While it is true that too much of Sarah’s pessimism kills love in its crib (see her own relationship with Jacob for an example), I think a little dose of it is preferable to pure blind optimism. Becky and Dina have a lot of potential problems– Becky’s housing issue, Dina’s apparent asexuality against Becky’s raging libido, the difficulty of finding a normal rhythm in a relationship that’s so far been defined by drama.
The time to confront obvious potential problems in a relationship is fairly early in the game, when both partners are full of energy and motivation and willing to make real changes in their lives. Dina’s response tells us that this isn’t an issue Sarah just created, or even one she doesn’t know about: it’s an issue that she’s been burying. Becky probably has, too.
True, but they’re also in good positions and are currently (without additional pressure) doing positive things in the relationship to address these things. Becky is enacting long-term plans to no longer be homeless and is trying to make sure there’s not a dynamic of financial inequality where Dina is buying all the stuff.
Becky and Dina are taking care to show appreciation and while Becky still has feelings for Joyce, she acknowledges and celebrates Dina and makes sure that she neither disappears from Joyce’s life to go into co-dependence with Dina, nor leaves Dina out of her attempts to comfort Joyce as a friend.
Dina is stating her extroversion limits and is finding ways to stretch them that are not emotionally taxing. Plus, on the asexuality thing, she may be asexual, but she seems to be an asexual like me who finds sex intellectually intriguing and would likely be interested in exploring that someday. And Becky for her part is doing really well to take lessons from her surprise kiss with Joyce and is going very slowly with a lot of respect for Dina’s boundaries.
Honestly, this pessimism is kind of out of place for these reasons. They aren’t making really obvious mistakes that will cost them in the future like Ruth and Billie. And fears like being a “rebound” are often the kind of thing young people fear before they date enough to know that they aren’t any more doomed than any other relationship.
Which means, Sarah is just dumping on her pessimism because of her own fears regarding intimacy and may in fact make the situation worse by getting Dina wrapped up in her senses of inadequacy in the relationship (the times in which the relationship has shown signs of codependence has been when Dina has been trying to follow a traditional script because of feeling inadequate, especially in comparison to Joyce):http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/socialsecurity/
And honestly, given the situations both have, trying to fit a more normative script would definitely cause a metric crap ton of problems.
Well really there’s two different kinds of “rebounds.” There’s the option that you seem to be talking about, where person X can’t be with person Y and ends up with person Q but genuinely has feelings for person Q. Then there’s the option that I think most of us have a problem with. Where person X is merely settling for person Q and is just waiting around for perhaps probably maybe even if it’s a misinterpretation of a completely innocent action on behalf of person Y and person X is like I AM GOING TO INTERPRET THIS HOW I WANT AND GO FOR IT and person Q is left behind feeling used, whether person Y was actually making a move on person X or person X just wanted it to mean that. (or a second interpretation of this second situation is person X settles for person Q because they just don’t want to be alone, even if they don’t actually have any romantic feelings for person Q)
Not that I have an opinion one way or the other on which one Becky is cause I’d rather just sit back and read the story but I think that the second situation is the “rebound” that most people have a problem with and really don’t want Dina to be that kind of rebound. Cause those kinds of rebounds always end terribly.
Some people like to misinterpret anything though. Made-up example: Something awesome happens to Joyce, who is a hugger. She is happy, so she hugs Becky, her best friend. Becky is like “OH THIS MUST MEAN SHE FINALLY LOVES ME” and breaks up with Dina to pursue this misinterpreted innocent nothing from Joyce. Joyce of course is like, “I didn’t mean it that way O__o;; ” but now it’s too late cause Dina’s broken-hearted from getting dumped.
Again, made-up example, but when people are in love they are prone to reading too much into innocent things.
Disclaimer: Yes, I AM a fan of Sarah as a character. In fact, she’s my favorite member of the cast. That may muddle my perception of things. But then again, I started liking her most for her observations, personality, and pessimism. Take that into account as you read the following stuff.
– – – – – – – – – –
Honestly, I’m of the opinion that whether or not Dina and Becky both try to make it work, there are plenty of chances this could turn out to be a short (but still potentially happy) relationship, rebound or not.
1. Becky is NOT supposed to be living in the dorm. Her situation is understandable and we can all empathize, but the law won’t. All it takes is for a suspicious, well meaning stranger (or someone horrible like Mary) to ruin her life for her right now. Heck, they’d probably ruin our favorite R.A.’s life while they’re at it since AFAIK she’s letting this go on. They’d either see her as incompetent or realize she’s been hiding stuff from them.
2. Dina and Becky LITERALLY just met a few days ago in webcomic time, and Dina is the first girl at this school that has shown interest in Becky. Dina is happy to be with her, sure, and I’ll bet Becky is too. But that doesn’t mean Becky won’t find someone else she’s more interested in, or that Dina won’t notice Becky still pining for Joyce (she has noticed) and maybe get super stressed out from that. Given her reaction, it’s possible this has been on her mind for a while. I’m pretty sure tomorrow will have some answers.
3. And then there’s psychological issues. Becky has gone through some serious Hell lately. She needs a therapist, and so does Joyce. I forget if either of them agreed to talk to one yet, but they probably should, because at the very least they need to have that outlet for their frustrations and anxieties. If Becky doesn’t get a chance to talk to a therapist now that AFAIK she has AFAIK no DIRECT family to turn to… I dunno. But she’s run away from home, had a gun pointed at her BY HER DAD, had her sexuality invalidated by her old school, feels very betrayed, etc. When that bad juju bubbles and festers, is Dina going to be the one to try and bottle it up? Or to help her work it out? Will that WORK for Becky?
4. Finally, sake of drama. Dude, this is Willis we’re talking about. Willis will do his darnedest to throw monkey wrenches into the characters’ lives because it makes good drama. If something bad can happen, it WILL happen.
5. Oh – and then there’s sexual intercourse. Different people have different opinions about sex. For instance, I frankly don’t give a damn about sex; I don’t see the allure of it; and if I were to have a girlfriend that was REALLY sexual, we’d probably have problems. I think Dina might be interested in sex, but she and Becky may end up with very differing views about how important it is. That can break relationships.
Now, obviously Sarah can’t know about #4, but I’m pretty sure she’s thought about points 1 and 2 a fair bit, and she may be savvy to point 3. This really goes beyond Dina being Becky’s rebound – and again, remember that (as a poster way down at the bottom of the comments mentioned before) Becky and Dina only met days ago and Becky is still orbiting her super crush of forever ago. That orbiting is not a good sign.
Now, this relationship can still go on very happily, with Dina and Becky talking this out and working through the hurdles in their way. As a lot of people said, rebounds can blossom into beautiful, long lasting relationships. That doesn’t mean marriage or life partners necessarily, though that’s possible, but it can mean some happy years of dating, too. Any of these outcomes is a good experience.
This relationship could ALSO end on a HAPPY note, as I think is the most probable and eventual outcome. I think Becky and Dina are going to have a few bad moments, but will realize they’re not really the BEST for each other despite being really, really good friends, and will then break up but stay, yeah, friends. I could see Dina being the sort that’s able to do that, and I could see Becky really wanting to keep Dina as a friend because DINA ATTACKED TOEDAD TO SAVE HER LIFE, ¡JESUS CHRISTO! That’s gotta be a pretty darned good bond. They’ll stay friends, I’m pretty sure of that, no matter what happens.
But with all that said, I do NOT think Sarah was wrong to want to talk about this. She presents herself in a shitty way, perhaps, but this situation Becky is in has a lot of potential to hurt both her and everyone around her, not to mention the fact that she does still have a HUGE crush on her best friend since forever. Could Sarah be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by bringing this up? It’s possible. But I don’t think I can realistically blame Sarah for worrying about how this will turn out for her friend, and I don’t think I can blame her for voicing this opinion if she thinks it might help.
Also, someone else later on makes a fair point about Sarah’s perspective I’d like to bring up:
“She’s [Sarah] overly pessimistic about her own (love) life, sadly, but pretty spot-on when it comes to others. Remember how she was a party-pooper at the beginning of the semester, when Joyce and Dorothy were headed out to party with Roz? If only she had “pooped” harder.”
And I’d say that’s not far off the mark. Sarah is a pessimist through and through, probably TOO pessimistic, but thus far we don’t have any evidence that she’s a BAD judge of character. Frankly, I’m willing to bet she DID save her first roommate’s life, and we know darned well it’s super fortunate Sarah came to Roz’s party after all. The guy got away thanks to Amazigirl, if anyone remembers that…
All those things taken into account, is it still necessary to bring it up, though? I am currently on a rebound with a guy who is rebounding off of me. All four non-author-related points apply to us. We realize this is most likely not going to be a longterm relationship. But for the moment, we have decided to ignore that and just enjoy it while it lasts. If we can enjoy it now, why focus on the eventual end? That will just get depressing and ruin the joy we feel in the moment. Dina isn’t stupid. She /knows/ what’s going on. But it makes her happy in the moment. She and Becky are both strong enough to deal with bridges when they come to them. Sarah may be right about the nature of the relationship, but it’s still way out of bounds for her to rain on their parade. And this is what she does. She points out possible problems before they become problems, not because the people she’s talking to need to be prepared for those problems, but because Sarah herself is too cynical to accept present joys as they come. She’s trying to force other people to live with her world view of “High failure chance equals don’t bother trying.” And that is /not/ right.
“She’s trying to force other people to live with her world view” – All she’s ever done is warn about potential problems. Yeah, that makes her a Debbie Downer but that’s not the same thing as trying to *force* people into thinking or seeing things the same way she does.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve never seen Sarah say, “Do it my way or else.”
To be fair, True Friends say shit like that–once. If Sarah continues to harp on the “rebound” thing, then she is not a True Friend but a Misery who wants Company.
I’m on year 12 of a “rebound” that, to be honest, I saw coming long ago and was too chicken shit to do anything about (mostly about what it meant for my living arrangements, somewhat similiar to Becky’s but with less Ruthless and financial dependence). The terrible lizbeans can still work! MAKE IT HAPPEN
Asexual? She certainly seemed to be but remember the clip just before Toe Dad showed up? She was very eager to go do something! I thought that Becky or maybe just the concept of having a partner seemed to wake something up.
That’s not really a surprise. I know we aren’t supposed to talk about ‘that other universe’ but personalities seem to be similar across the two and she certainly wasn’t asexual there!
Ugghhh, fuck Sarah’s shitty perspective. I don’t care if she’s vigilante because of it she’s a bad friend and she pushes people away.
Saying this helps no one. The whole concept of being afraid of being a rebound is counterproductive. These doubts will likely cause Dina to mistrust Becky’s behavior or her feelings for Becky. Either way the result is that Dina will be less likely to be open with Becky and more likely to let anxiety ruin a perfectly good relationship. Thus fulfilling Sarah’s shit prophecy.
Unless Sarah proceeds to coach Dina to be ask Becky honest questions this is destructive advice.
Sarah’s a pessimist and quite unlucky in her own love life. She puts up walls to prevent being hurt. While not great this advice is pretty much the best she can give given her experiences. In her mind this is compassion. That’s my view of it anyway.
Yes, but it’s as though Sarah has no concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as by saying these things and pointing them out, she has made a problem exponentially more likely to occur.
I’m sure does, given her recent problems with wooing Jacob. However, being aware of the problem is only the first step. Breaking out of it is harder, especially when it becomes habitual.
You guys are all right… But I’m being hopeful here. Everybody’s being touched by little character changes. Even Joe is showing a little more to himself, so I’d say it’s about time for something to change in Sarah… for better or worse.
Well… hrm. On one hand, there’s self fulfiling prophecies. On the other hand, there’s the truth that being warned about bumps in the road, let’s you drive more cautiously.
There’s a fine grey line though!
… to be honest, if there’s going to be a big messy break up ANYWAY, it’s better to be prepared.
… but on the other hand, in this case, everything was going nicely, there were no real problems, and as Weyland said, self fulfiling prophecy here, ie Sarah becomes the cause of the break up, making a problem where there was none.
…
Now, one more thing to consider. Dina immediately said “I know”… that could mean several things. One possible (and I say possible) thing is that she was already worried about this fact but was showing a smile on the outside, but wanted to talk to someone about it. And will now talk to Sarah about it, get it off her chest.
And (her I’m being overly optimistic, opposite of Sarah!), maybe both of them will talk, then realize the relationship is actually going great, no worries after all! Let’s all be extra nice to each other now! Happy ending! OK I’m in lala land here lol. … eh, I can hope… right? … RIGHT?
DAVE!!! MAKE THE HAPPY HAPPY SCENARIO HAPPEN PLEASE!!! Drama Tag pulled, fine, but we just had a lot of angst and major unhappiness, remember a good comic has some BALANCE, and Dina is the one we choose for some happiness!!! … please? 😉
I agree with a lot of the chain. Sarah is very cynical about romance and relationships of all kinds. And she has a habit of torpedoing relationships before they start by being way too focused on their “inevitable end”. This means she assumes most other relationships other people are in will be doomed by their problems, whatever they are, no matter how small they are (remember she axed her developing connection with Jacob simply because she became convinced that eventually Jacob would see her less desirable qualities and leave and so she actively resisted any form of connection).
So yeah, to her its kindness to notice a potential flaw, no matter how unlikely and bring it up before things get too untangled. And it’s a kindness that can be genuine and helpful (her being able to see through Joe’s intentions with regards to Joyce) as much as it can be nothing but a hinderance to its recipient (here).
It’s a delicate balance and where Sarah is she’s going to get it wrong sometimes.
You meant ‘vigilant,’ but I love the idea of a pessimism vigilante, stalking through the nights, crushing dreams wherever hope is found in the name of bleak truths, hollow justice, and the American way!
There are worse ways Dina could react to mounting microaggressions (microignorings? micromisplacedaffections?) from a partner clearly in love with Joyce and in her professional life than the explosive dissolution of the relationship.
Except we’re not currently seeing those microaggressions from Becky. Becky has been doing a good job making sure Dina is appreciated and has made sure to include her in things like comforting Joyce when that has been necessary. It’s not like Becky is making small digs at her to be more Joyce-like or praising Joyce at her expense.
So, this is basically a warning about a non-existent problem.
Someone has to be the rebound or there’d be no one to move on to. And while Sarah’s POV is not without some validity she’s hardly a success in matters of the heart. Hopefully, Dina will keep that in mind.
Yeah, rebounds are not nearly as bad as young, new to dating, people believe they are.
I mean, they can be, if the person on the rebound mistreats the person they are rebounding with and takes them for granted (see Scott Pilgrim with Knives).
But more often than not, it’s just dating. And not any more doomed or prone to be short term than any other form of dating.
I don’t see being concerned about someone as being a bad friend. The gentle approach Sarah was taking may not have created any doubts, but Dina asked for brutal honesty. Sometimes thats what you want and need. And as Dina said…she already knew. Emotional turn around is rarely that fast or that drastic without doubt already being there.
Sarah cares, has yet to be wrong, and feels a strong sense of responsibility toward the less experienced of her freshman brood. And every time Sarah has had doubts about a situation or someone’s intentions, she’s been completely right. Her biggest sin has been being pretty nonspecific and noncommital. Tbh I think she’s giving exactly the type of advice one would want someone around to give if the couple wasn’t hecka adorbs. Realistically their relationship has some major danger signs for people afraid of getting hurt, as well as people afraid of others getting hurt. Becky and Dina got together during major upheaval in Becky’s life and Becky’s world view is changing quickly and drastically, as is Dina’s. Starting a relationship in the middle of that can lead to some unhealthy behavior and warp a new relationship. It probably way too early to tell, but Sarah’s experiences have set her up to worry early and doubt interpersonal relationships. And while we’ve seen Becky’s arc first hand, to Sarah she’s still at least partially the girl who entered their lives through deception and manipulation, no matter how justified her actions may seem. Sarah didn’t trust her from the very beginning…and was 100% right both about her being deceitful and about he deceit leading to a life altering mess. Now Becky has jumped from Sarah’s ultra naïve roommate to the girl with little to no social skills who everyone else treats like she’s 12, in less time than it takes to get over a cold.
Would I say anything? No, because I’m all about self preservation. Never insert yourself into anyone else’s relationship if you don’t wanna get burned. Either you’ll get blamed for their insecurities, or you’ll be that friend who tried to break them up right up to and beyond when they actually do break up. Bonus bile if you were right. Being right about the likelihood of someone getting hurt is never endearing, no one’s thankful for the warning even though they’re even less likely to want to clean up the aftermath. This is a lesson that Sarah already learned the hard way, and its a big part of why she built up her walls in the first place.
I’m less worried about Dina and Becky than I am about Sarah. In some ways I’m happy that Sarah is finally committing enough to express the actual concern at issue, but she’s tried so hard not to get involved, and I’m not sure how she’s going to take it when Willis inevitably has everything blow up in her face. Dina and Becky and cute and all, but Sarah has been letting her walls fall only to turn into a kind of Cassandra truth avatar. We build walls to protect our most vulnerable spaces, and nothing good ever came to Cassandra for speaking the truth. Or to Sarah for that matter.
(you are right about stuff, but I just wanted to note that Dina is not in fact 12. She’s treated like she is, yes, but remember, being angry at that is basically what STARTED her relationship with Becky. She kissed her to show she wasn’t a little kid. She has social difficulties, yes, but autistic =/= childish. Other people’s assumptions are on them. If anything, Becky’s treating her the best out of her friends rn)
I think Dina can handle it. She doesn’t strike me as the type to play games, shenanigans, and scripts. I think she wants directness. And she’s intelligent, much more so than most of them (and most of us) give her credit for.
Yeah, I was gonna say, in Sarah’s defense Dina explicitly requested directness. It’s not like Sarah is having an internal monologue about how much she loves the sorrow of freshman girls as she does it.
Maybe, just maybe? She feels that being aware of the potential for harm is more important then the fleeting happiness burying your head in the sand will give.
Like, you know, how her fleeting happiness in having friends was utterly bloody buried by the drama invoked by her doing the right thing and saving her friend.
Because she attempts in her actions to be an agent of realism and warning, but instead acts as an agent of pessimism and pain. In some ways, she’s the anti-Mike. Mike acts maliciously with the intent of causing harm, but ends up forcing people to grow and develope in the process. Sarah acts with the intent of protecting others from themselves, but ends up primarily causing pain and discomfort. However, her attempts only do this to us, the readers, because Sarah herself is a more developed and three-dimensional character, whereas Mike is simply snarky maliciousness incarnate.
Wait, it’s been only a week? I thought they were almost done with their first semester by now! I’ve been reading this since I was a sophomore in highschool and I’ve already moved to sophomore in College! God…I want to be in their universe just so I can…enjoy?…being nineteen for like ten years.
I know! I am literally crying tears because of it right now. The effect it had on me reminded me of that one page where after Ethan tackles Danny, then they make out but you see that it’s a thought bubble but the twist is that it’s Danny’s thought bubble.
Huh! I’m surprised, actually, that the characters think that this matters. What’s wrong with a rebound relationship, those can turn into lasting ones, too.
This. When you’re young, rebounds are one of those big scary words that are always shown in movies (when noted to be rebounds) to be giant buckets of fail (even though most romantic comedies involve the main romance being a rebound from a recently failed relationship in actuality).
And like many things sold to people as key parts of romance, it is a giant crock of shit.
They can, and maybe this will. But the odds are against them. Dina’s literally the first girl to fall in Becky’s lap who was responsive to her advances and Dina kissed her out of annoyance over how she was being treated. Not the best beginning, not totally doomed but we’ll have to see how genuine the attraction is once the first relationship shine wears off.
I mean, yeah, but people meet the loves of their lives on grindr, too. You don’t have to Meet Cute for it to become a very meaningful relationship in its own right.
I don’t really think so. Yeah, their beginning is rather uncommon (Dina kissing her to spite her friends, Becky finding the first person in her life to love her back unapologetically), but they’re enacting good relationship practices and show genuine care. They’re both in NRE (new relationship energy) and there might be conflicts that arise later, but right now they are adapting to the very real issues both of them have faced in this relationship with an impressive amount of aplomb.
These two characters in particular are 18-20 and have a very limited understanding of relationships. This is actually a pretty common belief. Neither has actually had a rebound relationship and doubtfully know anyone who has had one.
In other words, they’re inexperienced and are relying on what their culture had taught them about how these things happen.
You all are right. I forgot that the title was Dumbing of Age, not ‘characters who think that they know things are correct, and then everyone makes mature decisions’.
I absolutely agree. This whole concept of “oh no don’t be the rebound” is ridiculous to me.
In this case, yeah, Becky was in love with Joyce for a long time, so one would think that she’d still hold feelings for her.
However, the same is true for anyone who’s been in a previous relationship or has had unrequited love before. Danny still has feelings for Dorothy, and Amber still has feelings for Ethan. These bonds of love aren’t cut cleanly, or immediately, and they shouldn’t be. It becomes a part of who they are.
IMO, this fact should be accepted and looked past, especially here, since there is no chance for Becky to get together with Joyce. Dina loves her, and Becky loves Dina. The fact that Becky is dealing with her feelings for Joyce doesn’t invalidate or lessen or negate it.
Definitely. Young people are taught to fear rebounds, but rebounds aren’t actually scary. I’m my current gf’s rebound (to the point where she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go on that first date with me because of how much of a torch she was carrying for her previous gf) and we had our 3 year anniversary 2 months ago.
As a fear, it’s about as relevant and worthwhile as “Becky might secretly be part robot and harvest your organic parts in your sleep”.
Yeah, the problem is very much that she’s treating everyone else’s romantic development as she would very much treat her own. Oh, you look happy, something must be wrong that will doom you. And if there’s nothing real, then we should just worry about something fake or minor and let that fester and smash things so that I’ll be best prepared for the drama-filled end.
And her tendency to be right on a lot of cynical matters probably doesn’t help in the instances where she is wrong (her handling of the proto-relationship with Jacob, here, and I’d argue, her handling of Dana, based on the statements by people still in contact with her).
While she was right about warning Joyce about her fake-relationship with Ethan, her prophecy that Dorothy will end her friendship with her when she finds out, luckily turned out to be wrong.
So the Cassandra title is not really entitled – she’s not the relationships-expert she believes she is.
I’d be careful about drawing conclusions about the Dana situation based on statements from people who couldn’t see how bad Dana was when she was in school.
Unless Sarah completely misread the situation all along and was overreacting to minor issues with Dana, which would be a huge character changing revelation.
It’s not that Sarah didn’t do the right thing, involving Dana’s father when she was becoming more and more dependent on drug use, but that Dana perhaps isn’t getting better, as implied by Raidah one time they spoke.
That she hasn’t apparently returned to school in nearly a year shows that Sarah’s actions, while absolutely well intended and probably saved Dana’s life, might not have been the ultimate solution Sarah was hoping for.
It wouldn’t have been brought up in the first place if it had no relevance, and it’s not like Raidah and co. didn’t care about Dana; they incorrectly believed that Dana was coping as best as she could, not seeing the destructive parts Sarah bore witness to.
The implication I got from the strip where Raidah mentions Dana was that Dana was still grieving or in some form of depression, maybe even still doing drugs beyond Raidah’s ability to help her. Sarah’s thinking it will work out, that it was for the best that Dana be with her dad, but has she even tried contacting her since? At the risk of this coming off as victim blaming, Sarah opened up with her concerns about how Dana was impacting her studying, about how Dana’s grief over her mother’s death affected her. To Raidah, that probably comes off as “I am exaggerating the severity of the problem (that you don’t see, because Dana wears a mask around you), and need to remove this obstacle that is inconveniencing me.”
Not sad. Normal human communication is full of misdirection, hints, and subtle nods in significant directions – all of which is lost on the autistic. You must be direct, or accept that we won’t always understand what you’re on about.
And it’s a positive joy when we find those who don’t do hints, because then we know what they’re saying.
Actually, Dina has an impressive degree of self-awareness and awareness of social mores here, compared with me as an undiagnosed autistic 18-year-old, anyway. I didn’t know myself and society’s preference for dealing with emotionally fraught things indirectly well enough to tell people, “I need you to be direct with me,” until my mid-20s.
Because he wants to tell a ligament story, that isn’t just everyone being perfect and or adorable, that explores complex issues. Also because he is slightly evil.
There’s always Hope, but I don’t see any Blue Lantern Rings flying around, and to make all this work out for everyone to end up not being emotionally hurt to the core would require enough Hope to turn Mogo into a BL.
Not sure there’s enough of that emotion going around right now.
This. You’ll never recover from failed relationships if you don’t rebound. Not every rebound works, but the ones that fail don’t fail statistically more than any other form of shot.
anyone wanna make a list of what each character’s name means as a verb? i think we all know what ‘to joe’ means. a significant percentage of the female student body at iu has experienced it
of course dina is experimenting, she’s a budding scientist. how do you learn what works, and doesn’t work, if you don’t try? everyone experiments when it comes to relationships, some are just more sure of their hypotheses than others.
I agree with you. However, I meant it as a shorthand for a particular fear, in which the person who is totally sure that she’s a lesbian gets wrapped up with a person who is “just experimenting”, and it turns out the experimenting person isn’t into women at all and can’t love them the same way. It would be a nasty thing for somebody to tell Becky.
Sarah asking Dina if she’s experimenting would probably lead to the most adult conversation Dina’s ever had the opportunity of being involved in. And with the fears are dramas around them, that would surely be a good thing.
All of this chain, especially Leorale’s bit. Sarah’s bringing up a common fear with little basis in reality, especially with the good couple practices we’ve seen so far with Dina and Becky. Who cares if Becky is on the rebound and who cares if Dina is experimenting and doesn’t know for sure the full scope of her sexuality. Both are happy and both are treating each other well and doing actions that are healthy and adorable.
Just let them be kids in love instead of dumping society’s garbage on them…
Though, now that I say that out loud, that’ll always be Dina and Becky’s main conflicts. The fact that their relationship will always face a number of external conflicts, one of which being how it looks to people on the outside with a more normative view of things (oh, you’re both too immature, how can you be sure of your feelings, rebound, mismatch sexuality, etc…)
From a cynical point of view, the biggest obstacle to Dina and Becky’s relationship long term is that they’re both 18 and that it’s the first real relationship for both.
Most young first relationships don’t last a lifetime. That Becky’s homeless and likely hiding trauma and Dina isn’t neurotypical and that there will be external pressures both because of that and because it’s a lesbian relationship, just make it harder. The rebound thing hardly registers.
But that’s all okay. As much as we’d like them too, those first relationships don’t have to last. They’re how we learn. If and when it ends, they’ll hurt and move on. Meanwhile, they can enjoy it.
