Can I just say how much I love the way the shadow of the tree overhead frames this? It tells the story of their walking together beneath it without necessarily needing to see their feet or even shift the focus to the presence of any landmarks other than these lovebirds, giving it a sense of motion that wouldn’t be present otherwise, and I just think that’s a nice touch.
I only noticed this when I read your comment and went back to look- not only does it indicate motion, but they’re in shadow when Dina worries that she’s getting boring and emerging into the light when Becky assures her she isn’t! This is some next-level shit here.
Don’t get me wrong – strutting around the galaxy with a light saber in each hand is about as pimp as it gets – it’s just that everywhere I go people want me to help them with something. I just feel like, “find your own Goddamn Ewok shoes, I’ve got a galaxy to save and/or destroy!”
You’re absolutely right, actually. Same thing when I started playing Mass Effect.
Hell, actually, every game I’ve played since I got into gaming has been somewhat spoiled for me first, before I actually decided to play them. Mostly, I’ll go looking for spoilers to keep my companions alive in the story.
Every once in a while they find jobs in public schools, and some aren’t above abusing their position to discriminate against what they don’t understand.
As for what kind of teacher would get sick of Dina’s dino lore, J’m guessing one who spends an entire school year teaching her class. Most folks believe in ‘too much of a good thing;’ fortunately, Becky is not most folks.
Actually, my second grade teacher asked my mother to come in for a conference about my behavior, and informed her that the problem was that I read too much. I’d finish my assigned worksheet, then pull a book out of my desk and read! How dare I!
I believe my mom stared at her open-mouthed long enough for the teacher to realize something was wrong before saying, “Well, then, I’ll tell her to start spending that time chewing gum, passing notes and poking the kid in front of her with a pencil”, and then walked out without a backward glance.
I had a similar problem through secondary school (UK equivalent of high school). I’d have a Terry Pratchett book with me and be reading with the book hidden just below the desk, and my work finished way ahead of others. The teachers would notice, ask me question about the lesson subject, I’d answer correctly and go back to reading. They hated that.
That reminds me of my 6th grade maths teacher. He apparently had a very specific method that he wanted us to use to solve problems, and when I used a different method, still getting the right answer, he marked it wrong on my exam anyway, for every single problem. He then called my dad in for a conference. My dad was understandably livid. ^<__<^;;
My parents got called in for a similar reason in first grade I think? Only in my case it was because I wasn’t paying attention during the reading portion of our class and my teacher was concerned I was having trouble with it. My parents pointed out that I was bored out of my mind since I was already reading at a level well beyond what they were teaching in that class. So they ended up having me help some of the students who were having trouble reading instead.
I had a similar experience. My mom put me in public school as a stopgap after it became clear that the private school I was attending wasn’t going to work out. After a couple of months the teachers claimed that I was ADD because I did more work than assigned and spent instructional time reading. I had straight A’s. Needless to say I didn’t attend that school for much longer after that.
I was a kid who was completely obsessed with weather (literally – how Dina is about dinos is how I was about weather. Then medicine for a while – then etymology because idioms made no sense to me so I wanted to understand them and it got a bit out of hand to put it mildly, Star Wars for a while, Tamora Pierce books for a bit, and more recently chemistry, hydrogen storage and heat transfer – my list of “hobbies” across my life span is less a list of hobbies and more a list of things that have completely taken over my life for years at a time. Autism means you don’t like stuff lightly.)
Anyway, the point of the above is that I can say from experience: Pretty much every teacher ever. “Needs to show more diversity of topics” in English class. “Should diversify experience” on like social development stuff. “Nice kid, but really, really weird, you should probably take her to a psychologist because what six year old lists death statistics from historical tornadoes to calm herself down?!” seemed to be the kind of general consensus I got (yeah, really, I did that. We lived in a tornado zone. When I explained to classmates, they all panicked the next time we had a severe thunderstorm warning with tornado watch. Understandably, but I genuinely had no idea why they were upset because I was so socially inept – it was just fascinating to me that wind could be so destructive. I still love weather watching, it’s just not the level of obsession it used to be, where literally I was a six through nine year old with like pilot’s cloud manuals and suchlike. Which I’d read all of – hyperlexia came in handy there).
But yeah. In general, characters like Dina are considered cute in comics, but if you’re like that in real life? People don’t respond nearly as positively. Generally words like “crazy” “weirdo” and “freak” are thrown around a lot from your age-peers, along with “social developmental delay” and “social impariments” and “behavioral issue” and “inappropriate” and what have you from adults which really are just more-polite ways of saying “crazy” and “weirdo” and “freak,” IME.
Just sayin’. If you like Dina but took the piss out of the weirdo in class who was completely obsessed with something you think of as stupid or immature? You’re exactly the kind of person I’m talking about here. Ahmed Nadir and Dina and River Tam and Spencer Reid and the like are adorable on screen or in comics or in a book, but in real life, most people make fun of us and try to normalize us.
Who the hell wants to be “normal” anyway. I’ve always taken being called “weird” as a compliment, even as a kid, cause who the hell wants to be a generic sheep clone. Can you imagine how bloody boring the world would be if everyone was exactly the same? All conversation would cease cause you’d already know what people were going to say cause it would be the same as what you’d say. BORING.
TL;DR: People who call you weird as an insult aren’t worth your time. Keep on keeping on, my non-generic friend.
I’ve given up trying to be normal because quite literally trying nearly killed me in high school. Or, rather, the realization that I could try and try and try forever and would never succeed at it nearly killed me. My folks & sibs are all socially adept social butterfly types and put a lot of stock in your ability to attract friends as a proxy for your worth as a person – given that I was lucky, generally, if I had even one friend at a time, I got pretty hung up about it, and if I let myself think too much on it, I’ll still tend to obsess over the fact that my partner and I can happily spend an entire weekend without saying a word to each other – not because we’re angry or anything, but just because we’re both people who appreciate quiet and don’t always need words to express care for each other.
