Could be from a future strtip like the last few gravs or from a patreon bonus strip. or like the Ethan & Jacobb one it is totally fake ( or is it? 🙂 ).
Even a couple months ago, it was 2 minutes off, for me at least, so I figure if we wait long enough it’ll wrap all the way around to the next midnight.
WordPress missed its update by four minutes, I came in at 12:07, noticed, and had to hit publish myself. I do need to ask Hiveworks to fix the site clock. It drifts sometimes.
It may be worthwhile asking Hiveworks to run an NTP daemon on their server to reign in that drift.
The Network Time Protocol is pretty crazy, you guys. One of the oldest internet protocols still in widespread use! D’awwww… Synchronize your watches, little computers! <3
NTP has also recently been found to be hackable entry point on some servers. Maybe it’s been disabled for protection or a failed attempt has screwed up their daemon/service.
Has NTP as a client been found to be an entry point?
I know NTP as a server has been found to be a very effective DDOS tool when misconfigured, but I hadn’t heard anything about using it as a client posing any security risk.
Used to work as an ISP call centre tech, until a few months ago. D-Link (and a few others, but they were the main ones we saw) has been having repeated issues with their firmware allowing DDOS attacks via the NTP module; they keep having to issue new firmware to deal with it (three times in the last year and a half, or so?). Their UPNP module also has issues but I don’t remember now if it’s tied to the NTP thing or a separate DDOS-entry point issue; haven’t worked there for several months.
But yeah, from what I remember, it can definitely be an attack vector on the client side; we had information sheets to send to people who had been hacked with it. It’s suck a low-level, basic protocol, and so old, that it just doesn’t have the same protections in place (although it should and may do by now).
IIRC, most of the problem was that the default NTP configuration is about as secure as Joyce’s worldview right now. Disabling or properly locking down all the remote administration and stats stuff helps a lot.
I just realized Willis depicts her doing the culturally distinct asian self-finger-point. Did he do that purposefully? Very nice touch if so. Odd accident if not.
Initially I was going to use Joyce’s face from yesterday’s panel 3 instead of panel 4, but that looked super weird to me. I like Becky-with-non-Mickey-Mouse-eyes though ~ ^_^
I’m pretty sure Dina could actually pounce on someone like a velociraptor, tear open their stomach with her talons, and feast on their still living innards while they scream in agony, and it would still illicit a “D’AWWWWWW” from the audience.
You should get L.J. to do that essay for you. (Warning, due to the amount of times the specific word is used in this video, you might end up later swearing a lot without any reason…not that I know from experience….Enjoy!)
“God damn” is technically a prayer, as you’re requesting that God help you with something… which in its own context, you want God to damn someone. It’s a pretty tall order to ask, and you as a mortal are not worthy of requesting it… especially against another fellow mortal that you cannot safely argue that you’re any less worthy of being damned along with them.
Damning people is God’s domain, and because of that it’s probably another reason why Joyce is so bitter about everything right now. Bad things happened and she could do nothing to stop it. A respected authority figure threatened her and someone she cares about to the point she was angry enough to pray to damn him. Because of her anger and asking her to damn Ross, she may have also damned herself, and her crisis of faith now is a sign that God HAS gone and done just that and turned away from her.
So… she’s pretty well upset about just about everything, right now choosing to cling to her beliefs in hopes that she’ll hear and feel God’s presence again and bring her comfort. Maybe if she does that fervently enough, he’ll take her back or something? But in the meantime she’s likely also resenting that everyone else can smile, be happy, and make the best of that shitty situation while she’s stuck in the hole she dug to protect herself.
Careful with the “they” there. Even though Joyce’s mom gave a scary scene some strips ago both sets of parents are wildly different. As we saw I don’t think even if Becky was a calm and sensible girl her dad would have let her be out of his sight for long, specially not at a secular school.
Long ago, Joyce said that their pastor considered Joyce the ‘best socialized’ in their whole homeschooling group. At the time, it sounded like it was because Joyce is friendly and outgoing, but it could’ve also been that he thought her the most stalwart in her faith.
It’s possible that Ross told him he had suspicions that Becky wasn’t straight, and therefore both thought sending her to a secular school was too risky.
It looks like Ross doubled down on religion as a coping mechanism after his wife died. (He was more controlling than the Browns to begin with, judging by Becky not being allowed to have a cell phone.) He may have been open to the idea before, but once she was gone there was no way he’d allow it.
He may have only learned of Becky’s sexuality after the school called him, since that wasn’t long after she figured it out herself.
That’s not plausible – Fundamentalists don’t believe that people can “be” not-straight, that it’s entirely a matter of temptations that people who are no different inside from anyone else choose to give in to.
Yes, but she correctly identified what the shocked reaction meant. It could also have just been surprise at the information she was giving them–that Joyce was eschewing vulgarities but indulging in blasphemies.
In this case they are discussing language, and the use of swear words. It is absolutely logical for her to use the words they are discussing. Adults saying “the insert-letter-here word” strikes me as absurd (unless there’s someone around they should avoid saying that word in front of.)
And actually Dina isn’t swearing. She’s making an scientific observation about about Joyce’s swearing vocabulary. On the other hand, Becky could probably make her swear – in private.
Given how there’s a fair amount of evidence that swearing is a good way to relieve a person of stress, it’s actually highly logical to swear when you’ve been through a traumatic situation.
I know exactly why a puppy swearing would be wrong. If a puppy says ANY words that’s probably a very bad sign. One that means you require either an exorcist or a psychiatrist.
Yeah. They also tend to repeat some of the most reprehensible political and social beliefs that they hear because they think it makes them more adult and are absolutely obsessed with sex because it’s all new and confusing.
Which means, that they don’t actually think Dina is like a 12 year old or else have very rosy ideas about 12 year olds.
I went with the English title because I figured there’s be a higher level or name recognition. But yeah, sarcastic hipster glasses aside, I actually like it better English subbed in French. The English voice acting is kinda meh.
Oof, Becky’s face in panel 2. She’s really worried for Joyce and not sure what to do. It’s the reverse of that “Wanted: Best friend, but not changing so fast” panel.
Also, Dina’s attempt at helpful metrics on Joyce swears for the win.
Aw, man, I’ve been reading through the archives and you’ve missed the 77 f-bombs in the one where Sal is playing Danny’s DS! You know, when the battery dies just as she’s about to break the all-time record and she goes to Danny and he agrees to tutor her in math. The alt-text mentions your chart specifically. 😉
–Unless you counted and there aren’t actually seventy-seven. Which could totally be a thing, lol.
I credited her with 29 for that panel, the ones where all four letters are at least legible. A lot of the 76 Joyce counted there aren’t visible at all, so I’m treating them like anything else the characters might say that we don’t see because they’re off-panel or whatever.
The top chart actually has hovertext that will pop up a date and quote for each section of each bar showing when and what it’s for.
