OK the thought of an autistic Japanese dinosaur-obsessed girl “going feral” made me giggle for a few seconds. Prowling the woods attacking people and stealing their cereal…
I’m a bit of a dissenter on this one. I thought that she seemed to be developing poise and social skills so rapidly in here relationship with Becky that she couldn’t have any serious difficulties with any neurological basis, that she must just have lacked previous opportunities to learn.
She’s entirely clueless about nonverbal social cues, and she’s obsessed with one particular subject (dinosaurs), but her intelligence and cognition appear as good as anyone else’s. She’s got to be somewhere on the Autism spectrum.
OR NEedfuldoer, there’s a another kind of person who is obsessive about things, they’re called Geeks. I suspect Din isn’t really Autistic, having worked with someone actual Aspergers she’s far too coherent and eloquent. I think she’s just been poorly socialised, depending on when her family imigrated to the USA, possibly early language barriers, or simply the inherent cruelty of children left her an outsider, and thus socially underdeveloped. And as can be seen, given the opportunity to develop her social skills has vastly improved at pace that would be impossible for a genuine autistic.
I’m not suggesting Dina us definitely Austistic or not, but suggestions she’s too coherent, eloquent or is picking stuff up too fast etc. need to be tempered byremembering/understanding that there is a huge range or experience and expression amongst people on the spectrum. Myself and my whole family are (officially diagnosed) Autistic and we’re all at least as ‘high functioning’ as Dina, and many of us can ‘pass’ as neurotypical. I picked up certain social skills and cues very fast when things ‘clicked’. I suggest everyone
exercise caution before deciding this or that thing disqualifies her from being Autistic without a look at the wider picture. After all, that is the reason we call it a spectrum now, because of the understanding that there is a huge range of individual variation.
That Damn Rat:
“having worked with someone actual Aspergers she’s far too coherent and eloquent.”
I got to stop you there, while SOME people with Asperger CAN have trouble being coherent and eloquent, MOST people I’ve met with severe Asperger diagnosis have actually been the most eloquent and coherent people I’ve ever met!
See, it’s not that uncommon for one of the subjects that they focus on to be language, so it’s natural that many become authors or Great Speakers.
It’s interpersonal communication that’s the main problem usually.
Back to Dina,
I would find it very likely that she scores high on the autism spectre (and, yes, EVERYONE scores on the autism spectre. Neurotypicals generally score between 5 to 40, Asperger starts at around 70 and goes up to about 160.
I myself usually score 145, but I have some sort of “unspecified” autism, according to my shrink, so I don’t have Asperger.
There are many, many, many types of autism, and everyone is somewhere on that sliding scale, but Dina reminds me so much of my own experiences trying to interact with humanity, so I’m pretty sure she’s higher than normal on the spectre.
A large segment of the fanbase considers her on the spectrum. After the Joyce’s Party sequence, Willis said on tumblr that Dina was likely on the spectrum, but undiagnosed.
1. We’re ALL somewhere on the Autism spectrum. No human’s ever existed that was capable of perfectly understanding and reacting in every social situation.
2. There’s a special section of the spectrum just for those who socially interact mainly through comment sections of web comics. 🙂
Labels again…
Yes maybe she is or is not autistic but does it really matter?
She proved again and again she is a very intelligent woman.
She also learn more and more everyday how to interact with her friends.
Don’t let labels define you.
As soon as a label is applied to someone we can’t seem to see past it. (Trying really hard to. Years of brainwashing on labels and stereotypes)
@tami, I can perfectly understand and react to every situation, not appropriatly, but I can react, all you have to do is scream “I dont give a damn” if anyone tries to talk to you, works every time.
Usually, people explain the autism spectrum something like this: Neurotypical people -> AD/HD:inattentive & AD/HD:hyperactive -> Asperger’s -> Autism.
Within each of those sections, there are ‘high functioning’ and ‘low functioning’, which usually means how well they’re able to pass for neurotypical and/or get along in society. There are very low-functioning folks who will probably never live independently, and high-functioning people where you really wouldn’t know that their brains are different unless they told you all the strategies that they’d painstakingly invented to appear normative. And everyone between, and people who are high-functioning in some subjects/situations but not others.
When you’re working with people on the spectrum, the idea is generally to help them learn skills/strategies that allow them to be as high-functioning as is possible for that person. (It would be much better if society met them halfway, kinda like how Becky is considerate of Dina! but this is the society we’ve got.) Much like a person who is physically atypical, people who are mentally atypical develop tons of strategies and workarounds that work best for them. Dina hiding under a coat at the party, for example, was a successful strategy to deal with her sensory overstimulation. (It looked kinda weird, but it didn’t harm anyone, and it let her have a fun time even as she was adjusting.)
Autism spectrum = more to deal with, but =/= slow to learn. So, the fact that Dina learns quickly means that she’s a really fast learner (a clever girl!), not that she’s necessarily neurotypical.
Autistim Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Being a spectrum it means that it covers a pretty wide area from mild to extreme, and different particulars. Dina would fall somewhere towards the mild end, probably in the Asperger Disorder range.
We have a manager where I work who we feel is a high function Asperger, Dina is a little more obvious, but still pretty high function.
And yes, indeed, what Koschei said!
Asperger’s and Autism don’t imply incoherent, inarticulate, slow learning, etc. Plenty of folks on the spectrum are quite the opposite.
Also, I just looked it up, and I got high-functioning vs. low-functioning wrong: high-functioning is used colloquially how I used it, but it’s incorrect — as an official term, high functioning actually means that you haven’t got the language or cognitive delays that some ASD folks have.
The More You Know!
So, it sounds like That Damn Rat must’ve worked with somebody with low-functioning Asperger’s. Dina isn’t that, but neither are all Aspies.
@TheNinthShader. I think you proved my point. Without the clarity of math notation, my “perfect understanding and reacting”, intended as: perfect(understanding + reacting) = (perfect understanding + perfect reacting), failed to be socially communicated.
And to quote myself from years ago: “I understand humans very well, but I still don’t know how to be one.”
It’s been said that if you’ve met one person with autism , you’ve met one person with autism. I would have to agree with that. The fact that Dina presents as higher functioning than some other people on the spectrum doesn’t mean she can’t be on the spectrum as well.
Okay, it’s been a very long, hard day for me, and I don’t know how coherent that last sentence was. My brain is really not working. My point is, I think that Dina is most likely neurologically atypical. She’s also very intelligent, and functioning at a high level.
I myself baffled many professionals over the years with my vast skill scatter. By skill scatter I mean, I tested as functioning well above average in some things, well below average in others. They couldn’t even calculate my IQ because there was such a ginormous gap between my verbal and performance IQ. I have significant symptoms indicating Asperger’s Syndrome, Dyspraxia, Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, ADHD – inattentive type, with some mental health disorders added into the mix for a little extra spice. Nobody could ever figure out what to make of me, or how to help me. At thirty-four years of age, I still struggle immensely with all kinds of things. I’ve caused problems for a lot of people without meaning to due to my inability to function like a normal human being.
So, maybe I’m a little biased in wanting my neurologically atypical representation, but Dina does definitely show significant signs of Asperger’s Syndrome. The neurologically atypical population is quite a diverse group.
Okay, I had a point initially, and I pretty much completely lost track of said point. Like I said, it’s been a rough day.
The ideas that everyone is on the autism spectrum, that there’s a progression from neurotypical to adhd to autism, and that the autism spectrum is a linear progression from low-functioning to high-functioning are all incorrect and outdated. The autism spectrum is a spectrum because people have different autistic traits with varying intensity, but those don’t necessarily correlate with each other. Functioning labels are based on a few of those traits society deems more important, and imply general competence/performance correlate to those labels when they really don’t.
Lots of autistic people (myself included) are quite eloquent and have high verbal test scores, read at an early age, had a large vocabulary early on, have a good grasp of grammar and/or spelling, etc. This is actually a main factor in the false distinction between asperger’s and autism, so saying Dina can’t be autistic because she talks well is completely false.
I feel like it’s ambiguous and all this insistence is a bit like the people who wanted her to be asexual, though I do think it’s better for her to be one than both due to stereotyping issues.
Lots of comments to reply to above, but there seem to be a lot of people who already covered the important points. This one hasn’t been covered. Labels are important. It’s easy to say “Why do people need labels, just live” and think you are being more inclusive, but often you are doing the opposite. You are telling people who are Autistic to get over being different and just be like everyone else, which is really the core of the problem. You are telling them that it doesn’t matter if they are different, we accept them, but they know that they think differently and act differently than us. My fiance is autistic and we have conversations about this a lot. The first 18 years of her life were a difficult time for her because she couldn’t understand why everyone around her acted so differently than her. They wanted to touch others, they wanted hugs, they wanted to make eye contact. When she was 18 she was told she was Autistic and she had that label. Suddenly everything made sense and she found a community where she belonged, where she didn’t feel like the outcast among a crowd. Labels are important, and can be a very positive thing depending on how they are used.
@Muattles
I know i’m a couple days late but you have a good point.
I meant it more in a way that when people put a labels on someone they expect that person to act exactly a certain way and if they deviate they are told they are doing it wrong.
Like some comments in the past that have already being mentioned about Dina who shouldn’t be acting the way she is because she is autistic.
So what I really meant is don’t let other people tell you what you can or can’t do because of a label except maybe if its something dangerous 😛
We are all weird in our own way.
Life would be boring if we were all the same anyway.
I’m finding this conversation amusing. As someone who has high functioning Autism aka Asperger’s Syndrome and has actually researched my own condition, I can vouch for Dina showing very clear signs of having Autism, particularly Asperger’s syndrome. High intelligence is actually part of the condition, the very thing that gives us such high intelligence is exactly what makes it hard to understand normal social cues and behaviours. Neurotypicals often rely on subtleties that we simply are incapable of grasping. We tend to prefer being straight-forward and honest about things, lies and implications do not come naturally to us.
Very Happy Ending.
1. No one died (though some of the bloodthirsty fans are sad toedad survived, I’m not… he actually does love his daughter. He’s just stupid and insane and should be locked up until this changes! ie maybe forever)
2. Becky’s mum is not around, dad is in jail and not getting custody even when released, so Becky has a fairly good chance of getting to do what she wants with her life… or so I hope anyways. I’m not sure how the law there will treat her independance or granting custody etc.
3. Sal saved Amazing Girl’s life. This of course hurts AG’s pride like nothing else could, BUT, at the same time, Sal is right about a lot of stuff. I think costumed vigilantes are supercool, but Sal is right, AG overdoes it and acts irrationally sometimes. As Sal insinuates, Sal has grown since then. AG should too.
4. AG didn’t die. I hope she’s not too badly hurt. Also, she didn’t actually kill anyone.
5. Joyce is a heroine! I hope to see this help to overcome her trauma over that bad party! … Heck, her origin is now similiar to Amber now! She could be the 2nd superheroine, Amazing Grace, lol. … oh wait, that might actually happen. … … …
6. Sal will probably gain some RESPECT for Joyce. Heck she probably already does, I wouldn’t leave counterbalancing my bike in that catch to someone I didn’t trust. … heck I wouldn’t have brought her with me if I didn’t think she was somewhat capable.
7. I know a lot of you want Toedad dead, but having come from a broken family myself, I can tell you that if there is hope in stuff being fixed, that’d be sorta nice. It didn’t work out for me, but if.. IF… *IF* toedad can be counselled and talked to and eventually becomes rational, I hope for reconcilliation. … and if so, PLEASE, David Willis, don’t invoke the “haha I was faking it” trope… rehabilliation of the mentally ill is really tough as it is. Lingering distrust of those who complete their therapy is a real life issue.
woot! That’s a long post! Great times, as always man!
I think the best we can hope for is never seeing Toedad again. Even if it were possible for him to learn to love the Becky that exists rather than the Becky he thinks he’s owed, between the shotgun on campus, the kidnapping, the threats heard over the 911 call, and the accident, he should be looking at a serious list of felonies. It is likely that he’s going to be spending the next few in-comic years in jail. In a comic that’s been running for five years but hasn’t finished a single semester of college. (Actually, have they even hit midterms yet? No one’s mentioned Halloween at all.) Simply put, unless Ross breaks out of prison or there’s an on-panel trial, we’re not going to see him again until roughly 2050, real time.
I think it’s safe to say Sal has some respect for Joyce. When she was just the ridiculously cheerful sheltered fundy who followed Sal around like a puppy, Joyce was annoying. Now she’s interesting.
Ah, but toedad probably helped Joyce out there.
I think people sort of turn a blind eye when you have friends stay overnight in your dorm. AFAIK anyway.
It’s another matter when it comes to sheltering runaways.
Then again, it’s a whole other ballpark when it comes to sheltering a runaway from a mentally unstable violent and abusive parent.
So Joyce will probably get away with a slap on the wrist.
…
Oh dear. If Becky’s dad didn’t have any guardianship or custody or whatever, does that classify this crime as kidnapping? What’s the penalty for kidnappers in the USA?
“runaway” is another side of the “custody” coin. If it’s established (and the consensus is it has been) that Becky has reached legal age, she’s not a runaway, just for the nonce rootless.
