the social commentary issues)
And what if Becky’s “sinful desires” are, say, self-harm? A Ross-based twist would only come out of nowhere if you assume the only thing going on in Becky’s life is her coming out, which Willis has done a pretty good job of establishing as a crappy way to treat someone.
Again, I don’t expect Ross to turn out anything than the bag of dicks he’s portrayed as, but writers take note: this is how you set up a gut-punch twist. You focus a conflict one one character’s perspective, you give all the likeable character traits to that character, and you leave the other side with just enough presence to let the audience fill them with their own assumptions. The set-up is there. That’s literally the extent of my observations.
‘What if, instead of what was shown, the issue was a completely out of nowhere asspull?’
To do a successful twist, you need to set things up so that the twist is a reasonable reading of what has been shown. That has not happened. There is no twist to be revealed here.
Would still be contrary to Ross’s clear control issues. And his established religious views. (He knows about his daughter’s homosexuality, and since he has the same views as Joyce in the beginning of the comic, we know that his attitude towards it would be to “fix” it. To make that a red herring, would be out of nowhere, and contradictory to what has happened before)
This. It would be actively hateful to anyone who has experiences similar to Becky to go “whoops, turns out the loving Christian father who just wanted to cure Becky of her evil demon-infested lesbianity was right”. It would be openly spiteful and would be a massive betrayal and active harm to anyone who was feeling healed by an all-too-rare example of this sort of storyline done right.
“And what if Becky’s “sinful desires” are, say, self-harm?”
Okay, I’m going to try not to be openly antagonistic here, but I want you to understand just exactly what you said here.
You are directly comparing “being gay” to “self-harm”.
I know you may not intentionally mean all of the connotations of that, but it is still something you have done in this sentence.
So, being someone who is homoromantic and someone who has engaged in self-harm before and especially as someone who understands the difference between the two and whose self-harm behaviors in the past were caused by societal homophobia and bigotry, I hope you will forgive me if I have trouble shrugging that off as a simple thing.
Being gay is not hurting oneself.
Which, on that note, self-harm is a warning sign, a coping strategy, not the problem in and of itself. If you eliminate someone’s self-harm tools and play hard-line against that without ever addressing the underlying causes or acknowledge the role likely abuse, disease, or suffering is playing in that behavior, you are putting that person in serious risk of suicide.
In this fantasy world where someone flees cross-country because “she’s engaging in self-harm and doesn’t want to be better”. THAT’S A HUGE FUCKING RED FLAG. People don’t do major dramatic actions like that simply because they “refuse to get better”. That means there is major abuse or wrong-doing the person engaging in self-harm is trying to flee and their abuser is taking advantage of their attempt to avoid worse symptoms in order to leverage control.
Which, I wish to note is why I have a sneaking suspicion that Dana’s home is not a safe and healing place where she is being lovingly detoxed. Because drug abuse of a drug like pot to the point where it is a serious life risk is a sign of a lot more behind the surface than just an addiction.
So, to finalize my point, your “brilliant writing advice” would be a) terrible advice on how to handle a self-destructive and suicidal individual running from their home, b) a painful betrayal to those who have similar life experiences to Becky, c) equate being gay with being a self-injurer or otherwise mentally ill, d) would give comfort to the worst of humanity, e) be a terrible, unsupported twist that would only work if Becky was actively manipulating those around her for little other reason than evil lesbianity, and f)…
F) It would be shit writing.
I’m sorry. But it would. Having a twist to have a twist is the worst of hackneyed crap and the reason why Shyamalan’s career has careened off the rails into a universal joke.
Twists should never be taken because “ooh, what a swerve”. They should be taken because they want to comment on audience expectation. Using people’s habit and familiarity of a hackneyed trope to comment on the ugliness inherent to that trope. Or just building hints throughout so everyone can see how it has been foreshadowed and builds and adds to a storyline.
Twists taken because “no one would expect it” is the lazy troll form of storytelling. It takes no creativity or wit and it leaves little in the form of edification or reward for careful reading.
And when combined with a story rarely told, it can be downright dangerous and disrespectful. Telling a rare sympathetic story of a black teen trying to make their way and going “ooh, what a twist, it turns out he was a right-wing stereotype of black people the whole time” is not clever. It is hateful and harmful to every black person watching and hoping that this time their story would be told. For once.
I’m sorry to be blunt and less than charitable about this, but it’s a little hard to take as someone who has actually lived this shit to see so many casually ponder how “awesome” it would be to undercut this with hateful bullshit about how queer kids always be lyin’.
Especially in the context of those “sweet lesbian facts” that Leslie Bean laid down.
A: No, twists are not the most interesting way to tell a narrative story. Especially when the straight version is rarely told. Gone Girl having a “twist” that the abused victim wife was actually a master manipulator was actually common-place and dangerous in a world where domestic violence survivors are assumed to be making everything up and where abusers use beliefs like “all women are evil” to justify casual violence.
When a story like queer homelessness is so absent traditional narratives. Playing it straight as the greatest narrative options and richness because we just don’t see it reflected in media.
And this last point is important, because there is an element of privilege at play. For someone who is disconnected from this life experience, a twist adds excitement to a narrative hook that’s just a plot point. For those of us who’ve lived it, a twist is a betrayal of our life experiences and saying fuck you, people who’ve lived this, your story isn’t interesting enough to be told yet.
For those of us who are queer and disowned and have been/are/almost were homeless, this story is incredibly important to be told and very healing. To see it done and done right is a rarity and so can actually bring tears to one’s eyes and make one feel less alone.
A twist would require undermining all of that, ruining the point of doing justice to such a story all to alleviate and please the comfortable who never have to even imagine experiencing such a thing as what Becky is going through.
B) Amazigirl’s superhero violence is not devoid of real-world style consequences. It’s a vehicle of her untreated Dissassociative Identity Disorder, a sign of her unhealthy relationship with anger and emotions, and an attempt at establishing some sort of protection and healing from a lifetime of being controlled by an abuser. Having dated several people of the life experience of having been ritualistically abused most of their life and as someone who has lived with DID my whole life, a lot of Amber’s tale rings true: the separation of personalities and motivations for the DID stuff, the locking away of emotions and the fear of letting oneself go and becoming a monster for the abuse stuff.
C) …
“Is it really too much to ask that we suspend it a little further and reserve judgement of a character until they actually, you know, do something?”
No. Just no.
This is the dark underbelly of all of these types of comments and as Lord Stoneheart lamented, it is kinda hard to take sometimes.
This idea that Toedad hasn’t “done anything yet”, that he’s somehow worthy of reserved judgment, and that the jury is out on whether or not he has done harm is disgusting.
Reparative therapy, “fixing” someone who is queer is not a neutral activity. Is not a loving activity.
It. Is. Abuse.
As someone whose parent has tried power-playing that particular bit of bullshit, I am sorry, but I cannot overlook or let slide this idea that reparative therapy is some naive religious quaint tradition that is not a deliberate intentional attempt to terrorize and abuse a child into hiding who they are in the most destructive ways possible.
It is brutal, hateful, and not something to be trifled with or put up with because gosh, the ‘rents are such a drag, maaaaan. It is a genuine, relationship-ending threat of power and hate, wrapped up in the denialism of religion.
Any parent that threatens that, that tries to enforce that is not a good parent. Is not a parent who has “not done anything”. It is a parent who has and intends to do monstrous wrong to their child.
Toedad is not a naive Christian moron just trying to do what’s “right” in his narrow little way. He’s committing and has committed a gross betrayal of what it means to be a parent.
Becky’s dad is not an innocent party here and pretending otherwise gives comfort to the types of fucks who hide their naked bigotry and harm in the language of “love” and religion.
And it’s disgusting.
Sorry to be blunt about this, but I’ve actually lived through this particular situation. I would not wish it on anyone in the world. And I can never EVER forgive the one who tried to manipulate me into that particular horror.
I am not in a position to empathize with these characters. My opinions are from a narrative perspective, but if others are connecting on an entirely different level, then I recognize my contributions as boorish at best and insulting at worst.
Much of my displeasure comes from having worked for a heavily Christian entertainment company. It’s about as awful as it would sound. Every piece that came through had this air of assumed prosecution that put Christians as an inherently “good” status with the only personality trait necessary to make someone “evil” to be “not immediately agreeing with the Christians”. It’s lazy propaganda designed to appeal to an Us vs. Them mindset on the simplest terms possible.
Maybe I was just hoping that the other side would do better. They’re already on the moral high ground by any civilized measure. Is it too much to ask that the art rise above, too?
To answer my own question, yes. Sometimes folk just need a simple message to find familiarity and hope with, and to my shame as an American, those people are the ones like Becky in this country.
Well, there’s people out there with views like Ross. And unlike Ross, they aren’t flat characters. Since he’s the parent of a character in a comic that focuses on the lives of characters in college, he’s probably not going to be more than a secondary character who’s sole role is going to be antagonistic. What’s important about him is that he’s the reason why a main character, Becky, is in an untenable situation. (Homeless, and trying to be hidden in an area where she’s by the rules not allowed to stay).