Billie was not only way ahead until Sal’s F-MIRV, she was ahead of everyone else put together from around Marcie’s introduction until the Parentpocalypse, when Naomi put Everyone Else ahead. I originally made the chart because I’d made an assertion that Billie said “fuck” more than everyone else in the strip put together, with the disclaimer that I hadn’t actually counted, and then I got curious and went and actually counted. My original claim, it turned out, was false, but only by three “fuck”s and less than a day of strip time, and she’d held a solid lead for most of the run of the strip to that point. And as the lower chart shows, this is not just because she gets more time on-panel than any of the other F-bomb-dropping characters (except Walky).
While it is possible for a movie with multiple f-bombs to retain a PG-13 rating, it is very, very hard. And that’s all I’m going to say about that can of worms.
You know who I’m hoping shows up? Jocelyne. If Joyce’s parents talked to her about it (and I’m sure they will, they’re probably worried sick about Joyce rn) she’d probably come to comfort her lil’ sis. A bit of home, someone familiar, someone to help combine the old with the new.
Or idk, maybe I just wanna see Jocelyne again.
Ditto, but in some ways I could see her making Joyce’s crisis deeper. “Yeah, sis, there’s a lot taught to us that wasn’t good. Ways we were asked to be that hurt us. Ways we’re not allowed to be ourselves.”
Dina is so fucking adorable. She reels off those profanities with her usual matter of fact delivery and it isn’t even like she’s cussing. She’s a keeper, Becky.
While others have related to Joyce not swearing in the past, my teen years were more like Dina. It’s not that I was avoiding swearing, just that I didn’t as a matter of course. Apparently people find that confusing.
I find it interesting and relevant that both of Joyce’s swears, “(God-)damn” and “hell” are related to Christianity, but things like fuck and shit aren’t.
I wonder if this is purposefully trying to show her losing her religion without losing the underlying morals (they’re no longer swears to her because she’s losing the belief in their power), or if it’s just immature tantrum backlash while she still does believe.
There’s also the that words like fuck and shit are swears no matter the context, while “hell” and “damn” (and God damn(s/ed)) are NOT always swears–they are perfectly appropriate to say if, for example, Joyce were to read aloud from the Bible. So I think your comment about losing religion without losing morals is accurate–the only context in which hell and damn are swears is a non-literal context BECAUSE it is otherwise taking those words in vain. If Joyce doesn’t believe they are taken in vain, then the words are no longer swears.
Exactly. She’s not just sprinkling the words into her speech like punctuation, er, for emphasis – she really is talking about (and grappling with) damnation and so on.
I think she initially meant it as an invocation to God to damn Toedad, but now, she’s using it to pepper things like phone chargers. It has turned to very vain and frequent uses of it to pepper and season her conversation in the same way that a child might the first time they learn a curse word.
And it fits with her religious crisis. She no longer fears blasphemy to the same extent and is trying to decide if the God she was taught to raise is an asshole like her family and her community are revealing themselves to be or someone she can still reliably derive her moral code from.
It’s also possible she genuinely feels like “goddamn” and “hell” are stronger curses than fuck and shit and so when distraught enough to curse, that’s what she goes to.
Possibly. I don’t know, I think other commenters picking up on Joyce’s crisis of faith are probably on to something.
I’ve never had a faithful bone in my body, so I have no idea what it feels like to genuinely feel doubt in a previously-sincerely-held religious belief. The crisis of faith depicted is beyond my ken. Had my own level of hardcore right ring Randian “libertarian” brainwashing to undo, but I never held that in the kind of reverance that religious people hold the concept of God in. And I genuinely can’t remember ever believing in God, my mother’s attempts to instill belief notwithstanding. Not sure why I never believed, but I always just held God as being on the same level as Aslan or Ariel the mermaid: a made-up story intended to teach some sort of a lesson. Most of my relatives are highly religious, and I lived in a highly religious community growing up so I was pretty militant and insulting about my atheism as a teenager (to be fair, I never disparaged a person’s religion to them unless they’d disparaged my atheism first, but I wore my contempt on my sleeve at the time – and until I’d encountered religious people who didn’t think atheism was a crime worthy of eternal torture, it was contempt, both with the belief system and with the concept of a deity that thinks a person’s observance of the right rituals is more important than their morality) – I’ve mellowed a lot since then, though. but yeah. Don’t really get what Joyce is going through, but I have to say this depiction of someone in a crisis of faith is one of the most sympathetic I’ve seen to the crisis-haver. Most depictions seem to center on the idea that if you just Believe hard enough, everything will auto-magically get better, whereas Willis seems to be portraying Joyce’s crisis of faith as a human reaction to inhumane experiences and circumstances.
I think they view the swearing as evidence of emotional issues. If anyone else was swearing it wouldn’t bother them as much. I believe they are thinking “hey, Joyce is swearing, there must be something wrong.”
Joyce has made a big deal out of not swearing, of not being able to swear. Not even when people are angering her or teasing her. Not even when Joe tried to PUA his way into her pants. Not even when Ryan attempted to rape her.
And now she’s swearing constantly while also scowling and yelling at her friends and not smiling. They’ve all seen her in some dark psychological headspaces and in some heavy traumatic moments, but right now, all the signs are flashing red that something even bigger than all that is happening inside her.
Dina is swearing in a very unconcerned, academic way, which is typical of her character (to which we are all greatly endeared) and additionally follows a trend of her being more worldly than the characters around her expect.
Joyce is swearing with bitterness, frustration, and anger, both of which are still atypical of her character, and is coming on the heels of massive trauma and in the context of her previous adamant refusal to swear.
So, Dina swearing: unexpected, but amusing. Joyce swearing: something is exploding.
Dina has a certain unworldly innocence about her that makes it impossible to regard anything she does other than in the most positive terms.
Joyce, on the other hand, has made a big thing of her rigid morality and personal ethics. People like that don’t just say or do things for a show or because they wish to be specific when discussing something. The fact that Joyce is breaching her previously-rock-like moral boundaries is a cause for serious concern about her emotional and mental health.
Because Dina is not (yet) swearing; she is merely repeating the word(s) in much the same manner as you or I would repeat song lyrics. That doesn’t, however, mean we are singing.
Ah. I only know of the Walkyverse what happened in SP! and what’s happened in the re-uploaded Roomies and It’s Walky! strips. I… I should be smart enough to figure out who the 1/4 is, but… Has Billie met Dina? Was Walky attracted to Dina before Joyce (or, alternatively, was he ever attracted to anyone else after meeting her)? And with Mike I just don’t know…. aaaaaaaaah.
SPOILERS!
Walky romanced Dina to spite Joyce and it worked (Walky and Joyce got back together). Dina, in turn, “romanced” Mike to spite Walky. What happened next is too terrible for words.
I would agree that it is relatively uncommon for kids to resist a Caesarian with that much force, but on the other hand, these are Willis’ kids, and so it should be considered to be just barely possible.
