I’m fairly sure she’s autistic actually. I’ve never identified with a character more. I’m autistic and we don’t even present the same way but this is one of the only good depictions I’ve ever seen by a non-autistic creator. At least I think the creator is non-autistic?
I wish that was what normal was, the women around where I live are all “I’m just going stare at you and smile, and hope that you magically figure out what the *bleep* I want from you.” At least Dina talks when she has something to say or wants to ask for something.
Has Amber always been that busty? I have never noticed it before… and now I can’t stop noticing. And comparing to Dina. Well, there’ve been flimsier excuses to trawl the archives…
I don’t even know if “trawl” is a word, but it *feels* right…
Well, it isn’t really hard to look busty in a corset, though. ::presses fingertips together:: However, I am VERY pleased at the research this is spawning. Amber’s breasts are SCIENCE.
I can’t see what anyone could possibly find strange about her.
Incidentally, as I type this I notice that the door to my room is opened, and I’m certain it was closed last I checked. I’m a little afraid to look behind it.
I feel like Dina would be incredibly against the consumption of something as cool as a triceratops, especially seeing that that would involve having had LIVE triceratops.
Hey, consumption of dinosaurs was essential to the survival of other dinosaurs. I think she’d understand the cycle of nature. Especially if she could live the T-Rex dream.
But she understands that she is not a dinosaur and would give the dinosaur meat to a much more deserving dinosaur so that she can say that she helped a dinosaur survive and not selfishly try to be one.
Way to go Dina for making it seem like your emotions were hurt without a facial cue, only to come back as it was merely thinking about what was said and how it is implied. Bravo.
My 7th grade science class had windows in the top half of the door. The science teacher had posted in one of the panes, a T-rex head with ‘Good Morning’ ballon above it. An indication of what our class would be like.
It was.
Dina, most people do not wear dino caps, nor stand behind doors for any period of time longer than it takes to go thru it. So yah, you are a bit strange. But very cute.
However, she actually asked if others thought her strange, perhaps she is starting to be aware of the world around her. From a ‘behind the door kind of viewpoint”? She certainly picked up on Ambers answer.
And now we have an arc featuring DIna. Will she develop out of her wallflower persona?
I only hope she gets the chance to verbally tear Raidah a new one.
I always thought Sheldon came off as more schizoid, while Dina seems a bit more Aspergers. And I know, she has not be diagnosed, and I am not trying to diagnose, but she shows some signs.
Of all the characters in this comic, I relate to Dina best. I have Asperger’s syndrome, and I was one weird kid. And people are vicious creatures.
Dina is is a charming person. She loves her interests (particularly dinosaurs), she has no social intuition whatsoever, she’s vulnerable yet happy, and she’s all the more likable as a result.
Oh and TheEqualizer: I’m also fond of Sheldon. ^_^ He says what we’re all thinking.
You too, huh?
She strikes me as an undxed aspie/autie. (Which one I go in depends on caring about anything besides B1 in the communication area, which most people don’t.)
Dina is interesting. She grasps social concepts, but on an intellectual rather than an instinctual level. A little work at fine-tuning the application of that understanding and she could appear normal.
Dina : adorkable :: Mike : violence
Dina : intelligence :: Dina : adorkable
Mike : violence :: Dina : intelligence
This is my thinking. She has proved this.
I…actually couldn’t parse that. Are you saying that Mike’s violence is infinitely self-perpetuating? The only other message I could get from that was that hurting people makes them smarter, and my experience tells me this is far from true.
I got that Dina being adorkable made Mike violent which led to her intelligence being boosted possibly because it was done in the name of science. So Dina is like GlaDOS? I’ll go with that because I can totally picture Dina as GlaDOS
*ahem* GLaDOS, otherwise known as Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operting System, is an artificial intelligence that runs the Aperature Science Testing Facility. She is also a raging psychopath who murdered over half of the facility upon activation. On “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day”. Since then, she has been forcing test subjects to go through grueling and life-threatening tests in the name of science. She doesn’t understand humans or morality in the slightest and is a pathological liar.
She is also hilarious, awesome, and the spent some time in the body of a potato, so I’m guessing that’s her similarity to Dina.
(She’s the main villain of the Portal video game series. Check it out.)
1. The fact you have a Dina avvy makes the reply awesome in ways it wouldn’t otherwise be.
2. I was mainly seeing how Dina’s almost complete lack of human interaction and her application of logic to reason out “normal” human behavior reminded me GLaDOS. And I just replayed Portal 2 recently so it was fresh in my mind.
I think someone has theorized that she has tapped into some sort singularity that exists behind all doors, allowing her teleport at will from behind any door to behind any other door. Until it’s proven otherwise that’s what I’m going with.
“I try to be sociable, for example by laying out shirts for you that are thematically related to my own, so that subconsciously you feel comfortable with me. Is this not working?”