In defense of the depictions of Christians in Dumbing of Age, they aren’t all like Ross. More central characters like Joyce, are much more three dimensional. As for this being equivalent to “These people are wrong because they disagree with Christians!” I also disagree with that. Ross wants to force Becky to undergo a process that has been proven to cause psychological harm in order for her to fit his worldview. This isn’t just a difference in opinion with a progressive worldview. This is a lack of respecting someone else as human, and allowing them to have a different worldview as you. (I really want to emphasize that there’s people out there with views like Ross. And those views cause harm to people. He’s not just a strawman)
Finally, I just want to say (again, I feel like this point is being ignored) that from a narrative perspective, your idea of a twist is pretty anticlimactic and nonsensical. If Ross is not forcing Becky to choose between homelessness (and hiding from him!) or forced conversion therapy then her main conflict is gone. For Ross to suddenly reveal himself to be okay with the whole lesbian thing would be like waving a magical wand to fix Becky’s problem. A sudden flip from his stance when Dina met him less than an hour ago, would be akin to a deus ex machina. Honestly, it makes about as much sense as Becky winning the lottery, and Ross being struck by lightning. It could happen, but it would be a pretty crappy twist.
“Much of my displeasure comes from having worked for a heavily Christian entertainment company. It’s about as awful as it would sound. Every piece that came through had this air of assumed prosecution that put Christians as an inherently “good” status with the only personality trait necessary to make someone “evil” to be “not immediately agreeing with the Christians”. It’s lazy propaganda designed to appeal to an Us vs. Them mindset on the simplest terms possible. Maybe I was just hoping that the other side would do better. They’re already on the moral high ground by any civilized measure. Is it too much to ask that the art rise above, too?”
Seriously?
I’m sorry, but this is really passive-aggressive. Especially the part in bold. Dumbing of Age and queer works that don’t go “twist, it turns out the abusive dad who wanted to force reparative therapy was the hero the whole time” are not the queer version of faux-victimhood Christian entertainment nor are they “failing to rise above”.
1/3 of homeless youth are queer. 1/4 of queer youth who come out are thrown out of their homes for it. 1/3 are subject to violence.
And on top of that, let us not forget that it has only been months since a queer relationship was even treated legally as equivalent to a straight one and despite that, it is still legal in the majority of states to fire, deny housing, and deny accommodation solely on the basis of sexual orientation. People are still murdered in the United States, in major cities for being queer identified and homophobic violence and slurs are painfully common. And things like corrective rape of lesbian identified women is still not only a thing, but a not uncommon thing.
Unlike the flavor of Christians who create paeans to how tortured they are because no one is allowing them to take others’ rights away anymore, queer individuals, still today, deal with horrifying levels of horseshit and on top of that suffer an absolute dearth of popular representation. Remember the huge deal everyone made about Korra and Asami in Legend of Korra? How much the creators had to fight to even have that level of depiction? Has anyone needed to do have that much because a character was Christian-identified? Hell no.
And a lot of those “sweet lesbian facts” above are due to active campaigns against their rights to exist by said martyr-wannabe Christian groups.
So yeah, even if queer works like this one were to be about “how Christians are super evil and hey, here’s happy queer goodness”, they’d be really fucking justified. Certainly way more than the contrary.
Except that isn’t what this is.
Let us not forget that Toedad is not the sole and only representative of even that sliver of Christianity that is Pre-Millennial Dispensationalist Fundamentalism. Joyce and Becky also come from that culture and still identify with it and a large subset of the character list identify as Christian as well including Billie, Danny, and Sierra. Most of whom are depicted positively. Hell, we’ve even already had the bigoted but somewhat genuinely caring about their children storyline before with Joyce’s parents and Joyce standing by her atheist friend.
So yeah, claiming this is some narrow, all Christians are bad morality play because in this one instance, it doesn’t turn out that those advocating reparative therapy are totally justified is some thick level bullshit which makes your “white flag” somewhat hard to take seriously.
Furthermore, treating people crying desperately for some damn representation that is worth a fuck, that takes our struggles seriously and bloody well shows them for once (I’m genuinely struggling to think of more than a single-hand’s worth of movies I’ve seen that tackle queer homelessness and reparative therapy and I seek out queer media like a drone missile), is something worth depicting and is not some pandering display of cheap manufactured oppression for all the over-privileged queer groups to go “how true” to.
I don’t know if you’ll ever understand just how offensive your “suggestion” was to those who’ve lived this and how utterly dismissive to our humanity your “well, if you won’t take my awesome suggestion to write a Christian polemic, then I guess you don’t care about creating genuine art” is, but I urge you to try.
Oh man!
For the sake of brevity, lets just pretend my comment praises Every sentence here, for its intelligence, clarity and for context.
For what you said, and how you said it.
and just to save time, This praise also explicitly covers everything you wrote on this page below it, preemptively.
I’m out of caffeine and I’m just not in the mood ( in this moment) to cut and paste everything you wrote , and torturously explain all the manifold ways its awesome.
Just accept my comment here as my ‘Total Fabulousness Award’ . where you get the presumptions that all your following comments on this page, hence force are **Infallibly Fabulous **
“Is it really too much to ask that we suspend it a little further and reserve judgement of a character until they actually, you know, do something?”
The word you are searching for is “denial” .
The problem is that you still have to explain Beckys actions from the plot.
Youd have to have an alternate explanation which fits the facts:
Why was Becky taken out of school?
Why did she show up penniless with no change of clothes at IU?
You can either make her an addict , criminal or mentally ill.
But it still seems extremely unlikely shes lying about being a lesbian, so by writing such a character it would play into a homophobic narrative already in our culture by people just like Ross, that homosexuality itself is mental illness and deviance.
The Likelihood that Willis is going to write a ‘Xtian Fundamentalist cures Teh Gayz by putting her in a Straight Camp-narrative’ is probably less than snowball in the middle of the sun.
Sure.. maybe Becky is secretly kleptomaniac heroin-addict, that tied up her old roommate and left her dead ? Thats what you would need to pull of such a reversal.
( Why stop there? Why not make them both cannibals? )
But why would giving Ross the benefit of the doubt —when we already know he’s deprived his daughter of a real social life, an actual education, and is a bigot — be more emotionally satisfying to you, than just giving becky the benefit of the doubt?
Becky is over 18. If hes not going to support her, she doesnt need to put up with one iota of his shit.
People often want to see the best in abusers and to soften the sharp edges of abusive behavior, because that way, it’s less common. And if it’s less common, then maybe it’s not happening right in front of your face. And if it’s not happening in front of your face, you can think the best of people you know and can assume bad people who do bad things are some cartoonish monster far far away.
It’s much harder to face that a good number of the students in every classroom are being or have been abused in some way, that at least one student in a class is being molested at home, that someone you have shaken hands with has raped a person or hit their spouse or kids or has undermined self-esteem of a person to the point of breaking. That someone you know personally has disowned a queer child or ordered their child to never speak about what happens at home.
That horrible things, especially those against the vulnerable or marginalized, are routine and commonplace. And a person who otherwise puts up a good front of being an otherwise moral individual may have horrible views or have done something awful to hurt someone.
As you note. It’s true to life.
I’m a teacher. A teacher who has known a lot of people who’ve gone through a lot of shit in the past and so every time I see a report for a kid that’s dripping with red flags, I make a note on a list. And even for kids where there is no possible way of spinning the parents actions as anything other than abusive, there are teachers, caring hard-working teachers, who nonetheless want to assume that the kid is making it all up for attention.
Hell, for one student, there was a warning passed around that the parents were saying the child was prone to making up grandiose lies, so take his statements about home life with a grain of salt that a lot of teachers fell for up to the point where the father punched the kid at the school.
People want to assume the worst of victims and the best of abusers, because if they do, they don’t have to think worse of the world and they don’t have to change. It’s, in every way possible, easier for those who aren’t affected.
And yes, this relates rather directly to privilege in general, see also all the talking heads arguing that black people are overstating the problem with abusive police.
Well in the Walkyverse she’s a veteran of a war with aliens. Which don’t exist in the Dumbiverse (well, they exist as fictional characters in the Dumbiverse. Details). We don’t know if she was in the military I guess, but the sliding time scale makes it hard to make her a veteran of a specific war. And we don’t have any evidence that she is a veteran. So I’d guess I’d say no?
Then we switch him to the… Singing Nun until he breaks down and cries out that he will have unnatural sexual congress with 12 homosexual men and be their love slave forever if only it will stop!
I am not expecting that until near the end of the month. or at least not until joyce is in the room, Becky seems to like Joyce’s reaction to embarrassment after all…
Some may argue that Toedad McDickbag was treated unfairly when Dina mislead him, that he did not deserve to be fucked over in that manner. However, if you consider what the situation has done to Becky, I think we can agree that we’re dealing with a butthole that needed to be fucked.
….
I’m very sorry, everybody. I try to keep my inner twelve year old locked up, but sometimes she still gets out.
Incidentally, Becky shouldn’t call her father a butthole. It’s insulting.
I mean, what did buttholes do to deserve an association with such a man? That anatomy serves an actual useful purpose, and it’s also more attractive that Toedad McDickbag.
Okay, this may be one of the most vulgar things I’ve typed ever.
Wait wait wait… Did Dina just admit to holding the common superstition that doing a right in the present can somehow ‘fix’ a wrong from the past? The universe doesn’t keep a tally of things and balance out good acts with bad acts, Dina, that’s just religious balony.
No, Dina is demonstrating that she can learn from what turned out to be an incorrect decision — letting Amber’s dad into the room — even though it was done for what appeared (at that time) to be the right reasons. Because she is aware of what came about as a result of that decision, it is her own psyche that is keeping the prior incident fresh in her memory (not to mention that in DoA time it only occurred what? maybe two weeks ago max? — so it’s not that far back in the past).
So at the simplest level this is Dina merely asking for affirmation that “I done good this time, right?”