And so can we, vicariously.
Dina does not ‘just’ experiment. She tests with rigorous repetition, and makes no secret of it.
Becky’s seemed fine with that so far! And Dina has informed her of the experiment’s fairly conclusive results thus far: Dina enjoys smooching Becky.
Not that Sarah can’t find some other wrench to throw in things with the best intentions.
1. Does this need to be said?
2. Does this need to be said by me?
3. Does this need to be said right now?
It really speaks for the quality of the product, when I find I’m trying desperately to give advice to a fictional character. But seriously, Sarah, wait until all three of these are “yes” next time.
Your 1-2-3 approach is quite cold and calculated, hence unreasonable in many if not most instances. It’s more along the lines of:
1. Do I feel like this should be sed?
2. If yes, should I say it now?
3. Possible damage assessment before you say whatever. (More then likely this step is skipped at least 50% of the time.)
4. How should I say it? (Often replaced with ‘Just blurt it out.’)
I feel like that’s what Sarah was asking Dina questions to try to figure out. Dina wanted a direct and clear statement of Sarah’s concerns before Sarah even decided what she should do with the information. She got what she asked for, and her concerns aren’t unreasonable. There are bigger concerns at issue, but Becky jumped from one naïve girl to another damn quick. There’s no way to know how she’s processed her feelings, if at all…
Yeah, that’s definitely a thing Sarah is messing up here. Even if this was an actually worthwhile thing to be worried about that was time-sensitive to get out in the open, this was the absolute wrong time to bring it up.
I mean, Dina is emotionally drained at the end of a long day, has stated her emotional batteries are low, and was clearly intending a light little friendly capstone where she was glowing in her happiness. Throwing something like this on her even if it was necessary immediate information was going to hit way deeper and more negatively than at any other moment.
And given the superficiality of the complaint and its disconnection from anything immediately concerning (oh noes, you may break up in the future, be afraid), there’s really no reason to wait until the morning when people are feeling refreshed.
I mean, best case scenario from a thing like this is starting a late night argument between a couple over something stupid. And the scenarios get worse from there.
I find that a lot of people don’t understand emotional batteries, and not just cause Sarah is like 19. My mum’s emotional batteries are recharged by being around people. For me, even if I’m solely around my friends, people that I like, and am enjoying spending time with them, when I get home I am still SO TIRED. And she doesn’t get that at all. Whenever I come home from class and reply to her “How was it” with “I’m exhausted” she’s just like, “You shouldn’t be exhausted. Go out and be social, you’ll feel better!” Ayyyyyy.
TL;DR: people are often really terrible at understanding those who are different than they are, whether they are kids or not. (but I do agree this was a shit thing for Sarah to bring up right this moment)
Sarah does like Dina. She doesn’t want her hurt. Sometimes telling people things that ‘no one else will’ is for he best. I guess Sarah is trying to save her deeper hurt.
I’m not surprised that Dina knew – Dina is not stupid.
Poor little thing. Sad Dina’s should not be allowed….MR. WILLIS.
Sarah said it. After the party where Joyce was nearly raped.
She hates seeing hurt coming and not being able to do something about it.
It feels like watching a severe accident in slow-motion, your brain yelling ‘do this, do THAT!!!’ without being able to act.
Unfortunately, where relationsships are concerned, you need to throw reality to the winds for some time to give it a chance to work – and this is something Sarah doesn’t get. To her, the logical – and likely – end seems inevitable, and therefore she is the master of sabotaging her own relationships.
Sometimes, like with her former roommate, she is right in her accessment that things are incredibly dangerous indeed even if all others prefer to ignore it. But unfortunately, she sees this danger also where it isn’t.
From personal experience I can say a rebound can be just as loved or more so then the original love/relationship – sometimes actually having to do with being a rebound. In my case, I was and to this day still am grateful to my second girlfriend BECAUSE she helped me deal with the aftermath of the first relationship ending. I was in a really bad place for a while there and she helped me get out of it – for that a part of me shall always love her.
Rebounds are not actually doomed relationships. They are a necessary component of healthy dating and I’ve seen so many “successful” rebounds in my life that it doesn’t even trip a sensor anymore when a relationship is someone’s rebound or not.
Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever even been in a relationship that wasn’t a rebound for someone (usually the other person).
Nooo no no. Sarah is the one who painfully tears off your band-aid to replace it and help the healing process. Mary is the one who causes injuries requiring band-aids.
Thank you, Sentinel. The amount of Sarah-bashing disturbs me. I get part of it is that Dina is such a beloved character (by me as well), but if we truly love her so much then shouldn’t we respect her stated desire for directness and her ability to assess the situation intelligently? Instead people seem to be infantilizing her in exactly the way she herself has said she finds offensive. Becky and Dina are still my OTP; they’re the only current couple I think makes sense for the long term, but trying to shove important issues and feelings under the carpet may be counter-productive.
It’s true that Sarah might’ve found a better time to express her concern, but I don’t think that would’ve mollified anyone much. So why such a strong reaction to her? There are some comparisons to Mike here and there but I’ve never seen nearly as much vitriol directed at him, no matter how explicitly asshole-ish his behavior. It’s true that other characters (such as Joe and Danny) do get negative responses too, but I still wonder whether implicit biases are a factor in all this hate for Sarah.
Why is it that whenever I hear or see the words “could have found a better time”, I feel like they’re really saying “I wish you had never said that, so that my bubble of happiness was never popped”?
Seriously, when is “a better time” to hear something like what Sarah is saying?
Uhhhhh. Except, those people usually come to her with their business. And ask for her opinion, or blessing, or help, or capitulation, or participation. She doesn’t seek them out, and definitely doesn’t welcome them. Often she’s actually been reluctant to say anything in the first place, beyond some variation of “This is a bad idea. For reasons. Don’t do it.” Dina brought her relationship to Sarah, and asked for directness. You can’t put the djinn back in the bottle, once you ask or prompt you get what you get. And it might not be pleasant.
This. Plus the fact that this isn’t a real thing to be worried about. I mean, something like Joe intended to prey on Joyce? Yes, worth warning Joyce ahead of time. Oh noes, you might break up in the future, because something something rebound is a scary word? Nooope.
And it coming as a response to Dina showing her a little joy is clearly more connected to Sarah’s desire to push others away from her and her fear of joy and relationships than anything actually to do with Dina.
Which doesn’t make her a bad person, it makes her human. We’ve all done stuff we thought were kindnesses but were actually based in our damages. It’s an easy enough mistake to make.
I think Sarah’s a really good person who intends well and is often correct, but she’s no less prone to mistakes and those can often fuck her and those near her over.
From what I see Sarah didn’t just decide to say “her relationship is super messed up.” She first tried to see how important the relationship is to Dina, whether she’s likely to be blindsided by the complications that being a rebound might arise, and Dina’s other feelings about the relationship.
Dina did ask for Sarah’s direct opinion, and thats what she got. Yes, no advice was asked for, and as of yet None Has Been Given.
When I entered my first lesbian relationship, which was also a rebound, I wish like hell someone had said something to me. Because knowing now that my friends were already concerned about exactly the type of thing that eventually happened, but said nothing, wasn’t great either. If someone had been honest with me about what was going on it would have saved both of us a lot of heartbreak later, and really might have made the relationship easier.
Its easy to say that a rebound relationship isn’t a concern when you know the pitfalls, but if you go into any relationship with your eyes covered and ears plugged its all gonna go wahoonie. Be realistic and an optimist, this really is something Dina and Becky should talk about. The earlier the better, and these two have a fair chance of doing the thing right with open communication.
Oh come on, Mike aggressively sticks his fist in other people’s faces, or takes his business into else’s class to target that person. Yet people always seem to excuse him as somehow maybe being well-intended. The difference is that Sarah does actually, explicitly, help people even when it’s against her better judgement. Maybe those who keep singling Sarah out for scorn could use some more introspection?
Becky still loves Joyce, you’re the rebound, happiness is fleeting, relationships die, everyone you love will drift away and be lost forever in the ocean of time.
Eat Arby’s.
No, she’s not. I mean, really. Atm, their relationship is good for both of them. As for the future… they’re young. It could go either way but I doubt it will leave a sour taste in anyone’s mouth regardless of how it turns out.
It might be Willis’s intention, but I just can’t see the shape of that happening outside of some bizarre circumstance like Joyce deciding she’s into women and totally into Becky at the same time Dina runs off to join her clan of reanimated Dinosaurs.
There’s too much mutual care, good relationship practices on both their parts, and genuine appreciation from Becky for this to be likely to end in “ah thanks for helping me get over Joyce, now off to date for reals, bestest girlfriend who bites my dad’s face”.
Rebound doesn’t have to be intentional. In general even if Joyce DIDN’T exist, the fact that Dina is the FIRST girl who Becky is safe to date could also be an example of this problem, which is people dating other people because they are the only ones available and it fills the romance sized hole in their heart. It’s not a bad thing inherently, and sometimes it turns out great! But it is a thing people do.
Alt-text makes me suddenly see so many parallels. She’s trying to get Becky to reach her true potential by devoting herself to the sciences… Damn it, if you mess with Dina like that again I will stop reading this comic!
Well, no I won’t, but… I won’t be happy? Which I guess is your job. Damn you Willis.
This isn’t okay. I don’t care what sob stories she’s got in her past, there’s no excuse for the way Sarah is shitting on everybody’s parade. There aren’t words strong enough for how much I hate this. (The ones that come closest get my comments deleted, but that’s another story.) At least Mike is enjoyable to watch. Look at Dina’s tears. Are you entertained?
Yes?
Also, I see no tears. Plus she’s mature enough to handle reality. Oh, and likely smart enough to try not let this bother her more then is healthy.
The fact that Dina was well aware (and pretty obviously so, she’s socially awkward not stupid) of this fact just emphasizes how utterly needless it was for Sarah to crap all over her good mood just for the sake of “being realistic.”
I’m pretty sure that if Dina had answered Sarah with the directness Dina asked of Sarah, Sarah would have grimaced and moved on if need be. She tested the waters, and Dina said she wanted and needed direct. Maybe she should have more directly tested the waters, but I think that the reaction to her statement would be different if Dina were in a relationship people found less cute.
And I don’t really know why Sarah or anyone else who isn’t us or maybe Amber would know anything about Dina’s level of awareness than they’ve experienced. *We* know how insightful Dina is, but Sarah and others have mostly experienced a Dina who announces her observations like a nature documentarian and has stated she has difficulties with social constructs, sooooo…yeah. Its completely possible from Sarah’s perspective that Dina isn’t in this with eyes wide open. If this were say…Ethan, I think we’d want someone to say something. Possibly several somethings.
Or if the relationship wasn’t as healthy as it is. I mean, if there actually were glaring problems with Becky’s treatment of Dina or so on, that’d be one thing, but when they’re both responding to their challenges in appropriate ways and setting up good boundaries and practices, it’s somewhat out of left field.
More so, because this observation is way more garbage than a lot of Sarah’s observations. Like, oh noes, rebound. Aren’t rebounds scary? Oooh. Doesn’t quite have the same punch and relevance as “Becky might not want to share the same bed given her feelings for you” or “Joe is not a safe man to date if you’re looking for a long-term commitment with someone who respects your sexual boundaries”.
We know that. Sarah doesn’t. The questions Sarah asked are pretty clear, and the answers can be equally clear. Dina had the opportunity to tell her how she’s approaching their relationship. She didn’t.
Do I think Sarah’s opinion is helpful? Depends on what comes next and what Dina does with it. It would have been helpful to me when I was in the same situation, but I’m not Dina and my relationship wasn’t as healthy (though it seemed like it could be at the time.) But not all opinions need to be helpful. If Dina and Becky’s relationship is so fragile that merely mentioning the possibility its a rebound relationship might crush it, then these two are already in major trouble. And if Sarah and Dina’s friendship depends on Sarah keeping her mouth shut about her concerns, then they’re in an equal amount of trouble.
Eh. One of Sarah’s main character flaws is that she’s absolutely afraid of happiness and healthy connections to others. She associates personal entanglement with fiery end so she’s very prone to viewing everyone’s personal entanglements as doomed, whether they be something like Joyce’s doomed relationship with Ethan, or something perfectly innocent and potentially positive like her budding connection with Jacob.
What she’s doing here is very human and expected. It’s just also really off base and somewhat inappropriate.
While in general I think sometimes Sarah’s timing is off, I don’t really have a problem here and I guess it’s because she’s talking to Dina. Dina appreciates how straight forward Sarah is, she has literally just said it. Sarah obviously has affection for Dina, as well. And she knows Dina doesn’t know all the subtleties of social interactions, so she’s worried she might not have considered this. Part of it is probably for her own sake, yeah–Sarah doesn’t to see a fall out and think “I should have said something to her”. I don’t like seeing Dina sad either… but I’m glad this is being discussed. I don’t know if Sarah is the best one for her to have the discussion with, but I think Dina should have it with someone.
So she didn’t really have “bad news” so much as she just wanted to share her own pessimistic interpretation of the situation.
Is that even the proper use of the term “rebound”? I thought that referred to when you start dating somebody new directly after ending a long term relationship.
Commonly people enter into a rebound relationship just because they’re unprepared to be single again, which is the issue with a rebound. Shoddy foundations.
That doesn’t apply to this situation. Having recently been rejected by her crush doesn’t really imply anything about Becky’s motivation for dating Dina.
But it can? Catching someone on the rebound doesn’t have to mean they were in a relationship, you’re catching them on the rebound of hurt feelings, when they’re more likely to “take what they can get” because they badly want affection and validation.
“Rebound” refers to getting into a relationship with someone immediately after being rejected by someone you were serious about. The relationship is a comfort to ease the pain of rejection, rather than one founded on mutual respect and affection. Sarah is, with some good reason, concerned that Becky isn’t actually that interested in Dina, she’s just hiding from her pain of being turned down by Joyce.
Heck, Becky has a lot of pain to go around right now. She’s been rejected all over the place. Joyce, school, religion, Toe Dad. Some of these things don’t deserve her feeling rejection, but the experience is there.
Tbh, irl my danger sense would be tingling So So Hard too. Dina was one of the first people to accept Becky who knew the whole story. She holds the key to a whole new world for Becky. Its a similar situation for Dina. One of the first people in cast to show an active interest in dinosaurs, to really listen, to take her as she is and treat who she is as a functioning adult. This can forge a strong bond, or it can lead to any number of problems. Its understandable to want to protect a friend.
Especially one who seems to accept one as you are…
Yeah, it’s one of the main ways that they are both so healthy and why their biggest challenge isn’t normative garbage like “rebounds” but rather the immense amount of social BS you put up with when you’re a young queer couple on the raggedy edge.
Dina and Becky show each other an amazing amount of acceptance for things that have been sources of pain. Becky accepts Dina’s emotional quirks and doesn’t view her as a child or an imposition. She finds her dinosaur facts and babbling about evolution fascinating and enlightening and is perfectly happy with a quiet evening reading about evolution. And in turn, Dina accepts Becky’s queerness, after an entire lifetime of that being a sin and that being a reason to put her in danger. Dina doesn’t view that as something that stains her or makes a relationship not able to be pursued or a reason to fix her. She accepts her 100% and views her as worthy of being “saved”.
They are very illuminating and refreshing for each other and are doing a lot to avoid a lot of the problems of “first queer couples”.
Are they doing a lot to avoid those pitfalls? Because from what I see most of them either haven’t come up or are inapplicable because of the natures of the people involved. Its good that they share interests and don’t look at each other with contempt or engage infantilization, but thats kind of the baseline of a relationship. The fact that Dina recognizes her quirks and is open about them as well as her feelings about them is a good sign, but that’s not a product of their cultivating a healthy relationship. Thats just how Dina is. The fact that Becky accepts Dina’s obvious quirks is a good start, but should be a common courtesy, especially if you’re starting a relationship. I’m not exactly trying to disagree, but I’m not seeing a lot of intent or effort in the examples listed in your comment or in the comic, so I’m curious about what I’m not seeing.
It probably doesn’t help that like Sarah (perhaps), I don’t really see Becky in the best light. She seems kind of flighty to me, and also it worries me that she’s been guilty of doublespeak in the past i.e. how she acted with Dorothy, or her behavior with Joyce. I know that now that she’s calmed down with the dickishness, been through a majorly traumatic event, and is in an ultra adorbs relationship, she’s become a crowd favorite, but Becky can be kind of an inconsiderate asshole. In some ways she’s worse than Mike or Carla. There’s at least intent behind what Mike and Carla do, its clear that at least some droplet of thought goes into it. It seems like Becky just does and says shit sometimes, purely because she wants to, without a bit of consideration for anyone else. She seems better with people she cares about, but even the way she’s treated and handled her friendship with Joyce has been flighty, disingenuous, inappropriate, and kind of cruel. She’s gotten better, and its clear she cares when she realizes something is wrong, but yeahhhh. Not a lot of forethought there.
In many ways I like Becky as a character. I like their relationship, its cute. They’re cute together, but I’m seeing much a lot of d’awww and not much actual substance. Which is natural early on, and more dangerous the longer it continues. Unless of course they continue without challenge, which given the comic above? Unlikely. I look forward to seeing more actual relationship mechanics and frameworks as the d’awww fades. If they let it grow beyond the d’awww it could be as solid as you seem to suggest it is and as most of us want, or it could die at the d’awww stage. Some relationships aren’t supposed to go much past d’awww.
“The fact that Becky accepts Dina’s obvious quirks is a good start, but should be a common courtesy, especially if you’re starting a relationship.”
Mm yeah it totes SHOULD. Too bad it usually isn’t. Becky is literally the only one in Dina’s current group of friends to accept Dina at face value as an adult, and this says great things about her and her approach to people – she’s not doing what everyone else does, she’s not doing what’s expected, she’s doing BETTER. Be it because she’s just that interested in personally Dina and therefore insightful about personally her, or because she’s in general the sort of person who takes people at face value and doesn’t spare effort to understand them as they are instead of going by surface clues and stereotypes – both are really, really good signs here.
And she’s actively engaged with Dina’s special interest and likes to hear Dina rambling about it – that’s honestly as dreamy as it gets, from Dina’s side.
This doesn’t mean they’ll ~get married and adopt kids and spend the rest of their life together~. It means that if/when they eventually break up, it’s most likely going to be with fond feelings and memories, and without the sort of pain of betrayal and disappointment that Sarah fears here.
However, Sarah can’t know this the way we do. She doesn’t exactly follow the two around on their dates. So I can’t agree with those hating on her for this, either. Sarah’s warning happens to be most likely superfluous, but not having all the information, she can’t know that.
And Dina herself chose to hear the warning rather than give Sarah the information. Be direct – Dina knew what she was asking for.
Timing isn’t best, yes, but waiting for ~good timing~ is a good way to delay it forever. Again, Sarah doesn’t exactly follow Dina around – any time they do meet is likely to not be good timing for one reason or another.
So this here, when they are one on one, as soon as possible, is as good as any, honestly.
This seems about where Sarah is going, yeah. Sarah seems to like Dina, and not be so hot on Becky, so she’s concerned that Becky might just use Dina as an emotional rock for a while.
Honestly? In real life I’d also be looking at the relationship somewhat suspiciously. I haven’t seen a lot of relationships starting in weather as stormy as Becky’s recent life episodes ending well. Like, it HAS happened, but they’re the statististical minority. So Sarah, who does have the alarms set to hair trigger, is understandably concerned that this could explode messily in a month and hurt Dina.
True, but the rebound thing is on the bottom of the list of shit to worry about. Much more pressing is that her entire life has been turned upside down and she’s having to rebuild from scratch, with all the stress and PTSD that entails.
Like, the fact that she still has snuggly wet feelings for Joyce kind of pales in terms of “pressure and impact on relationships” in comparison to all of that.
I think Sarah assumes Dina is aware of the ‘life turned upside down thing’ but worries if she might not have caught the ‘rebound’ thing, which is yes not the most awful but would still suck to be blindsided by.
Well Dina did fight a toedad for Becky. Stuff like that matters…..although I guess so did Joyce….on the back of a motorcycle…This might be a tough one for Dina.
Aaggghhh. I know Sarah means well, and she may be right. I’m sure she thinks she’s protecting Dina here. Never mind the fact that she’s causing pain to Dina now.
The fact that Dina is most likely a rebound doesn’t automatically mean that deeper feelings can’t develop over time. One can never really know. Sarah may be right that Becky and Dina are ultimately doomed. Even so, she could let the relationship play out as it may, and let Dina enjoy this right now. A relationship may not work out in the long run; that doesn’t automatically render said relationship a waste of time. There can still be value in the experience.
I kind of lost track of what I meant to say. I suppose I just feel that Sarah should let Dina enjoy this experience for now, come what may. I’m not good with relationships or people myself, so I’m really not qualified to offer advice. All I know is that seeing Dina’s face in those last three panels broke my hearts a little bit.
Or that Becky can’t love her just as much and love her in a positive manner. I mean, attraction to multiple people happens all the time and while she may have puppy-dog face romantic feelings for Joyce, Dina is an awesome woman Becky deeply appreciates who loves her back.
Dina is always going to win this one. The Joyce feelings more heavily impact her interactions with Dorothy than anything to do with Dina.
I feel like I have to point out that a relationship involves two people and just cause one of them is totally OK with “being in love with more than one person” maybe the other person isn’t so keen on their significant other being in love with multiple people.
I personally don’t have a problem with poly people unless they’re specifically trying to get into romantic relationships with me cause I very highly value monogamy.
Forgive me I’m tired, and feel like I’m talking in circles. I guess I just mean loving many people at once is fine only if your partner is also OK with this, and should be something discussed between the two instead of just being like “well this is how I feel so you should respect that, The End” (from either side)
It’s not even a poly thing. It’s a human being thing. People who are happily mono sometimes struggle with attraction to multiple people (see Danny) and that doesn’t necessarily mean anything or threatens the relationship in any way. Especially when it’s a situation like this where the other attraction simply isn’t gonna happen. Ever.
I think I’m making a distinction between thinking “oh that person who isn’t my SO is attractive/hot/bangable” vs love. Like, I’ve looked at a guy/chick and been like “yeah he/she’s hot” (and immediately felt guilty but that’s my own self-esteem issues there), but I’ve never looked at some random person (while being in a relationship with my SO) and thought “I would really like to be in a romantic relationship with them”
Don’t worry, we can still predict the moment that Becky gets kicked out, and what’ll happen with Joyce’s parents, and Joycelyn, and what’ll Dorothy do when she gets accepted to Yale after the comic ends, etc. etc. etc. If all those things happened, we’d find something else.
Uncertainty is a constantly renewable resource, and we like talking. Limbo lives on.
Nah, that is Joyce’s sister, who visit during the parent visit dabacle, who the comment section thought was a gay male until it turned out she was a trans girl.
Gather round children and ye shall hear, of the perpetual limbo of the dumbing of age comments section. It began with a ban, I’ll tell you that, though I can’t imagine what pissy notions were shat. And then a reply, made by a girl named Ana, who thinks Willis is going bananas! At that point I commented, wondering what was up, at that point the whole thing became a big crux. Replies and replies! Nothing connecting, although I imagine we were all just reflecting. Eventually it ended, fell into the void, and will probably begin again next time someone feels annoyed.
Sarah, it’s okay for you to point these things out if you have something constructive to say in the next day’s strip. That’s not how you roll though, is it?
I wouldn’t say she LIKES it more that she has a kind of warped savior complex that compels her to try to save people from their ignorant happiness even when that happiness doesn’t come from ignorance and all she’s doing is rubbing salt into a wound they are well aware of.
Definitely. She definitely has a feeling of “it comes to me to say the thing no one else is saying, god this sucks”, but the problem is she does it with her own fears as well as actual hard truths (see her sabotaging of her relationship with Jacob).
And this is, what, a couple of weeks after the incident with Becky’s dad? How do we know that she’s not just bitter about that and basically thinking Joyce’s bad mood is Becky’s fault? She can hold a grudge after all. ;;
On the bright side here- dina knew. Sarah’s not telling her anything new. Given her reaction here, there’s two possibilities; dinas been deliberately ignoring the potential ramifications of Becky’s ongoing feelings for Joyce, or they’ve been eating at her. Neither is a good situation. Sarah’s introduced a new possible course- having someone to talk to. Sarah might not be the best choice for this, but thinking of the limited other people dina might be expected to turn to for advice (like.. Maybe amber), she’s not an especially bad choice. Particularly for dina. I mean she’s probably going to be too , but still.
To be honest, I can’t see any actual ramifications from Becky’s feelings for Joyce. Sure, she’s hurt and sad because of it, but besides being more thankful for Dina’s charms, I can’t see it affecting their relationship in any meaningful way. A person can love two different people at once without those feelings screwing over their actual relationship (provided sed relationship is with one of the two).
Especially when one of those people is not even a possible romantic partner. Who the heck lets pining over straight people get in the way of an actual romantic relationship.
Is that a rethorical question? Because feelings are an incredibly, incredibly messy subject that doesn’t listen to logic in the least. If I had ten bucks for every person I’ve seen completely hung up on someone who they know for a fact is not in the slightest bit available to them I’d have enough money to buy myself a PS4 and a couple games.
I’ve seen an actual, long term relationship broken because one of the people involved couldn’t get over a previous crush that *never actually reciprocated and was also taken*. Sarah is not exactly super offbase in being worried, especially seeing how she doesn’t know Becky.
Sadly, though I can see it negatively impacting things, largely because Dina doesn’t trust her instincts and so is much more likely to be swayed by society or other people telling her that a certain type of interaction is negative.
I don’t think she will break up with Becky over this, but I can definitely see her doing more potentially co-dependent behavior with Becky to try and “show her value” and “help Becky get over Joyce”, which would sabotage currently healthy romantic dynamics.
Honestly, I hope Becky confronts Sarah about this, or that Dina stands up for her love. No matter what the situation is, telling someone that their happiness is false or invalid is not okay.
Agreed, but that’s not what Sarah sed. She simply stated a possibility, one that doesn’t invalidate anything unless Dina lets it – and I think Dina’s smarter then that.
Hmm. I was kinda expecting something a bit deeper/worse. This just seems like a call to actually talk to Becky about her feelings and come to an agreement about what they both want/expect from the relationship.
For what it’s worth Becky’s behaviour and her genuine excitement about Dina’s interests seem to imply that she’s not just ‘a rebound’ but a genuine new friend, even if the romantic aspect doesn’t last.
Yeah, I would expect that to come about if Dina was to ask directly. Cause, pretty much every other time Dina has expressed doubts about her own worthiness, Becky has been quick to sing her praises and point out all the awesome things she loves about being with Dina.