Anyway, my brainspace is both happier and healthier now that I accept that I’m weird and have largely stopped trying to be normal. But it took nearly three decades of life and a shitload of emotional torment to reach this space. And I think it’s important for non-neurodivergent people to realize that underneath the cute social awkwardness portrayed on TV, that’s what millions of tiny (and not-so-tiny, and sometimes spectacular) failures in interaction can add up to, if you, like me, are generally-speaking a people pleaser who does care what others think, much to your own dismay at times.
I’m getting too serious for a comic about college kids now, but Dina gives me all the feels.
I was teaching a kid who spent hour after hour, day after day, writing book after writing book, drawing pokemen. I still keep the santa pokeman I got as a Christmas gift.
Becky has always been busty? Idk go back and look, she’s got some boobage. But she’s wearing more form fitting tops now, so it’s a little more obvious. I think it’s also a bit more obvious next to Dina than next to Joyce. Dina is rather small chested, while Joyce is busty like Becky.
As someone who had an grade school English teacher that wrote on his report card that he needed to “stop writing about animals”, and as someone who is currently studying to become a zoologist, I understand completely.
No self-respecting, idealist English teacher would ever prevent a student from reading or writing in her/his spare time. And if the teacher isn’t an idealist, then that teacher has no business being an English teacher. :O
It IS Monday. I think Becky’s saying that if she hadn’t convinced Joyce that Becky should go somewhere (anywhere) else, then Joyce would have tried to convince Becky, and by extension Dina, to sit in Joyce’s math class, which Dina normally attends on Tuesday.
ooooh. i couldn’t figure why dina would’ve taken it twice. now it makes perfect sense. i’d love it if we had complete class schedules and detailed maps to depict all of the background info. maybe a spare book of iu continuity trivia? it might be less popular than the regular books, so the kickstarter’d be trickier. for the comic geek with too short an attention span to compile his own spreadsheet!
…people like me are the reason that walkthroughs are sold in stores, huh? dang
There’s a class schedule, with who attends it when and their teachers (when known) on the wiki as well; Willis linked to it in the comments a day or two ago.
I’m so glad that Dina’s still a feature in this story. Last story was All About Dina. If we switched to a story that had No Dina, the transition would be so jarring that it might kill us.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Willis’s plan is to keep Dina in as much as possible for the next few months, and when the time comes…distract us with Willis babies so we don’t notice Dina isn’t around as much.
Dina really lucked out with this one. And no I’m not saying that as a bitter serial dater, no >:I It’s just rare to find that someone you’re attracted to who’s also attracted to you physically, mentally, verbally, who you have great rapport with annnd is naturally reassuring to you – particularly when you have an anxiety disorder. On the first go!
I’m starting to side with some of the people here, something so perfect could never last…. or could it?!?!?! Oh my God, am I rooting for Becky and Dina
Further evidence that Becky is a fantastic girlfriend when she’s not trying. I mean here she intervenes in a point of self-deprecation, reiterates how much she enjoys spending time, counters narratives Dina’s been hearing all her life even though she didn’t know about them, and shows how much she cares and is interested in her partner’s life.
Honestly, they keep bringing out the best in each other and its so bloody adorable.
I know, right, they are just so naturally happy in each other’s company. Dina does not have a lot of facial expressions, but you can see a lot of emotions in these panels.
I love how Becky is goofing it up – the first and last panel is Becky classic! (and maybe it’s no coincidence that Becky in the last panel takes on manner so similar to what she did in the second panel Here. )
It’s strips like this that make me think that the relative quickness of Becky and Dina getting together compared to everyone else isn’t inherently a negative: the two just click together. There’s no sweeping character arcs and tragic mistakes and the inevitability of it all painfully ending, the two just enjoy each others company and want to be happy. It’s just plain, unbridled joy.
I mentioned it a while back but this should come off as a really lame attempt at making us all like Becky by having her hook up with the most popular character, and instead it feels as compelling and nuanced as the relationships we’ve been reading about for years.
Ethan and Joyce – Happened within two days, as far as I can tell.
Dotty and Walky – A week?
Amber and Dan – Maybe also a week… Unless he met Amazigirl in less time than that.
Sal and the TA (oh, god, why can’t I remember his name?) – Three, four days?
Joe and every straight woman in their building – ten seconds.
Mike and your mom – a nickel.
Judging by this, Dina and Becky didn’t really happen as quickly as I first assumed…
It took them more than a week in realtime, at least depending on what point you take for getting together. I don’t count that as being until their conversation after Dina put Toedad on a bus, so that’s more in the range of at least a month.
Poor Dina, being disparaged for who she is. It’s really painful to receive the message that you’re wrong for being *yourself.*
For me, the issue was more that I didn’t talk to my teachers, or my classmates. If any of them spoke to me, I gave a mumbled one-word response while staring at my shoes. I was pretty much disengaged from everyone for most of my time in school. In second grade, the bullying and teacher disparagement kicked in full force, I lost the one school friend I had to new friends who didn’t like me. After that I just withdrew more and more. By the end of my elementary school years, I didn’t bother doing classwork most of the time, or listening to anyone. I sat and daydreamed, writing stories, and drawing imaginary characters I had invented. I didn’t want to be there in school. Still, I knew that’s where I was supposed to be so I compromised by being physically present, while in another universe mentally. Good times.
I did eventually start doing school work again, because I knew I wanted to be able to some day go away to college, so I could escape and start over somewhere else. I made it to college, and got to experience being the weird one in a new environment. Woo.
I don’t know what it is about this comic that regularly makes me want to bare my soul. Who brought the veritaserum?
I had that experience repeatedly as a military brat in the ’60s, moving all the time. I only got to go to the same school two grades in a row once before my Dad retired, I usually went until I could pass to the next grade before moving, except for 8th grade when I registered for 4 schools and actually got to attend two of them. Do you know how annoying and frustrating it gets when you get all wound up about finally getting to take some challenging classes and you get yanked into a district that doesn’t offer any of the electives or advanced classes you picked out?