By the way — in one of the past strips someone (Willis?) posted a timeline that showed to which days and weeks of the semester the various chapters of the books would correspond. Does anybody remember which strip that was in, or if the timeline has its own link like the f-bomb count?
I believe the incident with Dina failing to stop her parents from letting Blaine in was a little over a week ago. If I have this right, “Just Hangin’ Out With my Family” (the day of said incident) was on a Saturday, “The Only Dope for me is You,” was Sunday, “I was a Teenage Churchmouse,” was Monday, “Up All Night to Get a Vengeance” was Tuesday, “The Whitboard Dingdong Bandit” was Wednesday, “When Someone Loved Me,” was Thursday, “Three’s a Crowd” was Friday, “The Butterflies Won’t Fly Away,” was Saturday again, and “Walking With Dina,” was Sunday again.
So, yeah, just a little over a week.
Your own idea of whats a superstition isnt evidence-based.
Whether or not there is a supernatural tally is irrelevant, because the concept is valid both morally and psychologically.
The deficit is to Dinas sense of integrity, and what type of person she sees herself as , and desires to be.
This is what a non-supernatural based morality looks like.
Human beings do become the person-who-committed-such-an-act-as-X.
You become what youve done.
Cognitive Dissonance works to keep peoples beliefs in line with their actions. These experiments have been done.
Dina is now through her actions , a brave guileful Heroine, one who helped her friends, and bucked any natural tendency to go alone with authority.
the fact that dina quoted dickbag makes me think she considers toedad not to be a butthole but a dickbag, rather than a butthole and a dickbag. interesting distinction.
The third panel is quite refreshing in that you get to see a completely honest and open experession from Becky with no pretence or anything, its good (the openess, not the situation)
The thing no one thinks about is how hard it would be for her to get a job or go to school to set up her identity. yeah she probably has her drivers license. But, i know for my husband we had to basically break into his parents house then steal his and his sisters social security cards, birth certificates, diplomas ext. then we found a bunch of other stuff (like bonds for some of the siblings show were over 18 a the time it was given). To go to school she still has to report her dad’s income on fafsa.
Yes, there are certainly many challenges but in regards to fafsa, she doesn’t need her dad’s income if she is “an unaccompanied youth who is homeless or self-supporting and at risk of being homeless”. I believe she fits this description.
Given the context it’s unnecessary to specifically confirm that. It is assumed that this is the reason for her running away and being homeless. Confirming the homelessness indirectly confirms her father finding out about her sexual orientation.
That said…. the lack of specific confirmation does leave open the possibility of an alternate series of events. Perhaps she ran away first and left a note informing her father of her orientation?
That said…. the lack of specific confirmation does leave open the possibility of an alternate series of events. Perhaps she ran away first and left a note informing her father of her orientation?
Becky was caught doing lesbian stuff at school. The school informed Ross. Ross showed up, told her that he was going to find a way to “fix” her. Becky ran away from him, got on a bus to Bloomington, and went to Joyce’s room. We know that is the sequence of events. We know Ross’s motivations and ultimatum. Even if you think those flashback panels are a lie somehow (there’s no precedent for that!), you have the words out of his own mouth. Why is this still a question?
people are really fucking falling all over themselves to find some alternative explanation for this story about a lesbian woman, it’s really friggin’ curious
You make Becky fun. You make her funny, with a subversive sense of humor.
You make her warm , you make her brave , you give her enviable sense of confidence. You give her an awesome haircut. 🙂
You make her flawed with blindspots, written like shes an actual human being.
( Nobody can claim shes too perfect to be real i.e a martystu )
You make her story reflect overwhelmingly, the actual world we currently live in .
Yet people habitually side against her,and dont take her word for anything.
I dont remember a single person in the fandom suggesting Amber was ‘disrespectful’ to her asshole-Dad ,or provoked Blaine when he first showed up.
People took her word ( without any in-dumbing evidence) that he was dangerous.
Yet for some strange reason ( **cough, cough Homophobia **) Becky is never given that same benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, it is interesting.
I didn’t read many of the comments…
Anywho, I for one don’t really see the need for an alternative nor the probability of one. Also, I kinda want to rescind my previous statement because I had forgotten a few details from earlier in the story.
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“I also did it for smooches, so pay up”
alt: “I got you out of a toejam”
…
Q: if a dickbag eats a bag of dicks, is that cannibalism
I WAS SO. CLOSE.
No-one ever beats Jen. No-one.
Jen is actually Willis himself, posting under a pseudonym.
In that case, Damn You Willis
t-rex
shiii-
Actuallyyyyy.
It happened, several times.
Some by yours truly, but there’s no way I’m waking before 6AM JUST to try.
Yes, it has. I even beat Jen myself, once (twice?). That’s the joke.
Jen is basically what Plasma is on my own comment section.
I wasn’t the first to post on Frivolesque this week though.
Dat plug doe, good on ya
HEY!! Welcome to DOA OmegaDez! Unless you’ve been here before, then I’m just looking silly again… 😛
I’ve been here for years. I just don’t post much. Usually because there’s 200+ comments already when I get to read it and I don’t know if there’s anything relevant I could add.
The only way to beat Jen is she was sick/detained or her computer/server is acting up.
Or beaten up by rabid sloths
Interesting. Where can I hire their services?
http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-xy/288.shtml
Or she suffers an unfortunate case of muuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrder.
do you mean,
Genocide?
Trust me. I’m still waiting for a chance to get past her.
Nah, it’s basically a power up for them.
For half a second, I saw what this page looks like with no comments.
I say yes to the question about cannibalism. Yes that it is, I mean.
I think it depends on what the contents of the bag is made from, You could always test this by using a anonymous mailing service to send a bag of (gummy) phalluses to someone deserving who would eat them and observe the recipient for the physical signs of cannibalism, and there actually are health risks involved (particularly from eating the brains of others, and for such an individual that would be the phallus)….
I can not believe I just typed that…
Let me send you my address.
(For the Jellys of course. )
Purely FWIW, I imagine the first kiss between Becky and Dina (that isn’t simply Dina trying to prove a point) will be shy, innocent and heartwarming. Mostly because the two of them will both be too nervous to risk anything more.
Will Dina be nervous, or will she be being careful with her observations? She is an aspiring paleontologist after all. Field work is a slow, exacting process.
So dependable! Becky, don’t let this one get away. She’s a keeper.
This strip should’ve been titled “Dickbag”. xD Because that would look awesome on everyone’s RSS feeds. 😛
Also, Becky…never let Dinah go, she’s an amazing girl! ^_^
No shes not. We all know the identity of amazi-girl.
Other Rachel ?
Wait I thought it was Sal
It’s not Senator Palpatine?
Ultracar, of course.
I’m Batman-I mean Amazi-Girl…
Dina say what we’re all thinking! HOW DOES SHE KNOW???
*says
We can see her thoughts…so she can see ours.
When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
They really need to get themselves down to the help center or security or something. They’ve only got a few hours before he comes back.
but how many minutes do they have to save the world?
4.
*shakes fist at Madonna*
[synth horns intensifies]
They only have 14 hours to save the Earth!
But how do they get help without admitting that she’s been staying there illegally?
She hasn’t yet, weekend visits are still within guidelines.
Has she really? I don’t know the rules at this particular campus, but she’s not even been on campus more than two or three days which is not atypical for visiting a friend (most colleges and universities have no issues with that on a short term even in on campus housing).
Aside from that, as long as she’s at least 18 (not all freshmen are and I don’t remember it being mentioned in comic), he has no legal leg to stand on if he tries to force her to go anywhere and she refuses [i]and[/i] he was likely violating campus rules if he didn’t get prior permission to post those missing posters in a public place on campus (that alone can be enough to get you thrown off some campuses).
She is 18, she told Ethan during the conversation where she fired him from being Joyce’s boyfriend.
Plenty of time to get it on first.
It’s screwed up that this is even a thing that LGBTA kids have to deal with.
Yeah man, you’d think Treat Thy Neighbor as a 10 commandment would trump the dated aspects of the Bible.
But then again America and it’s Christian foundation is kinda built on aversion stuff like “Though Shalt not Kill”
Gotta admit though, its actually real cool to meet the smart Christians who actually care for people.
The problem with the commandments is that the traditional interpretation for honoring your parents is to basically be their slave, doing everything they tell you to do unless it violates one of Gods laws.
also, which commandments?
Haha That one is funny
“If ye will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, … behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces.”
It’s the “unofficial” 11th Commandment — “Thou Shalt Not Rock The Boat”.
And Becky has damn near capsized it.
I thought the 11th commandment was “Thou shalt not let thyself get caught.”
Yeah, well, the problem with some of those smart Christians is that there are the Smart Christians Who Actually Care and then there are the Christians Who Think They’re Smart and Think They Care. Unfortunately, my parents fall into the latter category. They’re the “either straight or gay” folks who refuse to believe asexuality (especially when paired with romantic orientations other than aromanticism) and bisexuality are real things. It sucks to keep it from them that I’m asexual, and that my romantic orientation isn’t aromantic, but I certainly wouldn’t trade my situation for Becky’s. I hope to be, in my adulthood, the kind of Christian who actually cares.
Christians are not the only ones who fall into that category of thought. falsely thinking they understand things they know (next to) nothing about.
This also happens commonly with several high skill professions (like doctors and engineers) because the skill and knowledge required for achieve success in those careers leads some of them (and other people unfortunately) to believe that they are smart on all things which leads to them forming opinions on things that they do not have the background to properly understand, and using their education to back up that opinion. This does not happen in every case, but society looks up to these peopel enough that it happens way to often.