Am I the only person who thinks that the mention of ‘rebound’ actually makes this feel less natural?
Like, I feel the strip would work better with Sarah just being pessimistic about relationships in general. Why is Sarah acting like this was new news to Dina when she was standing right next to Dina when Becky admitted that her feelings for Joyce hadn’t just vanished overnight. Dina even commented on it to Sarah directly at the time!
acknowledging that Becky still has feelings for joyce isnt the same as acknowledging that Becky may have latched onto the first person to be 100% nice to her
I think Sarah already knows that Dina knows that Becky still has feelings for Joyce.
I think Sarah is trying to figure out if Dina understands the full implications of what that means. (Or could mean. Of course Sarah is taking the most pessimistic understanding of a rebound relationship). I do think this is coming from actual concern on Sarah’s part, not just Sarah being miserable for the sake of being miserable though.
I never assume active ill-will from Sarah (unless the target is herself) it’s usually just cynical attempts to spare people future pain. Sarah is likely patronizing Dina here and assuming she wasn’t fully aware of the social situation she’s in it’s just that she’s wrong, Dina is well aware of it so now she’s just dredging shit up and killing her good mood.
To be fair to Sarah, for all she knew Dina COULD be not aware. She hasn’t followed Dina and Becky around on dates and doesn’t know what they mentioned/discussed and what they haven’t.
Sarah does these things thinking it will soften the impact. Mike does things like this ’cause he enjoys the impact. Both fail to consider that they affect the outcome. I am SLOWLY learning when to keep my mouth shut to avoid being responsible for the resulting disasters.
Sarah does these things because they literally got together days ago and are acting like Becky isnt a homeless refugee who is girlfriends with someone she met DAYS ago while orbiting her crush of 10+ years
so all relationships that just started need to be looked down upon cause they just met? or what. theyre not really acting like that. how do one act if they act as if she *is* a homeless person and they just met? talk about her being homeless *constantly*? never dare to touch eachother because they just met despite them wanting to touch eachother and both are okay with it?
Totally unrelated, but homeless people often are chided if they become romantically involved with someone, largely because we don’t fully view homeless people as fully people and believe that they should be spending the entirety of their effort to fixing their situation.
Sounds like a Bene Gesserit teaching:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
“I am SLOWLY learning when to keep my mouth shut to avoid being responsible for the resulting disasters.”
Honestly, I’m okay with this. Becky is not only possibly rebounding, she’s also in an incredibly tumultuous, unstable situation that would cause someone to cling to someone else for a sense of stability. She’s still technically homeless, jobless, and without any adult support/family support. So, there are a lot of potential emotional issues in the relationship that *should* be considered. She’s just being real.
Sarah isn’t being pessimistic, negative, mean, or bitter, she is being the voice of realism. She’s *not* telling Dina that Becky doesn’t like her, or that her relationship isn’t valid, or that she should just cut all ties, she’s saying she should be aware of certain realities. And it’s not good news, it’s making Dina sad, but no one needs to be happy *all the time.* You especially shouldn’t remain purposefully ignorant to important shit because you think it’s more important to be happy all the time. Should she be happy about her relationship? Absolutely. But Dina also needs to be aware about stuff like this so it doesn’t catch her by surprise, and if she’s prepared for it, she and Becky can have a Meaningful Conversation about it. Knowing potentially upsetting things gives you a chance to prepare and take care of them.
Agreed. I’m not particularly happy (or enthused) with the way Sarah worded some things, and I don’t think this was the best of time…but I can’t see most people doing something entirely different in this situation. Becky is in an incredibly vulnerable position; Dina is as well for that matter. Not being able to talk about your SO’s vested romantic interest in another (or even their weaning feelings) is a big red flag. Again, it’s not worded the best way, but Sarah is just doing her best to prepare Dina for the reality that their relationship may not last forever. She just wants to make sure Dina will be mentally okay if the relationship turns sour.
I love Sarah, and even I was disappointed that she went there with Dina. But these two comments make me remember that I’m still justified in not thinking that Sarah is evil and trying to make everyone around her feel bad just because. She’s overly pessimistic about her own (love) life, sadly, but pretty spot-on when it comes to others. Remember how she was a party-pooper at the beginning of the semester, when Joyce and Dorothy were headed out to party with Roz? If only she had “pooped” harder. Joyce might be a little less scarred today. Maybe this conversation will provoke another one between Dina and Becky . . . and maybe it will lead them toward a stronger, more open and honest foundation for their relationship. If Sarah’s little cloud can sink their ship, what chance did it ever stand in a real storm?
Very much so. I’m of the opinion that Sarah is making a mistake here, but that doesn’t make her a bad person. Her pessimism is part of her and it’s the source of a lot of her good as much as it’s the source of her character flaws.
She’s not being a bad person, she’s just on the wrong page here, which makes sense. Even someone with as good a record as Sarah is going to bollocks it up here and there.
Remember how she was a party-pooper at the beginning of the semester, when Joyce and Dorothy were headed out to party with Roz? If only she had “pooped” harder.
Wow i can’t even …
Sarah is now responsible – for Joyce not listening to her advice?
That’s just .. absurd. Joyce is an adult, too, and responsible for her actions (being a beard for Ethan, forcing an atheist to visit a christian mess, still propagating the bible as a rulebook for your everyday life. Adnof course a lot of other stuff like attending to that party (against Sarah’s concerns), too!
…he says, clearly ignoring the numerous comments saying “She’s absolutely a rebound but that’s not the end of the world,” in favor of patting himself on the back for being the smartest and most perceptive person in the room.
To be fair, about half of the 196 comments are along the “fans can’t handle it cus of feelz” side of the fence – but that’s still an exaggeration by a factor of approximately 2!
You know, even if half the comments are on the “fans can’t handle it” side, nothing in TG’s comment precludes that. It’s not like he says anything about “everyone” or “all the fans”. “The fans” doesn’t have to be a term that encompasses all of the comment section.
While that is true, Becky can still move on and still have a good relationship with both. Just saying, you don’t have to word it like Becky is gonna dump her the next day or something ;;; Given this situaton, I think it’s safer to allow them to have SOME happiness as to not create any unneeded drama.
It’s a common misperception by young people new to dating. That any rebound must be doomed to fail, because attraction to multiple people is always a sign of doom in the movies.
So yeah, it’s natural that they’d both believe that that big scary word means “they’ll break up any second” rather than: This is a relationship. Proceed as normal and just double-check that you’re not taking advantage of the other person(s).
I agree. But my biggest problem with Sarah is that she seems to not know what tact is. I can appreciate honesty, but the wording and what not is kinda like a knife if you do not know how to say things honestly but not be so damned blunt. Bluntness works on people who can’t seem to get it in their heads, but Dina is a smart girl but one with a fragile emotional spectrum from what I can tell. So I think rather than just stating out right about that, she could have said in a way that wouldn’t make her as easily upset. As in, NOT in an overly-blunt fashion.
Dina literally asked her to be blunt about it. She appreciates Sarah-style directness. Sarah TRIED to be gentle and slow about it, Dina asked for bluntness instead. She understands and processes bluntness better. Sarah didn’t do anything wrong ehre.
Yup… but it just depends what kind of rebound you are and what kind of rebound you are ok with.
A rebound can be someone they decide to be with. So it matters entirely what Dina is ok with and how much a risk she is ok with.
and then its entirely up tobecky to figure out where she might stand in the future.
Dina has the right idea so far.. she knows she’s rebound, hell she’s probably research this situation to understand that social meaning more and her own emotions. and seemingly has chosen to do her best to see how far she can go
If it were anyone else, Sarah wouldn’t have said anything yet (probably). But it’s Dina, who actually listens to Sarah and values what she says. Sarah treats Dina like an adult when a lot of the cast doesn’t take her seriously, while Dina values that Sarah does this and doesn’t waste time on bullshit. While I hate to see Dina sad, I appreciate that Sarah is talking to Dina about this.
Thing about all the dating in DoA is that none of the characters in it think that their relationships are going to last when they think about it in long term. They just want to enjoy it will it last.
That’s not even news. Dina was literally standing next to you guys when you mentioned Becky’s feelings for Joyce. Also there’s nothing inherently wrong with a rebound relationship.
YES.
I mean, hard feelings to deal with, but I’m happy I was right and Dina Had this figured out. Even Sarah underestimates her and thinks she doesn’t understand things that… She actually has a decent grip on. She said it: she’s capable of making these choices for herself.
She is capable, but it’s always good to have a failsafe friend who’ll make sure you are not blindsided by things you might not have noticed. Dina noticed this; doesn’t mean she was GUARANTEED to, based on information Sarah has. She doesn’t exactly follow her around on dates.
Both of this. Becky hella appreciates her Badass Girlfriend and that’s very much been trumping over (and probably helping her heal from) her lingering feelings for Joyce.
“If someone ever tells me it’s a mistake to have hope, well, then, I’ll just tell them they’re wrong and I’ll keep telling them until they believe. No matter how many times it takes.”
See… Sarah’s coming off like a jerk, but hard truths are needed at times-which is by Dinas addmission here, what she wants.
But that’s allready been said: what’s interesting about this to me is the nature of their friendship, Sarah being blunt is socially simple, and Dina craves simple human interaction- without all the machavillian mind games.
This follows through in Dinas very childlike relationship with Becky: No responsibilities, no need to edit themselves around each other, and no conversation outside of Dinas concert zone.
Basically, Becky, while being in many ways the inverse to Sarah, is still just as socially simple from Dinas point of view.
I don’t think the fact that it’s a rebound is likely to kill the relationship, but rather, what happens when they have an argument, or need to compromise.
Although, the conversation of if it’s a rebound or not may be the trigger.
By the way, is Dina confirmed autistic/aspergers?
Her charachter seems to be a perfect potrayel, but I’m interested if the exact phrasing has come up.
Yeah, she’s explicitly not diagnosed with anything. Which… I wouldn’t actually expect an East Asian autistic woman to be diagnosed by college if they were able to get there without official accommodations, tbh. (I totally think she’s spectrummy.)
There’s a reason a shitload of autistic people view Dina as autistic representation in media. She’s really spectrumy – and a really good example of the kind of autistic kid who can make it all the way through school with obvious and severe social deficits but never get flagged or diagnosed (Hi 10 years ago I basically was Dina except white and obsessed with chemistry and weather instead of dinosaurs).
If you have a BAPy extended family (like Dina and I do), nobody will flag you as that weird. Hey, we’re a family of weirdos. Okay, she’s a little quiet and eccentric, but she’s smart. She’s in third grade and reading and doing math at a college level. Smart kids are weird sometimes. NBD. Get her in an enriched/gifted program, she’ll be fine.
If you’re quiet, your teachers and others around you will overlook you. People realized you’re a bit strange and you don’t socialize well, but there’s always kids who are higher-priority – struggling with the work, disruptive, having breakdowns, etc. If your meltdowns are generally only in response to external stimuli like bullying (Dina has only had violent outbursts in response to people being jerks to her or those she cares about), it’s written off as just a kid who’s maybe a little less emotionally mature than her peers – she obviously just needs to socialize more. Your passions (I refuse to use the phrase “special interest” because nope if non-autistic people get to be passionate about stuff then so do I, damn it) are just written off as childish obsessions. Okay, maaybe she’s a bit more obsessed than most, but whatever, I’d rather her be obsessed with the material than some pop idol or TV show.
So you make it through, and it’s an open secret that you’re a weirdo and probably have something but nobody has really ever taken the steps to get your issue identified because it was never really disruptive enough to anyone but you to start the process. Like, it was disruptive enough that people noticed and probably you got bullied, but to authority figures it was never to the level of, “Okay this kid is making it impossible for my classroom to function, we need to fix this like yesterday” which is the unfortunate threshold for action in most cases (I was referred to child psych in third grade because my behavior got to that point and my parents stopped the process in fourth because I had a teacher who knew how to handle me so classroom disruption stopped – one of my sibs, likewise, was only diagnosed with ADHD when they were failing everything and disrupting the class in high school. The system doesn’t proactively identify issues and work to address them before they blow up, it waits until there’s an ongoing slow-motion disaster and then decides to act). And, besides which, you’re a girl, isn’t autism more of a boy thing? (“The only developmental thing that fits is autism, but it’s rare for girls to get that, it’s really more of a boy thing so I don’t think we should bother.” <- why my child psych never referred me to a neurodevelopmental specialist for autism evaluation, right there. And my folks were fine with no referral because they didn't want an r-word in the family. Said to the psych in one of those conversations adults have about kids when they think kids aren't listening). And to a large extent, you have no way of knowing that other people genuinely experience the world differently from you, especially when you consider autistic difficulties with taking others' points of view. Autistic people, contrary to public belief, can develop theory of mind, but it’s harder for us to pick up on the subtle social cues that would tip us off that someone else has a different perspective on something than we do. See also why I can talk for 30 minutes on something I think is cool and without being interrupted I have no way of knowing that I lost someone completely way back at minute 4.
Anyway, Dina is totally spectrumy and it’s no surprise to me she was never diagnosed. I wasn’t until my mid-20s, after like a dozen people over the space of two years all independently told me they thought I was autistic (mostly either autistic people or family of autistic people).
Essentially, BAP encompasses the sub-clinical part of the autism spectrum – people who have some autistic traits, but either not severe enough or not numerous enough to be diagnosed autistic. So, like, if you know an autistic kid and they have a parent who’s a little weird or inconsiderate sometimes but not intentionally and that person has an affinity for order and routine or maybe has something that they’re unusually passionate about, there’s a good chance the parent falls withing the BAP. From my layperson’s understanding, the existence of the BAP is actually one of the things that points to autism being a complex, polygenetic disorder, rather than there being just one “autism gene” which if it’s mutated results in autism.
I also think Dina’s on the spectrum, and I think that’s really important to show, because neurodivergent characters in fiction are always treated as these little weirdos who need to be supported out of their own inherent failures as people. Dina will have none of that. She demands to be heard, her interests are treated with respect, people who try to objectify her as some voiceless, agency deprived kewpie doll get told off, and Dina seeks a relationship because it’s something she wants and feels real fulfillment and joy in pursuing.
I especially like how Dina refuses to be infantilized. 😀
Cuz, yeah, infantilization is something I deal with on a constant and ongoing basis. Like people I’ve worked with referred to me with childish pet names like “baby” and what have you – not in a sexual harassment way, but in a “I am treating you like a child” way. And I imagine they thought they were doing me favors. But it’s both embarrassing and condescending and even if you want to help me Do Social better, treating me like your child is not the way to go about it. I am not a child. I am an adult, and fully as responsible for my actions as any other adult. I may have things I find difficult that most other adults do not, but that does not make me a child, any more than most other adults finding multivariable calculus difficult makes them childish compared to me.
I love how Dina is a developmentally disabled adult who claims her adulthood with far more assertiveness and determination than I was capable at her age. It’s great. Even better is that Willis has never portrayed Dina’s claiming of her adulthood as “adorable” or silly – she is portrayed as being completely, 100% in the right about it.
Do you know how friggin hard it is for me to find representation of autistic adulthood that supports autistic adults claiming our agency?! Outside of the autistic community (which exists and is awesome and if you’re looking for awesome autistic fiction, look up Sparrow Rose Jones and Michael Scott Monje, Jr, as just two examples, but there needs to be mainstream representation of us in this light, too), this is the only one.
Yeah. I’d also like it if neurodivergence could include a *good* ADHD character; so many people get it so ducking wrong. It steams me up to see the horrendous stereotypes of it in media, or to have characters whose functional immaturity is passed off as ADHD. It contributes to all these misconceptions which are false. Like any pervasive development disorder, it had its quirks of personality (which the mature ADHD-er won’t make an excuse of, but would acknowledge and address just as any do their flaws), but it also comes with somatosensory processing sensitivity (just like many aspies) and the hyperactivity does not feel like people think it does. TBH Becky acts a lot like me, and ADHD is a spectrum disorder, so I like to think she’s very mildly inclined thus.
Yeah, ADHD is heavily comorbid with autism and tends to run in families that also have a lot of autism in them (like mine). I don’t have it, but my non-autistic sibling does. And, yeah. My sib has many issues, but they’re not an ADHD stereotype at all.
The social impulsiveness associated with ADHD, in particular, reminds me a lot of Becky. Becky’s accidental abrasiveness strikes me a lot as my sib’s accidental abrasiveness. Like, I can be accidentally abrasive, but in my case it’s an issue of not foreseeing that my phrasing could be hurtful. In my sib’s case, it’s more a case of a faulty brain-to-mouth filter. Like, they know damn well what they’ve just blurted out is hurtful, but they are unable to evaluate a sentence for potential to cause hurt and edit it for greater tact in real time. In practice it looks similar but the cause is really different.
Like, with me, I will say outrageous things because I genuinely don’t realize they’re outrageous. I’m the kind of person who would point out that the Emperor is naked just out of a lack of realization that it’s not something that should be done. I lack the ability to pick up on the subtle clues that would indicate that something is not a socially savvy action to take. Once a social rule is explained to me, I can follow it, but I am unlikely to be able to pick it up on my own (like small talk. For years I refused to do small talk because I didn’t understand the point, nor did I understand that not responding to someone’s small talk is rude).
My sib, on the other hand, realizes it’s rude and understands the social rules, but just can’t reign in the impulse to say a thing until the phrasing has been sorted out, so they tend to wind up with foot-in-mouth syndrome a lot of the time. Their issue is less one of not understanding the situation and more one of having no functional brain-to-mouth filter. They also will forget what they want to point out if they don’t say it now so they interrupt other people. A lot. It causes problems. A lot. And it’s not that they’re trying to be rude, they’re trying to take part in the conversation. It’s just that they lack the ability to ever let their conversational partner finish a sentence because every time the partner says something that triggers a thought, my sib is blurting out that thought right away.
There’s also this unspoken “thing” of ADHD/high-functioning autists going together like PB&J. Don’t know if it’s true, but I do know that I get along best with people who find filtering optional.
I find I get along well with people who are neurodivergent in general, but certain types of ADHD ppl and I don’t get on well – mainly because I’m very like the autism stereotype in the “need for routine” and “desire for order” categories, and that does not mesh well with ADHD spontaneity and lack of routine.
I’m one of those people where if the appointment is at 1PM, I am there at 12:55 on the dot (5 minutes early just in case my clock is out of synch with theirs, but not so early that I will be an imposition or inconvenience). And I expect that level of punctuality from others (… which I know isn’t always reasonable. But I expect it. And with myself, I’m so finicky that I will stand outside the door to the place where my appointment is until the time passes on my watch. I don’t expect that level of finickyness from others, but I do expect that if we agree to meet at 1, you’re there at 1). That does not mesh well with one of my parents’ and my sibling’s varieties of ADHD – both of them are people for whom times and deadlines and suchlike are more fuzzy suggestions than hard lines. If you want either of them there at 1, tell them it’s at noon. They’ll probably (usually) be just barely on time for it. I can’t deal with someone not showing up at an agreed time. I can deal with disruptions to my routine, IF they are set in stone and follow a plan to the letter. Once it deviates from the plan, I run out of cope and my emotional equilibrium gets disrupted, and then I get very anxious/upset/angry. So, yeah. If someone knows that about me and can accommodate it, we’ll get on great. If they can’t, I probably won’t make appointments to socialize or hang out with them because the anxiety of will-they-or-wont-they-be-on-time and what-is-happening-I-don’t-know, etc, makes it un-fun.
Dina is officially undiagnosed.
Around the time of her overload at Joyce’s party though, Willis addressed the question of her neurotype again and basically agreed with the general can consensus that she is on the spectrum while simultaneously giving his explanation for why he had danced around the question for so long. (It was on his personal tumblr I think; apologies for lack of link).
I consider it to be confirmed.
i empathize with Dina as well, and i am on the spectrum. i am usually hesitant to really say of historical or of fictional characters that they are autistic, because even if the artistic creator of the character based them on a real life autistic person, that character is still the author’s interpretation of autistic. and unfortunately, a lot of times it’s horribly stereotypical (think The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). for Dina, however, i don’t see her coming off as a stereotype. and it is fairly realistic for a quiet asian girl, and then a quiet and smart asian teenage girl, to be undiagnosed. on top of Dina being an interesting, complex character with autistic traits, her surrounding friends have always been supportive. and the people shown to treat her poorly have all been portrayed as ableist villains. so double thumbs up to Willis.
Sarah unlike you most people choose not to dwell on the most negative aspect of literally everything until it drains all joy from their life. It doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of the negatives it means they aren’t willing to let them ruin their life. You should give it a try.
Seriously Sarah? I don’t think saying that was necessary at all. In fact, I can’t think of a single reason for you to bring that up, and neither should you if you were paying attention to the fact that Dina’s overheard conversations about this before. I mean, to be fair, Sarah might have helpful intentions at heart by sparing Dina’s feelings in the long run, but…
First time caller, long time listener… Damn You! WILLIS!!! I have been patient for a long time to see Dina happy, but now you pull this crap… not like i didn’t see it coming but; Damn you Benny! Damn YOU!!!!!.
One would think you only deploy the harsh truths when their necessary, but then Sarah has all the social grace of a bull in a china shop.
I don’t see how this is even remotely good advice or even a harsh truth that must be said. The entire time of the comic Becky’s given no indication that she’s not deeply enthralled by practically every moment spent with Dina. Is she still carrying a torch for Joyce? Probably. That kind of love is difficult to process, but that doesn’t mean Becky isn’t interested and appreciative of Dina. Feelings are complex!
And like, if that were the case, if Becky really was just using Dina to get over Joyce… so what? What is there to gain from unnecessarily shoveling shit onto Dina? From telling her the reasons why her relationship, something she very clearly gets a sense of fulfillment out of, doesn’t really count?
You might as well ask Walky and Dorothy to spend all their time being miserable because they’re going to break up someday.
TLDR: Sarah’s being a jerky buttface. Blind pessimism is just as annoying as closing your eyes and assuming everything will be magically solved.
And like, if that were the case, if Becky really was just using Dina to get over Joyce… so what?
So what? How about, “What about Dina”? Dina has zero experience with…anything remotely mammalian. Sarah wanted to make sure that she knows what is likely to happen.
Then let her learn! Let Dina experience these things!
You think Walky needed Sarah to walk up to him and say “why bother? She’s going to Yale”? No!
Dina isn’t this fragile, voiceless waif everyone around her is convinced she is. You hurt sometimes. It fucking happens, but what Sarah is doing here is piling on doubts and uncertainties onto her relationship, because Sarah thinks that’s how it’s supposed to be.
The relationship is healthy. They’re having good boundaries and respect for each other’s boundaries. They’re putting into place good relationship dynamics. And both are curious and excited about where it goes.
All relationships have problems and they all can end, but unless it’s something really dangerous or harmful, it’s not anybody’s places to start trying to pick it apart.
Sarah tried to be indirect and gentle and just probe if Dina MIGHT be seriously hurt by not noticing this until it’s too late.
Dina would have none of it. Like you said, she’s an adult capable of making adult decisions, and she ASKED for Sarah’s blunt warning. Explicitly.
I’m pretty sure Dina is capable of taking this and not having it cause any more problems in the relationship than there already were.
And Sarah was right to warn her. IMHO. I have similar social problems to Dina and oh what I wouldn’t give for an insightful pessimistic friend who’d bluntly give me warnings about potential hurdles in my relationships. Just because Dina already knew about this one and (as we know, having more information on their relationship than Sarah does) it’s not likely to be a problem, doesn’t mean Sarah didn’t make the right call here.
To understand some situations, you need to notice the social cues first.
Yes, Becky has been pretty obvious about her “still not over Joyce” thing around Becky. Sarah, who doesn’t follow them around on dates, did not know that. I fail to see how she is in the wrong here.
To be fair, Dina wasn’t sexually interested in women until last week, either. In fact, we still do not know that she is sexually interested in Becky; it seems more like she thought it would be interesting to “have a girlfriend” and see what this whole “relationship” thing that mammals do would be like.
Before you get offended, I am not saying that lesbians or bisexuals are “just going through a phase.” I am saying that Dina is “experimenting”, literally. The only person I am stereotyping is Dina.
Dina doesn’t need to be sexually interested in Becky to have a fulfilling relationship. Sexual interest didn’t even seem to register for her when she expressed why she wanted to date Becky.
Dina may not need to be sexually interested to have a fulfilling relationship, but Becky is a horny human being. She made out with her roomate, she wanted to make out with Joyce, and eventually she is going to be making out with somebody. Is Dina willing to be that somebody? Another reason for Sarah to view this relationship as a slow-motion trainwreck in progress.
Given that we’ve seen them get into some heavy smooching sessions, I’m going to go ahead and give a resounding “yes” to that question. Dina is that person.
If Dina is ace or sex-adverse or low-libidinal or whatnot, she’s also the type to be intellectually and emotionally interested in a lot of the aspects of sex and seuxal connection (and certainly a big fan of make-outs and kissing and cuddling).
Honestly, in that, there’s a lot I identify with Dina on as I am asexual, meaning I have not experienced sexual attraction to anyone in my life, but I am still emotionally and intellectually stimulated by sexual interactions for many of the same reasons as Dina (emotional connection, scientific experimentation, joy of partner).
I mean, I’m pretty sure I remember Dina expressing interest in “studying” sex (from an academic standpoint) by having sexual activities someday. I don’t think she’d mind studying it with Becky.
I think that people here are being way to hard on Sarah. Sarah sees a trainwreck in progress, and she’s right IMHO. Sarah has seen traiwrecks in progress before. She thinks Dina is vulnerable–which she is–and wants to make sure that Dina is fully aware of what is going on.
AND she’s only making it worse in the long run. She can be cautious yes, but given that she’s overly pessimistic, it can be more harmful than good to just be OVERLY blunt about it. Maybe instead of just complaining or doing stuff from afar, maybe she should try and at least learn from what happened in the past when she helped (aka how she went around doing said help) and find new ways to help people without looking mean/cruel in the process
Why do people keep ignoring that Dina literally asked for bluntness? She’s familiar with Sarah, she’s aware that things she says often sting, and she is capable of choosing on her own that she wants to hear them and deal with them as they are.
Sarah wasn’t wrong to carefully probe how serious Dina is about this and whether or not she might eventually get seriously hurt. And then it was Dina who asked for bluntness – I imagine she’s good enough at managing her emotions and relationships to be able to handle a straight answer like that. Either way, it was her call to make.
Sarah’s call was to whether or not she should try to look out for Dina, who’s socially clueless in many ways and potentially vulnerable to a lot of human shittiness. I fail to see how her choice was wrong.