On that “go until you can pass to the next grade” thing, I had a thing going in 4th grade where I was working on getting a “perfect attendance” award, actually looking forward to standing in front of the whole school with all the other people who managed to survive the entire year without an absence, and I got pulled out of school a month and a half early. That was the Spring of 1968, and it still hurts a little. Yeah I know…
these comics hit a lot of nerves. and it helps that the conversations that we have here are in a written medium, which you can review before putting your thoughts out there. it is reassuring when sharing your vulnerabilities to be able to proofread. that said, it also helps that the majority of comments i’ve read seem actually interested in discussing rather than just chest-thumping for how well they understand psychology. every unique life experience contributes to a pool of common empathy. i think if more people sat down once a night to read the accounts of those who don’t or can’t comfortably blog/facebook/tweet/snapchat/instagram everything that they go through, the world might become a more civil (if slightly less raucously fun) place
Is Becky over Joyce? Is Dina just a rebound? She claims Dina is amazing and is super happy to have a girlfriend….but does she really think that? Are her feelings sincere or a biproduct of her stressful environment combined with unrequited love?
I have an autistic brother, and I continuously worry that anyone interested in him is using him, because he wont necessarily recognize that he is being used (and he has been used before by many people). I may just be projecting sisterly worries onto Dina.
The way I see it, Becky is that enamored with Dina, and a small part of that is that she’s lonely and wounded by Joyce’s rejection. Becky is trapped in a situation where everything can be pulled out from under her feet at a moment’s notice, and she can’t turn to Joyce for all her support because she feels she’s causing Joyce stress by making her lie to her parents and the school by hiding her, and also the fact that Becky was still hurting over Joyce not reciprocating her feelings.
Dina, meanwhile, provides an escape from Joyce and another outlet for support, someone who can educate her on things she missed out on due to her upbringing, and also made it clear that she likes Becky in the way Becky wants to be.
So I think part of it is definitely a reaction to Joyce, but if all those previous events hadn’t happened, had Becky been enrolled into IU, be in a safer position in life, and easily worked through her love for Joyce, I think Becky would still be just as willing to go for it.
I don’t think so, because she doesn’t really treat Dina like she does Joyce. Dina has routinely taken the lead in the relationship and taken ahead, and even now Becky is mostly following Dina’s lead. Whereas Becky shows affection for Joyce through side-ribbing and joking and grinning like a madgirl when she sees the expressions Joyce’s face twists into.
Dina is, by comparison, pretty unflappable, and expresses herself in very different ways. She is physically very different from Joyce in body type and personality; she’s more subdued and a LOT more at ease with herself. Even the experience of teasing Dina would probably be very different than if she teased Joyce, and we actually haven’t seen Becky even attempt to tease Dina at all. It feels like a different kind of relationship to me.
i am now eagerly awaiting the moment when dina successfully teases becky and loves her reaction. that shall be her final test before she becomes the master!
That’s a good observation – Becky has not once tried to push Dina out of her comfort zone the way she does Joyce. In fact, she does everything to put herself INTO Dina’s comfort zone.
Dina is a different personality than Joyce. Becky and Joyce have been best friends for a long time, so of course Becky treats Joyce very differently than Dina. Becky only just recently met Dina, so they are still in that “feeling eachother out” stage.
I do worry thpugh that Becky is just in rebound and she’s only interested in Dina because she’s a fount of “forbidden knowledge”. If Becky grows bored of her eventually, it could really damage Dina.
I speak from experience on the last part (being the one that got used).
Reading this thread, I realized something: Becky and Dina click so well because they’re both outcasts. Dina, though adored, is still considered childish by her peers, and often left out of things (Just look at how everyone reacted when Becky admitted she was hitting on Dina). Becky, even before she came out, was always a wild child, anathema to her conservative neighborhood and always under the shadow of her best friend Joyce. In fact I think, deep down, Becky considers Joyce another authority figure, which is why she spent so much time antagonizing her.
Agreed, I’ve always thought that Beckys treatment of Joyce is, in part, a desire to lash out at an authority figure and Joyce is the safest figure she can find, a mom substitute if you like
So what’s the consensus on their ship name, guys? Are they aboard the SS Beckna? Because Dicky is both phonetically misleading and completely misrepresentative of a lesbian relationship.
Spoilers? Pffft. You are crazy. None of the gravatars ever give away spoilers. Not a single one I have ever seen, ever. There be no spoilers in any gravatars ever. Especially not this one.
About the typeface poll…is there a 3rd option? how about “I didn’t even notice it changed, so i had to look at the first comic to see the difference. And like the new one better.”
Agree that the art work with the shadows is really excellent.
I don’t know if Becky is on the rebound or not, likely to an extent she is: but I also think the two of them together are above and beyond good. And never a pairing I would have expected to like.
I like the statement, they bring out the best in each other. I think they do.
Can you imagine the poor sap who had to teach Dina in natural history?
“And today we are going to talk about dinosaurs… wait… Dinosaurs lived.. wait… more than 65 mil…. wait… million… wait… years ago and were divided in several… YES, Dina?”
*Deep breath* “Staring by pointing out the oversimplification you have so far been guilty of, I would like to…” [needlessly detailed 1 hour monologue about dinosaurs that will go straight over the head of her class mates]
It such a beautiful Dina moment that she in the third panel actually takes time to answer the question. “No, I do in fact have a very large amount of Dinosaur facts.”
As I’m sure Dina would tell you, paleontologists study the fossilized fæces of dinosaurs (known as coprolites), which means there is little likelihood that they will “ease up on the dinosaur shit”, either figuratively or literally.
It has been my experience that amazing women often are not told they are amazing until such a time as they are no longer inclined to believe it. And that’s criminal. Tell an amazing woman she’s amazing, today.
apparently, becky’s dad is oregon football coach mark helfrich. to quote a sign at the oregon – michigan state game (via deadspin from espn college gameday) “mark helfrich looks like a toe”. if you look up his picture, he kinda does.
Now, that’s intriguing. It seems that Dina is fully aware that people find her dinosaur fixation and associated behavior off-putting but she does it anyway even though she has no problem stopping if she wants to! Is it a defensive behavior to keep those puzzling and occasionally distressing humans at arm’s length?
I think it’s mostly because dinosaurs are friggin’ awesome and she doesn’t find other peoples opinion a good enough reason to stop doing awesome things.