Yeah, and there’s the constant background rate of gang aft agley. The obstetrician might fall ill. The anaesthetist might get called away for a major emergency with multiple serious traumatic injuries. There could be an electrical failure in the operating theatre. The roof of the maternity ward could collapse under the weight of accumulated hail. The insurance company could declare bankruptcy. The city could be hit by a large meteorite.
There’s a reason that we say “Deo volunt” or “insh’allah” after every statement about the future.
When I say “scheduled,” I mean that on December 22, at precisely 10am, the hospital is going to c-section my wife (unless they come out earlier). So Scheduled, with a capital S. The twins’ actual due date is January 5.
Pan to Becky, sitting at a table stage-side, elbows on table, chin resting on hands, gazing up at Dina adoringly, content to listen to her reciting dinosaur facts through a broken mic forever.
I usually just read, but I had to comment today because oh man oh DINA. As a short, relatively quiet, asian girl, I’d always get patronizing gasps thrown my way when I let out a swear– and their surprise was always what was more surprising to me. Sorry I’m not the dainty china doll you fantasized of me lol
Recognising that Joyce needs help and getting it for her would be Ruth’s job. And her training for that job ought to have included knowledge of what resources are available for counselling, treatment, and support of students; also some coverage of warning signs to watch for. Unfortunately Ruth is not fit to keep her own head above water, let alone rescue someone else.
Most of the main cast are, I think, too inexperienced to recognise the problem (exceptions include perhaps Sarah), not aware of what help is available (exceptions perhaps include Roz and Lesley) and not resolute enough to do what needs to be done even though that might amount to interfering in something that is not their business.
I can’t see what’s coming. The obvious development would be for Joyce to get steadily worse until she is in crisis, and then for Sarah to take action to bring about her Joyce’s rescue, as she did with her roomie last year, but inverted and with a happier outcome. That is, do something that brings help to Joyce and that is in some way the reverse of calling her family and having her taken out of college and into treatment. But I don’t expect Willis to be that obvious.
If for no other reason than that Joyce/Amazi-Girl/Sal’s rescue of Becky from her father is already the inverse of Sarah’s intervention to save Dana. It would feel repetitive.
I just thought of a dark possibility that the Joyce’s dad preview panels are because Sarah’s concern for Joyce are starting to distract her from her work and Sarah just defaulted to her option 1 and called her dad.
Honestly, my guess is that the answer to that is yes and that the person is probably going to be Becky, largely because Becky is the one who understands just how much of a divergence this is and what that means and also because Becky probably still has some of her “I need to do everything I can to support my friend” from back when she first learned about Ryan’s assault of Joyce.
The problem might be that Joyce might not be in a headspace to accept help and support from Becky, what with her embodying her crisis of faith in a lot of ways.
But for everyone else, Walky is still very immature and has been shown to have a mostly antagonistic relationship with her so far, Billie doesn’t believe she can help anyone except maybe Ruth and has especially rejected trying to help Joyce because she views herself as the type to “just make things worse”, Mike is Mike, and Dina is not going to assume she’s the best person to handle complex emotional situations alone.
It actually took me going to the comment section to ascertain that Dina is, in fact, not expected to swear.
But… she also didn’t?
Joyce actually kept punctuation-peppering her speech with “gosh darn”s, which was what made her personal swear filter so noticable, amusing and a popular topic. Dina expresses herself in different ways, but she has shown no reluctance to use the actual words. She just happened not to.
And she is still not swearing. She is stating facts.
Characters’ confusion is just related to them still viewing Dina as an incapable child, someone who isn’t capable of understanding proper impact/usage/nuance of those words and therefore shouldn’t use them at all.
She is, ah, not. And does not expect others to view her as such.
This strip is funny because of widespread infantilization of autistic people 😀
This and it’s also a weird sort of infantilization as you note. They all claim to see her as 12, but 12 year olds often have (incorrect) ideas about sex and curiosity about what is happening with their bodies, 12 year olds swear and often playact at being way more adult than they are. I’ve got 7th graders in some of my classes and Dina is not treated like she’s one of them. She’s treated like some sort of adult infant, incapable of understanding the world unless lead by the hand, expected to retain an “innocence” where she is ignorant of swear words and incapable of higher level rhetorical analysis. Like some grade schooler or younger who is expected to goof around with her crayons and her dinosaurs and not someone fully capable and fully interested in conversing with fellow adults, but just has some neurological hurdles with regards to fully grasping nuances of non-verbal and emotional communication.
Well, it’s been shown a lot that Becky is the only one that doesn’t assume or treat Dina like she’s 12 just because of the combination of her size, her naivety, her neurodivergence, and (possibly) her race.
Which is one of the reasons that Dina has fallen for her, because Becky treats her like the intelligent young woman she is rather than some plucky kid sidekick.
I always find it slightly amusing how they put so much focus on which words Joyce uses. In my country, damn and shit are about equal. Meaning they’re even less offensive than heck, which is why you might even observe christians using them.
Hell however, is on par with fuck and when combined with a lesser swear to create the sentence “Damn you to Hell.” it will cause elderly women to cover their grandchildrens’ ears. And we’re one of the most secular countries in the world.
In the end, it’s not the number of swears Joyce uses or whether or not they’re religiously themed that’s important, but what they mean to her. Which of her own taboos she’s breaking, and how it makes her feel to deal with the situation she’s in.
Yeah. Joyce told us before that when she swore she wanted the words to have power, that she wanted everyone to know that she was really upset. Well, she is. This is not the scatological logorrhoea of the potty-mouthed. She’s not assimilating. She’s really upset.
I was going to post, “Joyce is working her way up to George Carlin’s Seven Words.” But you are correct, she’s not just swearing, she’s deliberately invoking religious concepts as if to summon them by sheer will.
I think I said about a previous strip, she’s actually fervently praying. But I think she’s going past even that, now. She is Blaspheming.
Dina, on the other talon, is just the opposite. She can use worse words without heat or malice, because to her, they’re just words.
The earlier art style kind of hid it (bigger heads, smaller bodies), but she was not really in cheerleader form from day one. (Ruth called her “tubbo” and “tubs” for a reason).
this is sooo hard to translate… but in my country (catholic mayority, Mary worshippers, Mother is sacred, etc) the worst swear words are those of sexual overtones and if you target the mother concept it goes stronger. But the likes of “dios te maldiga”, “maldito de dios”, are outlandish and comical. I have never ever heard or read “infierno” as a swear word. You send people (cover your eyes) “to the conga that birthed you” (uncover), not to hell, for some reason.
Heh. In Spain we are so catholic that we have the privilege to say, quite literally: “¡Me cago en Dios!” which is to say, exactly, to poop on God himself. ( it is commonly used in fits of rage or extreme frustration).
I would like to see what would happen if I said the same thing in english, in the States. But yes, naming someone´s mother in less than stellar words seems quite the universal attitude in swearing, at least in the most offensive cases. However, a word of caution: when in South America, do not swear with ease. What is easily viewed in Spain as a common interjection, can be viewed in these parts of the world as unhealthy use of words. The Spanish language is diverse…
Yet, I doubt that there is any emotional element to Dina’s words. That is part of what makes this funny – imagining her cuss in this clinical, detached tone of voice.