Maybe. But more likely is that because we have so many personality disorders and such documented, it’s hard to create a genuinely quirky character without hitting many of the symptoms of one.
I was thinking Asperger’s or high-functioning autism for her too. Willis said she wasn’t diagnosed with anything yet. But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t be an Aspie.
The latter? When you’re familiar with something, you start seeing it everywhere. Example: faces.
I have trouble believing that she could get as far as college without any of those disorders coming up in routine medical visits, though, especially nowadays. (In the US, anyway, but I doubt she spent enough time in Japan either.)
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What is Dina’s deal? Wait, don’t tell me. I prefer an enigma.
Back to Bone City!
She likes dinosaurs and being a ninja. So what I should have done was dressed her up like a ninja in my fan art.
A dinosaur ninja!
They’re not extinct. Just hiding.
some better than others
I’m fairly sure she’s autistic actually. I’ve never identified with a character more. I’m autistic and we don’t even present the same way but this is one of the only good depictions I’ve ever seen by a non-autistic creator. At least I think the creator is non-autistic?
As yet another autistic person, also pretty sure she is. I keep noticing she’s basically me in a number of ways.
Bloody Hell! Where did she come from?
well, when two dinosaurs love each other very much…
So does that mean Dina hatched from an egg?
We all hatched from eggs….in a way
This video explains everything.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/blog/how-it-happened-exactly/
Actually, I believe this video explains everything:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v51a3CnhSs
Every time she wanders off-panel, she vanishes and respawns behind her door.
Amber – “Christ!”
Dina – “Nope, it’s just Dina.”
Smith will suffice.
damn you…I shoulda seen you said that first :c…
That’s okay, consider it revenge for 5 months ago >=)
Nope, Chuck Testa.
She seems perfectly normal to me. 😀
Pretty Left-Brained, though.
I wish that was what normal was, the women around where I live are all “I’m just going stare at you and smile, and hope that you magically figure out what the *bleep* I want from you.” At least Dina talks when she has something to say or wants to ask for something.
her shirt gives Dina all the confidence she needs!
My sister-in-law has a shirt with a t-rex that says “Rarrr is dinosaur for ‘I love you'”
That’d be perfect for Walkyverse Dina.
I saw a shirt that has a dinosaur and it says “like, rarr and stuff”
I’d love to have one that said: “Rarrr is dinosaur for Rarrr”
It’s the thing to wear when you visit Bone City.
no, That’s what the “Dig It” shirt is for
I see what you did there, with your wordplay.
Yet at the same time, it’s a perfect response to the question. Most people don’t give her a second thought.
Awwww, Dina~
Has Amber always been that busty? I have never noticed it before… and now I can’t stop noticing. And comparing to Dina. Well, there’ve been flimsier excuses to trawl the archives…
I don’t even know if “trawl” is a word, but it *feels* right…
Can’t you see her misspelled t-shirt? She’s in “Breast Mode”
that’s the best mode.
that’s the ONLY mode.
Ruth strikes again!
I haven’t compared, but some of her boobage might have spilled over from Shortpacked, where she’s lactating.
I think you mean ‘soaked through.’ Spills are mostly a bottle-fed phenomenon.
I think she’s always been this busty. In DoA she wears tight t-shirts.
I believe this to be true, back in SP! when she was rocking the corset she was quite busty.
Well, it isn’t really hard to look busty in a corset, though. ::presses fingertips together:: However, I am VERY pleased at the research this is spawning. Amber’s breasts are SCIENCE.
Yes, science…
For science! There is more research to be done!
Let’s see how they react to electricity!
I expected panel 3 for her to be saying “no, I’m Dina, your roomate”
Unless, Dina IS secretly Jesus!
Hmmmm… In the original Walkyverse, Dina and Jesus were never seen together.
I can’t see what anyone could possibly find strange about her.
Incidentally, as I type this I notice that the door to my room is opened, and I’m certain it was closed last I checked. I’m a little afraid to look behind it.
Doctor_Who: >opens door<
Dina: RARR!
Closes Door, rather?
“Rarr” is Silurian for “I love you.”
I imagine that Dina and Walky would get along quite well.
Since the dated in the Walkyverse I’d imagine so.
Awww, I actually want to hug her.
Yea, she’s cute when she’s trying painfully hard to fit in and bond with others.
Of course, she only pretends to be unremarkable, so that nobody realize that’s she’s really Amazi-gi… oops, spoiler.
I like to imagine that Amber’s and Dina’s shirts are connected.
BEAST MODE! RARRR!
TeRARRRize!
BEAST MODE t-shirts when?
Since a while ago, from lots of people who aren’t me. Google it.
I thought Doctor_Who established that’s ‘Breast Mode.’