I think it’s more she doesn’t really know what else to talk about, it clearly is something that she is aware and thinks about, but because she doesn’t know what to do, she just retreats to what she is comfortable with, that is dinosaurs.
I’d say it’s not so much that as that she can stop it whenever she wants, but that she can avoid it, but doing so requires constant self-monitoring, which, speaking from personal experience can be frankly exhausting, and is not fun at all.
She is however plenty aware of how she can come off to people, and is making this effort with Becky because she feels particularly invested in not annoying or scaring Becky off.
“Oh, I’m sorry for talking about the things I like, you must be bored of me again I’m sorry I’ll shut up now except no I’m supposed to talk I don’t understand social interactions at all someone please help.”
– My life
Life is a continuing cycle of doing the things you love, lying about doing the things you love, and sleeping. This applies equally to murderers, adulterers, and nerds that don’t have herds.
A Mike arc where he discovers time travel and ends up being the cause of every historical disaster, ever. Pompeii? Mike. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination? Mike. World war 1 and 2? Mike. And after he did all that he went back in time to f*ck everyone’s mothers.
Poked another webcomic for a comment & stumbled onto another character that escaped extremely religious parents. Just wondering if those examples mentioned would also work for Joyce’s/Becky’s home community. Gotta admit, it sure sounds that way…
Dinosaur bones were not put in the Earth to test our faith, because that’s ridiculous. Dinosaurs were regular animals who were put on the Ark (but juvenile versions so as to not take up too much space) and then they collectively died out after the Flood due to lack of food and overzealous hunting by humans.
Actually now that I think about it, what the teachers wrote in my report cards were usually something like, “Quiet in class. I wish he would get in a little bit of trouble.”
All my report card notes said ‘quiet in class’ except Theatre, History, and a couple English classes.
I think my favorite one was my 11th grade English report card that said “A-, major project not turned in.” You’re damn right I did my math correctly on that one.
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Can I just say how much I love the way the shadow of the tree overhead frames this? It tells the story of their walking together beneath it without necessarily needing to see their feet or even shift the focus to the presence of any landmarks other than these lovebirds, giving it a sense of motion that wouldn’t be present otherwise, and I just think that’s a nice touch.
Seconded.
thirded
I hadn’t even noticed it. That’s High Quality Art.
Agreed. Thanks for pointing it out.
Kudos, David.
Hella subtle.
It’s this kind of attention to details <3
I only noticed this when I read your comment and went back to look- not only does it indicate motion, but they’re in shadow when Dina worries that she’s getting boring and emerging into the light when Becky assures her she isn’t! This is some next-level shit here.
Dina’s teachers are weird.
Silly mammals.
Foolish meatsacks…
MEATBAGS!
Gravatar, Y U NO CHANGE?!
Must… Resist… KOT- F**king Steam.
It’s already downloading…
HK-47: Converting people to the KOTOR religion for… twelve years now?
Don’t get me wrong – strutting around the galaxy with a light saber in each hand is about as pimp as it gets – it’s just that everywhere I go people want me to help them with something. I just feel like, “find your own Goddamn Ewok shoes, I’ve got a galaxy to save and/or destroy!”
[Instruction]: do not underestimate the power of the Darkside, meatbag.
Eh, I like meatsack… 😛
He probably had someone spoil it by telling him how amazing the game was before the first playthough.
Listening to HK-47 (it was never clear to me whether he was killing his owners or not) and finding out what was in that flashback…
You’re absolutely right, actually. Same thing when I started playing Mass Effect.
Hell, actually, every game I’ve played since I got into gaming has been somewhat spoiled for me first, before I actually decided to play them. Mostly, I’ll go looking for spoilers to keep my companions alive in the story.
Tricks are for kids?
uh, EXCUSE you, the SCIENTIFIC term is “TRIX”
Nothri’s a cereal offender.
So I should BOX her in with the cereal killers?
Uurgh! The pain. THE PAIN!
Would you say the pain is too grrrrrrreat for you?
On the contrary–it’s magically delicious!
What kind of teacher would want Dina to stop talking about Dino facts?
A radical christian one?
So Becky’s dad?
Given that her parents are completely chill with her dating a chick, i doubt she went to a radical christian school.
Every once in a while they find jobs in public schools, and some aren’t above abusing their position to discriminate against what they don’t understand.
As for what kind of teacher would get sick of Dina’s dino lore, J’m guessing one who spends an entire school year teaching her class. Most folks believe in ‘too much of a good thing;’ fortunately, Becky is not most folks.
Ask her again in a year.
Probably had to teach that boy from Fox Trot first.
A maths teacher might have other things to get to, par exemple…
Oh who needs math anyways?
There are probably equations you need to learn in order to appropriately radiometrically date things.
That’s what mathematical computer programs are for.
Actually, my second grade teacher asked my mother to come in for a conference about my behavior, and informed her that the problem was that I read too much. I’d finish my assigned worksheet, then pull a book out of my desk and read! How dare I!
I believe my mom stared at her open-mouthed long enough for the teacher to realize something was wrong before saying, “Well, then, I’ll tell her to start spending that time chewing gum, passing notes and poking the kid in front of her with a pencil”, and then walked out without a backward glance.
Oh, heaven forbid a child should read, they might get smater and be better at learning! Can’t have that, we need ignorant controllable sheep!
I had a similar problem through secondary school (UK equivalent of high school). I’d have a Terry Pratchett book with me and be reading with the book hidden just below the desk, and my work finished way ahead of others. The teachers would notice, ask me question about the lesson subject, I’d answer correctly and go back to reading. They hated that.
Heh. That’s how I spent most of middle school.
Well, aside from not having been exposed to Pratchett yet.
That reminds me of my 6th grade maths teacher. He apparently had a very specific method that he wanted us to use to solve problems, and when I used a different method, still getting the right answer, he marked it wrong on my exam anyway, for every single problem. He then called my dad in for a conference. My dad was understandably livid. ^<__<^;;
you just perfectly described how i failed Algebra 2…
My parents got called in for a similar reason in first grade I think? Only in my case it was because I wasn’t paying attention during the reading portion of our class and my teacher was concerned I was having trouble with it. My parents pointed out that I was bored out of my mind since I was already reading at a level well beyond what they were teaching in that class. So they ended up having me help some of the students who were having trouble reading instead.