I also find it gets worse with age.
Some of them mostly do like the attention.
True. In a much, much, much better world, Dina and Becky could spend this time exploring their relationship in in peace with much giggling and hand holding and paleontology or whatever rocks their kaboodels, instead of hiding from toedads and fearing for Becky being taken away.
Oh there will be some diggin’ all right.
I’m just glad she made it out of the house in the first place. A lot of LGBTAQ youth and young adults don’t, and speaking firsthand I can tell you it’s a terrible experience. 🙁
Its more than just lgbt kids. Sometimes parents are obsessive controlling nasties for no particular reason at all. Gotta get out ans fly free even if the winds of parents are harsh and heavy.
I love Becky’s face in the middle panel.
The insult is strong with these ones. “Butthole” and “Dickbag” in the same strip… :0
Now kiss
Kiiiiiiiss
FOR SCIENCE!
Kiss the girl!
There were two possibilities for that link… And you went with the obvious one.
I’m curious as to what the less obvious one would be?
+1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAp9BKosZXs 😀
No, that’s post-kissing music.
There was kissing last night, remember? http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/safe-2/
I have a feeling that’s the mistake she’s atoning for: kissing someone without their consent.
It seemed more appropriate, since we’re cheering on for a kiss.
Think they might be doing a little more than that.
I want this slipshine. Gimme gimme D:
Patience, young padawane.
Such wonderful faces! If I don’t see a gravatar of panel 6 within a week, I’m going to be disappointed.
with an ‘i love lucy’ style heart around them
Okay, but not until panel 3 becomes a gravatar
<— Your wish, etc.
Splendid. I was thinking just Dina, but I was overlooking Becky. That’s a nice gravatar.
Nothing like an avatar of Dina whispering “Dickbag” to Becky.
Dina said a swear!
What, dickbag?
Considering that her speech is usually a mixture of palaeontology-speak and wide-eyed naivete (both being why we love her)…yeah, by comparison, “dickbag” is a swear.
She should use “nicer” language like “dork receptacle”.
Dong duffel
Weiner Repository
Bun?
— works on a couple levels, really.
Schlong suitcase.
Hemipene haversack.
Hamrod holdall. Ram rucksack. Salami saddlebag.
Phallus Pouch
Phallus folder?
“Penis bank”?
Pin hole?
Member minder
Male Apparatus Storage Equipment
Assholitude?
… you lost me
Dina said that in regards to Amber’s Dad after that fateful encounter. She probably picked up dickbag from Amber since it seems like the kind of insult she’d use.
I suspect she picked that one from Sarah.
Yeah, that last panel is adorable.
Dina is one of the smartest characters on the campus. 🙂
And she knows how to sweet-talk a lady.
AND her dad.
That lady’s dad, that is.
Not directly related to this strip, but does anyone know if Becky’s mom is really dead? Her dad said so a few strips ago, but when they were first moving in, Joyce said that Becky’s parents, plural, made her go to Anderson (nogreaterjoy.org/wordpress/f/201102_March-April.pdf). Has Becky made any reference to this one way or another?
Her mom only died a year ago. Well after the college application process would have started.
Yes, while she was talking to Ethan. Their tags should narrow down an archive search considerably.
Pretty sure that Willis fellow has said Beckymom is no longer with us.
According to Ross, Becky’s mom died a year ago. It’s very likely that Ross and his wife determined that Becky would be going to Anderson long before any sort of application process starts. So the use of parents plural isn’t that strange, as she was probably part of that decision.
It’s also possible that since she appears to have only died a year ago, the habit of referring to Becky’s parents in the plural hasn’t been broken yet.
…some of us just use “parents” at large, to avoid the eternal same fucking questions about why we only mentioned one.
I’m not reallt gifted with words here, but well. Just think it get real tiring/annoying/disheartening to have to explain THAT over and over.
Dina drops the quotes in so smoothly.
No need to even make air quotes. She manages to convey quotes via speech alone. That is the one aspect of communication at which she excels.
I love the lettering in panel 3.
Aww, my compersion centers are going wild for Becky and Dina falling more in love. That smile on Becky in Panel 6 and that wide-eyed admiration in Panel 4 is just utterly adorable. They’re definitely building something greater than just scientific exploration and kissing kapoodles.
Also, I want to give Dina all the hugs for Panel 5 and how she believes she needs to carry the weight of Amber’s dickbag of a dad. She really took it hard not being assertive enough to dissuade an abusive asshole.
And heh on Becky learning the most important lesson from Anderson. Doors should always be closed when with one’s girlfriend.
Yeah, I’m happy things are going better with Becky and that the thing with Dina is going so well. I remember a bit ago when people were getting annoyed with Becky, and it’s nice to see that whatever questionable things she did were because she wasnt at her best, and that better circumstances bring out an even cooler character.
I feel for Willis sometimes, cause it seems like if a characters too much of a dick they’re “unlikable” and if they’re not enough of a dick they’re “not realistic.” It seems there’s a sweet spot for dick, and it must be difficult to find all the time without making things boring.
“a sweet spot for dick”
I could name one, hehehehehehe
“There’s a sweet spot for dick.”
That’s what she said.
Awwwwww. Look at Becky’s smile in the last panel. “Heck yes, this one is a keeper”
When they saw Frozen Becky was pretty annoyed at “Love is an open door.”
Yeah, that’d be a major trigger all right.
So, Dina must atone? But for what? Inquiring Mendos want to know!
She’s atoning for letting Blaine in…i think
Yes, she doesn’t want to repeat what happened with Blaine.
yes
Dina must atone for accidentally letting Amber’s dad in her dorm room a week or so ago.
And thus was born the Dina-Saur, guardian against dickbag dads.
Considering there was a flashback to that incident just a few days ago….
“must” … Uh.
She’s trying not to repeat her mistake with Amber’s demon of a father. Good to see she learns from her mistakes.
Suddenly, I can see Dina in her raptor hoodie, kneeling in a circle of candles and holding her Katana point down between her knees whilst growling: “I must reclaim my honour!“
“…Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly, the ill deeds along with the good, and let me be judged accordingly. The rest… is raar.”
The rest… is just fossils.
if you look at dina’s face carefully, in a few of these panels she is clearly projecting hypnotic beams from her eyes that scream ‘trick me into believing that an egg has been fertilized’
To quote the Reproductive Daleks; IN-SEM-MIN-ATE!
if that were a thing that becky could do, then men would be extinct within 3 generations
But then there would a lack of genetic diversity.
yes. there would be only dina and becky. complaints?
Not really, there would still be two sets of X chromosomes per person, just that there would be a 50% chance of any one X from either parent “making the team” so to speak. Just like when one of the parents has a Y chromosome. There have been good results with mice in creating embryos with two female parents, I’m not aware of any human experiments yet. But now that SCOTUS legalized same-sex marriage I don’t see anything preventing lesbians from being the biological parents without the use of a male.
Yeah. That’s not how that works. There would still be 50% dimorphism.
What you two are thinking about is direct genetic cloning.
98.5% of women prefer hot schnitzengruben with juice, most of the time.
Everyone can be treated with respect, as equals, and genetic diversity will be just fine…
There are many good reasons to run Butthole Dad tied to a log and through a railroad.
I think you meant sawmill.
Yeah, you don’t want to hurt the poor train driver and passengers with taht log 😐
I have never shipped anyone. But, I do ship these two. They are for sure great together.
Don’t think I’ve seen any 2 characters mesh like these two.
Hide Becky. Then when Toedad is gone, go get help getting a job. Get back into school. And solve your coupling problems at the same time.
This is as good enough time as any to point out that I shipped this publicly on January 11th.
“I shipped ice before it was cool” 😀
I was going to gasp at Becky’s swearing http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/buttopening/
But then I remembered she’s already on the board for having dropped a “fuck”.
Also, butthole is established nomenclature
I’m gasping at Dina’s use of the world Dickbag.
It is ‘Dana’ who is on the board, not Dina.
http://www.ci-n.com/~jcampbel/doafbombcount.php/A>
Dina’s not under discussion, Becky is.
Dina is “Dickbag Averse.”
i accidentally read the URL of this page as walking-with-dina-verse
Hmm… Bet he comes back later and Ruth deals with him.
That’d be neat. Especially if she figures out what’s going on and decides to be nice. Heart of gold under a mountain of issues, that Ruth.
The bad news is; Toedad McDickbag is likely going to come back.
The good news is, this IS the campus with Ruthless and Amazi-Girl on it.
And possibly even Leslie. She could be of some help if anyone thinks to talk to her.
His NAME is Ro – nah, it’s Toedad McDickbag. You got it right.
FOUR FOR YOU, DINA! YOU GO DINA!!
*lights cigar*
I love it when things just fall into place
*Lights a cigar as well*
And I love it when a plan comes together.
Heh! A ‘dickbag’. A Jurassic dickbag? If there ain’t some smokin’ hot smoochin’ goin’ on between these two when things settle down, I’m gonna be one pissed off trooper.
And suddenly Dinah is a character taking risks to further a moral ethical vision of the world around her, rather than a blank slate reacting or standing apart from the world.
Hooray.
Well, it is the case that many forms of terrestrial dinosaurs had a habit of defending their nest and mates against potential threats.