Does anyone know what Dina is doing with her fingers in the last panel? One person mentioned the “Asian self-point,” but a quick google just found Kawaii girls taking selfies, so I’m not sure if that’s the right context.
I find it strange that so many here think saying the words is the same as swearing. I know people who would never, ever say those words, but swear with non-swear words with such intensity as to make others blush and children cry. It’s not the words, it’s the intent behind it.
Joyce swore, Dina didn’t. (That doesn’t means she can’t or won’t.)
Other way around. Dina’s saying the words, but not singing the tune. Joyce has actually had the tune all along; it’s only just recently that she’s singing the real lyrics.
Dina says fuck and shit. Doesn’t that justify its existence enough?
Also it shows Billie catching onto the changes in Joyce. Which might be important if they interact more in this storyline? It’s hard to tell at this point. You can’t judge a four panel strip in a vacuum.
I don’t know that every strip has to be necessary. But this one isn’t just pointing out the obvious fact that Joyce swears now. It shows the other characters recognizing it (which might lead into the next comic) and hints that at least Becky might understand there is more to this.
Are you attempting to be ironic, by pointing out this strip is like Seinfeld?
Even pointing out Observational comedy is series of shallow pointless observations, is Seinfeld meta Joke used on Seinfeld , about his character on the show.
If serious :
But when Joyce has a visible freak out —or has an existential crises or acts religious religious crazy —-its unreasonable for you to expect that web comments are a substitute for what will be actually published in the book.
Comments dont preclude the story from happening ( which was written months in advance ) .
I predicted a Sal/ Amazi-girl team-up against Toedad. Willis didnt stop that from happening. When I was correct, did I say: This is all pointless since I predicted it? No. I Picked up my cat and did My “I told you so dance”.
Was it necessary? Of course it was.
Think that through. if I didnt do my “I told you so dance” then I wouldn’t be able to tell you that I did now.
Then all causality would be destroyed.
Then narcissists, cynics, and nihilists, could question if this comment was even “necessary” .
( to say nothing of the space/time continuum )
If this comment can be held to that impossible standard of supposed necessity, Then all comments can be.
If all comments have to necessary before they are even made , then No comments can claim any intrinsic utility and they are all useless —even yours.
That makes it Futile to even ask that question ( “Is this comic necessary?” )since it inexorably leads to usm all going back to bed and never getting up.
Even if Mike Knew what you were thinking ( ahead of the plot ) —- He’d still punch you and say he’d “did your mother for a quarter.” It wouldn’t stop him.
What makes it even better is that Dina is wearing Becky’s Anderson University sweatshirt. I wish this particular conversation could have somehow taken place on the Anderson campus. Imagine the panic that would ensue if a girl wearing a dinosaur cap uttered the word “fuck” around all those pristine ears…
I wonder if Mike is kind of intrigued by what new angry Joyce means for the dynamic of the group. He likes making people break, but he didn’t do this one.
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“Joyce literally did not give a fuck OR a shit. She DID however give multiple, profuse damns.”
I’m sure Joyce has given at least one shit in her life. If not, she should probably see a doctor.
She’s never given one, they are all stolen by the sanitation-industrial complex!
no, she took those
maybe she’s a big believer in daily colonic irrigations.
Wait, you mean when Becky was suggesting an inaugural poop all those years/a few weeks ago, she meant inaugural literally? Well then.
Yup, Joyce has never pooped until then.
Too afraid of losing her shit.
Dont want the shit to hit the fan.
I guess there might actually be enough pressure for that to happen… Got to work out the rate at which methane builds up…
Don’t ya know, girls don’t poop, it’s unlady-like.
http://smbc-comics.com/?id=2631
Girls don’t fart or sneeze either
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxxsP7VWVN8
Is your avatar from the new Slipshine comics? That’s a weird face Ethan is making. O_o
Aren’t weird faces pretty much a given when it comes to sex?
He hasn’t been in any yet.
I figure it’s Ethan with one of Danny’s faces.
Face/Off style
a montage.
Could be from a future strtip like the last few gravs or from a patreon bonus strip. or like the Ethan & Jacobb one it is totally fake ( or is it? 🙂 ).
Just FYI, I don’t share Patreon-exclusives. Kinda rude giving away someone’s money-makers.
well, except things I’ve commissioned, but I bought the rights, basically
(also, only non-Willis ones have been Patreon-exclusives)
One could indeed say that Joyce used to keep the urge to swear strongly walled-up, but now that damn has well and truly broken… 😛
We still need an upvote facility for these comments 🙂
06:07 this time
Was wondering if I had some internet issues, I kept refreshing over and over again.
It’s usually a few minutes late, but I’m still used to 9:03. Five minutes to look over old strips, I guess.
Yep. First night in a while where I’ve gotten more than eight hours of sleep. Feeling nice and refreshed now.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
Well, characters out of my keyboard.
Even a couple months ago, it was 2 minutes off, for me at least, so I figure if we wait long enough it’ll wrap all the way around to the next midnight.
WordPress missed its update by four minutes, I came in at 12:07, noticed, and had to hit publish myself. I do need to ask Hiveworks to fix the site clock. It drifts sometimes.
They need an NTP client pointed at a stable time server (or server pool).
Yes mine. I’ll have binge-viewed David’s entire buffer before he notices.
And then you will have to wait MONTHS for the next new one. May not be worth it…
Nice hack 🙂
It may be worthwhile asking Hiveworks to run an NTP daemon on their server to reign in that drift.
The Network Time Protocol is pretty crazy, you guys. One of the oldest internet protocols still in widespread use! D’awwww… Synchronize your watches, little computers! <3
NTP has also recently been found to be hackable entry point on some servers. Maybe it’s been disabled for protection or a failed attempt has screwed up their daemon/service.
Has NTP as a client been found to be an entry point?
I know NTP as a server has been found to be a very effective DDOS tool when misconfigured, but I hadn’t heard anything about using it as a client posing any security risk.
Used to work as an ISP call centre tech, until a few months ago. D-Link (and a few others, but they were the main ones we saw) has been having repeated issues with their firmware allowing DDOS attacks via the NTP module; they keep having to issue new firmware to deal with it (three times in the last year and a half, or so?). Their UPNP module also has issues but I don’t remember now if it’s tied to the NTP thing or a separate DDOS-entry point issue; haven’t worked there for several months.
But yeah, from what I remember, it can definitely be an attack vector on the client side; we had information sheets to send to people who had been hacked with it. It’s suck a low-level, basic protocol, and so old, that it just doesn’t have the same protections in place (although it should and may do by now).
UPNP is generally a security nightmare. I don’t allow such nonsense on my network
Don’t remember the details, advisories on HP-UX and Red Hat, both involved remote execution of code, so more than DDoS.
IIRC, most of the problem was that the default NTP configuration is about as secure as Joyce’s worldview right now. Disabling or properly locking down all the remote administration and stats stuff helps a lot.