Well, in fairness, Becky and Joyce are probably a bit fried at this point. A person can only panic for so long before they end up in kind of a stoic exhaustion. That’s actually largely how I interpret Joyce’s expression here.
Becky’s ability to retain at least momentary sparks of enthusiasm remain boundless, though 🙂
Until you remember that Becky is afraid that not being “fun” will cause people to reject her. Her boundless enthusiasm can have a different feel when you think about that.
One month ago, exactly. I woke up in the middle of the night, visiting my mom for the weekend. I groggily turned on my phone to check on Dumbing of Age.
And in the last panel was a gun.
It was scary, and for about the second half or so of the past month it’s gotten almost too ridiculous to be believed. But I still enjoy it. I can still feel for what these characters are going through.
I just hope that these characters freak out about these events as much as we all do. Like
“HOLY SHIT BECKY YOUR DAD KIDNAPPED YOU AT GUNPOINT AND AMAZI-GIRL CHASED HIS CAR ON A SKATEBOARD AND JOYCE YOU ROAD ON SAL’S BIKE AND YOU SWORE!!!”
Basically, I want everyone to act like Walky for the next in-comic week or so.
With her whole “I MUST SUCCEED NO MATTER WHAT” attitude, I wouldn’t be surprised if she refuses to admit to herself that she’s hurt and has dragged herself back to her dorm through sheer willpower before finally collapsing and somebody eventually finding her unconscious.
Oh, don’t worry; I’m pretty sure AG/Amber will be here soon enough. –At least, I hope so; now I’m worried that Amber’s alone in the woods with a concussion and busted ribs, possibly internal bleeding, and going into shock…
Dammit, Willis! We already knew Joyce was fine! ><
Amber’s in the woods, Dina’s in the woods. I see Dina bringing Amber to the hospital the way Smoky the horse brought Fess Parker back to the ranch when he was hurt.
She was very ‘chill’ about what Ryan tried to do to her too.
And yet she can’t go out in public without a ‘distraction’ to protect her and keep her mind occupied. When she tries to she had to have her back to something
Unless she gets actual therapy, once she’s left alone for a few minutes she’s going to curl up into a panic ball and be too terrified to move.
Which may concern hospital officials enough to call her parents and issue her a temporary reprieve from school to go home and recover from her latest trauma and be evaluated, since to someone who didn’t know that she had almost been raped along with all this, they’d probably think Ross’ threatening her caused her to have a mental break just on that alone.
Which would make sense since I guess there’s previews of Joyce being back at home with her parents?
but she didn’t follow him! she would’ve had to have been incapacitated to stop coming at him. she promised to protect becky. man, this is scary to think about
yeah, but they had a whole conversation and then drove off and joyce was there for a while and had two separate conversations with amazi-girl and sal and in that ENTIRE time we never saw Dina. Surely if Dina was conscious we would’ve seen her arrive at the fountain which she also saw Becky running towards?
she could’ve, but wouldn’t it make more sense for her to run the same direction becky was heading in? Like, in the last stip we’ve seen Dina in toedad sees becky running towards the fountain, Dina probably saw her too, so why would she need to suddenly run off and use a phone tracker app? She knew where Becky was heading. And it’s not like she can pull out her phone to use a phone tracker, she’d have to run all the way back to the dorms for her computer.
If she had run up to the fountain, found Joyce, who told her what happened, then it would make sense for her to go and use a phone tracker. But that’s not what happened, and if she wasn’t incapacitated she definitely would’ve made it to the fountain before Joyce left. But we haven’t seen her since toedad was forcing her to the ground and saying that “[he] should-” and for us to not have seen her since is pretty worrying. Let people be reasonably worried.
Dina could have also tried following Toedad back to his car, before he drove off. This would have had her heading even further away from the fountain, making it even less likely Dina would have been there before the abduction.
I mean she was probably stunned for a while. If she wasn’t able to follow him right away, she might not have known he was heading for the fountain. And by the time that people in general knew about a man with a gun at the fountain, Ross was already on his way out of town with Becky.
Becky had Dina’s phone, calling Joyce might not remember they were going to meet and didn’t hear Becky calling Joyce. She may be waiting behind her door, for *anyone* to show up. She does need down-time to recharge, after all that activity. Waiting in her room is best.
You think Becky would be totally chill right now if she arrived at the hospital and knew Dina was a contorted mess from being tossed around in the back of a car trunk during a rollover?
She’s fine. She was ditched in the woods. She probably told the police which way Ross went when they arrived and found nothing at the fountain. Quit fantasizing about her being dead or maimed.
There is a time skip of at least 4 days (must be MWF because the Gender Studies classroom appears in a preview panel and WoG setting it in October means no earlier than the Friday of the current week).
Personally I suspect it will be a Friday, since that would be consistent with Joyce going home for the weekend, as a trip home has been previewed.
The next preview panel with Joyce is set to run on January 8th, and her right arm is out of frame. After that she’s in a preview for January 31st, and her sleeves are long enough to cover her hands.
I’m now imagining a comical scene where there is a literal pile of cops – twenty or so officers – piled on top and around Toedad, moving towards the hospital in a cartoonish snowball fashion.
That’s what I’m worried about. I can see her both figuring that it’s nothing she can’t sleep off and being paranoid about showing up to the hospital with such injuries.
A head wound can be easy enough to explain away, and maybe explaining that you might have a concussion (or five), but explaining the widespread bruising and possible need for an x-ray of her ribs and maybe one or two joints along with the head injuries? The “I walked in to a door” excuse stops flying pretty quickly.
When I was maybe 10, I accidentally opened a door into the face of my four- or five-year-old brother who was, unbeknownst to me, on the other side, and gave him a real good bruising on the face. He cried and then was fine, but *I* was really torn up at having done that to him, so my mother told my brother not to go around bringing up to people how I hit him in the face with a door so as to be a little sensitive to me and not upset me.
The next day at school, his teacher asked him where the bruise came from. Remembering that he wasn’t supposed to talk about it too much because it might upset his older brother, he answered about the source of the bruising, “My mommy told me not to tell anyone.”
You can really imagine what a mess that was to sort out and how well “Oh, his brother accidentally hit him with a door” went over the first time. Worst of all, I think I had to go in and validate that indeed, I *did* slam a door into his face, meaning that by trying not to bring it up, I had to revisit it more explicitly than I ever hoped and confess it to a bunch of teachers and the principal and counselor.
I’m an SCA heavy fighter. We do armored combat, full-contact with rattan weapons. We have good armor, and the rattan is more forgiving than hardwood, so serious injuries are uncommon, but it can leave some pretty spectacular bruises. (Though I’ve been doing it long enough now that the places where I commonly get hit and don’t have a lot of armor just don’t bruise anymore… getting hit leaves sore spots, but they don’t turn colors.)
Well, a friend of mine, a lady fighter, was telling me that, a while back, her then-boyfriend was practicing up for Crown Tournament, so they were having one-on-one practices at home in addition to all the regular practices. And he kept hitting her with one shot that hooked up behind her shield to hit her in the back of the left thigh, where she didn’t have a lot of armor. After a few of those, she had a really impressive bruise developing there.
A few days later, she had her annual checkup, and had completely forgotten about this, because, as a fighter, gradually fading aches and bruises are just routine. Until the doctor wanted to know where the huge bruise on her thigh came from.
When a doctor asks you that question, she tells me, “I was fighting with my boyfriend,” is not a good answer.
And, “It’s okay, I was hitting him too,” does not fix the situation.
Aww. I’m sorry you and your brother had to go through that. Genuinely I am. But dang that sounds like something out of a sitcom. Everything that could go wrong went wrong.
I feel bad for your mom too. She was trying to help and inadvertently made it worse. That had to be so upsetting for all of y’all.
If you watch World’s Dumbest enough you’ll see plenty of college students doing stupid shit that ends with them falling down some stairs. Riding down them in a shopping cart/laundry basket, trying to ski/bike/surf down them, doing backflips down a hallway that ends in some stairs, or just getting drunk and there just happen to be stairs there.
She needs no excuse other than “I’m a college student”~
lmao I can’t believe after all that, the ambulance preview panel was for Joyce’s wrist. Amber still totally needs to get checked out though, no way is she fine, physically. (we all know that she’s not fine mentally^^)
Not sure the ambulance was for any character in the story. The shot seems to be around the time Dorothy arrives, which I’m assuming is a decent bit after Joyce and Becky (and Toedad) were brought in.
Oh no yeah, I just meant the preview panel with the ambulance in it. Should have said hospital panel 😉 I doubt an ambulance would come for a relatively minor wrist injury :p
It could have. Surely at least one ambulance was sent to the scene of the accident, and as a school shooting and kidnapping was likely reported by many by-standers, there were probably a few on their way to the school and therefore nearby.
Though, it’s also likely, as someone said up higher, that Joyce and Becky were taken to the hospital in a police car. This is all probably after the police got witness statements from them.
There was a car flipped over. I guarantee there was at least one ambulance there. Butthole dad may have been the only one who actually rode in one, but they certainly checked the girls out on scene and gave them a ride to the hospital in either an ambulance or police cruiser.
Yeah. Whoever it was who has been saying that the ambulance is not necessarily for any member of the cast, just set dressing for the hospital scene was right on the money.
I’m glad Becky and Joyce are together, but I can’t help but feel like Becky isn’t all that concerned about Dina. Maybe she knows something we don’t, but for all we know she’s dead in the woods…
Along with her not knowing that, she’s had a crazy past few hours. Some things that are really important do tend to slip your mind when you’re under an immense amount of stress, and even though she’s cool, Becky IS under a great deal of stress and just endured a very intense, potentially traumatic, event that she hasn’t even begun to process yet.
A certain amount of time has had to have passed already what with the waiting for the cops and ambulance, driving to the hospital, getting admitted and treated, and possibly having to talk to the cops about what happened. In that time, Becky has probably already contacted Dina or vice versa.
Well Dina is logical enough to go find one of Joyce’s friends and borrow their phone to call her own phone while Becky could call somebody to go find Dina and make sure she’s ok. Regardless, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about when it comes to Dina. Amber on the other hand…
Well, Ross did say he didn’t hurt anyone. It may be hard for anyone to believe anything he’s said given the lunacy of this recent actions, but I imagine Becky did believe him when he said that.
On an unrelated note, I look forward to the future storyline where Blaine and Ross team up to get revenge on Amazi-Girl, only to realize they can’t stand each other either.
It’d be kind of hilarious. Ross would look down on Blaine for being a heretic and not loving his daughter, and Blaine would look down and Ross for having such poor control over his daughter’s actions. XD
Ooh, maybe they’d kill each other. Ross would probably be the instigator (Blaine’s a horrible person, but seems more rational than Ross), but I’m sure Blaine would fight back. And, if we cross our fingers, it may end in both their deaths.
Becky had a seatbelt on, while normally your expect injuries when the car rolls it’s not impossible to come out of with only some bruises. I mean its an Amazi Girl action sequence. It’s not like it’s the most extraordinary thing to happen there.
And people were analyzing the hell out of Joyce’s punching form last week. Some people did predict that she could hurt her arm that way. She probably didn’t notice it at first because of adrenaline.
There were three comments when I tried to comment, then I tapped the wrong spot and commented elsewhere. I blame my tablet as readers of Dumbing of Age are noted for their highly skilled computery like things. Anyway, Where is Dina!!!! Seriously, why is Becky not looking for her???
Becky was probably taken straight to the hospital along with Joyce. I mean we’re pretty sure she’s unscathed, but she was in a car accident. They’ll probably want to check some things. Also Dina’s fine. We’ll probably see her again before the storyline is out.
Someone mentioned above that in extremely stressful situations it can happen to completely forget about important things. I’m sure Becky will ask Dorothy if she happens to know anything about Dina’s whereabouts in the coming strips.
Heck, Joyce probably called Dorothy from the hospital, and got the brace while waiting for her to get there. Dina may have been discussed during that call. (Dina’s phone may/may not have been retrieved from the car, too)
We were all worked up over what turned out to be a comic about wrist braces and swearing?
Goddamn it, Willis, you had us waiting for the other shoe to drop for literally months and then it turns out you were just holding both shoes behind your back and laughing at us.
Even more so when you remember he’s spelled out exactly why nobody would be killed or grieviously injured in the comic (the pace of the comic is so slow nobody would be able to recover) and everyone still got caught up and panicked.
Amber was grievously injured (don’t tell me she doesn’t have a concussion) and say what you want about about Dina, but her condition is still in the air (Ross Babies MacIntyre might not care about her, but Dina would keep coming after him unless and only unless she was incapacitated, and he would have to walk back to his car before he could drive it.)
I doubt they’d visit Becky’s Big Toe Daddy. Who else could it be? Amazi-Girl suffering from post-heroic syndrome? Amber having fallen downstairs by playing with an electronic toy while walking? The suicide sisters getting their stomachs pumped?
It would certainly be possible to avoid a concussion, if the did a few things: Tucked her chin down into her chest, and made sure she hit the car’s windshield with the flat of her back. Depending on the martial arts training she had, that might come as second nature.