Sarah must relate to the witch from “Into the Woods” whereas others go for nice which doesn’t equal good she is seen as neither but is often right. The hitch in the plan no one wants to think of or address. Ignorance is bliss and she knocks it out of the air with a baseball bat.
For a character who has a justified rep as a grumpy curmudgeon, I realize that Sarah very rarely acts in malice, except towards Billie and Raidah.
Not intentionally trying to ruin someone’s day, but just not sniping or trying to get back, or the total dismissal of the person you’re dealing with that basically every cast member has done at some point. Becky and her sitcom rivalry with Dorothy, Dorothy and how she tried to demand Walky dress how she wanted, Danny trying to guilt Dorothy for breaking up with him by saying it’d be “no contest” that she choose an interview or helping Walky, Joyce’s venom towards Joe and Roz for living as sexual beings, Roz and how she treats Joyce as a caricature of fundies, Joe berating Danny for not being more like him, basically everything Ruth does.
Obviously there’s moments where Sarah does act like this; her feelings towards Billie, her implicitly planning to harm Jacob’s relationship with Raidah, her initial douchiness towards Dina’s triceratops hoodie and speaking patterns, but for someone who thinks “asshole” is her own defining characteristic, she tries to act with empathy.
Sarah is not full of malice. I think she’s a lot more like Billie: A fixer with a far greater opinion of her own judgement and maturity than reality supports.
By which I mean: Sarah does not have the life experience to know how to try to warn Dina that the relationship might not last long without making the situation worse. She doesn’t know how to encourage Dina to talk with Becky about what Becky wants out of it without basically dropping a drama bomb in Dina’s lap. Sarah is trying to do good, but because of her lack of experience and her immaturity, she’s making the situation worse.
Sometimes her approach turns out to be the right one. WAYYYY more often, she makes the situation worse through incompetence rather than malice. She thinks she’s got a better handle on this “life” thing than she actually does.
Case in point: A much better way to approach Joyce going to a party where predators would see a mark a mile away than hiding until a crisis happens and then intervening would have been to go to the party with Joyce and show Joyce the ropes of attending a party while being as safe as she could. She did not intend to make the situation worse, and she is not in the least at fault for what happened to Joyce (the fault lies solely at Rapist Asshole’s feet). However, her ham-handed handling of the situation both primed Joyce to victim-blame the shit out of herself for going there in the first place after Sarah warned her that something bad might happen because people might take advantage of her naivety, and ensured that when a predator targeted Joyce, she was without the backup she needed to get out of the situation safely (“drugged, assaulted, threatened and traumatized” is NOT “safely” however much victim-blaming assholes who think that the beginning and end of the solution to the sexual assault problem on campuses is just to teach women self-defense and that if a woman “doesn’t want” to be sexually assaulted, she should follow rules A1 through Z1500B which are often self-contradictory and/or illegal and/or incredibly impractical and/or likely to make an assault situation worse and that we should absolve all bystanders and men in particular of any responsibility for the culture that encourages and enables such crimes).
Again: Not saying it’s Sarah’s fault for Joyce’s assault. Am saying she handles most situations sub-optimally because her opinion of her experience and competence is much greater than her actual level of life experience and competence, so she assumes her first instinct is the right way to go about it and never thinks to talk to anyone or ask for advice on how to handle it.
In short, if you ever stayed in a dorm or summer camp, she’s the one who thinks she’s ever-so-much more worldly and mature, and tries to act like everyone’s mother when in fact she tends to annoy, alienate and hurt those around her even as she tries to help them.
To be fair, she was also one of the few in the friend group who actually helpful at that point. Billie, Sal, Dorothy, Amber were all even less useful than she was. Sure, she should have come in the first place, but Dorothy and Billie were there too and should have kept an eye on her.
Oh totally. Billie and Dorothy (Billie especially since she’s way more experienced at parties) could have set up a buddy system like my college friends did. You don’t go anywhere alone, don’t let anyone leave with a dude, and if someone suddenly seems way more drunk than they should be, you make sure they get to the hospital.
As for Sal, she does handle a lot of situations sub-optimally, but in this case, she didn’t know about what happened at the party until well after the fact. She advised against going to the cops since the drugs wore out of Joyce’s system but given the track record of police and how they handle sexual assault (especially date rape of college students at parties), I really can’t blame her. Let’s just say I’ve been through the process myself, as a pre-pubescent kid, and I, as a third grader got victim-blamed like hell. I should’ve told him no. I should’ve fought back. I was eight and he weighed three times what I did and was over twice my age but no crime because apparently being 8 and on my way to school on the fuckin’ school bus isn’t enough indication that I don’t want to be groped and have a tongue shoved down my throat. I remind you: I was 8. If that happened to me at 8, what happens to college girls who are far less “ideal victims” than I was? I don’t blame anyone who advises others not to report or chooses not to report themselves. Even when you get a good cop, the process can be traumatizing. If you get a bad cop, you get situations where you’re told that despite being half the age of consent for sex in your region, you didn’t tell him no strongly enough. Or cases where actual rape victims are arrested and charged for “filing a false report” after being pressured into “admitting” they made a false report, or you get situations where the cops victim-blame the shit out of people, or look for excuses to write it off as a non-crime so their stats don’t get screwed up. Honestly speaking, unless you’re the “perfect victim” and you go immediately after the assault, and the assailant kicked the shit out of you, odds are pretty damn good the cops are at best going to be skeptical. Because cop culture is 50 years out of date when it comes to sexual assault.
So, yeah. I do have issues with Sal sometimes (like she is not fair to her friend a lot of the time when she puts it on that girl to be Sal’s sole source of socialization, as just one example), but this was one situation where I think she had some very good points and was probably trying to prevent the system from re-traumatizing Joyce.
heres the thing though
most young people who get into relationships because they think they will last forever. they have them because its fun and feels good.
so why cant you people let dina and becky have fun and feel good without saying “this relationship has no possibility of lasting anyway”?
I think a lot of young people do on some level feel like it’ll last forever once they’re in them. Especially if its their first one. Heck, I think a lot of older people feel that way too. I don’t think most people go into a fun and happy relationship thinking about the end at all, but I think they might be better off if they did.
thats the thing, young people do exactly what older people do. they hope for it to last as long as possible, or just dont think about the end at all. but in reality, unless youre 12 (which dina isnt, and dina is actually pretty smart as we know) and you actually start thinking about it, you probably wont think “this will deifnitely last forever, theres no other possibility”. again, young people are in relationships because its fun and feels good, snd theres nothing wrong with not wanting to think about the day it will end so why should anyone comment on it?
i am totally ready to shake my fists at Sarah, except i know her motivation is that she wants to prevent Dina from getting hurt. she knows that Dina is a novice when it comes to socializing, and especially dating. if she were telling Dina this just to be mean, it’d be different. but she’s just telling Dina to help her. that said… she already knew, Sarah! you’re just pointing out an already known, painful thing!
Sarah couldn’t have known for sure she knew until Dina told her, and she couldn’t ask Dina before saying that because Dina told her to be blunt instead.
A teenager with known explicitly admitted problems with social interactions, at that. Recognizing Dina’s actually existing weak spots is not treating her like a 12-year-old. An autistic person is not ‘like 12’ for having trouble picking up social cues. Sarah is being respectful and perfectly appropriate here.
Maybe not the perfect timing, but honestly, there’s no such thing as perfect timing with this sort of thing. Sarah made her call, and I for one applaud her for looking out for her friend.
I wonder which came first: Did Sarah’s pessimistic attitude and need to TELL people her pessimistic viewpoint cause her social isolation, or did her social isolation cause this pessimistic attitude?
I mean, she does care about people, but I’m beginning to understand why so few people actually like her or seek out her company. She may be correct, but she comes across thoughtless at best and actively cruel at worst. She NEEDS to learn tact.
Methinks some of the backlash is less about what Sarah said to Dina, and more about what the audience didn’t want to hear and see. Because no one critizing Sarah seems to want to address the first two panels of this strip. Also some backlash from what Sarah said last strip, which was flippant, but ultimately harmless on its own.
OTOH, that’s the kind of Hollywood romance thing that doesn’t actually work in the real world. It’s romantic and all and risking something like that does make instant emotional bonds, but it doesn’t actually help you make a relationship work.
It’s a cliche, but sometimes it’s easier to die for someone than live with them.
Even before that, though, they had a major shared interest in science in general and dinosaurs in particular. Clear communication, willingness to provide emotional support, respecting limits… what’s missing, exactly?
Dina asked her to be direct in this strip, I believe, which was directly prompted by Sarah’s vague negativity and pessimism at the end of the prior strip, not to mention her melodramatic self-appointment as the bearer of bad news.
(Though I may be biased as I have never understood why the Rebound is this terrifying awful thing so the whole strip just seems overblown today.)
It’s because some people, sometimes, use a rebound relationship to help them get over their feelings for the other person, or as a tool to hurt their ex – in that case, the rebound isn’t about the new relationship, it’s a manipulative exercise that is not entered into in good faith by the rebounder. It’s often unfair to the person they’re in the rebound with.
Mind you, I say that as someone who’s current relationship started off as The Dreaded Rebound. So not all rebounds are exercises in manipulation designed for short-term gratification and pettiness. But some are and I think that’s why the Rebound got its bad reputation.
Personally, I think as long as both parties know fully well going in that the other person is Not Over It with respect to the last relationship, and as long as the rebounder isn’t looking to use their new partner as a tool against their ex, it can work. I’m biased because that’s how my current relationship got started, and I’m happy four years on into it, but there you go.
‘Tactful’ would not have involved her melodramatic and purposefully vague “I have to be the bringer of bad news” last strip.
No, Sarah. You do not ‘have to be’ the one to tell Dina something that is only going to make her upset, and will make her doubt the relationship that’s clearly making her happy. Especially not when she’s less than a week into this relationship. Sarah always thinks she’s helping by pointing out the pessimistic viewpoint, but she’s really not.
“Making Dina a little upset for five minutes” versus “letting Dina potentially be esriously hurt because she missed an obvious-to-other-people social problem”… I’m with Sarah here. I have a lot in common with Dina, and I would LOVE to have a friend like her.
(Yes, it turned out Dina actually did not miss this one. But for all Sarah knew, she could have)
My crystal ball says no, since there was a decade of comics with those two as the main characters, but I do think they’re significantly different enough people here that it wouldn’t be a retread if it did.
But in any case, not DESTINED. Possible, perhaps, but I think it’s more of a “whatever happens, happens” thing. I doubt Willis has planned out how this comic will end.
Okay, so the big revelation is… a big pile of nothing.
I mean, Dina was present for Becky telling Joyce she still had feelings for her and this occurred the day they first kissed and started getting all romantic. This is not new information.
And beyond that, it’s just weak sauce. Rebound is one of those big scary words that doesn’t actually mean jack shit in the real world. Most relationships outside the first one begin as some form of rebound and they are no more prone to failure than any other relationship. People experience multiple attractions, people get rejected, people have relationships end.
But Becky and Dina have good relationship dynamics, healthy appreciations for each other, and are doing well to adapt to the actual struggles both face.
I don’t think Sarah is a bad person for dropping this “bomb”, it’s just this “bomb” has no real impact or value. It’s not actually as pressing or dire as she tried to make it seem and honestly, has potential for real damage to Dina and Becky’s relationship, simply out of Dina defaulting to social norms out of an awareness of her own naivety surrounding relationships.
Sarah thinks Dina might be getting too attached to a relationship that is unlikely to last very long (being started while Becky was in an emotionally vulnerable state), which is indeed not a big issue for modt people but could hurt Dina if she got caught by surprise. Fortunately she’s aware of the situation and will probably be fine.
I don’t think any relationship is ever started in a perfect place, because everyone deals with varying degrees of bullshit basically at all times.
If Sarah doesn’t tell her this, which is doubly pointless since Dina is already seemingly convinced, well, what changes? Dina just dates Becky, and either confirms that Becky is just using her, or eventually realizes that Becky does genuinely like her for her, and not for being Joyce’s replacement, which all indicators point to being the case basically every time they’re on panel together.
1) Rebounds are pop culture meme, not a law of social nature
2) Can Becky rebound from a relationship she never had?
3) Does Dina, social cripple who doesn’t get basic body language, really already predict and know about this?
Personally I would have thought the exact opposite was true: Becky having been rejected and suppressed so long clings to Dina like a life-raft and refuses to acknowledge problems while Dina who is introverted and socially atypical starts feeling crowded and doesn’t give the responses Becky expects.
I think the fact that Becky never got the romantic relationship she’d been holding onto might be worse. Because in a rebound relationship you’re just letting go of the past, the past is gonna get overwritten by the future somehow whether you enter into a new relationship right away or not. Fantasies and infatuations, especially lifelong ones, tend to be more persistent. Its harder to get over something you never had because that fantasy has to be looked at realistically, otherwise it forever remains shinier and newer than the actual relationship.There’s a high chance that because Becky and Dina’s relationship is so different any lingering feelings Becky has will be easily overcome, but irl old lingering infatuations can be very damaging to the people involved.
Dina was literally standing next to Sarah when Becky admitted to Joyce that she wasn’t completely over her yet, and had even remarked on that specific fact to Sarah at the time.
True, but this is Dina. Who has shown little social awareness and who was, not long before that kiss, huddled under Ethan’s coat. It may be infantilizing, but it’s not hard to understand not being sure how much of the social situation she understood.
She seems to have made great strides since the early days, though it’s hard to say how much of that is an actual change in her and how much is just us seeing more of her. Sarah hasn’t seen as much of that change as we have.
I was leery of her and Becky as well at first, thinking she’d be really bad at seeing through Becky’s emotional armor, but Becky won me over by being willing to let that down for Dina in ways we haven’t really seen her do with Joyce.
It’s not even infantilizing. I’m 22 and as adult as I’m ever going to get, and I could totally be present for someone admitting their feelings out loud and totally miss it because I was too busy thinking about something else at the moment and do not have the awareness necessary to ‘ping in’ at important/dramatic/emotionally charged moments.
Dina knows about the rebound thing because Becky was very obvious about this during their personal interactions that Sarah was not privy to.
Unlike us.
Stop blaming characters for not have audience knowledge.
Look, I know that intent is not magic and that even if someone means well, that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing harm.
What I’m confused about* is how so many people have decided that Sarah does intend to cause harm. I just don’t see it. We’ve never seen her gloat or any indication that she’s been happy when something bad happened.
*I’m not actually confused, though I would love to hear an actual good reason for this.
Heck, there are people saying that Sarah just created a self-fulfilling prophecy by saying that this is a rebound and that it will be Sarah’s fault when the relationship ends. People are *pre-emptively* angry at her for the break up.
That is some deep hate when you are scheduling your anger and blame in advance.
Sometime ago I met a lesbian couple. They were both in there late teen-early 20. After talking to one she told me she wasn’t gay, but just liked the that one girl. They tried to have sex and they found it awkward and didn’t like it. Eventuality, they broke up and her girlfriend moved on to another woman. She ended up dating men.
For me I feel that Dina is on an adventure with her relationship with Becky, but I don’t think that she is gay or bi, because as she said before those destinations are not important to her. BEFor myself those things are unimportant as well, you get with the person you like and hopefully it works out. I like Dina’s character and I feel that she is a good person, but I wonder if her relationship with Becky well become too much. I’m mean hell, Becky’s dad was only hunting them down a week ago! Im suprised Dina seems to be well invested in her relationship with Becky. But, how far will they take it?
Ewww… I don’t like this turn at all. That was a really bongoy thing to do . . .now I might be a nit picky bongo, but… Isn’t Sarah Aware in at least *some* fashion that Dina attacked Becky’s dad for her sake? . . . is Becky aware of that? I mean even without those small details there’s been a HUGE amount of bonding between the two, right after some gut/soul wrenching shit to go through.
As someone who’s had to lose family because of being trans…rebound or not… I dunno, I fall in love hard, and fast. There’s this negative stereotype about LGBT people being promiscuous, or fast to have sex. . . It’s only half true at best, and it’s more or less because LGBT people are *SO* relieved when they finally meet someone who *understands.*
I don’t see Becky getting “bored” of Dina, or their relationship fading in any way, shape or form that would make emotional sense from my perspective. . . That’s just my two cents.
We all know Sarah is super jaded about relationships…ohhhhh. She’s projecting her own insecurities. . . Not really taking into consideration all the Drama these two have survived together.
Wow, that’s a really silly way to censor curse words. :/
I wonder what fuck will turn out to be?
Wait…other fans are able to curse. . . is it my disqus? Halp.
There was an thing a while back where bongo was heavily overused in the comments about Roz. The filter was added for that.
Other words haven’t been abused the same way, so they haven’t gotten the same reaction.
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SHIT
SUDDEN MOOD SHIFT
Followed by freezing in carbonite
Good pull
Awesome reference.
Willis giveth and Willis taketh away.
While it is true that too much of Sarah’s pessimism kills love in its crib (see her own relationship with Jacob for an example), I think a little dose of it is preferable to pure blind optimism. Becky and Dina have a lot of potential problems– Becky’s housing issue, Dina’s apparent asexuality against Becky’s raging libido, the difficulty of finding a normal rhythm in a relationship that’s so far been defined by drama.
The time to confront obvious potential problems in a relationship is fairly early in the game, when both partners are full of energy and motivation and willing to make real changes in their lives. Dina’s response tells us that this isn’t an issue Sarah just created, or even one she doesn’t know about: it’s an issue that she’s been burying. Becky probably has, too.
True, but they’re also in good positions and are currently (without additional pressure) doing positive things in the relationship to address these things. Becky is enacting long-term plans to no longer be homeless and is trying to make sure there’s not a dynamic of financial inequality where Dina is buying all the stuff.
Becky and Dina are taking care to show appreciation and while Becky still has feelings for Joyce, she acknowledges and celebrates Dina and makes sure that she neither disappears from Joyce’s life to go into co-dependence with Dina, nor leaves Dina out of her attempts to comfort Joyce as a friend.
Dina is stating her extroversion limits and is finding ways to stretch them that are not emotionally taxing. Plus, on the asexuality thing, she may be asexual, but she seems to be an asexual like me who finds sex intellectually intriguing and would likely be interested in exploring that someday. And Becky for her part is doing really well to take lessons from her surprise kiss with Joyce and is going very slowly with a lot of respect for Dina’s boundaries.
Honestly, this pessimism is kind of out of place for these reasons. They aren’t making really obvious mistakes that will cost them in the future like Ruth and Billie. And fears like being a “rebound” are often the kind of thing young people fear before they date enough to know that they aren’t any more doomed than any other relationship.
Which means, Sarah is just dumping on her pessimism because of her own fears regarding intimacy and may in fact make the situation worse by getting Dina wrapped up in her senses of inadequacy in the relationship (the times in which the relationship has shown signs of codependence has been when Dina has been trying to follow a traditional script because of feeling inadequate, especially in comparison to Joyce):http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/socialsecurity/
And honestly, given the situations both have, trying to fit a more normative script would definitely cause a metric crap ton of problems.
Well really there’s two different kinds of “rebounds.” There’s the option that you seem to be talking about, where person X can’t be with person Y and ends up with person Q but genuinely has feelings for person Q. Then there’s the option that I think most of us have a problem with. Where person X is merely settling for person Q and is just waiting around for perhaps probably maybe even if it’s a misinterpretation of a completely innocent action on behalf of person Y and person X is like I AM GOING TO INTERPRET THIS HOW I WANT AND GO FOR IT and person Q is left behind feeling used, whether person Y was actually making a move on person X or person X just wanted it to mean that. (or a second interpretation of this second situation is person X settles for person Q because they just don’t want to be alone, even if they don’t actually have any romantic feelings for person Q)
Not that I have an opinion one way or the other on which one Becky is cause I’d rather just sit back and read the story but I think that the second situation is the “rebound” that most people have a problem with and really don’t want Dina to be that kind of rebound. Cause those kinds of rebounds always end terribly.
But Joyce is straight. There’s no there there for the second type of rebound.
Some people like to misinterpret anything though. Made-up example: Something awesome happens to Joyce, who is a hugger. She is happy, so she hugs Becky, her best friend. Becky is like “OH THIS MUST MEAN SHE FINALLY LOVES ME” and breaks up with Dina to pursue this misinterpreted innocent nothing from Joyce. Joyce of course is like, “I didn’t mean it that way O__o;; ” but now it’s too late cause Dina’s broken-hearted from getting dumped.
Again, made-up example, but when people are in love they are prone to reading too much into innocent things.
Disclaimer: Yes, I AM a fan of Sarah as a character. In fact, she’s my favorite member of the cast. That may muddle my perception of things. But then again, I started liking her most for her observations, personality, and pessimism. Take that into account as you read the following stuff.
– – – – – – – – – –
Honestly, I’m of the opinion that whether or not Dina and Becky both try to make it work, there are plenty of chances this could turn out to be a short (but still potentially happy) relationship, rebound or not.
1. Becky is NOT supposed to be living in the dorm. Her situation is understandable and we can all empathize, but the law won’t. All it takes is for a suspicious, well meaning stranger (or someone horrible like Mary) to ruin her life for her right now. Heck, they’d probably ruin our favorite R.A.’s life while they’re at it since AFAIK she’s letting this go on. They’d either see her as incompetent or realize she’s been hiding stuff from them.
2. Dina and Becky LITERALLY just met a few days ago in webcomic time, and Dina is the first girl at this school that has shown interest in Becky. Dina is happy to be with her, sure, and I’ll bet Becky is too. But that doesn’t mean Becky won’t find someone else she’s more interested in, or that Dina won’t notice Becky still pining for Joyce (she has noticed) and maybe get super stressed out from that. Given her reaction, it’s possible this has been on her mind for a while. I’m pretty sure tomorrow will have some answers.
3. And then there’s psychological issues. Becky has gone through some serious Hell lately. She needs a therapist, and so does Joyce. I forget if either of them agreed to talk to one yet, but they probably should, because at the very least they need to have that outlet for their frustrations and anxieties. If Becky doesn’t get a chance to talk to a therapist now that AFAIK she has AFAIK no DIRECT family to turn to… I dunno. But she’s run away from home, had a gun pointed at her BY HER DAD, had her sexuality invalidated by her old school, feels very betrayed, etc. When that bad juju bubbles and festers, is Dina going to be the one to try and bottle it up? Or to help her work it out? Will that WORK for Becky?
4. Finally, sake of drama. Dude, this is Willis we’re talking about. Willis will do his darnedest to throw monkey wrenches into the characters’ lives because it makes good drama. If something bad can happen, it WILL happen.
5. Oh – and then there’s sexual intercourse. Different people have different opinions about sex. For instance, I frankly don’t give a damn about sex; I don’t see the allure of it; and if I were to have a girlfriend that was REALLY sexual, we’d probably have problems. I think Dina might be interested in sex, but she and Becky may end up with very differing views about how important it is. That can break relationships.
Now, obviously Sarah can’t know about #4, but I’m pretty sure she’s thought about points 1 and 2 a fair bit, and she may be savvy to point 3. This really goes beyond Dina being Becky’s rebound – and again, remember that (as a poster way down at the bottom of the comments mentioned before) Becky and Dina only met days ago and Becky is still orbiting her super crush of forever ago. That orbiting is not a good sign.
Now, this relationship can still go on very happily, with Dina and Becky talking this out and working through the hurdles in their way. As a lot of people said, rebounds can blossom into beautiful, long lasting relationships. That doesn’t mean marriage or life partners necessarily, though that’s possible, but it can mean some happy years of dating, too. Any of these outcomes is a good experience.
This relationship could ALSO end on a HAPPY note, as I think is the most probable and eventual outcome. I think Becky and Dina are going to have a few bad moments, but will realize they’re not really the BEST for each other despite being really, really good friends, and will then break up but stay, yeah, friends. I could see Dina being the sort that’s able to do that, and I could see Becky really wanting to keep Dina as a friend because DINA ATTACKED TOEDAD TO SAVE HER LIFE, ¡JESUS CHRISTO! That’s gotta be a pretty darned good bond. They’ll stay friends, I’m pretty sure of that, no matter what happens.
But with all that said, I do NOT think Sarah was wrong to want to talk about this. She presents herself in a shitty way, perhaps, but this situation Becky is in has a lot of potential to hurt both her and everyone around her, not to mention the fact that she does still have a HUGE crush on her best friend since forever. Could Sarah be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by bringing this up? It’s possible. But I don’t think I can realistically blame Sarah for worrying about how this will turn out for her friend, and I don’t think I can blame her for voicing this opinion if she thinks it might help.
Also, someone else later on makes a fair point about Sarah’s perspective I’d like to bring up:
“She’s [Sarah] overly pessimistic about her own (love) life, sadly, but pretty spot-on when it comes to others. Remember how she was a party-pooper at the beginning of the semester, when Joyce and Dorothy were headed out to party with Roz? If only she had “pooped” harder.”
And I’d say that’s not far off the mark. Sarah is a pessimist through and through, probably TOO pessimistic, but thus far we don’t have any evidence that she’s a BAD judge of character. Frankly, I’m willing to bet she DID save her first roommate’s life, and we know darned well it’s super fortunate Sarah came to Roz’s party after all. The guy got away thanks to Amazigirl, if anyone remembers that…
All those things taken into account, is it still necessary to bring it up, though? I am currently on a rebound with a guy who is rebounding off of me. All four non-author-related points apply to us. We realize this is most likely not going to be a longterm relationship. But for the moment, we have decided to ignore that and just enjoy it while it lasts. If we can enjoy it now, why focus on the eventual end? That will just get depressing and ruin the joy we feel in the moment. Dina isn’t stupid. She /knows/ what’s going on. But it makes her happy in the moment. She and Becky are both strong enough to deal with bridges when they come to them. Sarah may be right about the nature of the relationship, but it’s still way out of bounds for her to rain on their parade. And this is what she does. She points out possible problems before they become problems, not because the people she’s talking to need to be prepared for those problems, but because Sarah herself is too cynical to accept present joys as they come. She’s trying to force other people to live with her world view of “High failure chance equals don’t bother trying.” And that is /not/ right.
“She’s trying to force other people to live with her world view” – All she’s ever done is warn about potential problems. Yeah, that makes her a Debbie Downer but that’s not the same thing as trying to *force* people into thinking or seeing things the same way she does.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve never seen Sarah say, “Do it my way or else.”
To be fair, True Friends say shit like that–once. If Sarah continues to harp on the “rebound” thing, then she is not a True Friend but a Misery who wants Company.