Or using the defaults on OpenNTPd from OpenBSD, they are pretty good 🙂
Probably these guys: https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/advisories/ICSA-14-353-01C buffer overflow, auth bypass, etc
Tell the admins to wind up the clock once a day.
I actually like the time randomisation, keeps us early poster on our toes XD
…we may or may not be half taking down the server with F5s, on the other hand *whistle*
It’s annoying when the clock drifts, but at least the server isn’t deadlocked.
…I’ll show myself out.
*slow golf clap of appreciation for the pun*
So I’m not the only one timing the seconds.
Dina is short
It’s an evolutionary advantage. Being closer to the ground is convenient for paleontologists.
Also it makes it easier to hide behind doors.
And stalk prey.
Brilliant. Thanks for the laugh.
a laugh from me.
Brilliant!
The natural prey of the Dina (clever girl!) is the Cocoa Puff.
I was trying to think of something funny with Dina’s natural prey now being something ‘Becky and muff’ but I’m too tired to pull it together.
Would have been funny as hell tho.
I just realized Willis depicts her doing the culturally distinct asian self-finger-point. Did he do that purposefully? Very nice touch if so. Odd accident if not.
if it’s the cultural version, it should be pointed at her nose
A+ I need more Dina Swears in my life.
Is that Becky in your Gravatar?
It’s Becky with Joyce’s face from yesterday’s strip.
Your Becky-with-Joyce’s-expression thing is… really disturbing, actually. It’s kinda freaking me out.
Initially I was going to use Joyce’s face from yesterday’s panel 3 instead of panel 4, but that looked super weird to me. I like Becky-with-non-Mickey-Mouse-eyes though ~ ^_^
That face is the best, determined by the FRAJS
Face Recognition And Judging Software.
Looks kind of like Jimmy Olson from the older Superman comics, if you ask me.
I can see it xD
I… totally did not think that was a real thing and google it just now.
#fail
To me it’s only a bit of blush cross-hatching away from… well, you know jumpy virgin becky slipshine.
I imagine this might have been Becky’s face seeing adorable/sexy girl on girl fanart before realising she was a lesbian.
Also your Joyce gravata looking at my Becky avatar is surprisingly perfect.
*gravatar
gdi lack of edit function ><;;
And now we know what Becky and Joyce’s science babies would look like.
Do not want.
Yeah, Becky/Dina science babies would be way better.
You can swear at me all you like, darling Dina!
Dina- blowin’ minds everywhere.
And blowin’ Becky every night! 😛
Darn it, when Joyce did swore it carried heavy emotional impact.
When Dina does, all I can think is “Cute!”
I’m pretty sure Dina could actually pounce on someone like a velociraptor, tear open their stomach with her talons, and feast on their still living innards while they scream in agony, and it would still illicit a “D’AWWWWWW” from the audience.
She can’t not be adorable.
Well that might be pushing it a little too far. If she kills them in the first pounce, maybe.
Waitaminute let me check the reaction to the Toedad battle. BRB.
Well more people were concerned with Toedad’s gun safety practices than Dina potentially mauling him. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/clever/
So you are saying you can’t handle the cute?
dina speaks the truth with no circuitousness. and this makes becky experience global warming
…which may need to be explained to her
I dunno becky figured out her global warming before dina did
swiper fuck you asshole
I could fill a three-page essay with nothing but swears at that vulpine thief.
You should get L.J. to do that essay for you. (Warning, due to the amount of times the specific word is used in this video, you might end up later swearing a lot without any reason…not that I know from experience….Enjoy!)
I think it’s interesting Joyce is willing to say “god damn” now and Becky still isn’t. (Interesting in a good way.)
and Becky also had an F-bomb!
She had two, actually. At the sushi place and in butthole dad’s hospital room.
This is an interesting thing I’ve noticed actually. I have a christian friend who has no problem cursing but she refuses to say “god damn”
Because one is just language and the other is blaspheming. It becomes obvious when you see it.
I was going to say something mildly offensive, but I deleted it.
You can’t leave a guy hanging like that.
“God damn” is technically a prayer, as you’re requesting that God help you with something… which in its own context, you want God to damn someone. It’s a pretty tall order to ask, and you as a mortal are not worthy of requesting it… especially against another fellow mortal that you cannot safely argue that you’re any less worthy of being damned along with them.
Damning people is God’s domain, and because of that it’s probably another reason why Joyce is so bitter about everything right now. Bad things happened and she could do nothing to stop it. A respected authority figure threatened her and someone she cares about to the point she was angry enough to pray to damn him. Because of her anger and asking her to damn Ross, she may have also damned herself, and her crisis of faith now is a sign that God HAS gone and done just that and turned away from her.
So… she’s pretty well upset about just about everything, right now choosing to cling to her beliefs in hopes that she’ll hear and feel God’s presence again and bring her comfort. Maybe if she does that fervently enough, he’ll take her back or something? But in the meantime she’s likely also resenting that everyone else can smile, be happy, and make the best of that shitty situation while she’s stuck in the hole she dug to protect herself.
Becky’s broken barriers are in an entirely different section of her brain.
More seriously, I get the feeling that Becky was always the wild and crazy one and Joyce was always the calm and sensible one.
That’s why Joyce was trusted at a secular school, they thought she could withstand the corrupting influences.
They didn’t trust Becky to do so.
Becky may be upset by Joyce out-rebelling her.
Careful with the “they” there. Even though Joyce’s mom gave a scary scene some strips ago both sets of parents are wildly different. As we saw I don’t think even if Becky was a calm and sensible girl her dad would have let her be out of his sight for long, specially not at a secular school.
Good point.
Long ago, Joyce said that their pastor considered Joyce the ‘best socialized’ in their whole homeschooling group. At the time, it sounded like it was because Joyce is friendly and outgoing, but it could’ve also been that he thought her the most stalwart in her faith.
It’s possible that Ross told him he had suspicions that Becky wasn’t straight, and therefore both thought sending her to a secular school was too risky.
It looks like Ross doubled down on religion as a coping mechanism after his wife died. (He was more controlling than the Browns to begin with, judging by Becky not being allowed to have a cell phone.) He may have been open to the idea before, but once she was gone there was no way he’d allow it.
He may have only learned of Becky’s sexuality after the school called him, since that wasn’t long after she figured it out herself.
That’s not plausible – Fundamentalists don’t believe that people can “be” not-straight, that it’s entirely a matter of temptations that people who are no different inside from anyone else choose to give in to.
That alt text is a blessing
Dina’s getting better at visual clues.
Maybe, but I have the same problem as Dina and even I notice the “everyone silently staring at you in shock” means I’ve said something wrong … again.
Yes, but she correctly identified what the shocked reaction meant. It could also have just been surprise at the information she was giving them–that Joyce was eschewing vulgarities but indulging in blasphemies.
She has to learn the recognize the difference between “what you did was not what we expected of you” and “wait, you’re here?”