Professional wrestlers do those sorts of stunts all the time (falling from great heights, landing on things that are far from soft.) Its dangerous, but a person can walk away from it without brain injury.
Especially when people who remembered that kept telling the people who were trying to incite panics that in the comments for like every strip since butthole dad pulled the gun.
No, no they didn’t, I know, since I was the one doing the asking. I got a couple of links to another comment he made, which was only a vague “nobody dies”, which was made as a reply to a question about Dina when she first appeared. Nothing about the reasons, about trauma, pacing, etc.
As a matter of fact, these very same people wrote that they couldn’t even remember WHERE they’d seen this, just that they had.
A tumblr quote would be easier to find than a response to a comment, where I saw him mention the pacing/grieving/etc regarding death, coma, bad injuries, etc.
I believe it’s meant to be a comedic illustration on how central Joyce’s refusal to swear is to her personality, at least in the eyes of her friends.
And I’m pretty sure that is all gibberish, so: ‘Joyce swore, just how bad did things get?’ but played for laughs.
For Joyce to have sworn, she must have been seriously not-all-right, and Dorothy knows that. It was emotional rather than physical pain, but that’s a perfectly legitimate thing for Dorothy to worry about.
I bet they’re just waiting for Dina – I mean, Joyce’s arm has been treated, and the pile of cops probably wouldn’t let Becky and Joyce visit Toedad if they wanted to (spoiler alert, they don’t)… so the only I reason I think they’re in a hospital waiting room is for word on Dina.
I consider it unlikely for Amber to be at the hospital.
Is it not also possible the cops asked them to stick around for further questioning after the doctors have made sure they’re okay (and their testimonies reliable thanks to absence of head injuries)?
Wonder when Sarah is going to show up, and what’s going to be her take on all this? She had to have been informed (since she’s Joyce’s roomate and all).
My friends in the biz tell me that whenever someone comes into your ER with a broken jaw you can be certain that someone else is in an ER (maybe yours) with the corresponding broken wrist.
I’d wager campus solidarity post-shooting would be pretty high, so she probably won’t have any trouble borrowing other people’s notes until she can write her own again.
I’ve never understood why students take notes anyway. I mean, I get that not everyone remembers all the stuff they hear if they don’t find it interesting. But what they don’t remember is already written down in a book somewhere!
I just used my notebooks for doodling.
The act of writing something down helps me remember things. Plus sometimes the professor might say something that’s not in the textbook for a class. I mean sure that piece of info might be written down somewhere, but not having to search for it later makes my life a whole lot easier. Also not everything in the textbook may be relevant to the exam, the notes I take in lecture are more likely to be relevant.
Finally I’ve definitely had a professor one time list of a bunch of numbers, and he told us to memorize it for the exam. I uh, didn’t like that class that much. (It was an intro to psych class, the topic at the moment was memory, and how we can improve memory by recognizing patterns)
A lot of my courses are taught by profs who enjoy having guest lecturers. Fortunately they are always interesting lectures, but my profs who do this explicitly say the info from the guest lecture will be on the exam. And since it’s always about research the guest lecturer is doing, it’s not going to be in the textbook.
As to taking notes during non-guest lectures, I have ADHD and it takes me forever to study from a book cause it is BORING. I mean, I love a lot of my courses and find them really interesting but reading from a textbook still makes me want to just eat the book instead (which is also why I love labs vs lectures). Taking notes during lecture helps keep me engaged and I’m more likely to remember the information than just beating my head against a textbook. But that’s just me though.
Like Lord Stoneheart said, not 100% of the content of a lesson will be in the textbook you’re using.
I had a history teacher who didn’t make us buy a textbook at all. His lessons were 80% him talking about history in much greater detail than I’ve ever seen any textbook do, 15% answering questions and 5% cracking jokes. Unless you had a perfect memory or were recording the class, taking notes was the only way to pass the history tests.
This is an extreme example, but just remember you can’t always rely on textbooks. :3
That said, my notebooks were full of doodles too. XD
I doubt that since I live in Switzerland, but maybe they’re, like, two incarnations of the same person? XD
He was awesome but as a terrible note taker I still totally failed his class. He was the first teacher to actually make me care about history class, but he always spoke so fast, I couldn’t keep up. ;_;
“Like Lord Stoneheart said, not 100% of the content of a lesson will be in the textbook you’re using.”
Well…no, and neither will all the information you need to learn even be taught, but it’s still written down somewhere. Which is what I consider to be a part of studying, researching all the books and papers that have been written about the subject, not just the ones that they tell to read.
If someone has said anything, they will also have written it down at some point. I know they say that information sticks better when you write it, but I’ve never felt that personally, and I just get annoyed when I try to make notes.
Whatever works for you then. You asked why anyone would take notes, and me, saki, and Dragon are all anyones. I don’t have the time to do extensive amounts of research on every subject I take classes in. My condensed lecture notes are measurably helpful to me. (Though not all info is written down in a place easily accessible. See my jerk psych professor)
Yey, my three favorite people in the comic are in the same room.
Awwww, she’s right to be worried. Dorothy is a bit of an audience surrogate here, she has the same worry and fear we have had for the last months, but she has not been around for the ride like we have.
I bet Joyce and Becky spent the waiting time giggling about how to tell Dorothy the news.
But Joyce didn’t just say “damnit” she said “god damn you.” Is it only me or was any one else brought up that god damn you, god damn it, god damn *name*, and simply god damn(ed) were far, far worse things to say than just damnit?
I mean, I’m an atheist now and I still have a hard time saying god damn, but I’ve been saying damn and damnit since at least high school, possibly middle school. And I was always the innocent one, especially language-wise.
I’d bet I was 26 or older before I ever said it.
I just feel like if I were in Dotty’s shoes, I’d be shocked at Joyce saying “damnit” but I might faint at hearing that she’d said “god damn you” repeatedly. And probably be a bit worried for her.
Yeah, I kinda figured that too, but if can remember being told that even that was wrong because you’re essentially telling God what to do, in a very disrespectful way, and ordering God around and being disrespectful to him are both very, very wrong.
“God damn” anything just seems like it’s so much higher on the hierarchy of swear words than “dammit” to me. But I’m not even sure if that’s a common perception, or just a weird thing my family emphasized.
But its’ not really more disrespectful than praying though, it can still be used as a request, not a demand.
I mean, you are essentally telling God what to do when you say “Give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins”
There is no “please” there.
And people can damn other people too, the word is basically a short for “condemnation” even though that’s very archaic. You can say “I damn your actions today”, if you disapprove of something.
When is religion, especially the religion-based rules imposed on children- ever logical?
When a family member would tell me that part of the reason saying “God damn X” is a terrible sin because you’re attempting to demand something of God, I don’t think they ever took the time to think about all the times they basically demand something from God.
They were just trying to beat in to a child’s skull that she should never EVER say “God damn” in any context at all.
Hmm, the pile of cops may not have been to the “I’ve run away long ago and am currently staying at my friend’s dorm” part yet.
Hope someone will at least give her her social number.
Well, at this point, with Toedad locked up at least temporarily, she can go home and find whatever ID she needs, along with clothes & the like. Even if she doesn’t stay there, she’ll be better equipped.
Atheists swear in the vernacular that is comfortable to them, like anyone else. Turns out a lot of that vernacular derived from religious exclamations.
As an atheist, it seems my most common swear may be exclaiming “Jesus Christ!” It’s gotten to the point where my son called my nephew Jesus in an attempt to insult him, so I’m trying to cut down so I don’t have to have another talk with him.
Yeah, I am also for all intents and purposes an athiest and I still go around saying “Jesus Christ” on occasion. Although I probably say “ay dios mio” (oh my god) at least a couple of times a day thanks to being latin and Catholicism is pretty ingrained in my culture.
“Sweet zombie Jesus on a pogo stick!” is one of my personal favourites. However, I can also recommend learning to swear in Finnish, there’s something very liberating about it.
This is Dorothy’s second “holy shit” of the strip.
As an agnostic/atheist, I say “Jesus H. mother fucking Christ” a lot when I’m irritated at, usually, bad software design decisions. This does not indicate that I believe that Jesus was the messiah any more than it indicates that I believe he engaged in conjugal relations with Mary. Or your mom for a nickel.
I’ve been an agnostic most of my life, but I use swears like “Jesus fucking christ”, “Holy shit”, “Oh my fucking god”, as well as their equivalents in my first language, all the time. Heck, I think the first swear I ever learned was “gopferdamminommal”, which is Swiss-german for “God damn it” (though it literally translates as “God damn me again”).
Most swear words aren’t used because of what they actually literally mean, but because of cultural associations to it. Like, when you say “fuck this”, you’re not actually suggesting someone fuck whatever “this” is. Given the strong presence of Christian culture in American and overall English-speaking culture, there is really nothing surprising about atheists using those swears. : )
I mean she’s been around a great deal of religious people all her life. It shouldn’t be that surprising that some of her swears are going to resemble religious terms if that’s the kind of swears that people used around her.
(I’m not Christian, but I use some of those words because I’ve apparently picked up most my swears from my dad, who’s not Christian but has mostly been around Chrisitians in his life)
I like how Dorothy barely bats an eye at Joyce’s admission of punching Ross – she already knows Joyce has it in her to defy the hell out of some authority when it’s called for – but the swearing? HOLY SHIT STOP THE PRESSES.
Heh. I just remembered that Dorothy is actually a reporter for the IDS, and since this episode heavily involved Amazi-Girl, it’s even actually part of her assigned beat.
Now I want to see her story about this headlined: JOYCE BROWN SWEARS SEVERAL TIMES
also there was a kidnapping and superhero car chase and stuff
I always wanted to do a comic where the eyebrows got left behind in mid-air and the character had to come back embarrassed and get them 2 panels later.
After everything that went down with Amazi-Girl I would be more skeptical if Joyce did not have a brace on her wrist now. She never hit someone as big as Ross that hard. That would definitely be injurious.
i guess the one positive in all of this is that what Becky worried about most, the cops coming and shooting her dad’s head off, did not happen. then Becky would have been homeless And an orphan. or i guess she would have inherited her dad’s house, but she’d still be a rather traumatized orphan. also, Joyce got a crash course in standing up to her fear.
I’m sure people would have the same reaction if I swore.
I grew up as a goody-two-shoes, and while it still holds true, I’m now someone who’s developed his own sense of morality. Still, swearing feels odd to me; like it doesn’t really fit me. Like Joyce, I only swear if I have a darn good reason to do so; because of that, I think those words have a lot more power than they do when spoken by someone who casually swears (Case in point; which is more shocking; Dorothy dropping an s-bomb in the comic above, or Joyce’s first swear?). Also, I work around kids sometimes, so not swearing is a good habit to get into. Given that Joyce wants to get into teaching, that’s probably a good decision for her as well.
This is actually Dorothy’s second s-bomb of the strip. I was honestly more surprised by the first one than I was by Joyce’s first “DAMN IT”.
Joyce has, in the past, carefully avoided actually using the forbidden words, but she flirts with them a lot… she uses bowlderized substitutes like “friggin'” and “freakin'” pretty regularly, has called Walky a “piece of poop”, and so on. The banned syllables may not actually be coming out of her mouth, but it’s pretty clear that she means them in her heart.
Dorothy, on the other hand, doesn’t have that compulsion to self-censor, so when she swears, she uses the real words, but it’s far more rare for her than for Joyce.
(I’m hoping that this has broken Joyce’s compulsion, and she’ll just say what she means from now on. I just really want to see her casually drop a, “Shut the fuck up, Walky,” on him next time he starts teasing her.)
As people have pointed out Joyce swearing is different from a non-religious person swearing. They’re not ‘words you say out of frustration’ for Joyce, but literal curses.
Children of Hurin is a great exploration of this. When a mortal person says ‘deity damn you!’, they’re beseeching the deity to take notice of their righteousness and act on their behalf. When Morgoth, literally the most evil thing on Arda, personally damns you and your descendents, you know you’re PROPER fucked!
Becky and Joyce need to go home. Becky needs to pick up the part of her life she wants to carry forward. Joyce should go with her. The Browns will want to make sure their daughter is OK. I think that will not be a big plot area, since the Browns won’t be able to say much considering what Toedad did. Threatening to kill their daughter kinda overwhelms not hanging out with a suddenly gay (in their view) friend.
I think you’re right on the Toedad issue, but I could totally see the Browns giving Joyce a bunch of passive aggressive crap about hiding Becky in the first place.
If Becky is smart, she will go home while Toedad is still in custody and get her clothes and other stuff, so can at least start moving forward with her life. Part of me hopes that Toeded will remain in custody until he’s convicted of his crimes, so she can live in her home and figure out what to do with her life.
Sure, she probably doesn’t want to be away from Dina & her friends, but being basically homeless sucks.
The house likely has a mortgage. Toedad isn’t going to have an income and probably lacks the savings to pay it off. Becky certainly can’t earn enough to cover it for long.
She should however be able to go there and get some stuff – id, clothes, etc.