I had a similar experience. My mom put me in public school as a stopgap after it became clear that the private school I was attending wasn’t going to work out. After a couple of months the teachers claimed that I was ADD because I did more work than assigned and spent instructional time reading. I had straight A’s. Needless to say I didn’t attend that school for much longer after that.
One that would really like her to pay attention to some of the other topics?
I was a kid who was completely obsessed with weather (literally – how Dina is about dinos is how I was about weather. Then medicine for a while – then etymology because idioms made no sense to me so I wanted to understand them and it got a bit out of hand to put it mildly, Star Wars for a while, Tamora Pierce books for a bit, and more recently chemistry, hydrogen storage and heat transfer – my list of “hobbies” across my life span is less a list of hobbies and more a list of things that have completely taken over my life for years at a time. Autism means you don’t like stuff lightly.)
Anyway, the point of the above is that I can say from experience: Pretty much every teacher ever. “Needs to show more diversity of topics” in English class. “Should diversify experience” on like social development stuff. “Nice kid, but really, really weird, you should probably take her to a psychologist because what six year old lists death statistics from historical tornadoes to calm herself down?!” seemed to be the kind of general consensus I got (yeah, really, I did that. We lived in a tornado zone. When I explained to classmates, they all panicked the next time we had a severe thunderstorm warning with tornado watch. Understandably, but I genuinely had no idea why they were upset because I was so socially inept – it was just fascinating to me that wind could be so destructive. I still love weather watching, it’s just not the level of obsession it used to be, where literally I was a six through nine year old with like pilot’s cloud manuals and suchlike. Which I’d read all of – hyperlexia came in handy there).
But yeah. In general, characters like Dina are considered cute in comics, but if you’re like that in real life? People don’t respond nearly as positively. Generally words like “crazy” “weirdo” and “freak” are thrown around a lot from your age-peers, along with “social developmental delay” and “social impariments” and “behavioral issue” and “inappropriate” and what have you from adults which really are just more-polite ways of saying “crazy” and “weirdo” and “freak,” IME.
Just sayin’. If you like Dina but took the piss out of the weirdo in class who was completely obsessed with something you think of as stupid or immature? You’re exactly the kind of person I’m talking about here. Ahmed Nadir and Dina and River Tam and Spencer Reid and the like are adorable on screen or in comics or in a book, but in real life, most people make fun of us and try to normalize us.
Who the hell wants to be “normal” anyway. I’ve always taken being called “weird” as a compliment, even as a kid, cause who the hell wants to be a generic sheep clone. Can you imagine how bloody boring the world would be if everyone was exactly the same? All conversation would cease cause you’d already know what people were going to say cause it would be the same as what you’d say. BORING.
TL;DR: People who call you weird as an insult aren’t worth your time. Keep on keeping on, my non-generic friend.
Hello fellow proud weirdo!
I must say: you are quite contrary to the norm.
And I also must say:we share a philosophy (Weird is a word that should be grouped as a compliment)
You’re weird. And I love it!
(Another proud weirdo here ;))
I’ve given up trying to be normal because quite literally trying nearly killed me in high school. Or, rather, the realization that I could try and try and try forever and would never succeed at it nearly killed me. My folks & sibs are all socially adept social butterfly types and put a lot of stock in your ability to attract friends as a proxy for your worth as a person – given that I was lucky, generally, if I had even one friend at a time, I got pretty hung up about it, and if I let myself think too much on it, I’ll still tend to obsess over the fact that my partner and I can happily spend an entire weekend without saying a word to each other – not because we’re angry or anything, but just because we’re both people who appreciate quiet and don’t always need words to express care for each other.
Anyway, my brainspace is both happier and healthier now that I accept that I’m weird and have largely stopped trying to be normal. But it took nearly three decades of life and a shitload of emotional torment to reach this space. And I think it’s important for non-neurodivergent people to realize that underneath the cute social awkwardness portrayed on TV, that’s what millions of tiny (and not-so-tiny, and sometimes spectacular) failures in interaction can add up to, if you, like me, are generally-speaking a people pleaser who does care what others think, much to your own dismay at times.
I’m getting too serious for a comic about college kids now, but Dina gives me all the feels.
Click my name to be happy! (It really works!)
REport card margins, eh.
“Yes, she’s an attentive calculus student and she always does her homework, but if only she’d quit yackin’ bout sweet historical monsters!”
Oh Dina, I feel you so hard on that last one.
Although in my case it was teachers getting tired of me going on about science fiction and fantasy books I was reading.
And my habit of drawing dragons on my papers.
I was teaching a kid who spent hour after hour, day after day, writing book after writing book, drawing pokemen. I still keep the santa pokeman I got as a Christmas gift.
I’ve been on the receiving end of that sort of report card. Guaranteed way to make a kid feel terrible about themselves and their interests.
I thought it wasn’t possible to love this ship more but now I do.
Becky is the best girlfriend
It’s probably just the angle of her torso, but that first panel makes Becky appear more busty than I had considered her before.
I’m not sure why I felt the need to point that out.
Her breasts do seem more defined.
Hey, dinosaurs need a good place to lie down sometimes…often in a nice …valley…
Yeah.
Is that the Great Valley they were looking for in Land Before Time?
Lives up to the hype.
Based on this image, I think it’s more that a combination of angles and outifts has hidden it up until this point.
It depends a lot on your bra, too. She might have put a different one on.
I so noticed that. Does that make me “such a guy” or just into girls?
Dat avatar paired with those comments, would put you at 8 years old, though! Hee hee!
The “thumbs hooked behind her shirt pulling it outward” is probably what is doing it.
Becky has always been busty? Idk go back and look, she’s got some boobage. But she’s wearing more form fitting tops now, so it’s a little more obvious. I think it’s also a bit more obvious next to Dina than next to Joyce. Dina is rather small chested, while Joyce is busty like Becky.