“I’m sorry. This was the best I could fuckin’ do.”
great, now I’m sad
don’t worry, be happy. read the comic again
Difficult to do both, no?
Wow she even broke Mike face a little bit
Since 3 updates ago, the fact that Mike is here is giving me a bad feeling…
He’s planning something. It’s not fully formed yet.
Dina is supposed to be a Vulcan. Swearing is illogical.
Swearing is the damn hell fart logicalest.
Stop cussing. You’re terrible at it.
I AM THE GOSH HELLING BEST AT CUSSING DANG PISS IT
xkcd wrote a comic abut mixed swear levels
https://xkcd.com/75/
Damn you, sir. You will try.
Well, there was that bit in Star Trek IV…
Spock wasn’t fully himself in that one, though. He was still all trippy from being resurrected.
My example (that I totally beat you to :-P) was the first time that Spock swore while in normal Vulcan mode.
In this case they are discussing language, and the use of swear words. It is absolutely logical for her to use the words they are discussing. Adults saying “the insert-letter-here word” strikes me as absurd (unless there’s someone around they should avoid saying that word in front of.)
“If i were human, i believe my response would be “Go to hell”…
If i were human”.
And now i’m sad about Nimoy all over again. Thanks.
That was no Vulcan giggling after kissing Becky!
And actually Dina isn’t swearing. She’s making an scientific observation about about Joyce’s swearing vocabulary. On the other hand, Becky could probably make her swear – in private.
or scream dinosaur names.
Now there’s an image I’m going to have trouble getting rid of.
And really, why would you want to?
Given how there’s a fair amount of evidence that swearing is a good way to relieve a person of stress, it’s actually highly logical to swear when you’ve been through a traumatic situation.
I guess Mike didnt even see that coming
Dina the MOTHERFUCKING Dinosaur
Dina swearing is like a puppy swearing. Vaguely wrong, but I don’t know why.
I know exactly why a puppy swearing would be wrong. If a puppy says ANY words that’s probably a very bad sign. One that means you require either an exorcist or a psychiatrist.
I think it might be easier to first check if there are any mad scientists in the area.
Don’t get your mental health from a mad scientist, they have terrible rates and they’re out-of-network for most insurance plans.
But mad scientist-performed exorcisms are usually quite entertaining. FREX: Ghostbusters.
Only slightly weirder than that dog that says, “RI RUV ROO”.
well, they’ve mentioned that she looks like she’s 12, and 12 year olds swear, they swear a lot.
Almost as much as 6yos who live in caravan parks.
True, but we’re still shocked the first time we here them say it.
Man, I swore of hell of a lot more at twelve than I do now.
Times change, mostly they think that swearing is cool.
Yeah. They also tend to repeat some of the most reprehensible political and social beliefs that they hear because they think it makes them more adult and are absolutely obsessed with sex because it’s all new and confusing.
Which means, that they don’t actually think Dina is like a 12 year old or else have very rosy ideas about 12 year olds.
Damn it Willis! Now the theme from “Elmo’s World” is stuck in my head. Except all the lyrics are fuck. Arg!
slowly replacing lyrics of songs over time with other words, clean or dirty, is a lot of fun though.
Pretty soon you’d get a song that’s just the word “fuck” said in different inflections….
Yup! I do that with the word “goat” all the time.
Sometimes when I have a song stuck in my head I end up replacing the lyrics with “fuck.” And when I need rhymes, “duck” and “truck.”
https://youtu.be/bsTWaznw38I
**puts on the original French version of the theme from Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea to clear Elmo’s World from brain**
Dude! That was a great show, and not many people seem to know it!
**puts on unnecessary Hipster glasses**
It’s better in the original French.
…uh, why did I never hear of that thing ?
<< french
oh, wait.
“Les Mondes Engloutis”
…sure, with the french title I recognise it immediatly ^^;
I went with the English title because I figured there’s be a higher level or name recognition. But yeah, sarcastic hipster glasses aside, I actually like it better English subbed in French. The English voice acting is kinda meh.
But yeah, I loved that show. Still love that show (I managed to get digital copies of most of season 1 and part of season 2, including the finale).
The pirates were so hilarious that I liked them a lot despite being bad guys.
You think that’s an earworm? Try the Imperial March, but with ponies.
On the other hand, do not try Evangelion’s op with bicycle honks.
What. No. Cruel Angel’s Bikehorn is amazing.
Dina’s on the board now, haha!
*plays Monty Python’s “I Bet You They Won’t Play This Song On the Radio” on somebody’s headset*
Technically, the Muzak isn’t a radio, right? So go ahead, play it anywhere.
Thanks Willis I think we all need that after yesterday
“Well fuck you guys.”
“Not you, Becky…well, actually, I suppose I will get to that soon”.
7 mins late?
I know there is a 3 month buffer, so my mind just goes to nuclear war or bombing google
Rated PG for “potty-mouthed griping”.
I guess the damn has burst!
*mugs furiously for the camera*
(Also, I bet someone else has made this joke already)
Must… resist… impulse to… make terrible… finger and dike pun.
“We have a dam hole”
*slinks back into Rick Riordan archives*
I know the sweatshirt is ironic but Dina looks so cuuute in pink
Quite huggable, isn’t she?
(Becky, get to hugging.)
we can’t see mike’s crotch because he has a boner.
I love that even Mike looks surprised. XD
I’m sorry, Joyce, but the impact of you swearing just got trumped by Dina’s.
It’s always the quiet ones…
Silent, but deadly.
WoW. Dina is so small.
Even Mike looks a bit disconcerted that Dina swore. That is as big as Joyce saying GodDamn for the first time in her life.
It’s not big at all. It’s just reporting data.
Oof, Becky’s face in panel 2. She’s really worried for Joyce and not sure what to do. It’s the reverse of that “Wanted: Best friend, but not changing so fast” panel.
Also, Dina’s attempt at helpful metrics on Joyce swears for the win.
I kind of think Dina would appreciate my chart.
That is an amazing chart!
Aw, man, I’ve been reading through the archives and you’ve missed the 77 f-bombs in the one where Sal is playing Danny’s DS! You know, when the battery dies just as she’s about to break the all-time record and she goes to Danny and he agrees to tutor her in math. The alt-text mentions your chart specifically. 😉
–Unless you counted and there aren’t actually seventy-seven. Which could totally be a thing, lol.
He has chosen to only count the ones that are visible around Sal, not the ones that exist behind her that Joyce noted later.
Regardless, most of Sal’s are from that panel. Billie was by far #1 until then.
I credited her with 29 for that panel, the ones where all four letters are at least legible. A lot of the 76 Joyce counted there aren’t visible at all, so I’m treating them like anything else the characters might say that we don’t see because they’re off-panel or whatever.
The top chart actually has hovertext that will pop up a date and quote for each section of each bar showing when and what it’s for.