Dina’s just trying to fulfill her biological niche.
rrrr…. no ‘h’… *twitch*
Okay, random art note :
I don’t usually have a problem with seeing the eyes through hair (a la panels 1 and 3). But panel 4 looks … weird to me. Just, angle + hair + eye feel like they come together funny-like.
Struck me kinda odd, is all.
(Also, Becky’s smile in that last panel is gorgeous. SO MANY FEELS.)
“Chill out. …Dickbag.”
“That’s great! See, you’re gettin’ it! And if you really wanna shine someone on, you just tell ’em ‘Hasta la huego, Alfredo.'”
“…Are you certain these catchphrases are accurate?”
“Sure they are! I saw that movie like once five years ago. At night. On an old TV. With the volume way down so nobody could hear. But I totally remember it like it was yesterday, I swear!”
“Well then. ‘No probalo.'”
My only concern: He has to come back for his car.
He’s going to come back for his daughter.
I wonder about the whereabouts of Cinder Block Dude.
Maybe, but then again, for all we know Faz is still bound up and sitting in the dorm’s lost & found.
And now makeouts
You had me at “dickbag.”
That last panel is so true.
Dina: “I can save this one”
So you did, Dina. So you did.
Heh. Foreshadowing.
Interesting that Dina believed that her error with Blaine left her with an obligation to potentially risk her own safety to prevent it from ever happening again. That and Ross just rubbed her up the wrong way, of course!
Now, is this the first time that Dina has used an obscenity to describe someone?
It’s interesting that, like Joyce, Becky uses alternatives to cuss words but isn’t so dramatically and comedically overt about it. It reminds us that the two young ladies come from basically the same cultural background.
Through trial and error, I’ve found that relating events out of order is sometimes best, if you want to avoid unnecessary freakouts. Tell them that everything is okay first, then explain why they might have assumed otherwise.
Ok, I just noticed this just now, and I want you to know that this is a legitimate question, and not an insult of Willis’s art.
Is Dina supposed to be cross-eyed? I just noticed that she’s the only character (of the ones that have scleras), whose pupils frequently don’t look aligned.
Sorry, perhaps I should have said “suffers from strabismus”, perhaps “cross-eyed” is not a PC term.
I’m not sure that she is; it may be an illusion caused by her focussing on something close-by.
Now MY cuteness sensors are going haywire at panel two. Best cute Dino hoodie heroine, she is. ♥
I can’t enough appreciate the fact that Dina is helping Becky because she genuinely likes her. Becky – who has to hide and lie all the time just to stay safe – was nothing but herself with Dina, and that’s the exact reason why her butthole dad is now put on a bus and this most adorable dinosaur chick is doing everything she can to help her.
I mean, just look at them.
Kinda makes you think Joyce is right – falling in love DOES make everything all right.
Dina seems like she is so out of place with the world. Finally she has found someone who seems to accept her as she is. At the same time, becky seems to be finding the same person in Dina.
It is lovely.
dina, your character development just makes you go from Best to Super Best™
Dina’s pretty fucking hot in this storyline!
I can hear Triceradina saying quote-dickbag-closequote in my head. xD
I hereby petition for the adoption of D. saruyamensis triceradina for the specimen formerly known only as D. saruyamensis, as it is much more specific to this particular example and may in fact be a definite evolutionary step from the primary species.
I forgot that Dina always uses the exact technical term for everything.
+1
I LOVE YOU DINA!!
It was the “pokemans” comment that did it for her right?, i mean you don’t call dino’s for pokey without suffering the consquences:-P
Dina you’re forgiven in everyone’s eyes. <3
this is still one of my favourite arcs. dina is incredibly fun and cute.
This is all super cute, and I’m loving Dina’s arc as it develops. (OMG…she’s a PERSON under all that passive reaction stuff?! GRBLRGH! )
…STILL want Ethan/(whatever other dude) for the next Slipshine.
So why not change the title to dickbag? Seems appropriate. Butthole, too.
I cannot remember the exact reason but using a rude title will affect Willis’ revenue somehow, so he keeps it fairly clean.
I love that last expression of Becky’s.
I think Dina has officially balanced her dick-dad karma. ;;
I guess “dickbag” wouldn’t have made an acceptable page name, hehe.
Dina’s expression in the last panel tho XD
Think of the RSS thead!
I recall the page where Sal skyrocketed 📈 on the “fuck” chart was named as such.
Have we ever seen the full glory Dina’s head unobscured by material things?
I don’t know why, but for some reason I really want Ross “Dickbag” MacIntyre to be in the right on this. Maybe he’s still a dickbag- he certainly carries himself in a manner deserving of comparisons to a satchel filled with dismembered penises- but at the same time, he never outright says he’s looking for Becky because of her recent self-discovery.
The only evidence we have that he’s a faith-conversion bigot is because of Becky, and she has a history of jumping to conclusions that fit her emotional desires (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/hindsight/). It’s not impossible that her father really is looking for her with good, healthy intentions.
Maybe I’m a sucker for a good character misdirect. Maybe I’m just a contrarian. But it would be an interesting story decision.
Did you completely ignore everything the father actually said? “Void was occupied by the evil one, who filled her mind with vile desires” Nothing good or healthy there- “I will not lose faith that she can be corrected“. Yeah, yep sounds perfectly reasonable..*cough*. Then “I know what she needs, and I will rehabilitate her though any means necessary”- yep, totally a “pray away the gay camp” *shudder.
So yeah- I would say he sort of proved himself to be the bad guy through his words in the last comics alone. If he HAD said something reasonable and not batshit crazy perhaps dina wouldn’t have been so tough. But frankly the way I see it she had no other chance.
I was hoping that too, until he dumped on Dina when he felt she wasn’t being helpful enough.
I am taking you missed this strip (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/pokeman/). I can’t think a way to interpret Ross words in panels 3 and 4 that are not completely awful.
And unless you think Becky was outright lying, we know he took her out of school after she was caught with Kaitlin, and said he’d find a way to “discipline” and “fix” her. There is no positive interpretation here.
Why is there so many people in the “Becky is lying about her dad’s reaction to her homosexuality?” (Okay it’s not a lot of people, but I’ve seen a post or two each day since Ross showed up). Not everything needs to have some massive twist, where we find out that everything we knew was wrong. Sometimes a dickbag is a dickbag. We know that Ross is a fan of the idea of trying to “fix the gays.” He has the same religious beliefs as Joyce’s family, and we know Joyce also thought homosexuality was something that had to be fixed. And we know his beliefs haven’t changed like Joyce just based on what he said a couple strips ago. (And this is all consistent with Becky’s story three chapters ago. It’s like she telling the truth or something!)
It’s because Becky has been occasionally annoying since she became a main character and not a perfect, quiet, contrite gay victim, so obviously there must be a valid reason as to why she deserves to have toedad heap terrible shit onto her.
I mean the OP says our only evidence that Ross supports conversion therapy is Becky. But even if we assume the worst of Becky at all times, and that there is a possibility that she’s mistaken or lying, we still have the context of Joyce’s religious views and that she was in a homeschool group with Becky. And we have Ross’s own words. Like lots of stuff about changing Becky, “correcting” her and “rehabilitating” her. I’m at a complete loss on how you infer that could mean anything other than trying to make Becky straight.
TL:DR version: Even if you hate Becky, you have to admit that Ross is a complete dickbag, and that he has wronged Becky here.
You’re exaggerating, people always act like this when an abuser who isn’t an outright and obvious monster shows up. It’s true to life as well, which is why so many of them get away with it. Nobody wants to believe a parent would be that harmful to their child so they look for reasons for it not to be true.
That Becky tends to jump to conclusions and overreact is simply minor evidence they cling to in their desperate hope that it’s all okay and they don’t have to deal with it.
The same thing happened back during the attempted rape story, ‘Oh, maybe he’s not that bad’, ‘Joyce is overreacting by hitting him’ ‘Sarah’s a monster for hitting him with the bat when he hadn’t actually done anything but roofie Joyce’.
People reject that which makes them uncomfortable and attempt to discredit the victims so they can go on pretending. It has nothing to do with Becky’s behaviour or whether people like her, if it was Dina they’d be blaming her trouble understanding people.
…That’s way more messed up than my theory.
Reality is far more fucked up than fiction. That’s why we have fiction, to pretend the world is something different.
I want it to turn out Ross isn’t a bad guy precisely because this isn’t real life. This is all a fiction, and setting up a twist based entirely on the expectations of the characters and the audience of a character would be the most interesting way to take the story from here. We’re already suspending our disbelief to accept that Amazigirl’s superhero violence is somehow tenable in a functioning society. Is it really too much to ask that we suspend it a little further and reserve judgement of a character until they actually, you know, do something?
Oh, who am I kidding? Willis is an excellent at character building, but when it comes to plot twists he’s content with just saying “guess what this person thinks about sexual interactions? It’s not what you think!” Which is fine for the stuff he clearly wants to write.
A: Not everything in a story has to be a twist. Sometimes a character doesn’t have hidden motivations. We aren’t in an M Night Shyamalan movie. Twists aren’t obligatory. There’s still drama without a twist. (Mostly from Becky’s current situation being untenable. She can’t live in the dorms indefinitely, but for her to give up and go back with her dad would be a negative outcome she desperately wants to avoid)
B: Twists have to make sense. For Ross to be something other than a complete bigot at this point would literally make no sense. We’ve already seen some of the stuff he’s said. A literal 180 without further onscreen interactions would be completely out of nowhere. It would be unsatisfying.