I’m on year 12 of a “rebound” that, to be honest, I saw coming long ago and was too chicken shit to do anything about (mostly about what it meant for my living arrangements, somewhat similiar to Becky’s but with less Ruthless and financial dependence). The terrible lizbeans can still work! MAKE IT HAPPEN
Asexual? She certainly seemed to be but remember the clip just before Toe Dad showed up? She was very eager to go do something! I thought that Becky or maybe just the concept of having a partner seemed to wake something up.
That’s not really a surprise. I know we aren’t supposed to talk about ‘that other universe’ but personalities seem to be similar across the two and she certainly wasn’t asexual there!
Why must Sarah hurt the Dina?
Because this sort of thing is why Sarah exists.
Ugghhh, fuck Sarah’s shitty perspective. I don’t care if she’s vigilante because of it she’s a bad friend and she pushes people away.
Saying this helps no one. The whole concept of being afraid of being a rebound is counterproductive. These doubts will likely cause Dina to mistrust Becky’s behavior or her feelings for Becky. Either way the result is that Dina will be less likely to be open with Becky and more likely to let anxiety ruin a perfectly good relationship. Thus fulfilling Sarah’s shit prophecy.
Unless Sarah proceeds to coach Dina to be ask Becky honest questions this is destructive advice.
Sarah’s a pessimist and quite unlucky in her own love life. She puts up walls to prevent being hurt. While not great this advice is pretty much the best she can give given her experiences. In her mind this is compassion. That’s my view of it anyway.
Yes, but it’s as though Sarah has no concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as by saying these things and pointing them out, she has made a problem exponentially more likely to occur.
I’m sure does, given her recent problems with wooing Jacob. However, being aware of the problem is only the first step. Breaking out of it is harder, especially when it becomes habitual.
Which I suspect for Sarah it has.
You guys are all right… But I’m being hopeful here. Everybody’s being touched by little character changes. Even Joe is showing a little more to himself, so I’d say it’s about time for something to change in Sarah… for better or worse.
Well… hrm. On one hand, there’s self fulfiling prophecies. On the other hand, there’s the truth that being warned about bumps in the road, let’s you drive more cautiously.
There’s a fine grey line though!
… to be honest, if there’s going to be a big messy break up ANYWAY, it’s better to be prepared.
… but on the other hand, in this case, everything was going nicely, there were no real problems, and as Weyland said, self fulfiling prophecy here, ie Sarah becomes the cause of the break up, making a problem where there was none.
…
Now, one more thing to consider. Dina immediately said “I know”… that could mean several things. One possible (and I say possible) thing is that she was already worried about this fact but was showing a smile on the outside, but wanted to talk to someone about it. And will now talk to Sarah about it, get it off her chest.
And (her I’m being overly optimistic, opposite of Sarah!), maybe both of them will talk, then realize the relationship is actually going great, no worries after all! Let’s all be extra nice to each other now! Happy ending! OK I’m in lala land here lol. … eh, I can hope… right? … RIGHT?
DAVE!!! MAKE THE HAPPY HAPPY SCENARIO HAPPEN PLEASE!!! Drama Tag pulled, fine, but we just had a lot of angst and major unhappiness, remember a good comic has some BALANCE, and Dina is the one we choose for some happiness!!! … please? 😉
I agree with a lot of the chain. Sarah is very cynical about romance and relationships of all kinds. And she has a habit of torpedoing relationships before they start by being way too focused on their “inevitable end”. This means she assumes most other relationships other people are in will be doomed by their problems, whatever they are, no matter how small they are (remember she axed her developing connection with Jacob simply because she became convinced that eventually Jacob would see her less desirable qualities and leave and so she actively resisted any form of connection).
So yeah, to her its kindness to notice a potential flaw, no matter how unlikely and bring it up before things get too untangled. And it’s a kindness that can be genuine and helpful (her being able to see through Joe’s intentions with regards to Joyce) as much as it can be nothing but a hinderance to its recipient (here).
It’s a delicate balance and where Sarah is she’s going to get it wrong sometimes.
Gotta move the plot forward, I guess.
You meant ‘vigilant,’ but I love the idea of a pessimism vigilante, stalking through the nights, crushing dreams wherever hope is found in the name of bleak truths, hollow justice, and the American way!
the super wet blanket!
…must gave the lamest costume ever
The truth hurts.
There are worse ways Dina could react to mounting microaggressions (microignorings? micromisplacedaffections?) from a partner clearly in love with Joyce and in her professional life than the explosive dissolution of the relationship.
True.
Except we’re not currently seeing those microaggressions from Becky. Becky has been doing a good job making sure Dina is appreciated and has made sure to include her in things like comforting Joyce when that has been necessary. It’s not like Becky is making small digs at her to be more Joyce-like or praising Joyce at her expense.
So, this is basically a warning about a non-existent problem.
Someone has to be the rebound or there’d be no one to move on to. And while Sarah’s POV is not without some validity she’s hardly a success in matters of the heart. Hopefully, Dina will keep that in mind.
Yeah, rebounds are not nearly as bad as young, new to dating, people believe they are.
I mean, they can be, if the person on the rebound mistreats the person they are rebounding with and takes them for granted (see Scott Pilgrim with Knives).
But more often than not, it’s just dating. And not any more doomed or prone to be short term than any other form of dating.
I don’t see being concerned about someone as being a bad friend. The gentle approach Sarah was taking may not have created any doubts, but Dina asked for brutal honesty. Sometimes thats what you want and need. And as Dina said…she already knew. Emotional turn around is rarely that fast or that drastic without doubt already being there.
Sarah cares, has yet to be wrong, and feels a strong sense of responsibility toward the less experienced of her freshman brood. And every time Sarah has had doubts about a situation or someone’s intentions, she’s been completely right. Her biggest sin has been being pretty nonspecific and noncommital. Tbh I think she’s giving exactly the type of advice one would want someone around to give if the couple wasn’t hecka adorbs. Realistically their relationship has some major danger signs for people afraid of getting hurt, as well as people afraid of others getting hurt. Becky and Dina got together during major upheaval in Becky’s life and Becky’s world view is changing quickly and drastically, as is Dina’s. Starting a relationship in the middle of that can lead to some unhealthy behavior and warp a new relationship. It probably way too early to tell, but Sarah’s experiences have set her up to worry early and doubt interpersonal relationships. And while we’ve seen Becky’s arc first hand, to Sarah she’s still at least partially the girl who entered their lives through deception and manipulation, no matter how justified her actions may seem. Sarah didn’t trust her from the very beginning…and was 100% right both about her being deceitful and about he deceit leading to a life altering mess. Now Becky has jumped from Sarah’s ultra naïve roommate to the girl with little to no social skills who everyone else treats like she’s 12, in less time than it takes to get over a cold.
Would I say anything? No, because I’m all about self preservation. Never insert yourself into anyone else’s relationship if you don’t wanna get burned. Either you’ll get blamed for their insecurities, or you’ll be that friend who tried to break them up right up to and beyond when they actually do break up. Bonus bile if you were right. Being right about the likelihood of someone getting hurt is never endearing, no one’s thankful for the warning even though they’re even less likely to want to clean up the aftermath. This is a lesson that Sarah already learned the hard way, and its a big part of why she built up her walls in the first place.
I’m less worried about Dina and Becky than I am about Sarah. In some ways I’m happy that Sarah is finally committing enough to express the actual concern at issue, but she’s tried so hard not to get involved, and I’m not sure how she’s going to take it when Willis inevitably has everything blow up in her face. Dina and Becky and cute and all, but Sarah has been letting her walls fall only to turn into a kind of Cassandra truth avatar. We build walls to protect our most vulnerable spaces, and nothing good ever came to Cassandra for speaking the truth. Or to Sarah for that matter.
This. So much this.
(you are right about stuff, but I just wanted to note that Dina is not in fact 12. She’s treated like she is, yes, but remember, being angry at that is basically what STARTED her relationship with Becky. She kissed her to show she wasn’t a little kid. She has social difficulties, yes, but autistic =/= childish. Other people’s assumptions are on them. If anything, Becky’s treating her the best out of her friends rn)
To avoid her being more hurt in the future?
but what if this mistake is the best mistake she’s ever made?
I just want dina to be happy. Hopefully with becky
Because she was told to be direct?
I think Dina can handle it. She doesn’t strike me as the type to play games, shenanigans, and scripts. I think she wants directness. And she’s intelligent, much more so than most of them (and most of us) give her credit for.
Yeah, I was gonna say, in Sarah’s defense Dina explicitly requested directness. It’s not like Sarah is having an internal monologue about how much she loves the sorrow of freshman girls as she does it.
Seems like she’d be doing so if she were being honest with herself, though.
Maybe, just maybe? She feels that being aware of the potential for harm is more important then the fleeting happiness burying your head in the sand will give.
Like, you know, how her fleeting happiness in having friends was utterly bloody buried by the drama invoked by her doing the right thing and saving her friend.
Not everyone who is a realist enjoys it.
THERE IS NOT A GOOD REASON D: D:
even your avatar agreees.
I believe you mean, why must Dina always be Willis’ primary hurt deposit box.
Because Willis is full of hate and bitterness and can’t allow us to have nice things!
Because Dina called her favorite number 2, and she is insulted. This is her firing back.
Because she attempts in her actions to be an agent of realism and warning, but instead acts as an agent of pessimism and pain. In some ways, she’s the anti-Mike. Mike acts maliciously with the intent of causing harm, but ends up forcing people to grow and develope in the process. Sarah acts with the intent of protecting others from themselves, but ends up primarily causing pain and discomfort. However, her attempts only do this to us, the readers, because Sarah herself is a more developed and three-dimensional character, whereas Mike is simply snarky maliciousness incarnate.
This is the most balanced assessment of Sarah (both in and of herself, and in comparison with Mike) that I’ve seen.
“A WEEK?? That’s like FOREVER in DOA YEARS”
Seriously that’s like a year a least.
Wait, it’s been only a week? I thought they were almost done with their first semester by now! I’ve been reading this since I was a sophomore in highschool and I’ve already moved to sophomore in College! God…I want to be in their universe just so I can…enjoy?…being nineteen for like ten years.
Heck no, they’re just barely into October.
Give dina all the hug
goddammit, willis, that FLAVOR TEXT
Flavor of the month: tears.
What gave that final panel the right to exist. WHO ALLOWED SAD DINA. I’LL FIGHT THEM.
I know! I am literally crying tears because of it right now. The effect it had on me reminded me of that one page where after Ethan tackles Danny, then they make out but you see that it’s a thought bubble but the twist is that it’s Danny’s thought bubble.
Sad Dina is a travesty!
Sarah made Dina sad.
WILLIS MADE DINA SAD
HULK SMASH RAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHH
Huh! I’m surprised, actually, that the characters think that this matters. What’s wrong with a rebound relationship, those can turn into lasting ones, too.
Dude, they’re 18, 19 years old. They don’t know shit about relationships.
I’m 33 and they know more than I do.
This. When you’re young, rebounds are one of those big scary words that are always shown in movies (when noted to be rebounds) to be giant buckets of fail (even though most romantic comedies involve the main romance being a rebound from a recently failed relationship in actuality).
And like many things sold to people as key parts of romance, it is a giant crock of shit.
They can, and maybe this will. But the odds are against them. Dina’s literally the first girl to fall in Becky’s lap who was responsive to her advances and Dina kissed her out of annoyance over how she was being treated. Not the best beginning, not totally doomed but we’ll have to see how genuine the attraction is once the first relationship shine wears off.
I mean, yeah, but people meet the loves of their lives on grindr, too. You don’t have to Meet Cute for it to become a very meaningful relationship in its own right.
I don’t really think so. Yeah, their beginning is rather uncommon (Dina kissing her to spite her friends, Becky finding the first person in her life to love her back unapologetically), but they’re enacting good relationship practices and show genuine care. They’re both in NRE (new relationship energy) and there might be conflicts that arise later, but right now they are adapting to the very real issues both of them have faced in this relationship with an impressive amount of aplomb.
These two characters in particular are 18-20 and have a very limited understanding of relationships. This is actually a pretty common belief. Neither has actually had a rebound relationship and doubtfully know anyone who has had one.
In other words, they’re inexperienced and are relying on what their culture had taught them about how these things happen.
You all are right. I forgot that the title was Dumbing of Age, not ‘characters who think that they know things are correct, and then everyone makes mature decisions’.
And how else will they learn?
By reading Dumbing of Age, of course. I’ll have all this relationship stuff figured out … in a few hundred years … maybe.
I absolutely agree. This whole concept of “oh no don’t be the rebound” is ridiculous to me.
In this case, yeah, Becky was in love with Joyce for a long time, so one would think that she’d still hold feelings for her.
However, the same is true for anyone who’s been in a previous relationship or has had unrequited love before. Danny still has feelings for Dorothy, and Amber still has feelings for Ethan. These bonds of love aren’t cut cleanly, or immediately, and they shouldn’t be. It becomes a part of who they are.
IMO, this fact should be accepted and looked past, especially here, since there is no chance for Becky to get together with Joyce. Dina loves her, and Becky loves Dina. The fact that Becky is dealing with her feelings for Joyce doesn’t invalidate or lessen or negate it.
It’s also not like people can’t love more than one person at the same time.
I think there are bi
Definitely. Young people are taught to fear rebounds, but rebounds aren’t actually scary. I’m my current gf’s rebound (to the point where she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go on that first date with me because of how much of a torch she was carrying for her previous gf) and we had our 3 year anniversary 2 months ago.
As a fear, it’s about as relevant and worthwhile as “Becky might secretly be part robot and harvest your organic parts in your sleep”.
nnnnnooooo, my organs, I need those for stuff!
She could cut a deal with Ruth, femurs as payoffs for not evicting her.
wait becky’s a robot???
i for one welcome our android overlords.
Only part robot, like the boomers in Bubblegum Crisis. Still need the Knight Sabers to take her down when she goes rogue, though.
Oh shit, Bubblegum Crisis. Haven’t heard about that for like decades.
…you just couldn’t leave it alone, could you, Sarah?
Hey, Dina already had that worry, at least. And she likes Sarah for her directness.
The Law of Drama compels her.
Well, as soon as Sarah has something good in her life, I hope everyone else dogpiles her for it. You know, to redress the balance and such. 😉
Indeed. The cycle must not be interrupted.
Will the circle be unbroken? Tune it to find out! 😉
She’s already sabotaged her fledgling relationship with Jacob. She is nothing if not thorough!
Yeah, the problem is very much that she’s treating everyone else’s romantic development as she would very much treat her own. Oh, you look happy, something must be wrong that will doom you. And if there’s nothing real, then we should just worry about something fake or minor and let that fester and smash things so that I’ll be best prepared for the drama-filled end.
And her tendency to be right on a lot of cynical matters probably doesn’t help in the instances where she is wrong (her handling of the proto-relationship with Jacob, here, and I’d argue, her handling of Dana, based on the statements by people still in contact with her).
While she was right about warning Joyce about her fake-relationship with Ethan, her prophecy that Dorothy will end her friendship with her when she finds out, luckily turned out to be wrong.
So the Cassandra title is not really entitled – she’s not the relationships-expert she believes she is.
I’d be careful about drawing conclusions about the Dana situation based on statements from people who couldn’t see how bad Dana was when she was in school.
Unless Sarah completely misread the situation all along and was overreacting to minor issues with Dana, which would be a huge character changing revelation.
It’s not that Sarah didn’t do the right thing, involving Dana’s father when she was becoming more and more dependent on drug use, but that Dana perhaps isn’t getting better, as implied by Raidah one time they spoke.
That she hasn’t apparently returned to school in nearly a year shows that Sarah’s actions, while absolutely well intended and probably saved Dana’s life, might not have been the ultimate solution Sarah was hoping for.
Perhaps, but Raidah had no clue Dana had any real problems in the first place, so she’s not really reliable for whether Dana’s better or not.
It wouldn’t have been brought up in the first place if it had no relevance, and it’s not like Raidah and co. didn’t care about Dana; they incorrectly believed that Dana was coping as best as she could, not seeing the destructive parts Sarah bore witness to.
The implication I got from the strip where Raidah mentions Dana was that Dana was still grieving or in some form of depression, maybe even still doing drugs beyond Raidah’s ability to help her. Sarah’s thinking it will work out, that it was for the best that Dana be with her dad, but has she even tried contacting her since? At the risk of this coming off as victim blaming, Sarah opened up with her concerns about how Dana was impacting her studying, about how Dana’s grief over her mother’s death affected her. To Raidah, that probably comes off as “I am exaggerating the severity of the problem (that you don’t see, because Dana wears a mask around you), and need to remove this obstacle that is inconveniencing me.”
“I like you for your directness”
This is… really cute. But sad ? 😐
Not sad. Normal human communication is full of misdirection, hints, and subtle nods in significant directions – all of which is lost on the autistic. You must be direct, or accept that we won’t always understand what you’re on about.
And it’s a positive joy when we find those who don’t do hints, because then we know what they’re saying.
Yeah, this. Not sad.
Actually, Dina has an impressive degree of self-awareness and awareness of social mores here, compared with me as an undiagnosed autistic 18-year-old, anyway. I didn’t know myself and society’s preference for dealing with emotionally fraught things indirectly well enough to tell people, “I need you to be direct with me,” until my mid-20s.
Geez, Sarah, why don’t you just drop an asteroid on her?
She actually dropped the remnants of that closet Becky nuked on her
So time for iodine and calcium supplements, then?
That’s sweet of her.
She thought it’d make a nice reminder of their first date.
damnit why do you make me consider these things and make me sad mr. willis.
why
why
why
WHY
Because he wants to tell a ligament story, that isn’t just everyone being perfect and or adorable, that explores complex issues. Also because he is slightly evil.
I think it’s mostly the evil part
“Evil will always win, because Good is dumb.”
I wonder what that says about the (dumb) cast.
But if you recall right after saying that Dark Helmet still lost so perhaps there’s still hope
There is always hope.
Good is often dumb, but correlation doesn’t imply causation… Helmet was pretty dumb himself.
There’s always Hope, but I don’t see any Blue Lantern Rings flying around, and to make all this work out for everyone to end up not being emotionally hurt to the core would require enough Hope to turn Mogo into a BL.
Not sure there’s enough of that emotion going around right now.
He feasts on our tears!
You think this is a free webcomic, but you pay in your happyness!
Never forget that Puppetmaster Willis pulls the strings to make the maximum feels.
Maw-haw-haw-ha *cough*
There must be balance, even in the Dumbiverse. Last week smile feels, this week frown feels, next week – only the Willis knows. Just enjoy the ride.
It is amusing you think this is as far as Willis is going to go.
When the Willis taketh, he taketh it all.
Appropriate gravatar is appropriate
What you mean is:
“Damn you, Willis!”
Dina’s sad faces 🙁
Well… sometimes the rebound is the winning score.
Rebounds are one of the fundamentals of proper play. That applies to both basketball and dating.
This. You’ll never recover from failed relationships if you don’t rebound. Not every rebound works, but the ones that fail don’t fail statistically more than any other form of shot.
Ask any basketball player. Scoring on a rebound still counts for two points.
God DAMNIT, Sarah!
Stop Sarahing it up, Sarah !
Make this a thing.
anyone wanna make a list of what each character’s name means as a verb? i think we all know what ‘to joe’ means. a significant percentage of the female student body at iu has experienced it
To Leslie: Make a serious heartfelt effort to help people understand that falls flat.
To Daisy: Get distracted from business at hand by amorphous lust.
If Joyce was rubber and Dina was glue…
you forget the actual scale of this timeline
Next she’ll tell Becky that Dina is probably just experimenting.
Jeez, Sarah, these are not dealbreakers.
of course dina is experimenting, she’s a budding scientist. how do you learn what works, and doesn’t work, if you don’t try? everyone experiments when it comes to relationships, some are just more sure of their hypotheses than others.
I agree with you. However, I meant it as a shorthand for a particular fear, in which the person who is totally sure that she’s a lesbian gets wrapped up with a person who is “just experimenting”, and it turns out the experimenting person isn’t into women at all and can’t love them the same way. It would be a nasty thing for somebody to tell Becky.
Sarah asking Dina if she’s experimenting would probably lead to the most adult conversation Dina’s ever had the opportunity of being involved in. And with the fears are dramas around them, that would surely be a good thing.
Shitty way to be starting it though.
*fears and dramas
All of this chain, especially Leorale’s bit. Sarah’s bringing up a common fear with little basis in reality, especially with the good couple practices we’ve seen so far with Dina and Becky. Who cares if Becky is on the rebound and who cares if Dina is experimenting and doesn’t know for sure the full scope of her sexuality. Both are happy and both are treating each other well and doing actions that are healthy and adorable.
Just let them be kids in love instead of dumping society’s garbage on them…
Though, now that I say that out loud, that’ll always be Dina and Becky’s main conflicts. The fact that their relationship will always face a number of external conflicts, one of which being how it looks to people on the outside with a more normative view of things (oh, you’re both too immature, how can you be sure of your feelings, rebound, mismatch sexuality, etc…)
From a cynical point of view, the biggest obstacle to Dina and Becky’s relationship long term is that they’re both 18 and that it’s the first real relationship for both.
Most young first relationships don’t last a lifetime. That Becky’s homeless and likely hiding trauma and Dina isn’t neurotypical and that there will be external pressures both because of that and because it’s a lesbian relationship, just make it harder. The rebound thing hardly registers.
But that’s all okay. As much as we’d like them too, those first relationships don’t have to last. They’re how we learn. If and when it ends, they’ll hurt and move on. Meanwhile, they can enjoy it.
And so can we, vicariously.
Replying to myself:
On the meta level – fuck all that.
God answers lesbian prayers.
Becky gets her happy ending.
Dina does not ‘just’ experiment. She tests with rigorous repetition, and makes no secret of it.
Becky’s seemed fine with that so far! And Dina has informed her of the experiment’s fairly conclusive results thus far: Dina enjoys smooching Becky.
Not that Sarah can’t find some other wrench to throw in things with the best intentions.
1. Does this need to be said?
2. Does this need to be said by me?
3. Does this need to be said right now?
It really speaks for the quality of the product, when I find I’m trying desperately to give advice to a fictional character. But seriously, Sarah, wait until all three of these are “yes” next time.
Your 1-2-3 approach is quite cold and calculated, hence unreasonable in many if not most instances. It’s more along the lines of:
1. Do I feel like this should be sed?
2. If yes, should I say it now?
3. Possible damage assessment before you say whatever. (More then likely this step is skipped at least 50% of the time.)
4. How should I say it? (Often replaced with ‘Just blurt it out.’)
Not just skipped but inverted! “How can I REALLY make this hurt?” is often a consideration in human speech.
And I’m not talking in a game of the dozens here.
I feel like that’s what Sarah was asking Dina questions to try to figure out. Dina wanted a direct and clear statement of Sarah’s concerns before Sarah even decided what she should do with the information. She got what she asked for, and her concerns aren’t unreasonable. There are bigger concerns at issue, but Becky jumped from one naïve girl to another damn quick. There’s no way to know how she’s processed her feelings, if at all…
you got 2 and 3 mixed up. it’s:
1. Does this need to be said?
2. Does this need to be said right now?
3. Does this need to be said right now by me?
also, i’d credit craig ferguson unless you heard it elsewhere. 3 marriages it took him to learn this…
Very similar to ‘Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?’ which I feel would compliment those rules well.
Yeah, that’s definitely a thing Sarah is messing up here. Even if this was an actually worthwhile thing to be worried about that was time-sensitive to get out in the open, this was the absolute wrong time to bring it up.
I mean, Dina is emotionally drained at the end of a long day, has stated her emotional batteries are low, and was clearly intending a light little friendly capstone where she was glowing in her happiness. Throwing something like this on her even if it was necessary immediate information was going to hit way deeper and more negatively than at any other moment.
And given the superficiality of the complaint and its disconnection from anything immediately concerning (oh noes, you may break up in the future, be afraid), there’s really no reason to wait until the morning when people are feeling refreshed.
I mean, best case scenario from a thing like this is starting a late night argument between a couple over something stupid. And the scenarios get worse from there.
I find that a lot of people don’t understand emotional batteries, and not just cause Sarah is like 19. My mum’s emotional batteries are recharged by being around people. For me, even if I’m solely around my friends, people that I like, and am enjoying spending time with them, when I get home I am still SO TIRED. And she doesn’t get that at all. Whenever I come home from class and reply to her “How was it” with “I’m exhausted” she’s just like, “You shouldn’t be exhausted. Go out and be social, you’ll feel better!” Ayyyyyy.
TL;DR: people are often really terrible at understanding those who are different than they are, whether they are kids or not. (but I do agree this was a shit thing for Sarah to bring up right this moment)
Yeah. For me, interacting with people is work. Sometimes very enjoyable work, but it is still an effort.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Dina! Fight against the Sadness!
WILLIS.
NO.
NO.
YOU PUT DINA’S SMILE BACK RIGHT NOW.
Bad cartoonist! Bad bad cartoonist!
No fanart for a week!
it probably helps to realize that a baby will probably vomit on him in retaliation. Like, statistically, knowing babies.
Or piss in his mouth.
Statistically , saying
Tiny cute little meters-out of vomit justice
He knew that that was what he would be facing around now, and so wanted to make sure he had karmically earned it. 😉
Dina is so sad the lighting in the room changed in sympathy.
“you’re not sad because the lighting dimmed–the lighting dimmed because you’re sad.” – that guy from mib2*
(*i know that’s not the actual quote.)
Sarah does like Dina. She doesn’t want her hurt. Sometimes telling people things that ‘no one else will’ is for he best. I guess Sarah is trying to save her deeper hurt.
I’m not surprised that Dina knew – Dina is not stupid.
Poor little thing. Sad Dina’s should not be allowed….MR. WILLIS.
HA! Called it! So why do I feel horrible?
“I realised that ‘I told you so’ only works within a certain threshold of tragedy”
Wait crap who said that that was in doa right? I don’t rememberrrrrrr
Sarah said it. After the party where Joyce was nearly raped.
She hates seeing hurt coming and not being able to do something about it.
It feels like watching a severe accident in slow-motion, your brain yelling ‘do this, do THAT!!!’ without being able to act.
Unfortunately, where relationsships are concerned, you need to throw reality to the winds for some time to give it a chance to work – and this is something Sarah doesn’t get. To her, the logical – and likely – end seems inevitable, and therefore she is the master of sabotaging her own relationships.
Sometimes, like with her former roommate, she is right in her accessment that things are incredibly dangerous indeed even if all others prefer to ignore it. But unfortunately, she sees this danger also where it isn’t.
Dina is sad. Do not like. I want her happy. Sarah, damn you, can’t you leave well enough alone?
Ohhh, so that’s the bad news Sarah meant.
Being a ‘rebound’ isn’t all bad.