Amazi-Girl flat-out cannot go straight to the hospital. She’s going to have to somehow make it back to the dorm and change into regular clothes first. She’s going to need help doing that from Danny or Ethan (the only two who know Amber is AG), and it’s gonna hurt like crazy.
Then Danny or Ethan (or maybe both) will have to take Amber to the hospital, and they’re all going to have to come up with some plausible story that explains her injuries without requiring any police involvement.
I think it’s way more likely that Amber refuses to go to the hospital and tries to treat herself. She might bench Amazi-Girl, which would probably start making her rage issues she compartmentalize through her costume start to leak into her regular life.
Actually I think she actually wears her suit over her regular clothes. (This was from the comic after she beat up Blaine; Danny was helping her out of her costume.) So, in theory, she could just hide the suit in the woods, go to the hospital, and then pick up the costume after she checks out. (She could… although I doubt she will.)
She might also have collapsed where Sal left her. Dorothy would piece it together fairly quickly based on what Joyce and Becks can tell her though. And she’d have the perfect excuse to go looking.
The last panel is a bit silly and kind of overblown, but considering Dorothy was freaked out that her best friend could be dead, it seems pretty natural.
As for Joyce, she’s come down from her save Becky/motorcycle stunt/Toedad punching induced high and she’s starting to relax again.
But apparently the last panel is something David Willis has personal experience with, in which case I’d like to apologize to him for dismissing something he’s gone through.
The real silly and overblown part is that even longtime readers still call characters’ experiences silly and overblown. Despite countless author statements in every place possible testifying this is autobiographical.
And, really, the last panel seems very true to life. For anyone to do anything they never ever do is usually a shock to others.
And is there any way to stop calling any experience you have not had overblown till someone announces it is factual? *Sal’s, for example.*
Yeah, that was crappy of me. I figured it was just a “lol joyce swore and dorothy’s overreacting” joke, but I remember now that Willis talked about how he got similar reactions when he first swore.
When I was in high school, I swore very, very infrequently. Not for any specific reason, just didn’t grow up hearing them often (my parents’ rule was just never call people names and it should be when there’s a reason). I didn’t mind if other people swore, either. I just didn’t very often.
So the first few times anyone, including my parents, heard me swore, it was a HUGE deal to them (even if it wasn’t really that big a deal to me). Like, people stopped what they were doing to stare at me in shock.
So, yeah, pretty realistic in this particular case.
Adorable Dorothy skidding to a stop and kicking up a small cloud of dust is adorable—and exactly what is needed after a month of incredibly tense storyline.
If you ever sprain your ankle/wrist, get it x-rayed. Even though “It’s only a sprain”. You can break a bone there without realizing it. It might seem fine after a week or so. But it could give you big trouble years later.
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“Oh Sugar Honey Iced Tea! Are your ears on fire?! Did they wash out your mouth with soap??? OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG”
hmm, I have that wrist guard actually (yay too much cut&paste)
The chosen panel has come and gone. Not sure if there’s much more to worry about (with such a degree of seriousness, that is.)
Still no Dina.
She went completely feral and continues to haunt the woods.
OK the thought of an autistic Japanese dinosaur-obsessed girl “going feral” made me giggle for a few seconds. Prowling the woods attacking people and stealing their cereal…
Dina is autistic?
It’s a general consensus here that Dina is some sort of autistic, possibly Asprger’s.
DISAGREE
Dina’s autism-spectrum diagnosis.
I’m a bit of a dissenter on this one. I thought that she seemed to be developing poise and social skills so rapidly in here relationship with Becky that she couldn’t have any serious difficulties with any neurological basis, that she must just have lacked previous opportunities to learn.
She’s entirely clueless about nonverbal social cues, and she’s obsessed with one particular subject (dinosaurs), but her intelligence and cognition appear as good as anyone else’s. She’s got to be somewhere on the Autism spectrum.
OR NEedfuldoer, there’s a another kind of person who is obsessive about things, they’re called Geeks. I suspect Din isn’t really Autistic, having worked with someone actual Aspergers she’s far too coherent and eloquent. I think she’s just been poorly socialised, depending on when her family imigrated to the USA, possibly early language barriers, or simply the inherent cruelty of children left her an outsider, and thus socially underdeveloped. And as can be seen, given the opportunity to develop her social skills has vastly improved at pace that would be impossible for a genuine autistic.
I’m not suggesting Dina us definitely Austistic or not, but suggestions she’s too coherent, eloquent or is picking stuff up too fast etc. need to be tempered byremembering/understanding that there is a huge range or experience and expression amongst people on the spectrum. Myself and my whole family are (officially diagnosed) Autistic and we’re all at least as ‘high functioning’ as Dina, and many of us can ‘pass’ as neurotypical. I picked up certain social skills and cues very fast when things ‘clicked’. I suggest everyone
exercise caution before deciding this or that thing disqualifies her from being Autistic without a look at the wider picture. After all, that is the reason we call it a spectrum now, because of the understanding that there is a huge range of individual variation.
That Damn Rat:
“having worked with someone actual Aspergers she’s far too coherent and eloquent.”
I got to stop you there, while SOME people with Asperger CAN have trouble being coherent and eloquent, MOST people I’ve met with severe Asperger diagnosis have actually been the most eloquent and coherent people I’ve ever met!
See, it’s not that uncommon for one of the subjects that they focus on to be language, so it’s natural that many become authors or Great Speakers.
It’s interpersonal communication that’s the main problem usually.
Back to Dina,
I would find it very likely that she scores high on the autism spectre (and, yes, EVERYONE scores on the autism spectre. Neurotypicals generally score between 5 to 40, Asperger starts at around 70 and goes up to about 160.
I myself usually score 145, but I have some sort of “unspecified” autism, according to my shrink, so I don’t have Asperger.
There are many, many, many types of autism, and everyone is somewhere on that sliding scale, but Dina reminds me so much of my own experiences trying to interact with humanity, so I’m pretty sure she’s higher than normal on the spectre.
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Asperger syndrome – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A large segment of the fanbase considers her on the spectrum. After the Joyce’s Party sequence, Willis said on tumblr that Dina was likely on the spectrum, but undiagnosed.
1. We’re ALL somewhere on the Autism spectrum. No human’s ever existed that was capable of perfectly understanding and reacting in every social situation.
2. There’s a special section of the spectrum just for those who socially interact mainly through comment sections of web comics. 🙂
Labels again…
Yes maybe she is or is not autistic but does it really matter?
She proved again and again she is a very intelligent woman.
She also learn more and more everyday how to interact with her friends.
Don’t let labels define you.
As soon as a label is applied to someone we can’t seem to see past it. (Trying really hard to. Years of brainwashing on labels and stereotypes)
@tami, I can perfectly understand and react to every situation, not appropriatly, but I can react, all you have to do is scream “I dont give a damn” if anyone tries to talk to you, works every time.
What Koschei said.
Thank you, Koschei. You rock.
Usually, people explain the autism spectrum something like this: Neurotypical people -> AD/HD:inattentive & AD/HD:hyperactive -> Asperger’s -> Autism.
Within each of those sections, there are ‘high functioning’ and ‘low functioning’, which usually means how well they’re able to pass for neurotypical and/or get along in society. There are very low-functioning folks who will probably never live independently, and high-functioning people where you really wouldn’t know that their brains are different unless they told you all the strategies that they’d painstakingly invented to appear normative. And everyone between, and people who are high-functioning in some subjects/situations but not others.
When you’re working with people on the spectrum, the idea is generally to help them learn skills/strategies that allow them to be as high-functioning as is possible for that person. (It would be much better if society met them halfway, kinda like how Becky is considerate of Dina! but this is the society we’ve got.) Much like a person who is physically atypical, people who are mentally atypical develop tons of strategies and workarounds that work best for them. Dina hiding under a coat at the party, for example, was a successful strategy to deal with her sensory overstimulation. (It looked kinda weird, but it didn’t harm anyone, and it let her have a fun time even as she was adjusting.)
Autism spectrum = more to deal with, but =/= slow to learn. So, the fact that Dina learns quickly means that she’s a really fast learner (a clever girl!), not that she’s necessarily neurotypical.
Autistim Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Being a spectrum it means that it covers a pretty wide area from mild to extreme, and different particulars. Dina would fall somewhere towards the mild end, probably in the Asperger Disorder range.
We have a manager where I work who we feel is a high function Asperger, Dina is a little more obvious, but still pretty high function.
And yes, indeed, what Koschei said!
Asperger’s and Autism don’t imply incoherent, inarticulate, slow learning, etc. Plenty of folks on the spectrum are quite the opposite.
Also, I just looked it up, and I got high-functioning vs. low-functioning wrong: high-functioning is used colloquially how I used it, but it’s incorrect — as an official term, high functioning actually means that you haven’t got the language or cognitive delays that some ASD folks have.
The More You Know!
So, it sounds like That Damn Rat must’ve worked with somebody with low-functioning Asperger’s. Dina isn’t that, but neither are all Aspies.
@TheNinthShader. I think you proved my point. Without the clarity of math notation, my “perfect understanding and reacting”, intended as: perfect(understanding + reacting) = (perfect understanding + perfect reacting), failed to be socially communicated.
And to quote myself from years ago: “I understand humans very well, but I still don’t know how to be one.”
It’s been said that if you’ve met one person with autism , you’ve met one person with autism. I would have to agree with that. The fact that Dina presents as higher functioning than some other people on the spectrum doesn’t mean she can’t be on the spectrum as well.
Okay, it’s been a very long, hard day for me, and I don’t know how coherent that last sentence was. My brain is really not working. My point is, I think that Dina is most likely neurologically atypical. She’s also very intelligent, and functioning at a high level.
I myself baffled many professionals over the years with my vast skill scatter. By skill scatter I mean, I tested as functioning well above average in some things, well below average in others. They couldn’t even calculate my IQ because there was such a ginormous gap between my verbal and performance IQ. I have significant symptoms indicating Asperger’s Syndrome, Dyspraxia, Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, ADHD – inattentive type, with some mental health disorders added into the mix for a little extra spice. Nobody could ever figure out what to make of me, or how to help me. At thirty-four years of age, I still struggle immensely with all kinds of things. I’ve caused problems for a lot of people without meaning to due to my inability to function like a normal human being.
So, maybe I’m a little biased in wanting my neurologically atypical representation, but Dina does definitely show significant signs of Asperger’s Syndrome. The neurologically atypical population is quite a diverse group.
Okay, I had a point initially, and I pretty much completely lost track of said point. Like I said, it’s been a rough day.
The ideas that everyone is on the autism spectrum, that there’s a progression from neurotypical to adhd to autism, and that the autism spectrum is a linear progression from low-functioning to high-functioning are all incorrect and outdated. The autism spectrum is a spectrum because people have different autistic traits with varying intensity, but those don’t necessarily correlate with each other. Functioning labels are based on a few of those traits society deems more important, and imply general competence/performance correlate to those labels when they really don’t.
Lots of autistic people (myself included) are quite eloquent and have high verbal test scores, read at an early age, had a large vocabulary early on, have a good grasp of grammar and/or spelling, etc. This is actually a main factor in the false distinction between asperger’s and autism, so saying Dina can’t be autistic because she talks well is completely false.
@Mindlink: Yes! I can word fine. Peopling, not so much.
I feel like it’s ambiguous and all this insistence is a bit like the people who wanted her to be asexual, though I do think it’s better for her to be one than both due to stereotyping issues.
@Wolflann
Lots of comments to reply to above, but there seem to be a lot of people who already covered the important points. This one hasn’t been covered. Labels are important. It’s easy to say “Why do people need labels, just live” and think you are being more inclusive, but often you are doing the opposite. You are telling people who are Autistic to get over being different and just be like everyone else, which is really the core of the problem. You are telling them that it doesn’t matter if they are different, we accept them, but they know that they think differently and act differently than us. My fiance is autistic and we have conversations about this a lot. The first 18 years of her life were a difficult time for her because she couldn’t understand why everyone around her acted so differently than her. They wanted to touch others, they wanted hugs, they wanted to make eye contact. When she was 18 she was told she was Autistic and she had that label. Suddenly everything made sense and she found a community where she belonged, where she didn’t feel like the outcast among a crowd. Labels are important, and can be a very positive thing depending on how they are used.
@Muattles
I know i’m a couple days late but you have a good point.
I meant it more in a way that when people put a labels on someone they expect that person to act exactly a certain way and if they deviate they are told they are doing it wrong.
Like some comments in the past that have already being mentioned about Dina who shouldn’t be acting the way she is because she is autistic.
So what I really meant is don’t let other people tell you what you can or can’t do because of a label except maybe if its something dangerous 😛
We are all weird in our own way.
Life would be boring if we were all the same anyway.
I’m finding this conversation amusing. As someone who has high functioning Autism aka Asperger’s Syndrome and has actually researched my own condition, I can vouch for Dina showing very clear signs of having Autism, particularly Asperger’s syndrome. High intelligence is actually part of the condition, the very thing that gives us such high intelligence is exactly what makes it hard to understand normal social cues and behaviours. Neurotypicals often rely on subtleties that we simply are incapable of grasping. We tend to prefer being straight-forward and honest about things, lies and implications do not come naturally to us.