Billie was not only way ahead until Sal’s F-MIRV, she was ahead of everyone else put together from around Marcie’s introduction until the Parentpocalypse, when Naomi put Everyone Else ahead. I originally made the chart because I’d made an assertion that Billie said “fuck” more than everyone else in the strip put together, with the disclaimer that I hadn’t actually counted, and then I got curious and went and actually counted. My original claim, it turned out, was false, but only by three “fuck”s and less than a day of strip time, and she’d held a solid lead for most of the run of the strip to that point. And as the lower chart shows, this is not just because she gets more time on-panel than any of the other F-bomb-dropping characters (except Walky).
That is a fantastic chart. I applaud you. :3
The best part is, now that I hear Dina as a slightly more stilted Phoebe from Hey Arnold, reading Dina’s lines in that super high pitch.
Oh my God
Really? I hear her as Starfire from Teen Titans…
funny you mention that… i hear them all with the TeenTitansGo voices…. just never noticed.
Heh, I can see that.
It fits her like a glove, doesn’t it!
Guys, I know who the perfect girl is!
Its Dina, It will always be Dina!
Site was late for the first time ever for me. Always pops at 12:01. Tonight it was 12:06
You’re a regular Lil Miss Pottymouth, ain’t ya Dina.
Well, Dina’s PG now too, but one more fuck out of her and she jumps straight to R.
I didn’t realise that the MPIA was so powerful.
While it is possible for a movie with multiple f-bombs to retain a PG-13 rating, it is very, very hard. And that’s all I’m going to say about that can of worms.
Yeah, certain things do get quite hard with multiple fucks.
She’s so wonderfully matter of fact.
You know who I’m hoping shows up? Jocelyne. If Joyce’s parents talked to her about it (and I’m sure they will, they’re probably worried sick about Joyce rn) she’d probably come to comfort her lil’ sis. A bit of home, someone familiar, someone to help combine the old with the new.
Or idk, maybe I just wanna see Jocelyne again.
Jocelyne has actually shown up in a preview panel; come mid-March, she’ll be back on the scene.
Mid-March? So in strip time, that’s later this afternoon, then… 😉
It’s actually the next day. This storyline ends mid-late February.
Same here. Partially because I really want to see her again and also because she could seriously help Joyce right now when no one else can.
Ditto, but in some ways I could see her making Joyce’s crisis deeper. “Yeah, sis, there’s a lot taught to us that wasn’t good. Ways we were asked to be that hurt us. Ways we’re not allowed to be ourselves.”
Maybe Joyce is just tempted by all that swear-money that was offered by Joe and Sarah.
I’m waiting for Joyce to go search out Joe and tell him “I’ll take that god-damned twenty bucks now.”
see my earlier posted headcanon
Why David, why? I loved Elmo’s World! Well, when I was like 4. . . but still!
And now this song comes to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Wd-Q3F8KM
you asked for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w14aCTMcrgQ
I was honestly expecting Joyce to get on the scoreboard before Dina did.
Dina does officially have a dirtier mouth than Walky now.
Now Dina should sing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkKOeeYko7w I could see her beatboxing.
Dina is so fucking adorable. She reels off those profanities with her usual matter of fact delivery and it isn’t even like she’s cussing. She’s a keeper, Becky.
Goddammit, now the Elmo’s World theme is stuck in my head again! I thought I might be free once they replaced it with Elmo the Musical, but noooooooo
While others have related to Joyce not swearing in the past, my teen years were more like Dina. It’s not that I was avoiding swearing, just that I didn’t as a matter of course. Apparently people find that confusing.
I find it interesting and relevant that both of Joyce’s swears, “(God-)damn” and “hell” are related to Christianity, but things like fuck and shit aren’t.
I wonder if this is purposefully trying to show her losing her religion without losing the underlying morals (they’re no longer swears to her because she’s losing the belief in their power), or if it’s just immature tantrum backlash while she still does believe.
Or maybe both.
There’s also the that words like fuck and shit are swears no matter the context, while “hell” and “damn” (and God damn(s/ed)) are NOT always swears–they are perfectly appropriate to say if, for example, Joyce were to read aloud from the Bible. So I think your comment about losing religion without losing morals is accurate–the only context in which hell and damn are swears is a non-literal context BECAUSE it is otherwise taking those words in vain. If Joyce doesn’t believe they are taken in vain, then the words are no longer swears.
Exactly. She’s not just sprinkling the words into her speech like punctuation, er, for emphasis – she really is talking about (and grappling with) damnation and so on.
I think she initially meant it as an invocation to God to damn Toedad, but now, she’s using it to pepper things like phone chargers. It has turned to very vain and frequent uses of it to pepper and season her conversation in the same way that a child might the first time they learn a curse word.
And it fits with her religious crisis. She no longer fears blasphemy to the same extent and is trying to decide if the God she was taught to raise is an asshole like her family and her community are revealing themselves to be or someone she can still reliably derive her moral code from.
It’s also possible she genuinely feels like “goddamn” and “hell” are stronger curses than fuck and shit and so when distraught enough to curse, that’s what she goes to.
That and the fact that the dam burst with the deific swears; she undoubtedly still has her childish hang-ups about the more human swears.
Possibly. I don’t know, I think other commenters picking up on Joyce’s crisis of faith are probably on to something.
I’ve never had a faithful bone in my body, so I have no idea what it feels like to genuinely feel doubt in a previously-sincerely-held religious belief. The crisis of faith depicted is beyond my ken. Had my own level of hardcore right ring Randian “libertarian” brainwashing to undo, but I never held that in the kind of reverance that religious people hold the concept of God in. And I genuinely can’t remember ever believing in God, my mother’s attempts to instill belief notwithstanding. Not sure why I never believed, but I always just held God as being on the same level as Aslan or Ariel the mermaid: a made-up story intended to teach some sort of a lesson. Most of my relatives are highly religious, and I lived in a highly religious community growing up so I was pretty militant and insulting about my atheism as a teenager (to be fair, I never disparaged a person’s religion to them unless they’d disparaged my atheism first, but I wore my contempt on my sleeve at the time – and until I’d encountered religious people who didn’t think atheism was a crime worthy of eternal torture, it was contempt, both with the belief system and with the concept of a deity that thinks a person’s observance of the right rituals is more important than their morality) – I’ve mellowed a lot since then, though. but yeah. Don’t really get what Joyce is going through, but I have to say this depiction of someone in a crisis of faith is one of the most sympathetic I’ve seen to the crisis-haver. Most depictions seem to center on the idea that if you just Believe hard enough, everything will auto-magically get better, whereas Willis seems to be portraying Joyce’s crisis of faith as a human reaction to inhumane experiences and circumstances.
It’s a little concerning that her friends care more about her swearing than the emotional issues behind it that are troubling Joyce.
I think they view the swearing as evidence of emotional issues. If anyone else was swearing it wouldn’t bother them as much. I believe they are thinking “hey, Joyce is swearing, there must be something wrong.”
This.
Joyce has made a big deal out of not swearing, of not being able to swear. Not even when people are angering her or teasing her. Not even when Joe tried to PUA his way into her pants. Not even when Ryan attempted to rape her.