“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”….Alfred, Lord Tennyson
“Try it.” -Agent K
From personal experience I can say a rebound can be just as loved or more so then the original love/relationship – sometimes actually having to do with being a rebound. In my case, I was and to this day still am grateful to my second girlfriend BECAUSE she helped me deal with the aftermath of the first relationship ending. I was in a really bad place for a while there and she helped me get out of it – for that a part of me shall always love her.
This and what DarkVeghetta said.
Rebounds are not actually doomed relationships. They are a necessary component of healthy dating and I’ve seen so many “successful” rebounds in my life that it doesn’t even trip a sensor anymore when a relationship is someone’s rebound or not.
Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever even been in a relationship that wasn’t a rebound for someone (usually the other person).
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/health/04well.html?referer=&_r=0
For what it’s worth, having loved and lost will put you at worse physical health than someone who never found love at all, even if you find new love afterward.
Damnit, Sarah, you are no longer one of my favorites.
Sarah now has equal destructive potential to Mary.
I picture her a bit more as a less successful Mike….
Nooo no no. Sarah is the one who painfully tears off your band-aid to replace it and help the healing process. Mary is the one who causes injuries requiring band-aids.
Thank you, Sentinel. The amount of Sarah-bashing disturbs me. I get part of it is that Dina is such a beloved character (by me as well), but if we truly love her so much then shouldn’t we respect her stated desire for directness and her ability to assess the situation intelligently? Instead people seem to be infantilizing her in exactly the way she herself has said she finds offensive. Becky and Dina are still my OTP; they’re the only current couple I think makes sense for the long term, but trying to shove important issues and feelings under the carpet may be counter-productive.
It’s true that Sarah might’ve found a better time to express her concern, but I don’t think that would’ve mollified anyone much. So why such a strong reaction to her? There are some comparisons to Mike here and there but I’ve never seen nearly as much vitriol directed at him, no matter how explicitly asshole-ish his behavior. It’s true that other characters (such as Joe and Danny) do get negative responses too, but I still wonder whether implicit biases are a factor in all this hate for Sarah.
Why is it that whenever I hear or see the words “could have found a better time”, I feel like they’re really saying “I wish you had never said that, so that my bubble of happiness was never popped”?
Seriously, when is “a better time” to hear something like what Sarah is saying?
I mean, I can think of much WORSE times. Such as “while Dina and Becky are presently making out.”
I think it’s because she aggressively sticks her nose in other peoples’ business, despite vehemently claiming otherwise.
Uhhhhh. Except, those people usually come to her with their business. And ask for her opinion, or blessing, or help, or capitulation, or participation. She doesn’t seek them out, and definitely doesn’t welcome them. Often she’s actually been reluctant to say anything in the first place, beyond some variation of “This is a bad idea. For reasons. Don’t do it.” Dina brought her relationship to Sarah, and asked for directness. You can’t put the djinn back in the bottle, once you ask or prompt you get what you get. And it might not be pleasant.
Dina didn’t come to her for advice. She came to spread some cheer because she was seriously so happy she wanted to share it with Favourite #2.
Sarah decided this meant that she had to tell Dina that her relationship is actually super messed up, because Sarah thinks so.
Sarah Clinton, The Love Thermostat.
This. Plus the fact that this isn’t a real thing to be worried about. I mean, something like Joe intended to prey on Joyce? Yes, worth warning Joyce ahead of time. Oh noes, you might break up in the future, because something something rebound is a scary word? Nooope.
And it coming as a response to Dina showing her a little joy is clearly more connected to Sarah’s desire to push others away from her and her fear of joy and relationships than anything actually to do with Dina.
Which doesn’t make her a bad person, it makes her human. We’ve all done stuff we thought were kindnesses but were actually based in our damages. It’s an easy enough mistake to make.
I think Sarah’s a really good person who intends well and is often correct, but she’s no less prone to mistakes and those can often fuck her and those near her over.
From what I see Sarah didn’t just decide to say “her relationship is super messed up.” She first tried to see how important the relationship is to Dina, whether she’s likely to be blindsided by the complications that being a rebound might arise, and Dina’s other feelings about the relationship.
Dina did ask for Sarah’s direct opinion, and thats what she got. Yes, no advice was asked for, and as of yet None Has Been Given.
When I entered my first lesbian relationship, which was also a rebound, I wish like hell someone had said something to me. Because knowing now that my friends were already concerned about exactly the type of thing that eventually happened, but said nothing, wasn’t great either. If someone had been honest with me about what was going on it would have saved both of us a lot of heartbreak later, and really might have made the relationship easier.
Its easy to say that a rebound relationship isn’t a concern when you know the pitfalls, but if you go into any relationship with your eyes covered and ears plugged its all gonna go wahoonie. Be realistic and an optimist, this really is something Dina and Becky should talk about. The earlier the better, and these two have a fair chance of doing the thing right with open communication.
Oh come on, Mike aggressively sticks his fist in other people’s faces, or takes his business into else’s class to target that person. Yet people always seem to excuse him as somehow maybe being well-intended. The difference is that Sarah does actually, explicitly, help people even when it’s against her better judgement. Maybe those who keep singling Sarah out for scorn could use some more introspection?
Demoted to third-favorite.
Becky still loves Joyce, you’re the rebound, happiness is fleeting, relationships die, everyone you love will drift away and be lost forever in the ocean of time.
Eat Arby’s.
Also, there is no Santa Claus.
Snape killed Dumbledore, and then Alan Rickman died.
T.T
Want to listem some music? Here’s some by David Bowie who passed away a couple of days ago.
Hey, go read a book instead. Something by Terry Pratchett maybe?
So, because of your comment I just found out that one of my neighbors died 3 days ago as well. Huh.
The beginning of this year really sucks.
This year can blow one out its arse.
*Citizen Kane clap*
Oh yeah, I recall Walky dated Dina right after Joyce decided she couldn’t date him at that time…
Yeah, it was covered on the itswalky.com re-run not long ago.
:c Noooo baby girl come here it is sympathy through light/moderate/all-encompassing physical contact time
[apprehension intensifies] I wonder if Becky’s capricious enough to drop Dina like that…
No, she’s not. I mean, really. Atm, their relationship is good for both of them. As for the future… they’re young. It could go either way but I doubt it will leave a sour taste in anyone’s mouth regardless of how it turns out.
I just don’t see it.
It might be Willis’s intention, but I just can’t see the shape of that happening outside of some bizarre circumstance like Joyce deciding she’s into women and totally into Becky at the same time Dina runs off to join her clan of reanimated Dinosaurs.
There’s too much mutual care, good relationship practices on both their parts, and genuine appreciation from Becky for this to be likely to end in “ah thanks for helping me get over Joyce, now off to date for reals, bestest girlfriend who bites my dad’s face”.
Rebound doesn’t have to be intentional. In general even if Joyce DIDN’T exist, the fact that Dina is the FIRST girl who Becky is safe to date could also be an example of this problem, which is people dating other people because they are the only ones available and it fills the romance sized hole in their heart. It’s not a bad thing inherently, and sometimes it turns out great! But it is a thing people do.
Alt-text makes me suddenly see so many parallels. She’s trying to get Becky to reach her true potential by devoting herself to the sciences… Damn it, if you mess with Dina like that again I will stop reading this comic!
Well, no I won’t, but… I won’t be happy? Which I guess is your job. Damn you Willis.
;;; ;;;
;;; ;;;
;;; ;;;
—-
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Emote big enough to express how much this breaks my heart?
And in case this somehow breaks, I made a big ;-; out of ;’s and -‘s
Damn…no matter what universe she’s in, Dina can’t catch a break with relationships.
he did it the absolute madman
This isn’t okay. I don’t care what sob stories she’s got in her past, there’s no excuse for the way Sarah is shitting on everybody’s parade. There aren’t words strong enough for how much I hate this. (The ones that come closest get my comments deleted, but that’s another story.) At least Mike is enjoyable to watch. Look at Dina’s tears. Are you entertained?
Yes?
Also, I see no tears. Plus she’s mature enough to handle reality. Oh, and likely smart enough to try not let this bother her more then is healthy.
The fact that Dina was well aware (and pretty obviously so, she’s socially awkward not stupid) of this fact just emphasizes how utterly needless it was for Sarah to crap all over her good mood just for the sake of “being realistic.”
I’m pretty sure that if Dina had answered Sarah with the directness Dina asked of Sarah, Sarah would have grimaced and moved on if need be. She tested the waters, and Dina said she wanted and needed direct. Maybe she should have more directly tested the waters, but I think that the reaction to her statement would be different if Dina were in a relationship people found less cute.
And I don’t really know why Sarah or anyone else who isn’t us or maybe Amber would know anything about Dina’s level of awareness than they’ve experienced. *We* know how insightful Dina is, but Sarah and others have mostly experienced a Dina who announces her observations like a nature documentarian and has stated she has difficulties with social constructs, sooooo…yeah. Its completely possible from Sarah’s perspective that Dina isn’t in this with eyes wide open. If this were say…Ethan, I think we’d want someone to say something. Possibly several somethings.
Or if the relationship wasn’t as healthy as it is. I mean, if there actually were glaring problems with Becky’s treatment of Dina or so on, that’d be one thing, but when they’re both responding to their challenges in appropriate ways and setting up good boundaries and practices, it’s somewhat out of left field.
More so, because this observation is way more garbage than a lot of Sarah’s observations. Like, oh noes, rebound. Aren’t rebounds scary? Oooh. Doesn’t quite have the same punch and relevance as “Becky might not want to share the same bed given her feelings for you” or “Joe is not a safe man to date if you’re looking for a long-term commitment with someone who respects your sexual boundaries”.
We know that. Sarah doesn’t. The questions Sarah asked are pretty clear, and the answers can be equally clear. Dina had the opportunity to tell her how she’s approaching their relationship. She didn’t.
Do I think Sarah’s opinion is helpful? Depends on what comes next and what Dina does with it. It would have been helpful to me when I was in the same situation, but I’m not Dina and my relationship wasn’t as healthy (though it seemed like it could be at the time.) But not all opinions need to be helpful. If Dina and Becky’s relationship is so fragile that merely mentioning the possibility its a rebound relationship might crush it, then these two are already in major trouble. And if Sarah and Dina’s friendship depends on Sarah keeping her mouth shut about her concerns, then they’re in an equal amount of trouble.
Eh. One of Sarah’s main character flaws is that she’s absolutely afraid of happiness and healthy connections to others. She associates personal entanglement with fiery end so she’s very prone to viewing everyone’s personal entanglements as doomed, whether they be something like Joyce’s doomed relationship with Ethan, or something perfectly innocent and potentially positive like her budding connection with Jacob.
What she’s doing here is very human and expected. It’s just also really off base and somewhat inappropriate.
While in general I think sometimes Sarah’s timing is off, I don’t really have a problem here and I guess it’s because she’s talking to Dina. Dina appreciates how straight forward Sarah is, she has literally just said it. Sarah obviously has affection for Dina, as well. And she knows Dina doesn’t know all the subtleties of social interactions, so she’s worried she might not have considered this. Part of it is probably for her own sake, yeah–Sarah doesn’t to see a fall out and think “I should have said something to her”. I don’t like seeing Dina sad either… but I’m glad this is being discussed. I don’t know if Sarah is the best one for her to have the discussion with, but I think Dina should have it with someone.
How about with Becky?
Hmmm…
So, if “Damn you Willis” was a unit of power, how much does this particular strip generate?
Enough to power a desalinization plant. FOR ALL OUR TEARS.
Ouch my heart
SARAH NO.
So she didn’t really have “bad news” so much as she just wanted to share her own pessimistic interpretation of the situation.
Is that even the proper use of the term “rebound”? I thought that referred to when you start dating somebody new directly after ending a long term relationship.
Commonly people enter into a rebound relationship just because they’re unprepared to be single again, which is the issue with a rebound. Shoddy foundations.
That doesn’t apply to this situation. Having recently been rejected by her crush doesn’t really imply anything about Becky’s motivation for dating Dina.
But it can? Catching someone on the rebound doesn’t have to mean they were in a relationship, you’re catching them on the rebound of hurt feelings, when they’re more likely to “take what they can get” because they badly want affection and validation.
“Rebound” refers to getting into a relationship with someone immediately after being rejected by someone you were serious about. The relationship is a comfort to ease the pain of rejection, rather than one founded on mutual respect and affection. Sarah is, with some good reason, concerned that Becky isn’t actually that interested in Dina, she’s just hiding from her pain of being turned down by Joyce.
Heck, Becky has a lot of pain to go around right now. She’s been rejected all over the place. Joyce, school, religion, Toe Dad. Some of these things don’t deserve her feeling rejection, but the experience is there.
Tbh, irl my danger sense would be tingling So So Hard too. Dina was one of the first people to accept Becky who knew the whole story. She holds the key to a whole new world for Becky. Its a similar situation for Dina. One of the first people in cast to show an active interest in dinosaurs, to really listen, to take her as she is and treat who she is as a functioning adult. This can forge a strong bond, or it can lead to any number of problems. Its understandable to want to protect a friend.
Especially one who seems to accept one as you are…
Yeah, it’s one of the main ways that they are both so healthy and why their biggest challenge isn’t normative garbage like “rebounds” but rather the immense amount of social BS you put up with when you’re a young queer couple on the raggedy edge.
Dina and Becky show each other an amazing amount of acceptance for things that have been sources of pain. Becky accepts Dina’s emotional quirks and doesn’t view her as a child or an imposition. She finds her dinosaur facts and babbling about evolution fascinating and enlightening and is perfectly happy with a quiet evening reading about evolution. And in turn, Dina accepts Becky’s queerness, after an entire lifetime of that being a sin and that being a reason to put her in danger. Dina doesn’t view that as something that stains her or makes a relationship not able to be pursued or a reason to fix her. She accepts her 100% and views her as worthy of being “saved”.
They are very illuminating and refreshing for each other and are doing a lot to avoid a lot of the problems of “first queer couples”.
Are they doing a lot to avoid those pitfalls? Because from what I see most of them either haven’t come up or are inapplicable because of the natures of the people involved. Its good that they share interests and don’t look at each other with contempt or engage infantilization, but thats kind of the baseline of a relationship. The fact that Dina recognizes her quirks and is open about them as well as her feelings about them is a good sign, but that’s not a product of their cultivating a healthy relationship. Thats just how Dina is. The fact that Becky accepts Dina’s obvious quirks is a good start, but should be a common courtesy, especially if you’re starting a relationship. I’m not exactly trying to disagree, but I’m not seeing a lot of intent or effort in the examples listed in your comment or in the comic, so I’m curious about what I’m not seeing.
It probably doesn’t help that like Sarah (perhaps), I don’t really see Becky in the best light. She seems kind of flighty to me, and also it worries me that she’s been guilty of doublespeak in the past i.e. how she acted with Dorothy, or her behavior with Joyce. I know that now that she’s calmed down with the dickishness, been through a majorly traumatic event, and is in an ultra adorbs relationship, she’s become a crowd favorite, but Becky can be kind of an inconsiderate asshole. In some ways she’s worse than Mike or Carla. There’s at least intent behind what Mike and Carla do, its clear that at least some droplet of thought goes into it. It seems like Becky just does and says shit sometimes, purely because she wants to, without a bit of consideration for anyone else. She seems better with people she cares about, but even the way she’s treated and handled her friendship with Joyce has been flighty, disingenuous, inappropriate, and kind of cruel. She’s gotten better, and its clear she cares when she realizes something is wrong, but yeahhhh. Not a lot of forethought there.
In many ways I like Becky as a character. I like their relationship, its cute. They’re cute together, but I’m seeing much a lot of d’awww and not much actual substance. Which is natural early on, and more dangerous the longer it continues. Unless of course they continue without challenge, which given the comic above? Unlikely. I look forward to seeing more actual relationship mechanics and frameworks as the d’awww fades. If they let it grow beyond the d’awww it could be as solid as you seem to suggest it is and as most of us want, or it could die at the d’awww stage. Some relationships aren’t supposed to go much past d’awww.
“The fact that Becky accepts Dina’s obvious quirks is a good start, but should be a common courtesy, especially if you’re starting a relationship.”
Mm yeah it totes SHOULD. Too bad it usually isn’t. Becky is literally the only one in Dina’s current group of friends to accept Dina at face value as an adult, and this says great things about her and her approach to people – she’s not doing what everyone else does, she’s not doing what’s expected, she’s doing BETTER. Be it because she’s just that interested in personally Dina and therefore insightful about personally her, or because she’s in general the sort of person who takes people at face value and doesn’t spare effort to understand them as they are instead of going by surface clues and stereotypes – both are really, really good signs here.
And she’s actively engaged with Dina’s special interest and likes to hear Dina rambling about it – that’s honestly as dreamy as it gets, from Dina’s side.
This doesn’t mean they’ll ~get married and adopt kids and spend the rest of their life together~. It means that if/when they eventually break up, it’s most likely going to be with fond feelings and memories, and without the sort of pain of betrayal and disappointment that Sarah fears here.
However, Sarah can’t know this the way we do. She doesn’t exactly follow the two around on their dates. So I can’t agree with those hating on her for this, either. Sarah’s warning happens to be most likely superfluous, but not having all the information, she can’t know that.
And Dina herself chose to hear the warning rather than give Sarah the information. Be direct – Dina knew what she was asking for.
Timing isn’t best, yes, but waiting for ~good timing~ is a good way to delay it forever. Again, Sarah doesn’t exactly follow Dina around – any time they do meet is likely to not be good timing for one reason or another.
So this here, when they are one on one, as soon as possible, is as good as any, honestly.
This seems about where Sarah is going, yeah. Sarah seems to like Dina, and not be so hot on Becky, so she’s concerned that Becky might just use Dina as an emotional rock for a while.
Honestly? In real life I’d also be looking at the relationship somewhat suspiciously. I haven’t seen a lot of relationships starting in weather as stormy as Becky’s recent life episodes ending well. Like, it HAS happened, but they’re the statististical minority. So Sarah, who does have the alarms set to hair trigger, is understandably concerned that this could explode messily in a month and hurt Dina.
True, but the rebound thing is on the bottom of the list of shit to worry about. Much more pressing is that her entire life has been turned upside down and she’s having to rebuild from scratch, with all the stress and PTSD that entails.
Like, the fact that she still has snuggly wet feelings for Joyce kind of pales in terms of “pressure and impact on relationships” in comparison to all of that.
I think Sarah assumes Dina is aware of the ‘life turned upside down thing’ but worries if she might not have caught the ‘rebound’ thing, which is yes not the most awful but would still suck to be blindsided by.
Well Dina did fight a toedad for Becky. Stuff like that matters…..although I guess so did Joyce….on the back of a motorcycle…This might be a tough one for Dina.
Nah, the girl who literally tries to maul your abuser like a velociraptor is coming out ahead of pretty much anyone in my books.
That seemed to be Becky’s opinion at the time:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/fought/
Hell, I’ll fight Toedad for Becky.
But since it’s on the principle of “Toedad’s a homophobic/queerphobic douchecanoe” it probably doesn’t count.Aaggghhh. I know Sarah means well, and she may be right. I’m sure she thinks she’s protecting Dina here. Never mind the fact that she’s causing pain to Dina now.
The fact that Dina is most likely a rebound doesn’t automatically mean that deeper feelings can’t develop over time. One can never really know. Sarah may be right that Becky and Dina are ultimately doomed. Even so, she could let the relationship play out as it may, and let Dina enjoy this right now. A relationship may not work out in the long run; that doesn’t automatically render said relationship a waste of time. There can still be value in the experience.
I kind of lost track of what I meant to say. I suppose I just feel that Sarah should let Dina enjoy this experience for now, come what may. I’m not good with relationships or people myself, so I’m really not qualified to offer advice. All I know is that seeing Dina’s face in those last three panels broke my hearts a little bit.
Gah, my “heart,” not my “hearts.” I only have the one. I’m not a mutant, I swear.
You could be a Time Lord.
Too late. The Sentinels are already en route.
Or that Becky can’t love her just as much and love her in a positive manner. I mean, attraction to multiple people happens all the time and while she may have puppy-dog face romantic feelings for Joyce, Dina is an awesome woman Becky deeply appreciates who loves her back.
Dina is always going to win this one. The Joyce feelings more heavily impact her interactions with Dorothy than anything to do with Dina.
I feel like I have to point out that a relationship involves two people and just cause one of them is totally OK with “being in love with more than one person” maybe the other person isn’t so keen on their significant other being in love with multiple people.
I personally don’t have a problem with poly people unless they’re specifically trying to get into romantic relationships with me cause I very highly value monogamy.
Forgive me I’m tired, and feel like I’m talking in circles. I guess I just mean loving many people at once is fine only if your partner is also OK with this, and should be something discussed between the two instead of just being like “well this is how I feel so you should respect that, The End” (from either side)
It’s not even a poly thing. It’s a human being thing. People who are happily mono sometimes struggle with attraction to multiple people (see Danny) and that doesn’t necessarily mean anything or threatens the relationship in any way. Especially when it’s a situation like this where the other attraction simply isn’t gonna happen. Ever.
I think I’m making a distinction between thinking “oh that person who isn’t my SO is attractive/hot/bangable” vs love. Like, I’ve looked at a guy/chick and been like “yeah he/she’s hot” (and immediately felt guilty but that’s my own self-esteem issues there), but I’ve never looked at some random person (while being in a relationship with my SO) and thought “I would really like to be in a romantic relationship with them”
Noooo, precious Dina! How could anyone feel okay making her so sad?! I can’t remember her ever looking this upset. =(
Noooo, the limbo is gone! Goodbye perpetual comments 🙁
Fare thee well Limbo we barely knew ye
Don’t worry, we can still predict the moment that Becky gets kicked out, and what’ll happen with Joyce’s parents, and Joycelyn, and what’ll Dorothy do when she gets accepted to Yale after the comic ends, etc. etc. etc. If all those things happened, we’d find something else.
Uncertainty is a constantly renewable resource, and we like talking. Limbo lives on.
“Joycelyn”?
Is that a crack ship i haven’t been aware of?
Nah, that is Joyce’s sister, who visit during the parent visit dabacle, who the comment section thought was a gay male until it turned out she was a trans girl.
not with that first “y” it’s not
Would be funny if true.
“Sorry Joyce, I’m not very creative so when the editor asked for a pseudonym I just said Joyce-something”
“Goshdarnit”
We must pass on the legend!
Gather round children and ye shall hear, of the perpetual limbo of the dumbing of age comments section. It began with a ban, I’ll tell you that, though I can’t imagine what pissy notions were shat. And then a reply, made by a girl named Ana, who thinks Willis is going bananas! At that point I commented, wondering what was up, at that point the whole thing became a big crux. Replies and replies! Nothing connecting, although I imagine we were all just reflecting. Eventually it ended, fell into the void, and will probably begin again next time someone feels annoyed.
That rhymed. *nods in appreciation*
my brother was someones rebound. they got married.
But the thing is… your brother’s life story was not written by David Willis.
It is also atypical.
I mean it’s atypical of relationships in general. Most relationships end prior to death.
Hastily formed relationships even moreso.
It’s not though. Most long-term relationships I know about were someone’s rebound.
Heck, I’m my current gf’s rebound (we’re now at 3 years). I was my previous partner’s rebound (we lasted 8 and a half years).
Rebound means jack-shit for healthiness and length of a relationship.
Soggies did not rule?
Yep. I met a guy and thought he’d be a fun person to flirt with before the inevitable mutual loss of interest in a couple weeks or so.
Five years later, he’s my primary partner and I’m planning on moving countries for him.
Totally appropriate that you said that with a Dorothy avatar.
Sarah, it’s okay for you to point these things out if you have something constructive to say in the next day’s strip. That’s not how you roll though, is it?
It’s almost like Sarah’s projecting her fears of becoming Jacob’s rebound relationship.
ok see. the thing is. shut the fuck up sarah
given your status as dinas #2 favorite person, this is frankly unacceptable
Right? I remember once Sarah said “I don’t like to get in other peoples’ business”.
That’s exactly what you like, Sarah!
I wouldn’t say she LIKES it more that she has a kind of warped savior complex that compels her to try to save people from their ignorant happiness even when that happiness doesn’t come from ignorance and all she’s doing is rubbing salt into a wound they are well aware of.
Definitely. She definitely has a feeling of “it comes to me to say the thing no one else is saying, god this sucks”, but the problem is she does it with her own fears as well as actual hard truths (see her sabotaging of her relationship with Jacob).
And this is, what, a couple of weeks after the incident with Becky’s dad? How do we know that she’s not just bitter about that and basically thinking Joyce’s bad mood is Becky’s fault? She can hold a grudge after all. ;;
“Couple of weeks”
Th incident with Becky’s dad was on monday.
This is friday.
Same week!
On the bright side here- dina knew. Sarah’s not telling her anything new. Given her reaction here, there’s two possibilities; dinas been deliberately ignoring the potential ramifications of Becky’s ongoing feelings for Joyce, or they’ve been eating at her. Neither is a good situation. Sarah’s introduced a new possible course- having someone to talk to. Sarah might not be the best choice for this, but thinking of the limited other people dina might be expected to turn to for advice (like.. Maybe amber), she’s not an especially bad choice. Particularly for dina. I mean she’s probably going to be too , but still.
*too negative
To be honest, I can’t see any actual ramifications from Becky’s feelings for Joyce. Sure, she’s hurt and sad because of it, but besides being more thankful for Dina’s charms, I can’t see it affecting their relationship in any meaningful way. A person can love two different people at once without those feelings screwing over their actual relationship (provided sed relationship is with one of the two).
Especially when one of those people is not even a possible romantic partner. Who the heck lets pining over straight people get in the way of an actual romantic relationship.
Is that a rethorical question? Because feelings are an incredibly, incredibly messy subject that doesn’t listen to logic in the least. If I had ten bucks for every person I’ve seen completely hung up on someone who they know for a fact is not in the slightest bit available to them I’d have enough money to buy myself a PS4 and a couple games.
I’ve seen an actual, long term relationship broken because one of the people involved couldn’t get over a previous crush that *never actually reciprocated and was also taken*. Sarah is not exactly super offbase in being worried, especially seeing how she doesn’t know Becky.
Sadly, though I can see it negatively impacting things, largely because Dina doesn’t trust her instincts and so is much more likely to be swayed by society or other people telling her that a certain type of interaction is negative.
I don’t think she will break up with Becky over this, but I can definitely see her doing more potentially co-dependent behavior with Becky to try and “show her value” and “help Becky get over Joyce”, which would sabotage currently healthy romantic dynamics.