C: I’ve read Roomies, It’s Walky, and Dumbing of Age. I think this comic has more of slice of life, day to day narrative going on. There’s no one antagonist that is at the center of the conflict. It’s more of a narrative that shows various characters being tested by various situations, and how they evolve over time. I don’t think that kind of format leads itself to big twists. We aren’t going to see stuff like the last few arcs of Its Walky. And there has been twists outside of “Character X’s sexuality is different than we thought!” I would say stuff like Sarah’s flashbacks, and Amber’s flashbacks were twists because they revealed previously unknown things about the characters. And those were well done in my opinion.
Are you… are you seriously complaining about Willis’s writin because he doesn’t write “turns out this person was LYING ABOUT BEING ABUSED” plot twists? Or because he writes LGBTQ characters who don’t show up with flashing signs reading “this character is not straight!” from the first appearance?
What Willis has here is the setup for one of the most difficult hat tricks in writing- a twist where a universally reviled character turns out to be in the moral right. Becky is a loveable, adorable, admirable character who at the same time is a demonstrably unreliable character. Ross is a thoroughly unlikable man who nonetheless has done nothing wrong within the scope of the audience beyond looking for his daughter for an unspecified wrongdoing that caused her to run from home.
Do I expect Willis to actually pull the trigger on it? Of course not. It would be entirely at odds with everything he’s done as a creator and social commentator. But he has, intentionally or not, created a story and cultivated an audience where such a twist could work in the confines of the story and trigger an enormous emotional response. It warrants being noted as such.
He also would not pull the trigger on it because it is an intensely horrible, unrealistic and offensive idea.
“Unspecified wrongdoing”? What the hell? We know exactly what the wrongdoing is! We’ve heard it from Ross’s own mouth. He wants to “correct” Becky because “The evil one has filled her with sinful desires”. To pull off a “He’s not so bad” twist would make everything said previously to be misleading nonsense. (I won’t say that it’s impossible for Ross to change his mind. I mean Joyce did. But that had a lot of setup, setup the plot allowed for because she’s the main character. For a secondary character like Ross to get development like that would require a complete change in focus of the comic)
That plot development would be an out of nowhere twist, one that would also completely solve the current conflict Becky is in. If her dad was suddenly accepting, Becky’s problems would pretty much evaporate. Ross having a sudden change of heart where he suddenly becomes a caring, understanding father would be a deus ex machina. And really bad writing. (To say nothing of the social commentary issues)
And what if Becky’s “sinful desires” are, say, self-harm? A Ross-based twist would only come out of nowhere if you assume the only thing going on in Becky’s life is her coming out, which Willis has done a pretty good job of establishing as a crappy way to treat someone.
Again, I don’t expect Ross to turn out anything than the bag of dicks he’s portrayed as, but writers take note: this is how you set up a gut-punch twist. You focus a conflict one one character’s perspective, you give all the likeable character traits to that character, and you leave the other side with just enough presence to let the audience fill them with their own assumptions. The set-up is there. That’s literally the extent of my observations.
‘What if, instead of what was shown, the issue was a completely out of nowhere asspull?’
To do a successful twist, you need to set things up so that the twist is a reasonable reading of what has been shown. That has not happened. There is no twist to be revealed here.
Would still be contrary to Ross’s clear control issues. And his established religious views. (He knows about his daughter’s homosexuality, and since he has the same views as Joyce in the beginning of the comic, we know that his attitude towards it would be to “fix” it. To make that a red herring, would be out of nowhere, and contradictory to what has happened before)
@KaminoNeko
This. It would be actively hateful to anyone who has experiences similar to Becky to go “whoops, turns out the loving Christian father who just wanted to cure Becky of her evil demon-infested lesbianity was right”. It would be openly spiteful and would be a massive betrayal and active harm to anyone who was feeling healed by an all-too-rare example of this sort of storyline done right.
@Wax
“And what if Becky’s “sinful desires” are, say, self-harm?”
Okay, I’m going to try not to be openly antagonistic here, but I want you to understand just exactly what you said here.
You are directly comparing “being gay” to “self-harm”.
I know you may not intentionally mean all of the connotations of that, but it is still something you have done in this sentence.
So, being someone who is homoromantic and someone who has engaged in self-harm before and especially as someone who understands the difference between the two and whose self-harm behaviors in the past were caused by societal homophobia and bigotry, I hope you will forgive me if I have trouble shrugging that off as a simple thing.
Being gay is not hurting oneself.
Which, on that note, self-harm is a warning sign, a coping strategy, not the problem in and of itself. If you eliminate someone’s self-harm tools and play hard-line against that without ever addressing the underlying causes or acknowledge the role likely abuse, disease, or suffering is playing in that behavior, you are putting that person in serious risk of suicide.
In this fantasy world where someone flees cross-country because “she’s engaging in self-harm and doesn’t want to be better”. THAT’S A HUGE FUCKING RED FLAG. People don’t do major dramatic actions like that simply because they “refuse to get better”. That means there is major abuse or wrong-doing the person engaging in self-harm is trying to flee and their abuser is taking advantage of their attempt to avoid worse symptoms in order to leverage control.
Which, I wish to note is why I have a sneaking suspicion that Dana’s home is not a safe and healing place where she is being lovingly detoxed. Because drug abuse of a drug like pot to the point where it is a serious life risk is a sign of a lot more behind the surface than just an addiction.
So, to finalize my point, your “brilliant writing advice” would be a) terrible advice on how to handle a self-destructive and suicidal individual running from their home, b) a painful betrayal to those who have similar life experiences to Becky, c) equate being gay with being a self-injurer or otherwise mentally ill, d) would give comfort to the worst of humanity, e) be a terrible, unsupported twist that would only work if Becky was actively manipulating those around her for little other reason than evil lesbianity, and f)…
F) It would be shit writing.
I’m sorry. But it would. Having a twist to have a twist is the worst of hackneyed crap and the reason why Shyamalan’s career has careened off the rails into a universal joke.
Twists should never be taken because “ooh, what a swerve”. They should be taken because they want to comment on audience expectation. Using people’s habit and familiarity of a hackneyed trope to comment on the ugliness inherent to that trope. Or just building hints throughout so everyone can see how it has been foreshadowed and builds and adds to a storyline.
Twists taken because “no one would expect it” is the lazy troll form of storytelling. It takes no creativity or wit and it leaves little in the form of edification or reward for careful reading.
And when combined with a story rarely told, it can be downright dangerous and disrespectful. Telling a rare sympathetic story of a black teen trying to make their way and going “ooh, what a twist, it turns out he was a right-wing stereotype of black people the whole time” is not clever. It is hateful and harmful to every black person watching and hoping that this time their story would be told. For once.
I’m sorry to be blunt and less than charitable about this, but it’s a little hard to take as someone who has actually lived this shit to see so many casually ponder how “awesome” it would be to undercut this with hateful bullshit about how queer kids always be lyin’.
Especially in the context of those “sweet lesbian facts” that Leslie Bean laid down.
A: No, twists are not the most interesting way to tell a narrative story. Especially when the straight version is rarely told. Gone Girl having a “twist” that the abused victim wife was actually a master manipulator was actually common-place and dangerous in a world where domestic violence survivors are assumed to be making everything up and where abusers use beliefs like “all women are evil” to justify casual violence.
When a story like queer homelessness is so absent traditional narratives. Playing it straight as the greatest narrative options and richness because we just don’t see it reflected in media.
And this last point is important, because there is an element of privilege at play. For someone who is disconnected from this life experience, a twist adds excitement to a narrative hook that’s just a plot point. For those of us who’ve lived it, a twist is a betrayal of our life experiences and saying fuck you, people who’ve lived this, your story isn’t interesting enough to be told yet.
For those of us who are queer and disowned and have been/are/almost were homeless, this story is incredibly important to be told and very healing. To see it done and done right is a rarity and so can actually bring tears to one’s eyes and make one feel less alone.
A twist would require undermining all of that, ruining the point of doing justice to such a story all to alleviate and please the comfortable who never have to even imagine experiencing such a thing as what Becky is going through.
B) Amazigirl’s superhero violence is not devoid of real-world style consequences. It’s a vehicle of her untreated Dissassociative Identity Disorder, a sign of her unhealthy relationship with anger and emotions, and an attempt at establishing some sort of protection and healing from a lifetime of being controlled by an abuser. Having dated several people of the life experience of having been ritualistically abused most of their life and as someone who has lived with DID my whole life, a lot of Amber’s tale rings true: the separation of personalities and motivations for the DID stuff, the locking away of emotions and the fear of letting oneself go and becoming a monster for the abuse stuff.
C) …
“Is it really too much to ask that we suspend it a little further and reserve judgement of a character until they actually, you know, do something?”
No. Just no.
This is the dark underbelly of all of these types of comments and as Lord Stoneheart lamented, it is kinda hard to take sometimes.
This idea that Toedad hasn’t “done anything yet”, that he’s somehow worthy of reserved judgment, and that the jury is out on whether or not he has done harm is disgusting.
Reparative therapy, “fixing” someone who is queer is not a neutral activity. Is not a loving activity.
It. Is. Abuse.
As someone whose parent has tried power-playing that particular bit of bullshit, I am sorry, but I cannot overlook or let slide this idea that reparative therapy is some naive religious quaint tradition that is not a deliberate intentional attempt to terrorize and abuse a child into hiding who they are in the most destructive ways possible.
It is brutal, hateful, and not something to be trifled with or put up with because gosh, the ‘rents are such a drag, maaaaan. It is a genuine, relationship-ending threat of power and hate, wrapped up in the denialism of religion.