As someone who had an grade school English teacher that wrote on his report card that he needed to “stop writing about animals”, and as someone who is currently studying to become a zoologist, I understand completely.
Was your teacher old,like over 50 years?That would explain it.
At the time, I’m pretty sure she was in her ’40s.
No self-respecting, idealist English teacher would ever prevent a student from reading or writing in her/his spare time. And if the teacher isn’t an idealist, then that teacher has no business being an English teacher. :O
DINA OH MY GOD YOU SWEET PRECIOUS BABY
Poor Dina!
(On an unrelated note, what day is this? I had thought that this storyline was set on a Monday and I am so confused.)
It IS Monday. I think Becky’s saying that if she hadn’t convinced Joyce that Becky should go somewhere (anywhere) else, then Joyce would have tried to convince Becky, and by extension Dina, to sit in Joyce’s math class, which Dina normally attends on Tuesday.
Now that you say that, that makes so much sense. Thank you!
ooooh. i couldn’t figure why dina would’ve taken it twice. now it makes perfect sense. i’d love it if we had complete class schedules and detailed maps to depict all of the background info. maybe a spare book of iu continuity trivia? it might be less popular than the regular books, so the kickstarter’d be trickier. for the comic geek with too short an attention span to compile his own spreadsheet!
…people like me are the reason that walkthroughs are sold in stores, huh? dang
Yeah, you sound like the kind of person they do Omnibus volumes for with the appendixes.
*appendices
Grammar commie, signing off.
Well there’s class schedules on the wiki, and you could probably find a campus map on IU’s real website.
This is a great site and is the one I use when I need to refer to an IU campus map — http://map.iu.edu/iub/.
whoa, these are amazing. thanks, guys! i will be getting even less sleep now. a bit embarrassed that i didn’t think to check the wiki, not gonna lie…
If it makes you feel better, I had read the schedule on the wiki and I still got confused. 😛
There’s a class schedule, with who attends it when and their teachers (when known) on the wiki as well; Willis linked to it in the comments a day or two ago.
Check this!
Ohboy, Gender Studies in the afternoon.
Good luck avoiding Dorothy for much longer, Joyce.
Whoops, and there it is. 😀
I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop….
I’m so glad that Dina’s still a feature in this story. Last story was All About Dina. If we switched to a story that had No Dina, the transition would be so jarring that it might kill us.
Gotta ween us off that Dinahol slowly.
Now we have grown accustomed to a minimum dose of Dina awesomeness and Dina+Becky adorableness. We can’t cut that out altogether.
Do we have a rehab? Do we want one?
Frack no we don’t!
(well, Frack no I don’t)
(Did that HTML tag work right (this is my first time trying))
No it did not!
How do I end the italics?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Willis’s plan is to keep Dina in as much as possible for the next few months, and when the time comes…distract us with Willis babies so we don’t notice Dina isn’t around as much.
Dina really lucked out with this one. And no I’m not saying that as a bitter serial dater, no >:I It’s just rare to find that someone you’re attracted to who’s also attracted to you physically, mentally, verbally, who you have great rapport with annnd is naturally reassuring to you – particularly when you have an anxiety disorder. On the first go!
I’m starting to side with some of the people here, something so perfect could never last…. or could it?!?!?! Oh my God, am I rooting for Becky and Dina
Further evidence that Becky is a fantastic girlfriend when she’s not trying. I mean here she intervenes in a point of self-deprecation, reiterates how much she enjoys spending time, counters narratives Dina’s been hearing all her life even though she didn’t know about them, and shows how much she cares and is interested in her partner’s life.
Honestly, they keep bringing out the best in each other and its so bloody adorable.
I know, right, they are just so naturally happy in each other’s company. Dina does not have a lot of facial expressions, but you can see a lot of emotions in these panels.
I love how Becky is goofing it up – the first and last panel is Becky classic! (and maybe it’s no coincidence that Becky in the last panel takes on manner so similar to what she did in the second panel Here. )
It’s strips like this that make me think that the relative quickness of Becky and Dina getting together compared to everyone else isn’t inherently a negative: the two just click together. There’s no sweeping character arcs and tragic mistakes and the inevitability of it all painfully ending, the two just enjoy each others company and want to be happy. It’s just plain, unbridled joy.
I mentioned it a while back but this should come off as a really lame attempt at making us all like Becky by having her hook up with the most popular character, and instead it feels as compelling and nuanced as the relationships we’ve been reading about for years.
Well, I mean… who are we comparing them to?
Ethan and Joyce – Happened within two days, as far as I can tell.
Dotty and Walky – A week?
Amber and Dan – Maybe also a week… Unless he met Amazigirl in less time than that.
Sal and the TA (oh, god, why can’t I remember his name?) – Three, four days?
Joe and every straight woman in their building – ten seconds.
Mike and your mom – a nickel.
Judging by this, Dina and Becky didn’t really happen as quickly as I first assumed…
I was referring to the real life amount of time it took those relationships to occur. Not the time dilation field DoA takes place in.
Oh, yeah… It only took them… a week? Maybe a little more?
It took them more than a week in realtime, at least depending on what point you take for getting together. I don’t count that as being until their conversation after Dina put Toedad on a bus, so that’s more in the range of at least a month.
Poor Dina, being disparaged for who she is. It’s really painful to receive the message that you’re wrong for being *yourself.*
For me, the issue was more that I didn’t talk to my teachers, or my classmates. If any of them spoke to me, I gave a mumbled one-word response while staring at my shoes. I was pretty much disengaged from everyone for most of my time in school. In second grade, the bullying and teacher disparagement kicked in full force, I lost the one school friend I had to new friends who didn’t like me. After that I just withdrew more and more. By the end of my elementary school years, I didn’t bother doing classwork most of the time, or listening to anyone. I sat and daydreamed, writing stories, and drawing imaginary characters I had invented. I didn’t want to be there in school. Still, I knew that’s where I was supposed to be so I compromised by being physically present, while in another universe mentally. Good times.