The Willis giveth and the Willis taketh away
Damneth Be The Name Of The Willis.
Dammit, Sarah, you made Dina sad and are throwing a wrench in my OTP.
AND NOW I MUST DESTROY YOU
I’m just going to say “Damn you Willis” and then I’ll fly away…until Sarah decides to chop off my wings
Sarah, you neglected to consider that Dina is a Clever Girl. Of course she knew.
Honestly, I hope Becky confronts Sarah about this, or that Dina stands up for her love. No matter what the situation is, telling someone that their happiness is false or invalid is not okay.
Agreed, but that’s not what Sarah sed. She simply stated a possibility, one that doesn’t invalidate anything unless Dina lets it – and I think Dina’s smarter then that.
Consider the possibility that neither Sarah or even Dina is giving Becky enough credit. Maybe she has more depth than they think.
Also, wasn’t only about week before that at Anderson that Becky actually realized that she loved Joyce?
Hmm. I was kinda expecting something a bit deeper/worse. This just seems like a call to actually talk to Becky about her feelings and come to an agreement about what they both want/expect from the relationship.
For what it’s worth Becky’s behaviour and her genuine excitement about Dina’s interests seem to imply that she’s not just ‘a rebound’ but a genuine new friend, even if the romantic aspect doesn’t last.
Yeah, I would expect that to come about if Dina was to ask directly. Cause, pretty much every other time Dina has expressed doubts about her own worthiness, Becky has been quick to sing her praises and point out all the awesome things she loves about being with Dina.
Am I the only person who thinks that the mention of ‘rebound’ actually makes this feel less natural?
Like, I feel the strip would work better with Sarah just being pessimistic about relationships in general. Why is Sarah acting like this was new news to Dina when she was standing right next to Dina when Becky admitted that her feelings for Joyce hadn’t just vanished overnight. Dina even commented on it to Sarah directly at the time!
Yeah, having come down from my furor, this scene does seem a bit redundant. We’ll just have to see what it connects to in the next strip.
acknowledging that Becky still has feelings for joyce isnt the same as acknowledging that Becky may have latched onto the first person to be 100% nice to her
I think Sarah already knows that Dina knows that Becky still has feelings for Joyce.
I think Sarah is trying to figure out if Dina understands the full implications of what that means. (Or could mean. Of course Sarah is taking the most pessimistic understanding of a rebound relationship). I do think this is coming from actual concern on Sarah’s part, not just Sarah being miserable for the sake of being miserable though.
I never assume active ill-will from Sarah (unless the target is herself) it’s usually just cynical attempts to spare people future pain. Sarah is likely patronizing Dina here and assuming she wasn’t fully aware of the social situation she’s in it’s just that she’s wrong, Dina is well aware of it so now she’s just dredging shit up and killing her good mood.
To be fair to Sarah, for all she knew Dina COULD be not aware. She hasn’t followed Dina and Becky around on dates and doesn’t know what they mentioned/discussed and what they haven’t.
Apparently, no one notices the Dinosaur Chick, not even people communicating with her at the time.
Ohhhhh, poor Dina. I hope it gets better for her soon!!
Also, sorry for the slight change of topic but is her name pronounced Dee-na or Dye-na? This has been bugging me forever 🙁
Dee-nah. (It’s on his personal tumblr, and I think it’s also in the comic faq?)
Yep, point six in the FAQ!
The hat is angry that you made Dina sad. The hat will now eat your face. Fear the hat.
that hat looks grumpier every panel lol
I love that line in the second panel. It’s like poetry.
Sarah does these things thinking it will soften the impact. Mike does things like this ’cause he enjoys the impact. Both fail to consider that they affect the outcome. I am SLOWLY learning when to keep my mouth shut to avoid being responsible for the resulting disasters.
Sarah does these things because they literally got together days ago and are acting like Becky isnt a homeless refugee who is girlfriends with someone she met DAYS ago while orbiting her crush of 10+ years
so all relationships that just started need to be looked down upon cause they just met? or what. theyre not really acting like that. how do one act if they act as if she *is* a homeless person and they just met? talk about her being homeless *constantly*? never dare to touch eachother because they just met despite them wanting to touch eachother and both are okay with it?
Totally unrelated, but homeless people often are chided if they become romantically involved with someone, largely because we don’t fully view homeless people as fully people and believe that they should be spending the entirety of their effort to fixing their situation.
By what logic is Becky homeless? Even if the dorm room shenanigans fall through, she could stay at her dad’s place while he rots in prison.
And then the place is gone when Toedad isn’t around to pay the bills, and it’s not like anyone will take her in.
Sounds like a Bene Gesserit teaching:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
“I am SLOWLY learning when to keep my mouth shut to avoid being responsible for the resulting disasters.”
Honestly, I’m okay with this. Becky is not only possibly rebounding, she’s also in an incredibly tumultuous, unstable situation that would cause someone to cling to someone else for a sense of stability. She’s still technically homeless, jobless, and without any adult support/family support. So, there are a lot of potential emotional issues in the relationship that *should* be considered. She’s just being real.
Sarah isn’t being pessimistic, negative, mean, or bitter, she is being the voice of realism. She’s *not* telling Dina that Becky doesn’t like her, or that her relationship isn’t valid, or that she should just cut all ties, she’s saying she should be aware of certain realities. And it’s not good news, it’s making Dina sad, but no one needs to be happy *all the time.* You especially shouldn’t remain purposefully ignorant to important shit because you think it’s more important to be happy all the time. Should she be happy about her relationship? Absolutely. But Dina also needs to be aware about stuff like this so it doesn’t catch her by surprise, and if she’s prepared for it, she and Becky can have a Meaningful Conversation about it. Knowing potentially upsetting things gives you a chance to prepare and take care of them.
Agreed. I’m not particularly happy (or enthused) with the way Sarah worded some things, and I don’t think this was the best of time…but I can’t see most people doing something entirely different in this situation. Becky is in an incredibly vulnerable position; Dina is as well for that matter. Not being able to talk about your SO’s vested romantic interest in another (or even their weaning feelings) is a big red flag. Again, it’s not worded the best way, but Sarah is just doing her best to prepare Dina for the reality that their relationship may not last forever. She just wants to make sure Dina will be mentally okay if the relationship turns sour.
I love Sarah, and even I was disappointed that she went there with Dina. But these two comments make me remember that I’m still justified in not thinking that Sarah is evil and trying to make everyone around her feel bad just because. She’s overly pessimistic about her own (love) life, sadly, but pretty spot-on when it comes to others. Remember how she was a party-pooper at the beginning of the semester, when Joyce and Dorothy were headed out to party with Roz? If only she had “pooped” harder. Joyce might be a little less scarred today. Maybe this conversation will provoke another one between Dina and Becky . . . and maybe it will lead them toward a stronger, more open and honest foundation for their relationship. If Sarah’s little cloud can sink their ship, what chance did it ever stand in a real storm?
Very much so. I’m of the opinion that Sarah is making a mistake here, but that doesn’t make her a bad person. Her pessimism is part of her and it’s the source of a lot of her good as much as it’s the source of her character flaws.
She’s not being a bad person, she’s just on the wrong page here, which makes sense. Even someone with as good a record as Sarah is going to bollocks it up here and there.
Remember how she was a party-pooper at the beginning of the semester, when Joyce and Dorothy were headed out to party with Roz? If only she had “pooped” harder.
Wow i can’t even …
Sarah is now responsible – for Joyce not listening to her advice?
That’s just .. absurd. Joyce is an adult, too, and responsible for her actions (being a beard for Ethan, forcing an atheist to visit a christian mess, still propagating the bible as a rulebook for your everyday life. Adnof course a lot of other stuff like attending to that party (against Sarah’s concerns), too!
“christian mess”
should have been “christian mass”
Freudian slip?
Oh i see what you’re saying alt text.
Dina’s getting incinerated soon in some chem lab!
Case number 203 of “Sarah is right but the fans cant handle it cus of feelz”
…he says, clearly ignoring the numerous comments saying “She’s absolutely a rebound but that’s not the end of the world,” in favor of patting himself on the back for being the smartest and most perceptive person in the room.
That’s one wordy sentence. I approve.
To be fair, about half of the 196 comments are along the “fans can’t handle it cus of feelz” side of the fence – but that’s still an exaggeration by a factor of approximately 2!
You know, even if half the comments are on the “fans can’t handle it” side, nothing in TG’s comment precludes that. It’s not like he says anything about “everyone” or “all the fans”. “The fans” doesn’t have to be a term that encompasses all of the comment section.
Sarah is right that Dina is likely in a rebound relationship, she is NOT right that Dina needed her to remind her of that fact.
Except she couldn’t know that for a fact and erred on the side of caution. A+ good friend.
While that is true, Becky can still move on and still have a good relationship with both. Just saying, you don’t have to word it like Becky is gonna dump her the next day or something ;;; Given this situaton, I think it’s safer to allow them to have SOME happiness as to not create any unneeded drama.
It’s a common misperception by young people new to dating. That any rebound must be doomed to fail, because attraction to multiple people is always a sign of doom in the movies.
So yeah, it’s natural that they’d both believe that that big scary word means “they’ll break up any second” rather than: This is a relationship. Proceed as normal and just double-check that you’re not taking advantage of the other person(s).
I agree. But my biggest problem with Sarah is that she seems to not know what tact is. I can appreciate honesty, but the wording and what not is kinda like a knife if you do not know how to say things honestly but not be so damned blunt. Bluntness works on people who can’t seem to get it in their heads, but Dina is a smart girl but one with a fragile emotional spectrum from what I can tell. So I think rather than just stating out right about that, she could have said in a way that wouldn’t make her as easily upset. As in, NOT in an overly-blunt fashion.
Dina literally asked her to be blunt about it. She appreciates Sarah-style directness. Sarah TRIED to be gentle and slow about it, Dina asked for bluntness instead. She understands and processes bluntness better. Sarah didn’t do anything wrong ehre.
Yup… but it just depends what kind of rebound you are and what kind of rebound you are ok with.
A rebound can be someone they decide to be with. So it matters entirely what Dina is ok with and how much a risk she is ok with.
and then its entirely up tobecky to figure out where she might stand in the future.
Dina has the right idea so far.. she knows she’s rebound, hell she’s probably research this situation to understand that social meaning more and her own emotions. and seemingly has chosen to do her best to see how far she can go
Also.. Ifeel for Sarah but she is a good friend, to all of them. I swear she does a lot of background work for people..
If it were anyone else, Sarah wouldn’t have said anything yet (probably). But it’s Dina, who actually listens to Sarah and values what she says. Sarah treats Dina like an adult when a lot of the cast doesn’t take her seriously, while Dina values that Sarah does this and doesn’t waste time on bullshit. While I hate to see Dina sad, I appreciate that Sarah is talking to Dina about this.
Thing about all the dating in DoA is that none of the characters in it think that their relationships are going to last when they think about it in long term. They just want to enjoy it will it last.
Thanks for putting Dina down, Sarah. #unforgivable
Well… all I can say is… God-fuckin’-dammit Sarah!
That’s not even news. Dina was literally standing next to you guys when you mentioned Becky’s feelings for Joyce. Also there’s nothing inherently wrong with a rebound relationship.
YES.
I mean, hard feelings to deal with, but I’m happy I was right and Dina Had this figured out. Even Sarah underestimates her and thinks she doesn’t understand things that… She actually has a decent grip on. She said it: she’s capable of making these choices for herself.
She is capable, but it’s always good to have a failsafe friend who’ll make sure you are not blindsided by things you might not have noticed. Dina noticed this; doesn’t mean she was GUARANTEED to, based on information Sarah has. She doesn’t exactly follow her around on dates.
In all fairness, I find it hard to imagine how this rebound relationship could go worst than Semmiverse Dina’s.
Still, though. G’dammit, Willis.
oh yes i was just wondering when the NRE was gonna wear off… or, you know, someone just starts peeling at it.
THAT ALT TEXT IS SO CRUEL but true. I also thought it was unfortunately one of Dina’s defining character traits. 🙁
TOooooo relatable character trait.
Dina, why you gotta break my heart?
Noooooo, Sad Dina is the worst….
Dammit Sarah, did you have to go there? Also, don’t worry Dina, please don’t be sad. Just honestly ask Becky about whether or not this is the case.
Don’t worry Dina. Becky came for the mouth-smooches, stayed for the dinosaurs but you have caught her line hook and sinker in your own right.
If anything, I’d say Becky is more thankful (and therefor committed) to have her badass girlfriend then without having been on the rebound.
Both of this. Becky hella appreciates her Badass Girlfriend and that’s very much been trumping over (and probably helping her heal from) her lingering feelings for Joyce.
“If someone ever tells me it’s a mistake to have hope, well, then, I’ll just tell them they’re wrong and I’ll keep telling them until they believe. No matter how many times it takes.”
–Puella Raptor Dina Scientifica
Sarah’s Kyuubey, right?
Wait, does that mean Walky was the one who reset the universe?!
….No. I believe. This can last. ;;;;
See… Sarah’s coming off like a jerk, but hard truths are needed at times-which is by Dinas addmission here, what she wants.
But that’s allready been said: what’s interesting about this to me is the nature of their friendship, Sarah being blunt is socially simple, and Dina craves simple human interaction- without all the machavillian mind games.
This follows through in Dinas very childlike relationship with Becky: No responsibilities, no need to edit themselves around each other, and no conversation outside of Dinas concert zone.
Basically, Becky, while being in many ways the inverse to Sarah, is still just as socially simple from Dinas point of view.
I don’t think the fact that it’s a rebound is likely to kill the relationship, but rather, what happens when they have an argument, or need to compromise.
Although, the conversation of if it’s a rebound or not may be the trigger.
By the way, is Dina confirmed autistic/aspergers?
Her charachter seems to be a perfect potrayel, but I’m interested if the exact phrasing has come up.
As far as I know, Willis is avoiding labeling Dina for whatever reason.
Yeah, she’s explicitly not diagnosed with anything. Which… I wouldn’t actually expect an East Asian autistic woman to be diagnosed by college if they were able to get there without official accommodations, tbh. (I totally think she’s spectrummy.)
There’s a reason a shitload of autistic people view Dina as autistic representation in media. She’s really spectrumy – and a really good example of the kind of autistic kid who can make it all the way through school with obvious and severe social deficits but never get flagged or diagnosed (Hi 10 years ago I basically was Dina except white and obsessed with chemistry and weather instead of dinosaurs).
If you have a BAPy extended family (like Dina and I do), nobody will flag you as that weird. Hey, we’re a family of weirdos. Okay, she’s a little quiet and eccentric, but she’s smart. She’s in third grade and reading and doing math at a college level. Smart kids are weird sometimes. NBD. Get her in an enriched/gifted program, she’ll be fine.
If you’re quiet, your teachers and others around you will overlook you. People realized you’re a bit strange and you don’t socialize well, but there’s always kids who are higher-priority – struggling with the work, disruptive, having breakdowns, etc. If your meltdowns are generally only in response to external stimuli like bullying (Dina has only had violent outbursts in response to people being jerks to her or those she cares about), it’s written off as just a kid who’s maybe a little less emotionally mature than her peers – she obviously just needs to socialize more. Your passions (I refuse to use the phrase “special interest” because nope if non-autistic people get to be passionate about stuff then so do I, damn it) are just written off as childish obsessions. Okay, maaybe she’s a bit more obsessed than most, but whatever, I’d rather her be obsessed with the material than some pop idol or TV show.
So you make it through, and it’s an open secret that you’re a weirdo and probably have something but nobody has really ever taken the steps to get your issue identified because it was never really disruptive enough to anyone but you to start the process. Like, it was disruptive enough that people noticed and probably you got bullied, but to authority figures it was never to the level of, “Okay this kid is making it impossible for my classroom to function, we need to fix this like yesterday” which is the unfortunate threshold for action in most cases (I was referred to child psych in third grade because my behavior got to that point and my parents stopped the process in fourth because I had a teacher who knew how to handle me so classroom disruption stopped – one of my sibs, likewise, was only diagnosed with ADHD when they were failing everything and disrupting the class in high school. The system doesn’t proactively identify issues and work to address them before they blow up, it waits until there’s an ongoing slow-motion disaster and then decides to act). And, besides which, you’re a girl, isn’t autism more of a boy thing? (“The only developmental thing that fits is autism, but it’s rare for girls to get that, it’s really more of a boy thing so I don’t think we should bother.” <- why my child psych never referred me to a neurodevelopmental specialist for autism evaluation, right there. And my folks were fine with no referral because they didn't want an r-word in the family. Said to the psych in one of those conversations adults have about kids when they think kids aren't listening). And to a large extent, you have no way of knowing that other people genuinely experience the world differently from you, especially when you consider autistic difficulties with taking others' points of view. Autistic people, contrary to public belief, can develop theory of mind, but it’s harder for us to pick up on the subtle social cues that would tip us off that someone else has a different perspective on something than we do. See also why I can talk for 30 minutes on something I think is cool and without being interrupted I have no way of knowing that I lost someone completely way back at minute 4.
Anyway, Dina is totally spectrumy and it’s no surprise to me she was never diagnosed. I wasn’t until my mid-20s, after like a dozen people over the space of two years all independently told me they thought I was autistic (mostly either autistic people or family of autistic people).
Oh, BAP = Broader Autism Phenotype, by the way.
Essentially, BAP encompasses the sub-clinical part of the autism spectrum – people who have some autistic traits, but either not severe enough or not numerous enough to be diagnosed autistic. So, like, if you know an autistic kid and they have a parent who’s a little weird or inconsiderate sometimes but not intentionally and that person has an affinity for order and routine or maybe has something that they’re unusually passionate about, there’s a good chance the parent falls withing the BAP. From my layperson’s understanding, the existence of the BAP is actually one of the things that points to autism being a complex, polygenetic disorder, rather than there being just one “autism gene” which if it’s mutated results in autism.
This was a fascinating and informative read.
I also think Dina’s on the spectrum, and I think that’s really important to show, because neurodivergent characters in fiction are always treated as these little weirdos who need to be supported out of their own inherent failures as people. Dina will have none of that. She demands to be heard, her interests are treated with respect, people who try to objectify her as some voiceless, agency deprived kewpie doll get told off, and Dina seeks a relationship because it’s something she wants and feels real fulfillment and joy in pursuing.
YAAAAS this.
I especially like how Dina refuses to be infantilized. 😀
Cuz, yeah, infantilization is something I deal with on a constant and ongoing basis. Like people I’ve worked with referred to me with childish pet names like “baby” and what have you – not in a sexual harassment way, but in a “I am treating you like a child” way. And I imagine they thought they were doing me favors. But it’s both embarrassing and condescending and even if you want to help me Do Social better, treating me like your child is not the way to go about it. I am not a child. I am an adult, and fully as responsible for my actions as any other adult. I may have things I find difficult that most other adults do not, but that does not make me a child, any more than most other adults finding multivariable calculus difficult makes them childish compared to me.
I love how Dina is a developmentally disabled adult who claims her adulthood with far more assertiveness and determination than I was capable at her age. It’s great. Even better is that Willis has never portrayed Dina’s claiming of her adulthood as “adorable” or silly – she is portrayed as being completely, 100% in the right about it.
Do you know how friggin hard it is for me to find representation of autistic adulthood that supports autistic adults claiming our agency?! Outside of the autistic community (which exists and is awesome and if you’re looking for awesome autistic fiction, look up Sparrow Rose Jones and Michael Scott Monje, Jr, as just two examples, but there needs to be mainstream representation of us in this light, too), this is the only one.
Yeah. I’d also like it if neurodivergence could include a *good* ADHD character; so many people get it so ducking wrong. It steams me up to see the horrendous stereotypes of it in media, or to have characters whose functional immaturity is passed off as ADHD. It contributes to all these misconceptions which are false. Like any pervasive development disorder, it had its quirks of personality (which the mature ADHD-er won’t make an excuse of, but would acknowledge and address just as any do their flaws), but it also comes with somatosensory processing sensitivity (just like many aspies) and the hyperactivity does not feel like people think it does. TBH Becky acts a lot like me, and ADHD is a spectrum disorder, so I like to think she’s very mildly inclined thus.
Yeah, ADHD is heavily comorbid with autism and tends to run in families that also have a lot of autism in them (like mine). I don’t have it, but my non-autistic sibling does. And, yeah. My sib has many issues, but they’re not an ADHD stereotype at all.
The social impulsiveness associated with ADHD, in particular, reminds me a lot of Becky. Becky’s accidental abrasiveness strikes me a lot as my sib’s accidental abrasiveness. Like, I can be accidentally abrasive, but in my case it’s an issue of not foreseeing that my phrasing could be hurtful. In my sib’s case, it’s more a case of a faulty brain-to-mouth filter. Like, they know damn well what they’ve just blurted out is hurtful, but they are unable to evaluate a sentence for potential to cause hurt and edit it for greater tact in real time. In practice it looks similar but the cause is really different.
Like, with me, I will say outrageous things because I genuinely don’t realize they’re outrageous. I’m the kind of person who would point out that the Emperor is naked just out of a lack of realization that it’s not something that should be done. I lack the ability to pick up on the subtle clues that would indicate that something is not a socially savvy action to take. Once a social rule is explained to me, I can follow it, but I am unlikely to be able to pick it up on my own (like small talk. For years I refused to do small talk because I didn’t understand the point, nor did I understand that not responding to someone’s small talk is rude).
My sib, on the other hand, realizes it’s rude and understands the social rules, but just can’t reign in the impulse to say a thing until the phrasing has been sorted out, so they tend to wind up with foot-in-mouth syndrome a lot of the time. Their issue is less one of not understanding the situation and more one of having no functional brain-to-mouth filter. They also will forget what they want to point out if they don’t say it now so they interrupt other people. A lot. It causes problems. A lot. And it’s not that they’re trying to be rude, they’re trying to take part in the conversation. It’s just that they lack the ability to ever let their conversational partner finish a sentence because every time the partner says something that triggers a thought, my sib is blurting out that thought right away.
Absolutely. My best girlfriends joke that I’m the dude of every other rom-com because of foot-in-mouth syndrome.
There’s also this unspoken “thing” of ADHD/high-functioning autists going together like PB&J. Don’t know if it’s true, but I do know that I get along best with people who find filtering optional.
I find I get along well with people who are neurodivergent in general, but certain types of ADHD ppl and I don’t get on well – mainly because I’m very like the autism stereotype in the “need for routine” and “desire for order” categories, and that does not mesh well with ADHD spontaneity and lack of routine.
I’m one of those people where if the appointment is at 1PM, I am there at 12:55 on the dot (5 minutes early just in case my clock is out of synch with theirs, but not so early that I will be an imposition or inconvenience). And I expect that level of punctuality from others (… which I know isn’t always reasonable. But I expect it. And with myself, I’m so finicky that I will stand outside the door to the place where my appointment is until the time passes on my watch. I don’t expect that level of finickyness from others, but I do expect that if we agree to meet at 1, you’re there at 1). That does not mesh well with one of my parents’ and my sibling’s varieties of ADHD – both of them are people for whom times and deadlines and suchlike are more fuzzy suggestions than hard lines. If you want either of them there at 1, tell them it’s at noon. They’ll probably (usually) be just barely on time for it. I can’t deal with someone not showing up at an agreed time. I can deal with disruptions to my routine, IF they are set in stone and follow a plan to the letter. Once it deviates from the plan, I run out of cope and my emotional equilibrium gets disrupted, and then I get very anxious/upset/angry. So, yeah. If someone knows that about me and can accommodate it, we’ll get on great. If they can’t, I probably won’t make appointments to socialize or hang out with them because the anxiety of will-they-or-wont-they-be-on-time and what-is-happening-I-don’t-know, etc, makes it un-fun.
Dina is officially undiagnosed.
Around the time of her overload at Joyce’s party though, Willis addressed the question of her neurotype again and basically agreed with the general can consensus that she is on the spectrum while simultaneously giving his explanation for why he had danced around the question for so long. (It was on his personal tumblr I think; apologies for lack of link).
I consider it to be confirmed.
i empathize with Dina as well, and i am on the spectrum. i am usually hesitant to really say of historical or of fictional characters that they are autistic, because even if the artistic creator of the character based them on a real life autistic person, that character is still the author’s interpretation of autistic. and unfortunately, a lot of times it’s horribly stereotypical (think The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). for Dina, however, i don’t see her coming off as a stereotype. and it is fairly realistic for a quiet asian girl, and then a quiet and smart asian teenage girl, to be undiagnosed. on top of Dina being an interesting, complex character with autistic traits, her surrounding friends have always been supportive. and the people shown to treat her poorly have all been portrayed as ableist villains. so double thumbs up to Willis.
if you can find the link later, can you post it?
http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/124121859452/hi-willis-community-clips-are-great-and-all-but#notes
Here it is.
Sarah unlike you most people choose not to dwell on the most negative aspect of literally everything until it drains all joy from their life. It doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of the negatives it means they aren’t willing to let them ruin their life. You should give it a try.
…she said, with her Sarah avatar.
It’s true a lot of my frustration with her comes from her being a reflection of a lot of my own issues.
So? Becky started out as Dina’s proof she’s not a child.
The power of a landslide does not depend on what set its off but on what is being set off.
There is no fate but what we make. There is no sequel until we watch it.
Willis missed a perfect opportunity to make Dina’s hat cry too.
But then it would try to eat her head.
Eh, this comic isn’t THAT cartoony. That’d be more of a Precocious () thing to do, and frankly I’m fed up with that cartoonist x3 Not that that has anything to do with anything
Sad Dina is the worst Dina.
She’s so heartbreaking!
Geez, big thanks Sarah, you always brighten the comic with your presence!
We need optimism in life to survive.
There are three words that best describe today’s strip: “Damn. You. Willis.”
Seriously Sarah? I don’t think saying that was necessary at all. In fact, I can’t think of a single reason for you to bring that up, and neither should you if you were paying attention to the fact that Dina’s overheard conversations about this before. I mean, to be fair, Sarah might have helpful intentions at heart by sparing Dina’s feelings in the long run, but…
Dammit Sarah.
First time caller, long time listener… Damn You! WILLIS!!! I have been patient for a long time to see Dina happy, but now you pull this crap… not like i didn’t see it coming but; Damn you Benny! Damn YOU!!!!!.
One would think you only deploy the harsh truths when their necessary, but then Sarah has all the social grace of a bull in a china shop.
I don’t see how this is even remotely good advice or even a harsh truth that must be said. The entire time of the comic Becky’s given no indication that she’s not deeply enthralled by practically every moment spent with Dina. Is she still carrying a torch for Joyce? Probably. That kind of love is difficult to process, but that doesn’t mean Becky isn’t interested and appreciative of Dina. Feelings are complex!