For reals.
Yeah, all told this has gone well.
“That’s it, young lady; you go get me a switch!” Sheesh, such language, Joyce! 😀
Happy ending?
happy ending, one nickel!
The happy ending goes by the name “Your Mom”.
… Your mom gave me a happy ending for a nickel?
So Mike is going to fuck it somehow?
He’s upstairs, pointing at toedad and laughing.
That sounds terrifying
No no no… Bart O’Ryan is pointing at Toedad and laughing. Mike is dropkicking him.
Willis ought to quit with this drawing Dumbing of Age nonsense and get back to clearly his best webcomic, LAWsome.
When are we going to get a LAWsome Slipshine is what I want to know.
IN THE FAAAAAAACEE
Not until we see Becky/Dina snuggles.
Very Happy Ending.
1. No one died (though some of the bloodthirsty fans are sad toedad survived, I’m not… he actually does love his daughter. He’s just stupid and insane and should be locked up until this changes! ie maybe forever)
2. Becky’s mum is not around, dad is in jail and not getting custody even when released, so Becky has a fairly good chance of getting to do what she wants with her life… or so I hope anyways. I’m not sure how the law there will treat her independance or granting custody etc.
3. Sal saved Amazing Girl’s life. This of course hurts AG’s pride like nothing else could, BUT, at the same time, Sal is right about a lot of stuff. I think costumed vigilantes are supercool, but Sal is right, AG overdoes it and acts irrationally sometimes. As Sal insinuates, Sal has grown since then. AG should too.
4. AG didn’t die. I hope she’s not too badly hurt. Also, she didn’t actually kill anyone.
5. Joyce is a heroine! I hope to see this help to overcome her trauma over that bad party! … Heck, her origin is now similiar to Amber now! She could be the 2nd superheroine, Amazing Grace, lol. … oh wait, that might actually happen. … … …
6. Sal will probably gain some RESPECT for Joyce. Heck she probably already does, I wouldn’t leave counterbalancing my bike in that catch to someone I didn’t trust. … heck I wouldn’t have brought her with me if I didn’t think she was somewhat capable.
7. I know a lot of you want Toedad dead, but having come from a broken family myself, I can tell you that if there is hope in stuff being fixed, that’d be sorta nice. It didn’t work out for me, but if.. IF… *IF* toedad can be counselled and talked to and eventually becomes rational, I hope for reconcilliation. … and if so, PLEASE, David Willis, don’t invoke the “haha I was faking it” trope… rehabilliation of the mentally ill is really tough as it is. Lingering distrust of those who complete their therapy is a real life issue.
woot! That’s a long post! Great times, as always man!
Becky’s 18, so I don’t think there’s any custody to be granted to anyone?
Yeah, definitely too old for someone to get custody.
But hey, she has excellent grounds for a Protective Order against Toedad!
I think the best we can hope for is never seeing Toedad again. Even if it were possible for him to learn to love the Becky that exists rather than the Becky he thinks he’s owed, between the shotgun on campus, the kidnapping, the threats heard over the 911 call, and the accident, he should be looking at a serious list of felonies. It is likely that he’s going to be spending the next few in-comic years in jail. In a comic that’s been running for five years but hasn’t finished a single semester of college. (Actually, have they even hit midterms yet? No one’s mentioned Halloween at all.) Simply put, unless Ross breaks out of prison or there’s an on-panel trial, we’re not going to see him again until roughly 2050, real time.
I think it’s safe to say Sal has some respect for Joyce. When she was just the ridiculously cheerful sheltered fundy who followed Sal around like a puppy, Joyce was annoying. Now she’s interesting.
It’s been five weeks.
My guess is, it’ll be Halloween next October, Thanksgiving in November 2017, and Christmas in December 2018.
Hell, once everyone’s healed up (both physically and mentally), things are better than ever.
Becky doesn’t have to hide from her dad anymore. She can work more freely on building a new life for herself.
And as Jason pointed out above, Joyce stayed strong and asserted herself, and it worked out in her favour. She’s got to feel good about that.
The only two things that worry me are Becky’s exposure and Amazi-Girl’s condition.
I’m afraid that the school will punish Joyce for keeping Becky in her dorm.
And we don’t know yet if Amazi-Girl’s willing to seek medical help.
Ah, but toedad probably helped Joyce out there.
I think people sort of turn a blind eye when you have friends stay overnight in your dorm. AFAIK anyway.
It’s another matter when it comes to sheltering runaways.
Then again, it’s a whole other ballpark when it comes to sheltering a runaway from a mentally unstable violent and abusive parent.
So Joyce will probably get away with a slap on the wrist.
…
Oh dear. If Becky’s dad didn’t have any guardianship or custody or whatever, does that classify this crime as kidnapping? What’s the penalty for kidnappers in the USA?
“runaway” is another side of the “custody” coin. If it’s established (and the consensus is it has been) that Becky has reached legal age, she’s not a runaway, just for the nonce rootless.
Oh thank goodness.
Best reaction!
Dorothy’s taking this way worse than they are. I knew I liked her! ^_^
Dorothy only knows Amazo’s services were required, and that Toedad was back. Also, probably every siren in Bloomington going off at once.
She also probably knows about the gun, given that there was a lockdown.
And with the way information can fly on a college campus, she might have known that Becky was kidnapped and that Joyce went after her.
I wish she had made the JoyceFace (you know the one) in response. Would have been appropriate.
“Great Scott!”
“I know, it’s heavy, isn’t it?”
I’ve never wished I could art more than I do this moment.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/gasp/
and http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/item/
Let’s imagine she did
Pretty good, pretty good!
I was fooled! 🙂
Well, in fairness, Becky and Joyce are probably a bit fried at this point. A person can only panic for so long before they end up in kind of a stoic exhaustion. That’s actually largely how I interpret Joyce’s expression here.
Becky’s ability to retain at least momentary sparks of enthusiasm remain boundless, though 🙂
Until you remember that Becky is afraid that not being “fun” will cause people to reject her. Her boundless enthusiasm can have a different feel when you think about that.
Fear of rejection? Indomitable spirit? Two sides of the same dime? Discuss!
And here is the hospital scene at last.
Soon we will see Dina.
Visiting Becky unharmed.
She likely has at least a few bruises from landing flat on her back when ToeDad threw her, depending on how soft/uniform the ground was.
She’s still there paddling the air. Dinosaurs don’t turn that easily.
I am so relieved that it’s not something much worse.
FINALLY THANK GOD SHOW’S OVER FOLKS GO HOME
One month ago, exactly. I woke up in the middle of the night, visiting my mom for the weekend. I groggily turned on my phone to check on Dumbing of Age.
And in the last panel was a gun.
It was scary, and for about the second half or so of the past month it’s gotten almost too ridiculous to be believed. But I still enjoy it. I can still feel for what these characters are going through.
I just hope that these characters freak out about these events as much as we all do. Like
“HOLY SHIT BECKY YOUR DAD KIDNAPPED YOU AT GUNPOINT AND AMAZI-GIRL CHASED HIS CAR ON A SKATEBOARD AND JOYCE YOU ROAD ON SAL’S BIKE AND YOU SWORE!!!”
Basically, I want everyone to act like Walky for the next in-comic week or so.
NOW I’ll believe that it’s over.
[Meteorite crashes through roof, kills everyone]
Not a meteorite. The Soggies invading this dimension too.
Or a truck.
Um. We still haven’t heard from Dina.
Good point…
Yeah, but she appears in a future preview panel.
Amber is also not out of the woods
Can’t we leaf these puns alone?
you’re barking at the wrong tree.
*barking up the wrong tree.
I’m just releafed Joyce and Becky seem to be doing okay for the mosst part.
It looks like you all have a grape time.
eh, sod that, english’s my third language.
Same here. ;3 Don’t you prefer knowing the correct expression?
Hey, he’s a cat, of course he’s doing barking wrong. That’s how cats roll~
:3
Considering how AG looked in yesterdays last panel, that may be “Barfing up the wrong tree”.
And isn’t there some rule about never leaving a person with a head injury alone?
“Got a head injury? Hey? Hey? You got a head injury?”
“…Stop poking my head!”
Truck crashes through the hospital, kills Ruth (somehow).
Ruth’s depressed all the time because she can literally see her future. Her very short future.
I too really loved Asterios Polyp.
As expected, the exterior hospital shot wasn’t a tease that anybody was gravely worded.
Besides Dorothy’s mind.
I dunno. Amber’s probably a little wrecked. She’s probably getting legit medical attention and making a lot of excuses.
I wonder how she got/will get back. I’d expect her to call in a ride, but I don’t think she knows anyone with a car.
Ethan or Danny would call a cab for her, though.
With her whole “I MUST SUCCEED NO MATTER WHAT” attitude, I wouldn’t be surprised if she refuses to admit to herself that she’s hurt and has dragged herself back to her dorm through sheer willpower before finally collapsing and somebody eventually finding her unconscious.
Joyce was the only who gravely worded anything. She also gravely wounded someone.
Joyce said dammit a bunch. How much more gravely worded can her language be?
ok, dotty is impressed. now return to status quo immediately!!!
god damnit
I was wondering what this hospital was going to be used for. I would’ve guessed Amazi-Girl instead of Joyce though.
oh, don’t worry. she still probably has some trauma that she’ll have to get treated under some pretense
Oh, don’t worry; I’m pretty sure AG/Amber will be here soon enough. –At least, I hope so; now I’m worried that Amber’s alone in the woods with a concussion and busted ribs, possibly internal bleeding, and going into shock…
Dammit, Willis! We already knew Joyce was fine! ><
Amber’s in the woods, Dina’s in the woods. I see Dina bringing Amber to the hospital the way Smoky the horse brought Fess Parker back to the ranch when he was hurt.
*plays “Unbelievable” on the Muzak*
OHHHHH!
I’m listening to Cream Soda. It fits well enough.
And where is Dina?
And Amazi-Girl?
…oh, gosh. their room has gotta be converted into a secret batcave/hospital. i really do hope that they’re both alright
And Red Car Maggie?
And the mysterious truck driver?
He’s the only one not harmed in this situation.
Just with a sight that will haunt him/her for a while.
That’s my question.
She’s behind the door.
You’re now imagining second panel Dorothy making that screeching noise like a car comes to a halt in cartoons.
Third panel. But, yeah, she’s even got a smoke cloud under her feet.
I once got my shoes to actually do that. But then I couldn’t do it again. Very disappointing.
Once you let the magic smoke out, they don’t work anymore.
It’s only once per hamster.
Dorothy knows the signs of Joyce’s character development
OK Joyce, ToeDad, and Becky in the same ambulance?
AmaziGirl rode shotgun
Amazi-Girl rode on top.
It was exactly like that scene in Teen Wolf, complete with dance moves.
Mask or no mask?
With a grappling hook.
Flipping double birds the whole way.
No chance. Joyce and Becky were probably taken to the hospital in a cop car while ToeDad was taken in an ambulance with a cop watching him.
There were probably reports of a school shooting; I very much doubt there was only the one ambulance dispatched.
Joyce: “Of course I’m fuckin’ okay. Why the shit wouldn’t I be?”
Dorothy: “Um…”
Becky: “She’s been holding it in for a long time. May take a while for it to stop.”
Joyce: “Fuckin’ A.”
Meanwhile on Dorothy’s mind: Joyce+swears=does not compute *BOOM*
No silicon heaven? But where would all the calculators go?!
Good thing the hospital visit was for something not so serious. I’m excluding Toedad from that cuz screw that sack of shit.
His legs are a little sliced up and he’s been punched once.
He got off incredibly lucky, under the circumstances.
Medical does not cover the cars though.
Joyce is so chill about this
Quite casual about it, really.
Adrenaline’s a hell of a drug.
Helluva*
The hospital probably gave her oxycodone or another heavy-duty painkiller.
She was very ‘chill’ about what Ryan tried to do to her too.
And yet she can’t go out in public without a ‘distraction’ to protect her and keep her mind occupied. When she tries to she had to have her back to something
Unless she gets actual therapy, once she’s left alone for a few minutes she’s going to curl up into a panic ball and be too terrified to move.
Which may concern hospital officials enough to call her parents and issue her a temporary reprieve from school to go home and recover from her latest trauma and be evaluated, since to someone who didn’t know that she had almost been raped along with all this, they’d probably think Ross’ threatening her caused her to have a mental break just on that alone.
Which would make sense since I guess there’s previews of Joyce being back at home with her parents?
If I was Joyce, I wouldn’t want to go recover at home until I knew that my parents completely disapproved of school-shooting at their kids.
I still wanna know where the heck Dina has been!
Back on campus. Why is this so hard for people to understand, she was left behind, Ross wasn’t interested in her.
but she didn’t follow him! she would’ve had to have been incapacitated to stop coming at him. she promised to protect becky. man, this is scary to think about
He got in a car and drove to Becky, Dina’s not that fast.
yeah, but they had a whole conversation and then drove off and joyce was there for a while and had two separate conversations with amazi-girl and sal and in that ENTIRE time we never saw Dina. Surely if Dina was conscious we would’ve seen her arrive at the fountain which she also saw Becky running towards?