I did eventually start doing school work again, because I knew I wanted to be able to some day go away to college, so I could escape and start over somewhere else. I made it to college, and got to experience being the weird one in a new environment. Woo.
I don’t know what it is about this comic that regularly makes me want to bare my soul. Who brought the veritaserum?
I had that experience repeatedly as a military brat in the ’60s, moving all the time. I only got to go to the same school two grades in a row once before my Dad retired, I usually went until I could pass to the next grade before moving, except for 8th grade when I registered for 4 schools and actually got to attend two of them. Do you know how annoying and frustrating it gets when you get all wound up about finally getting to take some challenging classes and you get yanked into a district that doesn’t offer any of the electives or advanced classes you picked out?
On that “go until you can pass to the next grade” thing, I had a thing going in 4th grade where I was working on getting a “perfect attendance” award, actually looking forward to standing in front of the whole school with all the other people who managed to survive the entire year without an absence, and I got pulled out of school a month and a half early. That was the Spring of 1968, and it still hurts a little. Yeah I know…
these comics hit a lot of nerves. and it helps that the conversations that we have here are in a written medium, which you can review before putting your thoughts out there. it is reassuring when sharing your vulnerabilities to be able to proofread. that said, it also helps that the majority of comments i’ve read seem actually interested in discussing rather than just chest-thumping for how well they understand psychology. every unique life experience contributes to a pool of common empathy. i think if more people sat down once a night to read the accounts of those who don’t or can’t comfortably blog/facebook/tweet/snapchat/instagram everything that they go through, the world might become a more civil (if slightly less raucously fun) place
Okay, Becky is awesome, Dina remains awesome, and now I want to move them here to Colorado where they can get married and live happily ever after.
I will also volunteer to bark and snap at Shuttlecock ToeDad to keep him away from the happy couple.
BARK BARK grrrrrrrrr BARK BARK BARK!
i think that when they were in colorado, there were aliens involved. actually, i can’t recall whether becky was ever there…
You know what worries me?
Is Becky over Joyce? Is Dina just a rebound? She claims Dina is amazing and is super happy to have a girlfriend….but does she really think that? Are her feelings sincere or a biproduct of her stressful environment combined with unrequited love?
I have an autistic brother, and I continuously worry that anyone interested in him is using him, because he wont necessarily recognize that he is being used (and he has been used before by many people). I may just be projecting sisterly worries onto Dina.
The way I see it, Becky is that enamored with Dina, and a small part of that is that she’s lonely and wounded by Joyce’s rejection. Becky is trapped in a situation where everything can be pulled out from under her feet at a moment’s notice, and she can’t turn to Joyce for all her support because she feels she’s causing Joyce stress by making her lie to her parents and the school by hiding her, and also the fact that Becky was still hurting over Joyce not reciprocating her feelings.
Dina, meanwhile, provides an escape from Joyce and another outlet for support, someone who can educate her on things she missed out on due to her upbringing, and also made it clear that she likes Becky in the way Becky wants to be.
So I think part of it is definitely a reaction to Joyce, but if all those previous events hadn’t happened, had Becky been enrolled into IU, be in a safer position in life, and easily worked through her love for Joyce, I think Becky would still be just as willing to go for it.
I don’t think so, because she doesn’t really treat Dina like she does Joyce. Dina has routinely taken the lead in the relationship and taken ahead, and even now Becky is mostly following Dina’s lead. Whereas Becky shows affection for Joyce through side-ribbing and joking and grinning like a madgirl when she sees the expressions Joyce’s face twists into.
Dina is, by comparison, pretty unflappable, and expresses herself in very different ways. She is physically very different from Joyce in body type and personality; she’s more subdued and a LOT more at ease with herself. Even the experience of teasing Dina would probably be very different than if she teased Joyce, and we actually haven’t seen Becky even attempt to tease Dina at all. It feels like a different kind of relationship to me.
i am now eagerly awaiting the moment when dina successfully teases becky and loves her reaction. that shall be her final test before she becomes the master!
Yes, and then she shall acquire the Glow and be able to defeat Sho’Nuff!
That’s a good observation – Becky has not once tried to push Dina out of her comfort zone the way she does Joyce. In fact, she does everything to put herself INTO Dina’s comfort zone.
Yeah, it’s not like that time Danny started dating a brunette clone of his former girlfriend 🙂
Dina is a different personality than Joyce. Becky and Joyce have been best friends for a long time, so of course Becky treats Joyce very differently than Dina. Becky only just recently met Dina, so they are still in that “feeling eachother out” stage.
I do worry thpugh that Becky is just in rebound and she’s only interested in Dina because she’s a fount of “forbidden knowledge”. If Becky grows bored of her eventually, it could really damage Dina.
I speak from experience on the last part (being the one that got used).
> “feeling each other out” stage.
in more ways than one.
You meant “up”, maybe 😛
Not quite I’m thinking. They need more research first…
Reading this thread, I realized something: Becky and Dina click so well because they’re both outcasts. Dina, though adored, is still considered childish by her peers, and often left out of things (Just look at how everyone reacted when Becky admitted she was hitting on Dina). Becky, even before she came out, was always a wild child, anathema to her conservative neighborhood and always under the shadow of her best friend Joyce. In fact I think, deep down, Becky considers Joyce another authority figure, which is why she spent so much time antagonizing her.
Adored by US, keep in mind. She’s not so beloved in universe. Not hated, but no fervored fans
A real wild child?
Agreed, I’ve always thought that Beckys treatment of Joyce is, in part, a desire to lash out at an authority figure and Joyce is the safest figure she can find, a mom substitute if you like
So what’s the consensus on their ship name, guys? Are they aboard the SS Beckna? Because Dicky is both phonetically misleading and completely misrepresentative of a lesbian relationship.
Wouldn’t Dinky be more better?
Willis has offered Beckasaurus and Terrible Lizbians as potential ship names. I’m partial to Beckasaurus myself.
it’s beckasaur or terrible lizbians
Beckina sounds nice to me.
The official ship-name of course is Dinasaurus Becks!
Don’t let the other comments (or word of god) fool you!