Any parent that threatens that, that tries to enforce that is not a good parent. Is not a parent who has “not done anything”. It is a parent who has and intends to do monstrous wrong to their child.
Toedad is not a naive Christian moron just trying to do what’s “right” in his narrow little way. He’s committing and has committed a gross betrayal of what it means to be a parent.
Becky’s dad is not an innocent party here and pretending otherwise gives comfort to the types of fucks who hide their naked bigotry and harm in the language of “love” and religion.
And it’s disgusting.
Sorry to be blunt about this, but I’ve actually lived through this particular situation. I would not wish it on anyone in the world. And I can never EVER forgive the one who tried to manipulate me into that particular horror.
well said!
( re your comment about writing and gay tropes above this one )
*White flag*
I am not in a position to empathize with these characters. My opinions are from a narrative perspective, but if others are connecting on an entirely different level, then I recognize my contributions as boorish at best and insulting at worst.
Much of my displeasure comes from having worked for a heavily Christian entertainment company. It’s about as awful as it would sound. Every piece that came through had this air of assumed prosecution that put Christians as an inherently “good” status with the only personality trait necessary to make someone “evil” to be “not immediately agreeing with the Christians”. It’s lazy propaganda designed to appeal to an Us vs. Them mindset on the simplest terms possible.
Maybe I was just hoping that the other side would do better. They’re already on the moral high ground by any civilized measure. Is it too much to ask that the art rise above, too?
To answer my own question, yes. Sometimes folk just need a simple message to find familiarity and hope with, and to my shame as an American, those people are the ones like Becky in this country.
Sorry for butting in.
Well, there’s people out there with views like Ross. And unlike Ross, they aren’t flat characters. Since he’s the parent of a character in a comic that focuses on the lives of characters in college, he’s probably not going to be more than a secondary character who’s sole role is going to be antagonistic. What’s important about him is that he’s the reason why a main character, Becky, is in an untenable situation. (Homeless, and trying to be hidden in an area where she’s by the rules not allowed to stay).
In defense of the depictions of Christians in Dumbing of Age, they aren’t all like Ross. More central characters like Joyce, are much more three dimensional. As for this being equivalent to “These people are wrong because they disagree with Christians!” I also disagree with that. Ross wants to force Becky to undergo a process that has been proven to cause psychological harm in order for her to fit his worldview. This isn’t just a difference in opinion with a progressive worldview. This is a lack of respecting someone else as human, and allowing them to have a different worldview as you. (I really want to emphasize that there’s people out there with views like Ross. And those views cause harm to people. He’s not just a strawman)
Finally, I just want to say (again, I feel like this point is being ignored) that from a narrative perspective, your idea of a twist is pretty anticlimactic and nonsensical. If Ross is not forcing Becky to choose between homelessness (and hiding from him!) or forced conversion therapy then her main conflict is gone. For Ross to suddenly reveal himself to be okay with the whole lesbian thing would be like waving a magical wand to fix Becky’s problem. A sudden flip from his stance when Dina met him less than an hour ago, would be akin to a deus ex machina. Honestly, it makes about as much sense as Becky winning the lottery, and Ross being struck by lightning. It could happen, but it would be a pretty crappy twist.
“Much of my displeasure comes from having worked for a heavily Christian entertainment company. It’s about as awful as it would sound. Every piece that came through had this air of assumed prosecution that put Christians as an inherently “good” status with the only personality trait necessary to make someone “evil” to be “not immediately agreeing with the Christians”. It’s lazy propaganda designed to appeal to an Us vs. Them mindset on the simplest terms possible.
Maybe I was just hoping that the other side would do better. They’re already on the moral high ground by any civilized measure. Is it too much to ask that the art rise above, too?”
Seriously?
I’m sorry, but this is really passive-aggressive. Especially the part in bold. Dumbing of Age and queer works that don’t go “twist, it turns out the abusive dad who wanted to force reparative therapy was the hero the whole time” are not the queer version of faux-victimhood Christian entertainment nor are they “failing to rise above”.
Queer individuals, unlike white straight Christians are actually oppressed. Let me highlight Leslie’s “sweet lesbian facts”: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/sweetlesbianfacts/
1/3 of homeless youth are queer. 1/4 of queer youth who come out are thrown out of their homes for it. 1/3 are subject to violence.
And on top of that, let us not forget that it has only been months since a queer relationship was even treated legally as equivalent to a straight one and despite that, it is still legal in the majority of states to fire, deny housing, and deny accommodation solely on the basis of sexual orientation. People are still murdered in the United States, in major cities for being queer identified and homophobic violence and slurs are painfully common. And things like corrective rape of lesbian identified women is still not only a thing, but a not uncommon thing.
Unlike the flavor of Christians who create paeans to how tortured they are because no one is allowing them to take others’ rights away anymore, queer individuals, still today, deal with horrifying levels of horseshit and on top of that suffer an absolute dearth of popular representation. Remember the huge deal everyone made about Korra and Asami in Legend of Korra? How much the creators had to fight to even have that level of depiction? Has anyone needed to do have that much because a character was Christian-identified? Hell no.
And a lot of those “sweet lesbian facts” above are due to active campaigns against their rights to exist by said martyr-wannabe Christian groups.
So yeah, even if queer works like this one were to be about “how Christians are super evil and hey, here’s happy queer goodness”, they’d be really fucking justified. Certainly way more than the contrary.
Except that isn’t what this is.
Let us not forget that Toedad is not the sole and only representative of even that sliver of Christianity that is Pre-Millennial Dispensationalist Fundamentalism. Joyce and Becky also come from that culture and still identify with it and a large subset of the character list identify as Christian as well including Billie, Danny, and Sierra. Most of whom are depicted positively. Hell, we’ve even already had the bigoted but somewhat genuinely caring about their children storyline before with Joyce’s parents and Joyce standing by her atheist friend.
So yeah, claiming this is some narrow, all Christians are bad morality play because in this one instance, it doesn’t turn out that those advocating reparative therapy are totally justified is some thick level bullshit which makes your “white flag” somewhat hard to take seriously.
Furthermore, treating people crying desperately for some damn representation that is worth a fuck, that takes our struggles seriously and bloody well shows them for once (I’m genuinely struggling to think of more than a single-hand’s worth of movies I’ve seen that tackle queer homelessness and reparative therapy and I seek out queer media like a drone missile), is something worth depicting and is not some pandering display of cheap manufactured oppression for all the over-privileged queer groups to go “how true” to.
I don’t know if you’ll ever understand just how offensive your “suggestion” was to those who’ve lived this and how utterly dismissive to our humanity your “well, if you won’t take my awesome suggestion to write a Christian polemic, then I guess you don’t care about creating genuine art” is, but I urge you to try.
Oh man!
For the sake of brevity, lets just pretend my comment praises Every sentence here, for its intelligence, clarity and for context.
For what you said, and how you said it.
and just to save time, This praise also explicitly covers everything you wrote on this page below it, preemptively.
I’m out of caffeine and I’m just not in the mood ( in this moment) to cut and paste everything you wrote , and torturously explain all the manifold ways its awesome.
Just accept my comment here as my ‘Total Fabulousness Award’ . where you get the presumptions that all your following comments on this page, hence force are **Infallibly Fabulous **
Wax Abridged:
“I realize that I have dug myself quite deep. I will try to tunnel upwards.” *keeps digging deeper*
“Is it really too much to ask that we suspend it a little further and reserve judgement of a character until they actually, you know, do something?”
The word you are searching for is “denial” .
The problem is that you still have to explain Beckys actions from the plot.
Youd have to have an alternate explanation which fits the facts:
Why was Becky taken out of school?
Why did she show up penniless with no change of clothes at IU?
You can either make her an addict , criminal or mentally ill.
But it still seems extremely unlikely shes lying about being a lesbian, so by writing such a character it would play into a homophobic narrative already in our culture by people just like Ross, that homosexuality itself is mental illness and deviance.
The Likelihood that Willis is going to write a ‘Xtian Fundamentalist cures Teh Gayz by putting her in a Straight Camp-narrative’ is probably less than snowball in the middle of the sun.
Sure.. maybe Becky is secretly kleptomaniac heroin-addict, that tied up her old roommate and left her dead ? Thats what you would need to pull of such a reversal.
( Why stop there? Why not make them both cannibals? )
But why would giving Ross the benefit of the doubt —when we already know he’s deprived his daughter of a real social life, an actual education, and is a bigot — be more emotionally satisfying to you, than just giving becky the benefit of the doubt?
Becky is over 18. If hes not going to support her, she doesnt need to put up with one iota of his shit.
This.
People often want to see the best in abusers and to soften the sharp edges of abusive behavior, because that way, it’s less common. And if it’s less common, then maybe it’s not happening right in front of your face. And if it’s not happening in front of your face, you can think the best of people you know and can assume bad people who do bad things are some cartoonish monster far far away.
It’s much harder to face that a good number of the students in every classroom are being or have been abused in some way, that at least one student in a class is being molested at home, that someone you have shaken hands with has raped a person or hit their spouse or kids or has undermined self-esteem of a person to the point of breaking. That someone you know personally has disowned a queer child or ordered their child to never speak about what happens at home.
That horrible things, especially those against the vulnerable or marginalized, are routine and commonplace. And a person who otherwise puts up a good front of being an otherwise moral individual may have horrible views or have done something awful to hurt someone.
As you note. It’s true to life.