I also think she might have used a locator to find her phone in order to track down Becky. It’s the kind of thing it seems like Dina would think of.
she could’ve, but wouldn’t it make more sense for her to run the same direction becky was heading in? Like, in the last stip we’ve seen Dina in toedad sees becky running towards the fountain, Dina probably saw her too, so why would she need to suddenly run off and use a phone tracker app? She knew where Becky was heading. And it’s not like she can pull out her phone to use a phone tracker, she’d have to run all the way back to the dorms for her computer.
If she had run up to the fountain, found Joyce, who told her what happened, then it would make sense for her to go and use a phone tracker. But that’s not what happened, and if she wasn’t incapacitated she definitely would’ve made it to the fountain before Joyce left. But we haven’t seen her since toedad was forcing her to the ground and saying that “[he] should-” and for us to not have seen her since is pretty worrying. Let people be reasonably worried.
Pretty sure this entire event took place over an hour, maybe two, time is pretty fucked up.
Dina could have also tried following Toedad back to his car, before he drove off. This would have had her heading even further away from the fountain, making it even less likely Dina would have been there before the abduction.
Well, even if she was incapacitated, it was within 300 meters from where the gunman was sighted. The cops would most likely find her.
I mean she was probably stunned for a while. If she wasn’t able to follow him right away, she might not have known he was heading for the fountain. And by the time that people in general knew about a man with a gun at the fountain, Ross was already on his way out of town with Becky.
Becky had Dina’s phone, calling Joyce might not remember they were going to meet and didn’t hear Becky calling Joyce. She may be waiting behind her door, for *anyone* to show up. She does need down-time to recharge, after all that activity. Waiting in her room is best.
(that first sentence is scrambled) Dina might not remember about the fountain, and didn’t hear Becky/Joyce discuss it on the phone.
You and everyone else.
Let’s hope she does NOT arrive in the back of an ambulance. Unfortunately, I am unable to rule out that possibility.
I don’t know where she is now, but she appears in the preview for January 28, 2016 where she seems to be ok:
http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/131265907762/january-28-2016-rest-easy
I love the shirt!
You think Becky would be totally chill right now if she arrived at the hospital and knew Dina was a contorted mess from being tossed around in the back of a car trunk during a rollover?
She’s fine. She was ditched in the woods. She probably told the police which way Ross went when they arrived and found nothing at the fountain. Quit fantasizing about her being dead or maimed.
Nice cartoon-stop that Dorothy’s screeching to in panel 3.
And Dorothy suddenly found herself questioning everything she thought she knew…
ah the hospital everyone’s been freaking out about.
Amazigirl is probably in worse shape.
The hospital was a red herring, the worst outcome of this arc is puking her guts up by a river
I’m afraid so. Fingers crossed, though.
Bets on how many strips Willis has to draw the brace in?
One year!
It doesn’t seem like it’s on in the next storyline. So less than 20 I would guess. (I think there’s supposed to be a time skip after this chapter?)
Really, a time skip? No fooling?
He’s done it before.
There is a time skip of at least 4 days (must be MWF because the Gender Studies classroom appears in a preview panel and WoG setting it in October means no earlier than the Friday of the current week).
Personally I suspect it will be a Friday, since that would be consistent with Joyce going home for the weekend, as a trip home has been previewed.
I thought it would have lasted for years, like that pregnancy in Family Guy.
The next preview panel with Joyce is set to run on January 8th, and her right arm is out of frame. After that she’s in a preview for January 31st, and her sleeves are long enough to cover her hands.
I think everyone forgot about Dina..I seriously hope she’s okay too.
See above–she appears in a preview for January 28, 2016. Though I’m not sure how long that is in comic time–probably not too long though.
Probably about five minutes in comic time, really.
I’m surprised no one has seen the similarity between these two strips.
becky seems to be more or less over it
but we’ll see how long that lasts
Well, it wasn’t a surprise to her that her dad is a colossal raging asshole.
Pile of cops is best outcome for pile of crap dad.
I like to imagine that the pile of cops remained on him all the way from the crash site into the ambulance and to the hospital.
I’m now imagining a comical scene where there is a literal pile of cops – twenty or so officers – piled on top and around Toedad, moving towards the hospital in a cartoonish snowball fashion.
Like this, but where the snow is all police officers.
YES. That is exactly what I was envisioning! XD
Cop-amari Damacy?
Dorothy’s the best.
<..> <..>
Wait, what? The same comment!
Dorothy’s the best.
A nickel says Amber never checked into the hospital.
So whose Mom did you get the nickel off of?
Mike’s.
That’s what I’m worried about. I can see her both figuring that it’s nothing she can’t sleep off and being paranoid about showing up to the hospital with such injuries.
A head wound can be easy enough to explain away, and maybe explaining that you might have a concussion (or five), but explaining the widespread bruising and possible need for an x-ray of her ribs and maybe one or two joints along with the head injuries? The “I walked in to a door” excuse stops flying pretty quickly.
That’s what “I fell down the stairs” is for.
Note: Never do that. If you find yourself considering that excuse, get help immediately.
Amber can just say she had a skateboarding accident. It’s a realistic way to get that kind of physical trauma, and she wouldn’t even have to lie.
But you never know about “I walked into a door”!
When I was maybe 10, I accidentally opened a door into the face of my four- or five-year-old brother who was, unbeknownst to me, on the other side, and gave him a real good bruising on the face. He cried and then was fine, but *I* was really torn up at having done that to him, so my mother told my brother not to go around bringing up to people how I hit him in the face with a door so as to be a little sensitive to me and not upset me.
The next day at school, his teacher asked him where the bruise came from. Remembering that he wasn’t supposed to talk about it too much because it might upset his older brother, he answered about the source of the bruising, “My mommy told me not to tell anyone.”
You can really imagine what a mess that was to sort out and how well “Oh, his brother accidentally hit him with a door” went over the first time. Worst of all, I think I had to go in and validate that indeed, I *did* slam a door into his face, meaning that by trying not to bring it up, I had to revisit it more explicitly than I ever hoped and confess it to a bunch of teachers and the principal and counselor.
I’m an SCA heavy fighter. We do armored combat, full-contact with rattan weapons. We have good armor, and the rattan is more forgiving than hardwood, so serious injuries are uncommon, but it can leave some pretty spectacular bruises. (Though I’ve been doing it long enough now that the places where I commonly get hit and don’t have a lot of armor just don’t bruise anymore… getting hit leaves sore spots, but they don’t turn colors.)
Well, a friend of mine, a lady fighter, was telling me that, a while back, her then-boyfriend was practicing up for Crown Tournament, so they were having one-on-one practices at home in addition to all the regular practices. And he kept hitting her with one shot that hooked up behind her shield to hit her in the back of the left thigh, where she didn’t have a lot of armor. After a few of those, she had a really impressive bruise developing there.
A few days later, she had her annual checkup, and had completely forgotten about this, because, as a fighter, gradually fading aches and bruises are just routine. Until the doctor wanted to know where the huge bruise on her thigh came from.
When a doctor asks you that question, she tells me, “I was fighting with my boyfriend,” is not a good answer.
And, “It’s okay, I was hitting him too,” does not fix the situation.
Aww. I’m sorry you and your brother had to go through that. Genuinely I am. But dang that sounds like something out of a sitcom. Everything that could go wrong went wrong.
I feel bad for your mom too. She was trying to help and inadvertently made it worse. That had to be so upsetting for all of y’all.
If you watch World’s Dumbest enough you’ll see plenty of college students doing stupid shit that ends with them falling down some stairs. Riding down them in a shopping cart/laundry basket, trying to ski/bike/surf down them, doing backflips down a hallway that ends in some stairs, or just getting drunk and there just happen to be stairs there.
She needs no excuse other than “I’m a college student”~
Famous Last Words: “Hold my beer…”
It’s 50/50 whether she’s unconscious in the woods.
Red and black ambulance? Decepticon.
Nah, it’s just Ratchet in G2 colors so he too can be EXTREME.
Dorothy’s the best.
This is great and all but WHERE IS DINA
Exactly where she should be, either back on campus or on the way in to visit Becky. She’s fine, Ross had no interest in her and only tossed her aside.
Oh Dorothy, how I’ve missed you. Now everyone hug and make up and then figure out how the situation has changed.
Also, very happy Dorothy didn’t bring Walky along, the last thing Joyce needs now is to be harassed and uncomfortable.
I think he’d recognize the inappropriateness of that and err on the side of shutting up.
He’d also be just as stunned at her casually swearing like that.
He would try to highfive her, she would forget about the cast and everything would be very confusing.
Yeah. He was pretty polite about Joyce’s near-rape experience.
Becky: “Also, I was in the car when it rolled but y’know I’m okay thanks for askin’.”
The brace is easily visible; it’s not surprising that Dorothy reacted to it first.
“Also my dad kidnapped me at gunpoint, got badly hurt and is gonna be in jail forever. Hes a jerk, but he’s still my dad.”
Dorothy has developed a caring friendship with Joyce. She’s just met Becky. Joyce is visibly injured.
lmao I can’t believe after all that, the ambulance preview panel was for Joyce’s wrist. Amber still totally needs to get checked out though, no way is she fine, physically. (we all know that she’s not fine mentally^^)
Not sure the ambulance was for any character in the story. The shot seems to be around the time Dorothy arrives, which I’m assuming is a decent bit after Joyce and Becky (and Toedad) were brought in.
Oh no yeah, I just meant the preview panel with the ambulance in it. Should have said hospital panel 😉 I doubt an ambulance would come for a relatively minor wrist injury :p
It could have. Surely at least one ambulance was sent to the scene of the accident, and as a school shooting and kidnapping was likely reported by many by-standers, there were probably a few on their way to the school and therefore nearby.
Though, it’s also likely, as someone said up higher, that Joyce and Becky were taken to the hospital in a police car. This is all probably after the police got witness statements from them.
There was a car flipped over. I guarantee there was at least one ambulance there. Butthole dad may have been the only one who actually rode in one, but they certainly checked the girls out on scene and gave them a ride to the hospital in either an ambulance or police cruiser.
Yeah. Whoever it was who has been saying that the ambulance is not necessarily for any member of the cast, just set dressing for the hospital scene was right on the money.
I’m glad Becky and Joyce are together, but I can’t help but feel like Becky isn’t all that concerned about Dina. Maybe she knows something we don’t, but for all we know she’s dead in the woods…
I think it’s more she doesn’t know something we do; that is, that Dina attacked Ross Babies McIntyre.
Along with her not knowing that, she’s had a crazy past few hours. Some things that are really important do tend to slip your mind when you’re under an immense amount of stress, and even though she’s cool, Becky IS under a great deal of stress and just endured a very intense, potentially traumatic, event that she hasn’t even begun to process yet.
A certain amount of time has had to have passed already what with the waiting for the cops and ambulance, driving to the hospital, getting admitted and treated, and possibly having to talk to the cops about what happened. In that time, Becky has probably already contacted Dina or vice versa.
How? She has Dina’s phone.
Well Dina is logical enough to go find one of Joyce’s friends and borrow their phone to call her own phone while Becky could call somebody to go find Dina and make sure she’s ok. Regardless, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about when it comes to Dina. Amber on the other hand…
Dina gave Becky her phone, so we actually have no idea where the former is.
Well, Ross did say he didn’t hurt anyone. It may be hard for anyone to believe anything he’s said given the lunacy of this recent actions, but I imagine Becky did believe him when he said that.
On an unrelated note, I look forward to the future storyline where Blaine and Ross team up to get revenge on Amazi-Girl, only to realize they can’t stand each other either.
It’d be kind of hilarious. Ross would look down on Blaine for being a heretic and not loving his daughter, and Blaine would look down and Ross for having such poor control over his daughter’s actions. XD
Ooh, maybe they’d kill each other. Ross would probably be the instigator (Blaine’s a horrible person, but seems more rational than Ross), but I’m sure Blaine would fight back. And, if we cross our fingers, it may end in both their deaths.
Panel 5 made me laugh out loud, literally.
Will reserve judgement until the next Strip…..
Becky: Just was in a car rollover, totes fine
Joyce: Punches a guy in the face, hurts wrist
Becky had a seatbelt on, while normally your expect injuries when the car rolls it’s not impossible to come out of with only some bruises. I mean its an Amazi Girl action sequence. It’s not like it’s the most extraordinary thing to happen there.
And people were analyzing the hell out of Joyce’s punching form last week. Some people did predict that she could hurt her arm that way. She probably didn’t notice it at first because of adrenaline.
There were three comments when I tried to comment, then I tapped the wrong spot and commented elsewhere. I blame my tablet as readers of Dumbing of Age are noted for their highly skilled computery like things. Anyway, Where is Dina!!!! Seriously, why is Becky not looking for her???
Becky was probably taken straight to the hospital along with Joyce. I mean we’re pretty sure she’s unscathed, but she was in a car accident. They’ll probably want to check some things. Also Dina’s fine. We’ll probably see her again before the storyline is out.