Do they go ‘RARRR’?
I’m still not convinced Dina isn’t actually an alien, who enrolled herself in college to learn more about human culture.
That.. would actually explain a lot.
This is my new head canon.
I have a head cannon, but it’s pretty much a guarunteed broken neck
I had a head cannon, but then I took an arrow to the-
Okay, I’m stopping myself there.
Rule #1 of Dumbing of Age: No aliens.
Which means that Dina is a genetically engineered cyborg from the future.
And is voiced by Richard Horvitz.
Dina wears shy/awkward well.
I think the point is supposed to be that she doesn’t wear it well.
I want to take Dina home and hide her behind my door and feed her raw triceratops meat and play dinosaurs with her.
I feel like Dina would be incredibly against the consumption of something as cool as a triceratops, especially seeing that that would involve having had LIVE triceratops.
Hey, consumption of dinosaurs was essential to the survival of other dinosaurs. I think she’d understand the cycle of nature. Especially if she could live the T-Rex dream.
But she understands that she is not a dinosaur and would give the dinosaur meat to a much more deserving dinosaur so that she can say that she helped a dinosaur survive and not selfishly try to be one.
Dina’s level of adorable is truly superhuman.
I love Dina!!
Don’t we all?
I used to have a Dina Grav, but it’s gone and I’m saddened by this.
Way to go Dina for making it seem like your emotions were hurt without a facial cue, only to come back as it was merely thinking about what was said and how it is implied. Bravo.
My 7th grade science class had windows in the top half of the door. The science teacher had posted in one of the panes, a T-rex head with ‘Good Morning’ ballon above it. An indication of what our class would be like.
It was.
Dina, most people do not wear dino caps, nor stand behind doors for any period of time longer than it takes to go thru it. So yah, you are a bit strange. But very cute.
However, she actually asked if others thought her strange, perhaps she is starting to be aware of the world around her. From a ‘behind the door kind of viewpoint”? She certainly picked up on Ambers answer.
Do you think Willis will mind that I say Dina’s head looks a little off in this comic?
I wouldn’t say the whole comic but in panel 2 it looks different because of the perspective shift.
Considering that a dinosaur has been eating her head for months, she’s lucky it’s not more off than it is.
Ahhh I love Dina. So adorable.
Also I read Amber’s shirt as “Breast Mode” at first… I was really confused.
And now we have an arc featuring DIna. Will she develop out of her wallflower persona?
I only hope she gets the chance to verbally tear Raidah a new one.
Nah, she’ll borrow Sarah’s bat.
Her and Joyce are growing up.
Is it just me or is Dina a more cute, extremely more friendly Sheldon Cooper?
More Sheldon is a not-so-cute, self-centered version of Dina.
That’s exactly what I was thinking!
Or Abed?
(not to cue any BBT/Community arguments or anything)
I always thought Sheldon came off as more schizoid, while Dina seems a bit more Aspergers. And I know, she has not be diagnosed, and I am not trying to diagnose, but she shows some signs.
Actually Dinah, I think she meant both. One is conducive to the other.
Of all the characters in this comic, I relate to Dina best. I have Asperger’s syndrome, and I was one weird kid. And people are vicious creatures.
Dina is is a charming person. She loves her interests (particularly dinosaurs), she has no social intuition whatsoever, she’s vulnerable yet happy, and she’s all the more likable as a result.
Oh and TheEqualizer: I’m also fond of Sheldon. ^_^ He says what we’re all thinking.
You too, huh?
She strikes me as an undxed aspie/autie. (Which one I go in depends on caring about anything besides B1 in the communication area, which most people don’t.)
Dina trained batman in the art of……suddenly appearing from nowhere and disappearing. She can teach amber much in those ways.. 🙂
BECAUSE AMBER IS AMAZIGIRL
NO, SHE IS SPIDERCAR
Ah! She made a pune, or play on words. Oh ho ho.
Yes, Miss Susan, she did 😛
*insert twelve-page footnote here
Hulk appreciate puny wordplay.
BAHAHAHAHAHA
This. This made my day. Big time.
Figgen?
Strange, no. Sneaky, definitely.
Bazinga.
So… Dana is a figment of Amber’s fractured mind? Amber isn’t actually rooming with anyone!
TWIST!
Dina.
Dina and Dana are too different people.
…
OR ARE THEY!?
They’re not too different, they’re mostly the same.
and different.
and also the same.
Whoops! Now I skilfully pretend that wasn’t a mistake, but a clever and witty double entendre for something!
Yes, Amber. You are a very cunning linguist. And Dina enjoys this.
Dina is interesting. She grasps social concepts, but on an intellectual rather than an instinctual level. A little work at fine-tuning the application of that understanding and she could appear normal.
No, see, she’s not surprised by Dina, Jesus is simply sitting on the couch off-panel, nude, holding a rose in his teeth.