Phew, I was actually worried anout Dina skipping math class. I couldn’t remember if she was in the Monday group or not.
I was looking through the old archives and I realized that the gravatars give away some pretty big spoilers.
The friggin banner at the top of the page does as well!
Spoilers? Pffft. You are crazy. None of the gravatars ever give away spoilers. Not a single one I have ever seen, ever. There be no spoilers in any gravatars ever. Especially not this one.
Clearly a kickstarter award.
That dinosaur comics shirt is awesome! Dina already rocks, but that’s such a cool touch.
I have never wanted to hit Danny with a newspaper more than when I saw his expression in this avatar.
I wonder how many wadded newspapers it would take to maks a boulder-sized projectile for a trebuchet…
Or to make a crossbow.
Several hundred NYT Sunday Editions.
About the typeface poll…is there a 3rd option? how about “I didn’t even notice it changed, so i had to look at the first comic to see the difference. And like the new one better.”
Agree that the art work with the shadows is really excellent.
I don’t know if Becky is on the rebound or not, likely to an extent she is: but I also think the two of them together are above and beyond good. And never a pairing I would have expected to like.
I like the statement, they bring out the best in each other. I think they do.
Can you imagine the poor sap who had to teach Dina in natural history?
“And today we are going to talk about dinosaurs… wait… Dinosaurs lived.. wait… more than 65 mil…. wait… million… wait… years ago and were divided in several… YES, Dina?”
*Deep breath* “Staring by pointing out the oversimplification you have so far been guilty of, I would like to…” [needlessly detailed 1 hour monologue about dinosaurs that will go straight over the head of her class mates]
one does not simply…
run out of dinosaur facts.
They keep discovering new ones all the time. So, yeah.
After all, there’s been 65 million years to dig up new ones & you Humans have only just begun…
It such a beautiful Dina moment that she in the third panel actually takes time to answer the question. “No, I do in fact have a very large amount of Dinosaur facts.”
This storyline is too sweet and adorable. Somebody is going to end up crying, probably me
As I’m sure Dina would tell you, paleontologists study the fossilized fæces of dinosaurs (known as coprolites), which means there is little likelihood that they will “ease up on the dinosaur shit”, either figuratively or literally.
Ha.
It has been my experience that amazing women often are not told they are amazing until such a time as they are no longer inclined to believe it. And that’s criminal. Tell an amazing woman she’s amazing, today.
thanks mike.
apparently, becky’s dad is oregon football coach mark helfrich. to quote a sign at the oregon – michigan state game (via deadspin from espn college gameday) “mark helfrich looks like a toe”. if you look up his picture, he kinda does.
Heh. Garth Brooks used to describe himself as “the thumb with a hat”.
Now, that’s intriguing. It seems that Dina is fully aware that people find her dinosaur fixation and associated behavior off-putting but she does it anyway even though she has no problem stopping if she wants to! Is it a defensive behavior to keep those puzzling and occasionally distressing humans at arm’s length?
I think it’s mostly because dinosaurs are friggin’ awesome and she doesn’t find other peoples opinion a good enough reason to stop doing awesome things.
As discussed Here
I think it’s more she doesn’t really know what else to talk about, it clearly is something that she is aware and thinks about, but because she doesn’t know what to do, she just retreats to what she is comfortable with, that is dinosaurs.
I’d say it’s not so much that as that she can stop it whenever she wants, but that she can avoid it, but doing so requires constant self-monitoring, which, speaking from personal experience can be frankly exhausting, and is not fun at all.
She is however plenty aware of how she can come off to people, and is making this effort with Becky because she feels particularly invested in not annoying or scaring Becky off.
*posting this before I lose my nerve*
“Oh, I’m sorry for talking about the things I like, you must be bored of me again I’m sorry I’ll shut up now except no I’m supposed to talk I don’t understand social interactions at all someone please help.”
– My life
Life is a continuing cycle of doing the things you love, lying about doing the things you love, and sleeping. This applies equally to murderers, adulterers, and nerds that don’t have herds.
yep 🙁 same here
“I have a hard time figuring out when others are bored with me.” Dina, I know that feel, bro.
Ooh, yes, I know that one.
Thirded.
As great as that gravatar is, I much preferred not remembering the abomination it’s capped from…
Usually, they just stare at me with a blank stare, until I shut up.
Kids these days. They should be in class. I don’t care if you’ve got a new lesbian girlfriend. Y’alls need that edumakashun.
Dina has math class tomorrow, I’m sure Becky will go with her then.
In all fairness, the implication seems to be that Dina could easily test out of that class if she were only allowed.
Dammit! Marcie avatar! Please retrocatively read the above comment in ASL. Also, this one…
Needs more Mike
There’s a nickel out there that is screaming for Mike and a mom.
A Mike arc where he discovers time travel and ends up being the cause of every historical disaster, ever. Pompeii? Mike. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination? Mike. World war 1 and 2? Mike. And after he did all that he went back in time to f*ck everyone’s mothers.
Yeah who the heck says that?
Not me, that’s for sure!
A question for Mr Willis, if I may…
Poked another webcomic for a comment & stumbled onto another character that escaped extremely religious parents. Just wondering if those examples mentioned would also work for Joyce’s/Becky’s home community. Gotta admit, it sure sounds that way…
Dinosaur bones were not put in the Earth to test our faith, because that’s ridiculous. Dinosaurs were regular animals who were put on the Ark (but juvenile versions so as to not take up too much space) and then they collectively died out after the Flood due to lack of food and overzealous hunting by humans.
You know, I can’t tell if you’re bullshittin’ or not because I’ve actually had this conversation with a person who was serious…
I know there’s a newer comic up & usually older ones are allowed to rest, but I gotta admit, I just have to applaud that reply. Here, have my collection of “Likes”, you earned it… XD
Actually now that I think about it, what the teachers wrote in my report cards were usually something like, “Quiet in class. I wish he would get in a little bit of trouble.”
All my report card notes said ‘quiet in class’ except Theatre, History, and a couple English classes.
I think my favorite one was my 11th grade English report card that said “A-, major project not turned in.” You’re damn right I did my math correctly on that one.