Someone mentioned above that in extremely stressful situations it can happen to completely forget about important things. I’m sure Becky will ask Dorothy if she happens to know anything about Dina’s whereabouts in the coming strips.
Heck, Joyce probably called Dorothy from the hospital, and got the brace while waiting for her to get there. Dina may have been discussed during that call. (Dina’s phone may/may not have been retrieved from the car, too)
Oh fuck everything.
Joyce: I’m okay, dammit.
Dina dina dina dina dina dina???????
This is what had everyone so worried.
That, coupled with Dorothy’s reaction, have me chuckling out loud.
Once again, the day is saved, thanks to the Swear-y Punch Girl!
Everyone’s reaction is more severe to swearing than injury.
I think it’s more a reaction to whatever it is that provoked the swearing.
We were all worked up over what turned out to be a comic about wrist braces and swearing?
Goddamn it, Willis, you had us waiting for the other shoe to drop for literally months and then it turns out you were just holding both shoes behind your back and laughing at us.
Even more so when you remember he’s spelled out exactly why nobody would be killed or grieviously injured in the comic (the pace of the comic is so slow nobody would be able to recover) and everyone still got caught up and panicked.
Amber was grievously injured (don’t tell me she doesn’t have a concussion) and say what you want about about Dina, but her condition is still in the air (Ross Babies MacIntyre might not care about her, but Dina would keep coming after him unless and only unless she was incapacitated, and he would have to walk back to his car before he could drive it.)
http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/131265907762/january-28-2016-rest-easy
Preview for January 28 showing Dina!
Okay, now i’m convinced Dina’s fine. She must have been tied down or something.
Are they peeking into Amber’s room?
I doubt they’d visit Becky’s Big Toe Daddy. Who else could it be? Amazi-Girl suffering from post-heroic syndrome? Amber having fallen downstairs by playing with an electronic toy while walking? The suicide sisters getting their stomachs pumped?
why do you think that’s a hospital room?
I hope that’s a sign that Amber is getting cared for. Glad to see Dina is okay, but I’m still worried about Amber.
It would certainly be possible to avoid a concussion, if the did a few things: Tucked her chin down into her chest, and made sure she hit the car’s windshield with the flat of her back. Depending on the martial arts training she had, that might come as second nature.
Professional wrestlers do those sorts of stunts all the time (falling from great heights, landing on things that are far from soft.) Its dangerous, but a person can walk away from it without brain injury.
Yeah, but Ambazi-Girl blacked out, is woozy, and seems to be dizzy. That’s not what you expect of someone who took no injury.
Especially when people who remembered that kept telling the people who were trying to incite panics that in the comments for like every strip since butthole dad pulled the gun.
That’s because noone was able to find that quote, about the pacing, when other people asked for it…
Actually they did several times, they were just ignored so they stopped bothering.
No, no they didn’t, I know, since I was the one doing the asking. I got a couple of links to another comment he made, which was only a vague “nobody dies”, which was made as a reply to a question about Dina when she first appeared. Nothing about the reasons, about trauma, pacing, etc.
As a matter of fact, these very same people wrote that they couldn’t even remember WHERE they’d seen this, just that they had.
A tumblr quote would be easier to find than a response to a comment, where I saw him mention the pacing/grieving/etc regarding death, coma, bad injuries, etc.
We are as easily manipulable as my dog.
So… I can get you to do whatever I want by bribing you with bacon?
Hell, yes! Bacon!
Dorothy’s remarks in the last panel are way over-blown. Joyce already told her she was alright.
I believe it’s meant to be a comedic illustration on how central Joyce’s refusal to swear is to her personality, at least in the eyes of her friends.
And I’m pretty sure that is all gibberish, so: ‘Joyce swore, just how bad did things get?’ but played for laughs.
For Joyce to have sworn, she must have been seriously not-all-right, and Dorothy knows that. It was emotional rather than physical pain, but that’s a perfectly legitimate thing for Dorothy to worry about.
I saw the second panel and slowly realized it is November, and it has been for ten days.
Has anyone seen Dina since she tangled with Joyce’s father? Is she dead in the woods?
Sorry… Becky’s father…
No. And no. (Why does everyone think a character is going to be killed offscreen like that?)
She’s in the woods, being nursed back to health by a family of velociraptors. She’ll be fine, if maybe a little atavistic for a while.
Man, Joyce’s right hand sure does get short end of the stick with physical trauma due to emotional trauma.
Oh, right, it’s finally Ambulance Day.
I bet they’re just waiting for Dina – I mean, Joyce’s arm has been treated, and the pile of cops probably wouldn’t let Becky and Joyce visit Toedad if they wanted to (spoiler alert, they don’t)… so the only I reason I think they’re in a hospital waiting room is for word on Dina.
I consider it unlikely for Amber to be at the hospital.
Is it not also possible the cops asked them to stick around for further questioning after the doctors have made sure they’re okay (and their testimonies reliable thanks to absence of head injuries)?
I think Becky would want to see his dad. She was really concerned for him when he showed up with a gun.
Joyce, once you recovered, you do realise that baby Jesus will make you wash your mouth out with the blood of the lamb.
That… sounds so heavy metal actually.
That can only make Joyce cooler.
“Lookit me, Sal! Can I ride your bike to class every day now?!”
Joyce, in Terminator voice: “I need your motuh-cycle.”
Dorothy knows exactly how to react. Excellent. 😀
Hey Becky good to see you, her reaction hahaha
Sorry Dorothy wrong name
Dorothy’s reaction literally made me laugh out loud, that was the best thing XD
this page is blessedly not-terrifying for how it all built up. Also, Dotty’s reaction to Joyce swearing being worse than the rest is the BEST.
Wonder when Sarah is going to show up, and what’s going to be her take on all this? She had to have been informed (since she’s Joyce’s roomate and all).
(Helping her into her bunk while grumbling with a very worried expression
“I knew Becky was trouble when she walked in.”
(Nah, after all that happened to Becky I don’t really think Sarah would still be mean to her)
Possibly on her way over? Dorothy is probably just the first of many friends rushing over to check in on Joyce and Becky.
Now I’m picturing Sarah sprinting to the hospital all:
(huff huff) “Stupid religious bigotry!” (huff huff) “Stupid Toedad!” (huff huff) “Stupid off-campus hospital!”
then dina briskly walks in and worry pressure stims by laying down on top of becky
Annnnnddddd a boxer’s break. Just as I said. Poor Joyce, when the good drugs wear off that is going to hurt like all hell.
My friends in the biz tell me that whenever someone comes into your ER with a broken jaw you can be certain that someone else is in an ER (maybe yours) with the corresponding broken wrist.
Guys, the drama is not over yet! That’s her right hand and she’s mid-semester! How’s she going to get her MRS now?
typing is always a possibility. Also she could ask for a note taker in her classes.
Well know that I realize what you meant by MRS I feel really fucking stupid
I read MRS as ‘misses’ and remembered that Joyce wants to get hitched.
That’s what the MRS degree is, finding a husband.
I don’t see the problem. The ring goes on the left hand.
Maybe she’s ambidextrous.( Just saying)
I’d wager campus solidarity post-shooting would be pretty high, so she probably won’t have any trouble borrowing other people’s notes until she can write her own again.
I’ve never understood why students take notes anyway. I mean, I get that not everyone remembers all the stuff they hear if they don’t find it interesting. But what they don’t remember is already written down in a book somewhere!
I just used my notebooks for doodling.
The act of writing something down helps me remember things. Plus sometimes the professor might say something that’s not in the textbook for a class. I mean sure that piece of info might be written down somewhere, but not having to search for it later makes my life a whole lot easier. Also not everything in the textbook may be relevant to the exam, the notes I take in lecture are more likely to be relevant.
Finally I’ve definitely had a professor one time list of a bunch of numbers, and he told us to memorize it for the exam. I uh, didn’t like that class that much. (It was an intro to psych class, the topic at the moment was memory, and how we can improve memory by recognizing patterns)
A lot of my courses are taught by profs who enjoy having guest lecturers. Fortunately they are always interesting lectures, but my profs who do this explicitly say the info from the guest lecture will be on the exam. And since it’s always about research the guest lecturer is doing, it’s not going to be in the textbook.
As to taking notes during non-guest lectures, I have ADHD and it takes me forever to study from a book cause it is BORING. I mean, I love a lot of my courses and find them really interesting but reading from a textbook still makes me want to just eat the book instead (which is also why I love labs vs lectures). Taking notes during lecture helps keep me engaged and I’m more likely to remember the information than just beating my head against a textbook. But that’s just me though.
Like Lord Stoneheart said, not 100% of the content of a lesson will be in the textbook you’re using.
I had a history teacher who didn’t make us buy a textbook at all. His lessons were 80% him talking about history in much greater detail than I’ve ever seen any textbook do, 15% answering questions and 5% cracking jokes. Unless you had a perfect memory or were recording the class, taking notes was the only way to pass the history tests.
This is an extreme example, but just remember you can’t always rely on textbooks. :3
That said, my notebooks were full of doodles too. XD
Oh my god my Euro history prof was like that too. Maybe we had the same prof ^<__<^;; That guy was awesome. ^^
I doubt that since I live in Switzerland, but maybe they’re, like, two incarnations of the same person? XD
He was awesome but as a terrible note taker I still totally failed his class. He was the first teacher to actually make me care about history class, but he always spoke so fast, I couldn’t keep up. ;_;
“Like Lord Stoneheart said, not 100% of the content of a lesson will be in the textbook you’re using.”
Well…no, and neither will all the information you need to learn even be taught, but it’s still written down somewhere. Which is what I consider to be a part of studying, researching all the books and papers that have been written about the subject, not just the ones that they tell to read.
If someone has said anything, they will also have written it down at some point. I know they say that information sticks better when you write it, but I’ve never felt that personally, and I just get annoyed when I try to make notes.
Whatever works for you then. You asked why anyone would take notes, and me, saki, and Dragon are all anyones. I don’t have the time to do extensive amounts of research on every subject I take classes in. My condensed lecture notes are measurably helpful to me. (Though not all info is written down in a place easily accessible. See my jerk psych professor)
Good for you. But not everyone has that kind of motivation. Or time.
* Hence, notes. : )
Amazi-Girl, I’m going to assume, died in the woods choking on her own bile.
But Amber? Amber may yet still be alive.
Or it vice versa?
I assume Amazi-girl is still in the woods, screaming “HOW DARE YOU” at random trees.
Dorothy continues to give us previews of her future life as Grandmother-in-Chief of the nation.
Dorothy clearly knows Joyce very, very well.
I wouldn’t be averse to “hey, did you hear that Joyce swore?” becomes a running gag for everyone to react to.
Joe’s reaction alone would be priceless.
No, it would be twenty bucks.
^
hah
Don’t get into car chases, kids.
You might sprain your wrist.
Can confirm, this was the reaction the first time someone who knew fundie-me heard me swear. 😛
Yey, my three favorite people in the comic are in the same room.
Awwww, she’s right to be worried. Dorothy is a bit of an audience surrogate here, she has the same worry and fear we have had for the last months, but she has not been around for the ride like we have.
I bet Joyce and Becky spent the waiting time giggling about how to tell Dorothy the news.
I’m guessing Joyce’s trip home will be with Becky, so she can sort her house out.
But Joyce didn’t just say “damnit” she said “god damn you.” Is it only me or was any one else brought up that god damn you, god damn it, god damn *name*, and simply god damn(ed) were far, far worse things to say than just damnit?
I mean, I’m an atheist now and I still have a hard time saying god damn, but I’ve been saying damn and damnit since at least high school, possibly middle school. And I was always the innocent one, especially language-wise.
I’d bet I was 26 or older before I ever said it.
I just feel like if I were in Dotty’s shoes, I’d be shocked at Joyce saying “damnit” but I might faint at hearing that she’d said “god damn you” repeatedly. And probably be a bit worried for her.
I kind of took it like she meant it literally, like she really wanted God to damn Ross for what he did.
Yeah, I kinda figured that too, but if can remember being told that even that was wrong because you’re essentially telling God what to do, in a very disrespectful way, and ordering God around and being disrespectful to him are both very, very wrong.
“God damn” anything just seems like it’s so much higher on the hierarchy of swear words than “dammit” to me. But I’m not even sure if that’s a common perception, or just a weird thing my family emphasized.
It’s a case by case basis. I’m Catholic (not particularly religious though) and I have no problem saying God damn.
But its’ not really more disrespectful than praying though, it can still be used as a request, not a demand.
I mean, you are essentally telling God what to do when you say “Give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins”
There is no “please” there.
And people can damn other people too, the word is basically a short for “condemnation” even though that’s very archaic. You can say “I damn your actions today”, if you disapprove of something.
When is religion, especially the religion-based rules imposed on children- ever logical?
When a family member would tell me that part of the reason saying “God damn X” is a terrible sin because you’re attempting to demand something of God, I don’t think they ever took the time to think about all the times they basically demand something from God.