It could be true.
I want a Beast Mode shirt. That’s really all I wanted to say. :T
Rarity is shocked and appalled by your taste in fashion.
Dana approves your comment.
Gallasso is angered by my comment.
The sock says nothing, because it is a sock.
That is a sock, right?
Dina files away your comment, but has no emotional response to it.
Batman is grumpy that Dina has nicer headgear than he does.
Scenes liek this remind me of why I like that girl.
Is it bad that I read Amber’s shirt as ‘Breast Mode?’
Also, Dina is awesome.
I was just going to ask the same thing.
I found myself wondering what it would look like if Amber then transformed into ‘non-breast mode’. And immediately regretted it.
EVERYONE READ AMBER’S SHIRT AS BREAST MODE.
Self-awareness: Averted!
Her hyper-intelligent overanalyzes ads to her cute ration.
This worries me, for she may go critical.
Dina : adorkable :: Mike : violence
Dina : intelligence :: Dina : adorkable
Mike : violence :: Dina : intelligence
This is my thinking. She has proved this.
I…actually couldn’t parse that. Are you saying that Mike’s violence is infinitely self-perpetuating? The only other message I could get from that was that hurting people makes them smarter, and my experience tells me this is far from true.
I got that Dina being adorkable made Mike violent which led to her intelligence being boosted possibly because it was done in the name of science. So Dina is like GlaDOS? I’ll go with that because I can totally picture Dina as GlaDOS
I know I shoudn’t be asking this, but…
Who’s GlaDOS?
*ahem* GLaDOS, otherwise known as Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operting System, is an artificial intelligence that runs the Aperature Science Testing Facility. She is also a raging psychopath who murdered over half of the facility upon activation. On “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day”. Since then, she has been forcing test subjects to go through grueling and life-threatening tests in the name of science. She doesn’t understand humans or morality in the slightest and is a pathological liar.
She is also hilarious, awesome, and the spent some time in the body of a potato, so I’m guessing that’s her similarity to Dina.
(She’s the main villain of the Portal video game series. Check it out.)
1. The fact you have a Dina avvy makes the reply awesome in ways it wouldn’t otherwise be.
2. I was mainly seeing how Dina’s almost complete lack of human interaction and her application of logic to reason out “normal” human behavior reminded me GLaDOS. And I just replayed Portal 2 recently so it was fresh in my mind.
Actually what I’m saying is that Dina is as adorkable and intelligent as Mike is violent.
Dina is to adorkable as Mike is to violence.
Dina is to intelligence as Dina is to adorkable.
Mike is to violence as Dina is to intelligence.
This reminds me of the Family Guy episode where the foreign guy explains sarcasm to Peter.
Well, they didn’t lose her, but how the hell did she get back?!
I think someone has theorized that she has tapped into some sort singularity that exists behind all doors, allowing her teleport at will from behind any door to behind any other door. Until it’s proven otherwise that’s what I’m going with.
And it’s worth noting that it would be kind of difficult to prove that she doesn’t have this ability.
Actually, that is all explained in MegaTokyo, she has learned to travel using the gaps between the sets.
That’s the first time -ever- I’ve heard somebody use that explanation. Epic stuff.
Ahh yes, a fine jest indeed! *Bubble Pipe*
“I try to be sociable, for example by laying out shirts for you that are thematically related to my own, so that subconsciously you feel comfortable with me. Is this not working?”
I put a DrillMan shirt next to my “Dig it” shirt.
I’m even staying within your Genre.
She’s starting to remind me of Yuki Nagato. It’s the teleporting and the Spock-speak.
How can no one look at her with that awesome hat on!
Behind every great idea, there’s a story.
Behind every door, there’s a Dina.
Sadly not mine, and I’ve checked. A few times.
Nope, still not there.
Willis should make Door Dinas.
I would totally buy one.
Dina needs a positronic brain tuneup. Or an emotion chip upgrade.
I am Dina, please insert fossil
I saw what you did there, very clever.
Also, possibly pornographic, depending on how your brain works.
Am I the only one thinking autism-spectrum disorder? Or am I just habituated to think that since I have a lot of friends on the spectrum?
Maybe. But more likely is that because we have so many personality disorders and such documented, it’s hard to create a genuinely quirky character without hitting many of the symptoms of one.
I was thinking Asperger’s or high-functioning autism for her too. Willis said she wasn’t diagnosed with anything yet. But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t be an Aspie.
The latter? When you’re familiar with something, you start seeing it everywhere. Example: faces.
I have trouble believing that she could get as far as college without any of those disorders coming up in routine medical visits, though, especially nowadays. (In the US, anyway, but I doubt she spent enough time in Japan either.)
Also, prosopagnosia?
I love how she just appears behind the door.