I’m a teacher. A teacher who has known a lot of people who’ve gone through a lot of shit in the past and so every time I see a report for a kid that’s dripping with red flags, I make a note on a list. And even for kids where there is no possible way of spinning the parents actions as anything other than abusive, there are teachers, caring hard-working teachers, who nonetheless want to assume that the kid is making it all up for attention.
Hell, for one student, there was a warning passed around that the parents were saying the child was prone to making up grandiose lies, so take his statements about home life with a grain of salt that a lot of teachers fell for up to the point where the father punched the kid at the school.
People want to assume the worst of victims and the best of abusers, because if they do, they don’t have to think worse of the world and they don’t have to change. It’s, in every way possible, easier for those who aren’t affected.
And yes, this relates rather directly to privilege in general, see also all the talking heads arguing that black people are overstating the problem with abusive police.
Awww, she’s getting all sorts of social graces! Weird, Dina all grown up in this comic. Compared to her ‘tween’ appearance of early DoA comics.
Why isn’t Robin DeSanto in the poll?
Also, I forget if someone answered this before (sorry?): is Robin DeSanto of the Dumbingverse (not the Walkyverse) also a war veteran?
There’s no mention of it in the Wiki although that’s hardly 100% inclusive.
Well in the Walkyverse she’s a veteran of a war with aliens. Which don’t exist in the Dumbiverse (well, they exist as fictional characters in the Dumbiverse. Details). We don’t know if she was in the military I guess, but the sliding time scale makes it hard to make her a veteran of a specific war. And we don’t have any evidence that she is a veteran. So I’d guess I’d say no?
I’m guessing the panel that used to have “averse” in it is now that one that has “dickbag” in it.
You made the right choice.
A dickbag AND a toehead
Any Sandra and Woo readers over here?
Do we want an ‘adorable-off’ between Dina and Yuna? Would we all win or would that much adorableness cause the planet to implode?
Here’s one. And that actually sounds like a very good idea 😀
Yuna would find a way to harness the adorableness, saving us from implosion and freeing us from dependency on fossil fuels.
Dina would win.
‘Adorable’ is one of the last words I’d use to describe Yuna. Brattiness is not adorable.
Dicktoe dad it is.
Electroconvulsive therapy at home or religious conversion camp?
Or both for best effects?
As puniton, he shall listen non stop to “the sound of music” for a week.
Then we switch him to the… Singing Nun until he breaks down and cries out that he will have unnatural sexual congress with 12 homosexual men and be their love slave forever if only it will stop!
Can we switch that to Princess Shayla from Power Rangers Wild Force singing?
That’s a LOT worse and I hate to expose a classical musical to Becky’s dad. That’s just cruel to the musical.
I noticed Dina’s kinda hunching over when she talk to Becky.
Trying hard to maintain eye contact ? Or maybe something more.
Whatever the reason, it certainly stresses that she has a low need for personal space when talking to Becky.
aw
We may be 5 panels away from lips contact.
I am not expecting that until near the end of the month. or at least not until joyce is in the room, Becky seems to like Joyce’s reaction to embarrassment after all…
They have other things to address first as well.
Eh. Sod the rest, it will just take a minute 😎
Which will be the Dina equivalent of getting laid.
Some may argue that Toedad McDickbag was treated unfairly when Dina mislead him, that he did not deserve to be fucked over in that manner. However, if you consider what the situation has done to Becky, I think we can agree that we’re dealing with a butthole that needed to be fucked.
….
I’m very sorry, everybody. I try to keep my inner twelve year old locked up, but sometimes she still gets out.
Incidentally, Becky shouldn’t call her father a butthole. It’s insulting.
I mean, what did buttholes do to deserve an association with such a man? That anatomy serves an actual useful purpose, and it’s also more attractive that Toedad McDickbag.
Okay, this may be one of the most vulgar things I’ve typed ever.
Wait wait wait… Did Dina just admit to holding the common superstition that doing a right in the present can somehow ‘fix’ a wrong from the past? The universe doesn’t keep a tally of things and balance out good acts with bad acts, Dina, that’s just religious balony.
No, Dina is demonstrating that she can learn from what turned out to be an incorrect decision — letting Amber’s dad into the room — even though it was done for what appeared (at that time) to be the right reasons. Because she is aware of what came about as a result of that decision, it is her own psyche that is keeping the prior incident fresh in her memory (not to mention that in DoA time it only occurred what? maybe two weeks ago max? — so it’s not that far back in the past).
So at the simplest level this is Dina merely asking for affirmation that “I done good this time, right?”
By the way — in one of the past strips someone (Willis?) posted a timeline that showed to which days and weeks of the semester the various chapters of the books would correspond. Does anybody remember which strip that was in, or if the timeline has its own link like the f-bomb count?
I believe the incident with Dina failing to stop her parents from letting Blaine in was a little over a week ago. If I have this right, “Just Hangin’ Out With my Family” (the day of said incident) was on a Saturday, “The Only Dope for me is You,” was Sunday, “I was a Teenage Churchmouse,” was Monday, “Up All Night to Get a Vengeance” was Tuesday, “The Whitboard Dingdong Bandit” was Wednesday, “When Someone Loved Me,” was Thursday, “Three’s a Crowd” was Friday, “The Butterflies Won’t Fly Away,” was Saturday again, and “Walking With Dina,” was Sunday again.
So, yeah, just a little over a week.
No, she didn’t. The universe doesn’t keep a tally, but Dina does.
Your own idea of whats a superstition isnt evidence-based.
Whether or not there is a supernatural tally is irrelevant, because the concept is valid both morally and psychologically.
The deficit is to Dinas sense of integrity, and what type of person she sees herself as , and desires to be.
This is what a non-supernatural based morality looks like.
Human beings do become the person-who-committed-such-an-act-as-X.
You become what youve done.
Cognitive Dissonance works to keep peoples beliefs in line with their actions. These experiments have been done.
Dina is now through her actions , a brave guileful Heroine, one who helped her friends, and bucked any natural tendency to go alone with authority.
Character isnt a fallacy.
the fact that dina quoted dickbag makes me think she considers toedad not to be a butthole but a dickbag, rather than a butthole and a dickbag. interesting distinction.
Dina… the quiet badazz
Always be wary of the quiets ones.
The third panel is quite refreshing in that you get to see a completely honest and open experession from Becky with no pretence or anything, its good (the openess, not the situation)
Dina is a Spectrum Superhero. Worthy of her own superhero comic.
Slightly OT: Who is Daisy (mentioned in the poll)?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/legitimate/
The really, really, really, REALLY sexually frustrated editor of the school paper.
I am SO happy to see Dina developed as a character. She is the most adorable thing I have seen in a long time.
The thing no one thinks about is how hard it would be for her to get a job or go to school to set up her identity. yeah she probably has her drivers license. But, i know for my husband we had to basically break into his parents house then steal his and his sisters social security cards, birth certificates, diplomas ext. then we found a bunch of other stuff (like bonds for some of the siblings show were over 18 a the time it was given). To go to school she still has to report her dad’s income on fafsa.
Yes, there are certainly many challenges but in regards to fafsa, she doesn’t need her dad’s income if she is “an unaccompanied youth who is homeless or self-supporting and at risk of being homeless”. I believe she fits this description.
i didn’t know that i was just basing it off my experience with parents who just didn’t wan t me to get loans. Thanks for the education.
This is true.
You can’t get a job without a permanent address. It’s an obstacle many, many homeless people contend with.
dina is now for sure my favorite character. she has a daww moment every page.
…yeah, okay, this is weird. Becky confirms the “homeless” part, but not that it was her sexual orientation.
Given the context it’s unnecessary to specifically confirm that. It is assumed that this is the reason for her running away and being homeless. Confirming the homelessness indirectly confirms her father finding out about her sexual orientation.
That said…. the lack of specific confirmation does leave open the possibility of an alternate series of events. Perhaps she ran away first and left a note informing her father of her orientation?
That said…. the lack of specific confirmation does leave open the possibility of an alternate series of events. Perhaps she ran away first and left a note informing her father of her orientation?
Flashback panels. Right here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/fix/
Becky was caught doing lesbian stuff at school. The school informed Ross. Ross showed up, told her that he was going to find a way to “fix” her. Becky ran away from him, got on a bus to Bloomington, and went to Joyce’s room. We know that is the sequence of events. We know Ross’s motivations and ultimatum. Even if you think those flashback panels are a lie somehow (there’s no precedent for that!), you have the words out of his own mouth. Why is this still a question?
people are really fucking falling all over themselves to find some alternative explanation for this story about a lesbian woman, it’s really friggin’ curious
But David, you know when she says “bad influence” she means staying up all night to watch rated R movies!
You make Becky fun. You make her funny, with a subversive sense of humor.
You make her warm , you make her brave , you give her enviable sense of confidence. You give her an awesome haircut. 🙂
You make her flawed with blindspots, written like shes an actual human being.
( Nobody can claim shes too perfect to be real i.e a martystu )
You make her story reflect overwhelmingly, the actual world we currently live in .
Yet people habitually side against her,and dont take her word for anything.
I dont remember a single person in the fandom suggesting Amber was ‘disrespectful’ to her asshole-Dad ,or provoked Blaine when he first showed up.
People took her word ( without any in-dumbing evidence) that he was dangerous.
Yet for some strange reason ( **cough, cough Homophobia **) Becky is never given that same benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, it is interesting.
I didn’t read many of the comments…
Anywho, I for one don’t really see the need for an alternative nor the probability of one. Also, I kinda want to rescind my previous statement because I had forgotten a few details from earlier in the story.