They were just trying to beat in to a child’s skull that she should never EVER say “God damn” in any context at all.
Anyone else notice how “normal” Joyce’s disposition is considering the amount of pain pills she must be on right now?
She doesn’t need pain pills. Nothing can hurt her anymore.
*instinctively clicks to upvote*
*is depressed by empty space beneath comment instead of like button*
YES! YES! YES!
Nice comment/gravatar synergy.
The fourth panel gave me the vibe that she was pretty spaced out, but that’s just my interpretation.
Hmm, the pile of cops may not have been to the “I’ve run away long ago and am currently staying at my friend’s dorm” part yet.
Hope someone will at least give her her social number.
Well, at this point, with Toedad locked up at least temporarily, she can go home and find whatever ID she needs, along with clothes & the like. Even if she doesn’t stay there, she’ll be better equipped.
She’d need a ride and/or money.
There may be the risk of her getting problems with the local neighbourhood too 😐
From now on, I’ll call Dorothy “overprotective mom”, ’cause that’s what she is right now XD
She’s long been the token ‘sensible one’ of the group.
Mum? That’s Joyce’s wife you’re talking about!
Ohmygod, OH jeez, and holy shit. Three things that I never thought Dorothy the atheist would say.
Atheists swear in the vernacular that is comfortable to them, like anyone else. Turns out a lot of that vernacular derived from religious exclamations.
As an atheist, it seems my most common swear may be exclaiming “Jesus Christ!” It’s gotten to the point where my son called my nephew Jesus in an attempt to insult him, so I’m trying to cut down so I don’t have to have another talk with him.
Yeah, I am also for all intents and purposes an athiest and I still go around saying “Jesus Christ” on occasion. Although I probably say “ay dios mio” (oh my god) at least a couple of times a day thanks to being latin and Catholicism is pretty ingrained in my culture.
“Sweet zombie Jesus on a pogo stick!” is one of my personal favourites. However, I can also recommend learning to swear in Finnish, there’s something very liberating about it.
“woops”
This is Dorothy’s second “holy shit” of the strip.
As an agnostic/atheist, I say “Jesus H. mother fucking Christ” a lot when I’m irritated at, usually, bad software design decisions. This does not indicate that I believe that Jesus was the messiah any more than it indicates that I believe he engaged in conjugal relations with Mary. Or your mom for a nickel.
Dorothy has said “oh my god” before too. Atheists: not actually that different from religious people in most respects!
I’ve been an agnostic most of my life, but I use swears like “Jesus fucking christ”, “Holy shit”, “Oh my fucking god”, as well as their equivalents in my first language, all the time. Heck, I think the first swear I ever learned was “gopferdamminommal”, which is Swiss-german for “God damn it” (though it literally translates as “God damn me again”).
Most swear words aren’t used because of what they actually literally mean, but because of cultural associations to it. Like, when you say “fuck this”, you’re not actually suggesting someone fuck whatever “this” is. Given the strong presence of Christian culture in American and overall English-speaking culture, there is really nothing surprising about atheists using those swears. : )
I mean she’s been around a great deal of religious people all her life. It shouldn’t be that surprising that some of her swears are going to resemble religious terms if that’s the kind of swears that people used around her.
(I’m not Christian, but I use some of those words because I’ve apparently picked up most my swears from my dad, who’s not Christian but has mostly been around Chrisitians in his life)
I like how Dorothy barely bats an eye at Joyce’s admission of punching Ross – she already knows Joyce has it in her to defy the hell out of some authority when it’s called for – but the swearing? HOLY SHIT STOP THE PRESSES.
Heh. I just remembered that Dorothy is actually a reporter for the IDS, and since this episode heavily involved Amazi-Girl, it’s even actually part of her assigned beat.
Now I want to see her story about this headlined:
JOYCE BROWN SWEARS SEVERAL TIMES
also there was a kidnapping and superhero car chase and stuff
OMG Dorothy just swore !
Wow, that is about the best outcome for the hospital panel I could have imagined.
Oh man, is that a patent-pending Robin Stop in panel 3 there?
I can hear Dorothy’s thoughts here: “She swore?!? Oh my god! She’s having a nervous breakdown!”
Girl, don’t yell in an hospital.
Dorothy, my favourite cinnamon roll. (っ＾▿＾c)
You’re late to the party, Dotty. We got in all our exclamations of “holy shit” a week or three ago.
HOLY SHITTTTTT
That sounds terrifying
Wheres Someone when you need him? I totally had something relevant that I needed him to be involved in.
EMERGENCY STATUS: The eyebrows have hit the ceiling!
I always wanted to do a comic where the eyebrows got left behind in mid-air and the character had to come back embarrassed and get them 2 panels later.
Fair question, I’d say.
After everything that went down with Amazi-Girl I would be more skeptical if Joyce did not have a brace on her wrist now. She never hit someone as big as Ross that hard. That would definitely be injurious.
i guess the one positive in all of this is that what Becky worried about most, the cops coming and shooting her dad’s head off, did not happen. then Becky would have been homeless And an orphan. or i guess she would have inherited her dad’s house, but she’d still be a rather traumatized orphan. also, Joyce got a crash course in standing up to her fear.
I’m sure people would have the same reaction if I swore.
I grew up as a goody-two-shoes, and while it still holds true, I’m now someone who’s developed his own sense of morality. Still, swearing feels odd to me; like it doesn’t really fit me. Like Joyce, I only swear if I have a darn good reason to do so; because of that, I think those words have a lot more power than they do when spoken by someone who casually swears (Case in point; which is more shocking; Dorothy dropping an s-bomb in the comic above, or Joyce’s first swear?). Also, I work around kids sometimes, so not swearing is a good habit to get into. Given that Joyce wants to get into teaching, that’s probably a good decision for her as well.
This is actually Dorothy’s second s-bomb of the strip. I was honestly more surprised by the first one than I was by Joyce’s first “DAMN IT”.
Joyce has, in the past, carefully avoided actually using the forbidden words, but she flirts with them a lot… she uses bowlderized substitutes like “friggin'” and “freakin'” pretty regularly, has called Walky a “piece of poop”, and so on. The banned syllables may not actually be coming out of her mouth, but it’s pretty clear that she means them in her heart.
Dorothy, on the other hand, doesn’t have that compulsion to self-censor, so when she swears, she uses the real words, but it’s far more rare for her than for Joyce.
(I’m hoping that this has broken Joyce’s compulsion, and she’ll just say what she means from now on. I just really want to see her casually drop a, “Shut the fuck up, Walky,” on him next time he starts teasing her.)
WHERE IS DIIIIIINNNAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
I wouldn’t be suprised though if when Joyce said “God damn you” she literally meant it, unlike usual uses of the phrase.
As people have pointed out Joyce swearing is different from a non-religious person swearing. They’re not ‘words you say out of frustration’ for Joyce, but literal curses.
Children of Hurin is a great exploration of this. When a mortal person says ‘deity damn you!’, they’re beseeching the deity to take notice of their righteousness and act on their behalf. When Morgoth, literally the most evil thing on Arda, personally damns you and your descendents, you know you’re PROPER fucked!
Becky and Joyce need to go home. Becky needs to pick up the part of her life she wants to carry forward. Joyce should go with her. The Browns will want to make sure their daughter is OK. I think that will not be a big plot area, since the Browns won’t be able to say much considering what Toedad did. Threatening to kill their daughter kinda overwhelms not hanging out with a suddenly gay (in their view) friend.
I think you’re right on the Toedad issue, but I could totally see the Browns giving Joyce a bunch of passive aggressive crap about hiding Becky in the first place.
If a sprained wrist takes 8-12 weeks to heal, is Joyce going to be drawn with that brace for the next decade?
she only has to breathe in the contents of a healium balloon and she will be all better
Helium*
I’m thinking you missed the pun.
No, I just enjoy being an asshole.
{Foghorn Leghorn voice}
“I keep – I say – I keep pitchin’ ’em and you keep missin’ ’em.”
Fall is here. Long sleeves save the day… or artist’s sanity.
If Becky is smart, she will go home while Toedad is still in custody and get her clothes and other stuff, so can at least start moving forward with her life. Part of me hopes that Toeded will remain in custody until he’s convicted of his crimes, so she can live in her home and figure out what to do with her life.
Sure, she probably doesn’t want to be away from Dina & her friends, but being basically homeless sucks.
The house likely has a mortgage. Toedad isn’t going to have an income and probably lacks the savings to pay it off. Becky certainly can’t earn enough to cover it for long.
She should however be able to go there and get some stuff – id, clothes, etc.
When I was reading “pile of cops” my brain tried to automatically insert “pile of manure” ’cause Back to the Future taught me that’s where jerks go.
Now I’m just waiting for Dina to show up from just outside the panel space and someone asking “how long have you been here?!”
Amazi-Girl flat-out cannot go straight to the hospital. She’s going to have to somehow make it back to the dorm and change into regular clothes first. She’s going to need help doing that from Danny or Ethan (the only two who know Amber is AG), and it’s gonna hurt like crazy.
Then Danny or Ethan (or maybe both) will have to take Amber to the hospital, and they’re all going to have to come up with some plausible story that explains her injuries without requiring any police involvement.
I think it’s way more likely that Amber refuses to go to the hospital and tries to treat herself. She might bench Amazi-Girl, which would probably start making her rage issues she compartmentalize through her costume start to leak into her regular life.
She probably has clothes under that, I hope, its better to show up to the hospital in a bra and panties than naked.
Actually I think she actually wears her suit over her regular clothes. (This was from the comic after she beat up Blaine; Danny was helping her out of her costume.) So, in theory, she could just hide the suit in the woods, go to the hospital, and then pick up the costume after she checks out. (She could… although I doubt she will.)
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/zipper/
She might also have collapsed where Sal left her. Dorothy would piece it together fairly quickly based on what Joyce and Becks can tell her though. And she’d have the perfect excuse to go looking.
Coming up with an explanation for her injuries shouldn’t be too hard; there’s always the good ol’ falling down the stairs excuse.
Dorothy knows, too! (shhh!, its a sekrit)
Hey, and Dina? Where is Dina?
No no no. She didn’t say “dammit”. She said “God dammit”! She not only swore, she went badass too! 😀
God damnit, am I badass now?
And he got damned.
So, Bloomington has Goth ambulances? Impressive.
You know.
I really think this comic should be re-written by realistic standards and what real people actually feel when it comes to this.
For example?
You know.
I really think this
comiccomment should be re-written by realistic standards and what real people actually feel when it comes to this.The last panel is a bit silly and kind of overblown, but considering Dorothy was freaked out that her best friend could be dead, it seems pretty natural.
As for Joyce, she’s come down from her save Becky/motorcycle stunt/Toedad punching induced high and she’s starting to relax again.
But apparently the last panel is something David Willis has personal experience with, in which case I’d like to apologize to him for dismissing something he’s gone through.
The real silly and overblown part is that even longtime readers still call characters’ experiences silly and overblown. Despite countless author statements in every place possible testifying this is autobiographical.
And, really, the last panel seems very true to life. For anyone to do anything they never ever do is usually a shock to others.
And is there any way to stop calling any experience you have not had overblown till someone announces it is factual? *Sal’s, for example.*
Yeah, that was crappy of me. I figured it was just a “lol joyce swore and dorothy’s overreacting” joke, but I remember now that Willis talked about how he got similar reactions when he first swore.
it’s a *comic*
When I was in high school, I swore very, very infrequently. Not for any specific reason, just didn’t grow up hearing them often (my parents’ rule was just never call people names and it should be when there’s a reason). I didn’t mind if other people swore, either. I just didn’t very often.
So the first few times anyone, including my parents, heard me swore, it was a HUGE deal to them (even if it wasn’t really that big a deal to me). Like, people stopped what they were doing to stare at me in shock.
So, yeah, pretty realistic in this particular case.
That is a very vague statement. So much has happened over the past weeks. What exactly do you mean by “this”?
What a delicate, veiled way of saying that the only valid responses are the ones that make sense to you.
(The above is a remarkably polite request for you to self-copulate.)
Huh?
Before I post this, there are 395 comments from people who are totally indifferent to Dumbing of Age because of how unrealistic it is.
Have at it I guess
Meanwhile, out in the woods, Dina has gone feral.
6 months from now, attacks by unusually large velociraptors against members of Homo Stupidis Patriensis will spike markedly.
…And Joyce is still swearing…
you’re a troll, Willis.
Adorable Dorothy skidding to a stop and kicking up a small cloud of dust is adorable—and exactly what is needed after a month of incredibly tense storyline.
This…. this right here!!!…. THis be my new all time fav strip you have ever done!!! saving it as my computer background!! Its just so yes! Like YES!!!
I guess Joyce will be wearing that cast for the next four years (our time).
Why did Dina go to the hospital?
Because Dina-sore
..I’ll let myself out
If you ever sprain your ankle/wrist, get it x-rayed. Even though “It’s only a sprain”. You can break a bone there without realizing it. It might seem fine after a week or so. But it could give you big trouble years later.
ambulance rides are so not fun
I saw that there were 420 comments so I had to add one more.
Narc.