And like, if that were the case, if Becky really was just using Dina to get over Joyce… so what? What is there to gain from unnecessarily shoveling shit onto Dina? From telling her the reasons why her relationship, something she very clearly gets a sense of fulfillment out of, doesn’t really count?
You might as well ask Walky and Dorothy to spend all their time being miserable because they’re going to break up someday.
TLDR: Sarah’s being a jerky buttface. Blind pessimism is just as annoying as closing your eyes and assuming everything will be magically solved.
And like, if that were the case, if Becky really was just using Dina to get over Joyce… so what?
So what? How about, “What about Dina”? Dina has zero experience with…anything remotely mammalian. Sarah wanted to make sure that she knows what is likely to happen.
Then let her learn! Let Dina experience these things!
You think Walky needed Sarah to walk up to him and say “why bother? She’s going to Yale”? No!
Dina isn’t this fragile, voiceless waif everyone around her is convinced she is. You hurt sometimes. It fucking happens, but what Sarah is doing here is piling on doubts and uncertainties onto her relationship, because Sarah thinks that’s how it’s supposed to be.
All of this.
The relationship is healthy. They’re having good boundaries and respect for each other’s boundaries. They’re putting into place good relationship dynamics. And both are curious and excited about where it goes.
Sarah’s “revelation” is a wet fart of nothing.
Seriously.
All relationships have problems and they all can end, but unless it’s something really dangerous or harmful, it’s not anybody’s places to start trying to pick it apart.
Sarah tried to be indirect and gentle and just probe if Dina MIGHT be seriously hurt by not noticing this until it’s too late.
Dina would have none of it. Like you said, she’s an adult capable of making adult decisions, and she ASKED for Sarah’s blunt warning. Explicitly.
I’m pretty sure Dina is capable of taking this and not having it cause any more problems in the relationship than there already were.
And Sarah was right to warn her. IMHO. I have similar social problems to Dina and oh what I wouldn’t give for an insightful pessimistic friend who’d bluntly give me warnings about potential hurdles in my relationships. Just because Dina already knew about this one and (as we know, having more information on their relationship than Sarah does) it’s not likely to be a problem, doesn’t mean Sarah didn’t make the right call here.
Punch me in the gut why don’t you.
Make sure Mike is not around before saying that.
He would punch you and take your nickels. Then go to your mother. Or was it the other way?
Dina has difficulty reading social cues.
Dina does not have difficulty understanding situations. Plus, nobody pays attention to her so chances are she already knew the fact.
Due to Sarah being, well, Sarah, she probably didn’t know either of those things. Because it’s not in a textbook.
Honestly, I’m starting to wish Sarah actually had another arc under her belt -I think she’s one of the most interesting characters.
To understand some situations, you need to notice the social cues first.
Yes, Becky has been pretty obvious about her “still not over Joyce” thing around Becky. Sarah, who doesn’t follow them around on dates, did not know that. I fail to see how she is in the wrong here.
* around Dina. Jesus christ.
To be fair, Dina wasn’t sexually interested in women until last week, either. In fact, we still do not know that she is sexually interested in Becky; it seems more like she thought it would be interesting to “have a girlfriend” and see what this whole “relationship” thing that mammals do would be like.
Before you get offended, I am not saying that lesbians or bisexuals are “just going through a phase.” I am saying that Dina is “experimenting”, literally. The only person I am stereotyping is Dina.
Possibly relevant: https://xkcd.com/507/
Dina doesn’t need to be sexually interested in Becky to have a fulfilling relationship. Sexual interest didn’t even seem to register for her when she expressed why she wanted to date Becky.
Dina may not need to be sexually interested to have a fulfilling relationship, but Becky is a horny human being. She made out with her roomate, she wanted to make out with Joyce, and eventually she is going to be making out with somebody. Is Dina willing to be that somebody? Another reason for Sarah to view this relationship as a slow-motion trainwreck in progress.
Given that we’ve seen them get into some heavy smooching sessions, I’m going to go ahead and give a resounding “yes” to that question. Dina is that person.
This. And also what Wublub said.
If Dina is ace or sex-adverse or low-libidinal or whatnot, she’s also the type to be intellectually and emotionally interested in a lot of the aspects of sex and seuxal connection (and certainly a big fan of make-outs and kissing and cuddling).
Honestly, in that, there’s a lot I identify with Dina on as I am asexual, meaning I have not experienced sexual attraction to anyone in my life, but I am still emotionally and intellectually stimulated by sexual interactions for many of the same reasons as Dina (emotional connection, scientific experimentation, joy of partner).
I mean, I’m pretty sure I remember Dina expressing interest in “studying” sex (from an academic standpoint) by having sexual activities someday. I don’t think she’d mind studying it with Becky.
Willing? She initiated! Their first kiss involved Becky gratefully following Dina’s direct and unambiguous orders.
Dina’s #2 has become my #1. Poor Sarah…
Dina’s feces has become your urine?
I think that people here are being way to hard on Sarah. Sarah sees a trainwreck in progress, and she’s right IMHO. Sarah has seen traiwrecks in progress before. She thinks Dina is vulnerable–which she is–and wants to make sure that Dina is fully aware of what is going on.
AND she’s only making it worse in the long run. She can be cautious yes, but given that she’s overly pessimistic, it can be more harmful than good to just be OVERLY blunt about it. Maybe instead of just complaining or doing stuff from afar, maybe she should try and at least learn from what happened in the past when she helped (aka how she went around doing said help) and find new ways to help people without looking mean/cruel in the process
Why do people keep ignoring that Dina literally asked for bluntness? She’s familiar with Sarah, she’s aware that things she says often sting, and she is capable of choosing on her own that she wants to hear them and deal with them as they are.
Sarah wasn’t wrong to carefully probe how serious Dina is about this and whether or not she might eventually get seriously hurt. And then it was Dina who asked for bluntness – I imagine she’s good enough at managing her emotions and relationships to be able to handle a straight answer like that. Either way, it was her call to make.
Sarah’s call was to whether or not she should try to look out for Dina, who’s socially clueless in many ways and potentially vulnerable to a lot of human shittiness. I fail to see how her choice was wrong.
Why does sad Dina feel like an icicle through the heart?
Sarah must relate to the witch from “Into the Woods” whereas others go for nice which doesn’t equal good she is seen as neither but is often right. The hitch in the plan no one wants to think of or address. Ignorance is bliss and she knocks it out of the air with a baseball bat.
For a character who has a justified rep as a grumpy curmudgeon, I realize that Sarah very rarely acts in malice, except towards Billie and Raidah.
Not intentionally trying to ruin someone’s day, but just not sniping or trying to get back, or the total dismissal of the person you’re dealing with that basically every cast member has done at some point. Becky and her sitcom rivalry with Dorothy, Dorothy and how she tried to demand Walky dress how she wanted, Danny trying to guilt Dorothy for breaking up with him by saying it’d be “no contest” that she choose an interview or helping Walky, Joyce’s venom towards Joe and Roz for living as sexual beings, Roz and how she treats Joyce as a caricature of fundies, Joe berating Danny for not being more like him, basically everything Ruth does.
Obviously there’s moments where Sarah does act like this; her feelings towards Billie, her implicitly planning to harm Jacob’s relationship with Raidah, her initial douchiness towards Dina’s triceratops hoodie and speaking patterns, but for someone who thinks “asshole” is her own defining characteristic, she tries to act with empathy.
Sarah is not full of malice. I think she’s a lot more like Billie: A fixer with a far greater opinion of her own judgement and maturity than reality supports.
By which I mean: Sarah does not have the life experience to know how to try to warn Dina that the relationship might not last long without making the situation worse. She doesn’t know how to encourage Dina to talk with Becky about what Becky wants out of it without basically dropping a drama bomb in Dina’s lap. Sarah is trying to do good, but because of her lack of experience and her immaturity, she’s making the situation worse.
Sometimes her approach turns out to be the right one. WAYYYY more often, she makes the situation worse through incompetence rather than malice. She thinks she’s got a better handle on this “life” thing than she actually does.
Case in point: A much better way to approach Joyce going to a party where predators would see a mark a mile away than hiding until a crisis happens and then intervening would have been to go to the party with Joyce and show Joyce the ropes of attending a party while being as safe as she could. She did not intend to make the situation worse, and she is not in the least at fault for what happened to Joyce (the fault lies solely at Rapist Asshole’s feet). However, her ham-handed handling of the situation both primed Joyce to victim-blame the shit out of herself for going there in the first place after Sarah warned her that something bad might happen because people might take advantage of her naivety, and ensured that when a predator targeted Joyce, she was without the backup she needed to get out of the situation safely (“drugged, assaulted, threatened and traumatized” is NOT “safely” however much victim-blaming assholes who think that the beginning and end of the solution to the sexual assault problem on campuses is just to teach women self-defense and that if a woman “doesn’t want” to be sexually assaulted, she should follow rules A1 through Z1500B which are often self-contradictory and/or illegal and/or incredibly impractical and/or likely to make an assault situation worse and that we should absolve all bystanders and men in particular of any responsibility for the culture that encourages and enables such crimes).
Again: Not saying it’s Sarah’s fault for Joyce’s assault. Am saying she handles most situations sub-optimally because her opinion of her experience and competence is much greater than her actual level of life experience and competence, so she assumes her first instinct is the right way to go about it and never thinks to talk to anyone or ask for advice on how to handle it.
In short, if you ever stayed in a dorm or summer camp, she’s the one who thinks she’s ever-so-much more worldly and mature, and tries to act like everyone’s mother when in fact she tends to annoy, alienate and hurt those around her even as she tries to help them.
To be fair, she was also one of the few in the friend group who actually helpful at that point. Billie, Sal, Dorothy, Amber were all even less useful than she was. Sure, she should have come in the first place, but Dorothy and Billie were there too and should have kept an eye on her.
Oh totally. Billie and Dorothy (Billie especially since she’s way more experienced at parties) could have set up a buddy system like my college friends did. You don’t go anywhere alone, don’t let anyone leave with a dude, and if someone suddenly seems way more drunk than they should be, you make sure they get to the hospital.
As for Sal, she does handle a lot of situations sub-optimally, but in this case, she didn’t know about what happened at the party until well after the fact. She advised against going to the cops since the drugs wore out of Joyce’s system but given the track record of police and how they handle sexual assault (especially date rape of college students at parties), I really can’t blame her. Let’s just say I’ve been through the process myself, as a pre-pubescent kid, and I, as a third grader got victim-blamed like hell. I should’ve told him no. I should’ve fought back. I was eight and he weighed three times what I did and was over twice my age but no crime because apparently being 8 and on my way to school on the fuckin’ school bus isn’t enough indication that I don’t want to be groped and have a tongue shoved down my throat. I remind you: I was 8. If that happened to me at 8, what happens to college girls who are far less “ideal victims” than I was? I don’t blame anyone who advises others not to report or chooses not to report themselves. Even when you get a good cop, the process can be traumatizing. If you get a bad cop, you get situations where you’re told that despite being half the age of consent for sex in your region, you didn’t tell him no strongly enough. Or cases where actual rape victims are arrested and charged for “filing a false report” after being pressured into “admitting” they made a false report, or you get situations where the cops victim-blame the shit out of people, or look for excuses to write it off as a non-crime so their stats don’t get screwed up. Honestly speaking, unless you’re the “perfect victim” and you go immediately after the assault, and the assailant kicked the shit out of you, odds are pretty damn good the cops are at best going to be skeptical. Because cop culture is 50 years out of date when it comes to sexual assault.
So, yeah. I do have issues with Sal sometimes (like she is not fair to her friend a lot of the time when she puts it on that girl to be Sal’s sole source of socialization, as just one example), but this was one situation where I think she had some very good points and was probably trying to prevent the system from re-traumatizing Joyce.
Sooo…..another round of ‘DAMN YOU WILLIS!’ ?
frigging told ya
heres the thing though
most young people who get into relationships because they think they will last forever. they have them because its fun and feels good.
so why cant you people let dina and becky have fun and feel good without saying “this relationship has no possibility of lasting anyway”?
most young people dont get into relationships because they think they will last forever*
I think a lot of young people do on some level feel like it’ll last forever once they’re in them. Especially if its their first one. Heck, I think a lot of older people feel that way too. I don’t think most people go into a fun and happy relationship thinking about the end at all, but I think they might be better off if they did.
thats the thing, young people do exactly what older people do. they hope for it to last as long as possible, or just dont think about the end at all. but in reality, unless youre 12 (which dina isnt, and dina is actually pretty smart as we know) and you actually start thinking about it, you probably wont think “this will deifnitely last forever, theres no other possibility”. again, young people are in relationships because its fun and feels good, snd theres nothing wrong with not wanting to think about the day it will end so why should anyone comment on it?
Ugh. No. NO! MY FEELS! RIGHT IN THE FEELS!
i am totally ready to shake my fists at Sarah, except i know her motivation is that she wants to prevent Dina from getting hurt. she knows that Dina is a novice when it comes to socializing, and especially dating. if she were telling Dina this just to be mean, it’d be different. but she’s just telling Dina to help her. that said… she already knew, Sarah! you’re just pointing out an already known, painful thing!
Sarah couldn’t have known for sure she knew until Dina told her, and she couldn’t ask Dina before saying that because Dina told her to be blunt instead.
Dina can handle a little hurt.
Aaand Becky continues to win the prize for “only person who doesn’t treat Dina like a 12-year-old”. Dammit, Sarah.
And that is why Becky is her #1 favorite.
No, Sarah is not treating Dina like a 12 year old here.
Any more than she is being malicious like you claimed in another post.
She is treating her like a teenager who’s in their first relationship, which is what she is.
^This.
A teenager with known explicitly admitted problems with social interactions, at that. Recognizing Dina’s actually existing weak spots is not treating her like a 12-year-old. An autistic person is not ‘like 12’ for having trouble picking up social cues. Sarah is being respectful and perfectly appropriate here.
Maybe not the perfect timing, but honestly, there’s no such thing as perfect timing with this sort of thing. Sarah made her call, and I for one applaud her for looking out for her friend.
I wonder which came first: Did Sarah’s pessimistic attitude and need to TELL people her pessimistic viewpoint cause her social isolation, or did her social isolation cause this pessimistic attitude?
I mean, she does care about people, but I’m beginning to understand why so few people actually like her or seek out her company. She may be correct, but she comes across thoughtless at best and actively cruel at worst. She NEEDS to learn tact.
What? Sarah was trying to be very tactful until Dina explicitly asked her not to be.
Methinks some of the backlash is less about what Sarah said to Dina, and more about what the audience didn’t want to hear and see. Because no one critizing Sarah seems to want to address the first two panels of this strip. Also some backlash from what Sarah said last strip, which was flippant, but ultimately harmless on its own.
“Are you sure you like your relationship” doesn’t strike me as really tactful.
Honestly, my biggest problem with this is because of the fact this is AFTER BECKY NEARLY GOT KIDNAPPED AND DINA RISKED HER NECK FOR HER…
Just saying, that is not something you get over easily -_- SO to say that this is’t a real relationship is kinda being TOO pessimistic.
OTOH, that’s the kind of Hollywood romance thing that doesn’t actually work in the real world. It’s romantic and all and risking something like that does make instant emotional bonds, but it doesn’t actually help you make a relationship work.
It’s a cliche, but sometimes it’s easier to die for someone than live with them.
Even before that, though, they had a major shared interest in science in general and dinosaurs in particular. Clear communication, willingness to provide emotional support, respecting limits… what’s missing, exactly?
Sarah following them around on dates so she could know what we do is what’s missing.
She doesn’t have audience knowledge, so she errs on the side of caution. A+ good friend want one for myself.
Dina asked her to be direct in this strip, I believe, which was directly prompted by Sarah’s vague negativity and pessimism at the end of the prior strip, not to mention her melodramatic self-appointment as the bearer of bad news.
(Though I may be biased as I have never understood why the Rebound is this terrifying awful thing so the whole strip just seems overblown today.)
It’s because some people, sometimes, use a rebound relationship to help them get over their feelings for the other person, or as a tool to hurt their ex – in that case, the rebound isn’t about the new relationship, it’s a manipulative exercise that is not entered into in good faith by the rebounder. It’s often unfair to the person they’re in the rebound with.
Mind you, I say that as someone who’s current relationship started off as The Dreaded Rebound. So not all rebounds are exercises in manipulation designed for short-term gratification and pettiness. But some are and I think that’s why the Rebound got its bad reputation.
Personally, I think as long as both parties know fully well going in that the other person is Not Over It with respect to the last relationship, and as long as the rebounder isn’t looking to use their new partner as a tool against their ex, it can work. I’m biased because that’s how my current relationship got started, and I’m happy four years on into it, but there you go.
‘Tactful’ would not have involved her melodramatic and purposefully vague “I have to be the bringer of bad news” last strip.
No, Sarah. You do not ‘have to be’ the one to tell Dina something that is only going to make her upset, and will make her doubt the relationship that’s clearly making her happy. Especially not when she’s less than a week into this relationship. Sarah always thinks she’s helping by pointing out the pessimistic viewpoint, but she’s really not.
“Making Dina a little upset for five minutes” versus “letting Dina potentially be esriously hurt because she missed an obvious-to-other-people social problem”… I’m with Sarah here. I have a lot in common with Dina, and I would LOVE to have a friend like her.
(Yes, it turned out Dina actually did not miss this one. But for all Sarah knew, she could have)
Sarah’s the worst
Willis, Sarah, how dare you give me this sad dinosaur face.
When Walky and Sarah finally get “TOGETHER” I will be so. So happy 🙂
Are Walky and Joyce destined to get together in this universe?
My crystal ball says no, since there was a decade of comics with those two as the main characters, but I do think they’re significantly different enough people here that it wouldn’t be a retread if it did.
But in any case, not DESTINED. Possible, perhaps, but I think it’s more of a “whatever happens, happens” thing. I doubt Willis has planned out how this comic will end.
Okay, so the big revelation is… a big pile of nothing.
I mean, Dina was present for Becky telling Joyce she still had feelings for her and this occurred the day they first kissed and started getting all romantic. This is not new information.
And beyond that, it’s just weak sauce. Rebound is one of those big scary words that doesn’t actually mean jack shit in the real world. Most relationships outside the first one begin as some form of rebound and they are no more prone to failure than any other relationship. People experience multiple attractions, people get rejected, people have relationships end.
But Becky and Dina have good relationship dynamics, healthy appreciations for each other, and are doing well to adapt to the actual struggles both face.
I don’t think Sarah is a bad person for dropping this “bomb”, it’s just this “bomb” has no real impact or value. It’s not actually as pressing or dire as she tried to make it seem and honestly, has potential for real damage to Dina and Becky’s relationship, simply out of Dina defaulting to social norms out of an awareness of her own naivety surrounding relationships.
Sarah thinks Dina might be getting too attached to a relationship that is unlikely to last very long (being started while Becky was in an emotionally vulnerable state), which is indeed not a big issue for modt people but could hurt Dina if she got caught by surprise. Fortunately she’s aware of the situation and will probably be fine.
I don’t think any relationship is ever started in a perfect place, because everyone deals with varying degrees of bullshit basically at all times.
If Sarah doesn’t tell her this, which is doubly pointless since Dina is already seemingly convinced, well, what changes? Dina just dates Becky, and either confirms that Becky is just using her, or eventually realizes that Becky does genuinely like her for her, and not for being Joyce’s replacement, which all indicators point to being the case basically every time they’re on panel together.
Jeebus, first with Walky, now with Becky, all we need now is a pan-dimensional mega corporation trying to take over the world and an explosion
You see, we all want to see what happens next, but Willis is just gonna put more of Carla and Mary’s shenanigans after this, won’t he?
Well now he will
Eh
1) Rebounds are pop culture meme, not a law of social nature
2) Can Becky rebound from a relationship she never had?
3) Does Dina, social cripple who doesn’t get basic body language, really already predict and know about this?
Personally I would have thought the exact opposite was true: Becky having been rejected and suppressed so long clings to Dina like a life-raft and refuses to acknowledge problems while Dina who is introverted and socially atypical starts feeling crowded and doesn’t give the responses Becky expects.
I think the fact that Becky never got the romantic relationship she’d been holding onto might be worse. Because in a rebound relationship you’re just letting go of the past, the past is gonna get overwritten by the future somehow whether you enter into a new relationship right away or not. Fantasies and infatuations, especially lifelong ones, tend to be more persistent. Its harder to get over something you never had because that fantasy has to be looked at realistically, otherwise it forever remains shinier and newer than the actual relationship.There’s a high chance that because Becky and Dina’s relationship is so different any lingering feelings Becky has will be easily overcome, but irl old lingering infatuations can be very damaging to the people involved.
Dina was literally standing next to Sarah when Becky admitted to Joyce that she wasn’t completely over her yet, and had even remarked on that specific fact to Sarah at the time.
True, but this is Dina. Who has shown little social awareness and who was, not long before that kiss, huddled under Ethan’s coat. It may be infantilizing, but it’s not hard to understand not being sure how much of the social situation she understood.
She seems to have made great strides since the early days, though it’s hard to say how much of that is an actual change in her and how much is just us seeing more of her. Sarah hasn’t seen as much of that change as we have.
I was leery of her and Becky as well at first, thinking she’d be really bad at seeing through Becky’s emotional armor, but Becky won me over by being willing to let that down for Dina in ways we haven’t really seen her do with Joyce.
It’s not even infantilizing. I’m 22 and as adult as I’m ever going to get, and I could totally be present for someone admitting their feelings out loud and totally miss it because I was too busy thinking about something else at the moment and do not have the awareness necessary to ‘ping in’ at important/dramatic/emotionally charged moments.
Dina knows about the rebound thing because Becky was very obvious about this during their personal interactions that Sarah was not privy to.
Unlike us.
Stop blaming characters for not have audience knowledge.
Why you gotta break my heart, Willis?
Dang, that’s a deep continuity cut
Are you telling me that in the future, we will have a Slipshine with Joyce and Becky together? :3
Still voting for Joyce to lose her cherry in a threesome with Walky and Dorothy
…
I think it’d be sweet ¬___¬
Walky would probably spend the entire session criticizing Joyce’s technique.
DAMN YOU WILLIS!
Look, I know that intent is not magic and that even if someone means well, that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing harm.
What I’m confused about* is how so many people have decided that Sarah does intend to cause harm. I just don’t see it. We’ve never seen her gloat or any indication that she’s been happy when something bad happened.
*I’m not actually confused, though I would love to hear an actual good reason for this.
Nobody thinks she’s trying to hurt Dina, people rarely try to.
It’s that what she’s saying is dumb.
No, several people have said that Sarah’s intent is to hurt people whenever she says that something is going to end badly.
Wow. Sarah has done to the mood what the great Yucatan impact did to the Dinosaurs.
Wow sarah thanks for being that one person….
> Sarah is right
> Dina admits she’s right
> People still get mad at Sarah
Girl just can’t catch a break.
more like
> Sarah puts forth a theory with little basis in how we’ve seen Becky treat Dina.
> Dina admit she feels like this, because she literally heard Becky say it in front of her.
> People get mad at Sarah for saying dumb crap in the name of dealing out harsh truths that might not even be real.
This is a Willis comic, of course the painful future event is real.
Heck, there are people saying that Sarah just created a self-fulfilling prophecy by saying that this is a rebound and that it will be Sarah’s fault when the relationship ends. People are *pre-emptively* angry at her for the break up.
That is some deep hate when you are scheduling your anger and blame in advance.
DAMN YOU WILLIS! You build up all my shipping hopes and then destroy them with a single strip.
But seriously: they survived a CRAZED SHOOTER FATHER together. That is a bonding experience if ever was one.
What do you mean last week, it’s been months
Comic time versus IRL time is a crazy conversion
becky arrived about a week ago
Hey man, I’m not saying it’s gonna work out, but there’s plenty of basketball games that have been won on on a rebound.
I don’t wanna hate Sarah, especially since she’s being cruel to be kind, but Dina’s about to cry. So.
Sometime ago I met a lesbian couple. They were both in there late teen-early 20. After talking to one she told me she wasn’t gay, but just liked the that one girl. They tried to have sex and they found it awkward and didn’t like it. Eventuality, they broke up and her girlfriend moved on to another woman. She ended up dating men.
For me I feel that Dina is on an adventure with her relationship with Becky, but I don’t think that she is gay or bi, because as she said before those destinations are not important to her. BEFor myself those things are unimportant as well, you get with the person you like and hopefully it works out. I like Dina’s character and I feel that she is a good person, but I wonder if her relationship with Becky well become too much. I’m mean hell, Becky’s dad was only hunting them down a week ago! Im suprised Dina seems to be well invested in her relationship with Becky. But, how far will they take it?
Ewww… I don’t like this turn at all. That was a really bongoy thing to do . . .now I might be a nit picky bongo, but… Isn’t Sarah Aware in at least *some* fashion that Dina attacked Becky’s dad for her sake? . . . is Becky aware of that? I mean even without those small details there’s been a HUGE amount of bonding between the two, right after some gut/soul wrenching shit to go through.
As someone who’s had to lose family because of being trans…rebound or not… I dunno, I fall in love hard, and fast. There’s this negative stereotype about LGBT people being promiscuous, or fast to have sex. . . It’s only half true at best, and it’s more or less because LGBT people are *SO* relieved when they finally meet someone who *understands.*
I don’t see Becky getting “bored” of Dina, or their relationship fading in any way, shape or form that would make emotional sense from my perspective. . . That’s just my two cents.
We all know Sarah is super jaded about relationships…ohhhhh. She’s projecting her own insecurities. . . Not really taking into consideration all the Drama these two have survived together.
Wow, that’s a really silly way to censor curse words. :/
I wonder what fuck will turn out to be?
Wait…other fans are able to curse. . . is it my disqus? Halp.
Bongoy. bongoy . . . Nope. I have egg on my face again. I just typo’d.
Curse my insomnia.
No. bongo is censored, but FUCK isn’t? Odd. . .
There was an thing a while back where bongo was heavily overused in the comments about Roz. The filter was added for that.
Other words haven’t been abused the same way, so they haven’t gotten the same reaction.
Gotta respect Roz for inspiring enough hatred that a new swearword had to be created for her. Mike wishes he had that kind of power.
this is hilarious
Nooooooo, Sad Dina is as bad as Sad Emily in QC, nooooooooo!
Kind of off point but I really dig Dina’s hat.
no dina no, you will be happy forever and have smoochies and talk about dinosaurs
you must! you are too cute to be sad!
she was the one happy character dont take this aaawwwwwaaaayyyy