She did not swear, viewed it as condemning to her soul and made a very specific speech about how she wanted those words to have power, to be the sign that she’s actually upset, to her highest possible level:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/word/
And now she’s swearing constantly while also scowling and yelling at her friends and not smiling. They’ve all seen her in some dark psychological headspaces and in some heavy traumatic moments, but right now, all the signs are flashing red that something even bigger than all that is happening inside her.
And they don’t really know what to do.
>[program_enter]
>enter [Joyce_Swearing.png]
>processing…
>program [Joyce_Swearing.png] incompatible
>SYSTEM_ERROR
>FJDKHDFKJG
*system crash*
Why is it that when Dina swears, it’s adorable; but when Joyce swears, it’s unsettling?
Btw, new Joyce frightens me. I meant to post that on an earlier strip, but was lazy.
Because Dina is always adorable.
Dina swearing is her just stating the words. Joyce swearing is her expressing a newfound anger towards the world.
Dina is swearing in a very unconcerned, academic way, which is typical of her character (to which we are all greatly endeared) and additionally follows a trend of her being more worldly than the characters around her expect.
Joyce is swearing with bitterness, frustration, and anger, both of which are still atypical of her character, and is coming on the heels of massive trauma and in the context of her previous adamant refusal to swear.
So, Dina swearing: unexpected, but amusing. Joyce swearing: something is exploding.
Dina has a certain unworldly innocence about her that makes it impossible to regard anything she does other than in the most positive terms.
Joyce, on the other hand, has made a big thing of her rigid morality and personal ethics. People like that don’t just say or do things for a show or because they wish to be specific when discussing something. The fact that Joyce is breaching her previously-rock-like moral boundaries is a cause for serious concern about her emotional and mental health.
Because Dina is not (yet) swearing; she is merely repeating the word(s) in much the same manner as you or I would repeat song lyrics. That doesn’t, however, mean we are singing.
Use-mention distinction and all that.
Exactly.
It occurs to me that three-fourths of the people hanging around Dina right now have had a desire to get into her pants at one point or another.
Was this in the Walkyverse? I don’t remember anything like this from over here. .-.
Walkyverse, yeah.
Ah. I only know of the Walkyverse what happened in SP! and what’s happened in the re-uploaded Roomies and It’s Walky! strips. I… I should be smart enough to figure out who the 1/4 is, but… Has Billie met Dina? Was Walky attracted to Dina before Joyce (or, alternatively, was he ever attracted to anyone else after meeting her)? And with Mike I just don’t know…. aaaaaaaaah.
Answers:
I don’t think so
Not before, no
(yes, he was)
That’s the correct thing to say about Mike
SPOILERS!
Walky romanced Dina to spite Joyce and it worked (Walky and Joyce got back together). Dina, in turn, “romanced” Mike to spite Walky. What happened next is too terrible for words.
Billie and Dina never met in the old verse.
And of course, this universe has the Lesbosaurus.
Great, now I want to write the fanfic necessary to bring that up to four-fourths.
Even Mike is disturbed by this turn of events.
Ah c’mon people, Dina said all those in her analytical way she didn’t drop character XD
Definition of ‘unexpected’: Something so shocking that not even Mike Warner can manage a snappy comeback or comment.
Seeing Mike and Dina in the same panel makes me wanna see him try to troll her. The look of frustration as he fails would be so great.
Willis, about that poll: Have you never heard of a late birth? They’re pretty common. I’m voting the 27th.
Yeah, I’m guessing the 24th.
My neighbours just had a little boy a week late. 8 lb 14 oz. Beautiful workmanship.
I’ll just point out that late births are not very common in cases where the obstetrician has scheduled a Caesarian.
I would agree that it is relatively uncommon for kids to resist a Caesarian with that much force, but on the other hand, these are Willis’ kids, and so it should be considered to be just barely possible.
Yeah, and there’s the constant background rate of gang aft agley. The obstetrician might fall ill. The anaesthetist might get called away for a major emergency with multiple serious traumatic injuries. There could be an electrical failure in the operating theatre. The roof of the maternity ward could collapse under the weight of accumulated hail. The insurance company could declare bankruptcy. The city could be hit by a large meteorite.
There’s a reason that we say “Deo volunt” or “insh’allah” after every statement about the future.
When I say “scheduled,” I mean that on December 22, at precisely 10am, the hospital is going to c-section my wife (unless they come out earlier). So Scheduled, with a capital S. The twins’ actual due date is January 5.
So, no, I’m not a damned moron.
I’m sorry. I didn’t know about the c-section.
sorry, i’m extra snappy today, my apologies
HA! Maybe you are psychic or picking up on hormones
Come on Mike, hand her a twenty.
That’s Joe’s job to be tipping. Mike on the other hand gets tipped, one way or another.
Act your age, Dina
Next panel: “I established before that I am an adult. Fuck all y’all punk-ass motherfuckers.”
Next comic: Dina walks onto an empty stage, clears her throat, recites George Carlin’s seven deadly words, drops the mic, walks off.
…is about to walk off, hesitates, pick up the mick, adds “There are some interesting dinosaur fact you might want to know…”
Stays on stage for 10 hours
Too bad the mic broke at this point.
Pan to Becky, sitting at a table stage-side, elbows on table, chin resting on hands, gazing up at Dina adoringly, content to listen to her reciting dinosaur facts through a broken mic forever.
Nah, Mike would have left.
[gets shot]
Dina you’re the beeeeest hrrrrrghghll my heart
I usually just read, but I had to comment today because oh man oh DINA. As a short, relatively quiet, asian girl, I’d always get patronizing gasps thrown my way when I let out a swear– and their surprise was always what was more surprising to me. Sorry I’m not the dainty china doll you fantasized of me lol
Two 20’s for you.
Everyone will be broke in a month.
Since you don’t have a poll option for “Literally the most inconvenient time possible”, I shall refrain from voting.
Christmas morning just after you put something in the oven?
Why is Mike NOT smiling at this development.
Is anyone draw the obvious inference from Becky’s words, realise that Joyce is having a crisis and give her help?
Recognising that Joyce needs help and getting it for her would be Ruth’s job. And her training for that job ought to have included knowledge of what resources are available for counselling, treatment, and support of students; also some coverage of warning signs to watch for. Unfortunately Ruth is not fit to keep her own head above water, let alone rescue someone else.
Most of the main cast are, I think, too inexperienced to recognise the problem (exceptions include perhaps Sarah), not aware of what help is available (exceptions perhaps include Roz and Lesley) and not resolute enough to do what needs to be done even though that might amount to interfering in something that is not their business.
I can’t see what’s coming. The obvious development would be for Joyce to get steadily worse until she is in crisis, and then for Sarah to take action to bring about her Joyce’s rescue, as she did with her roomie last year, but inverted and with a happier outcome. That is, do something that brings help to Joyce and that is in some way the reverse of calling her family and having her taken out of college and into treatment. But I don’t expect Willis to be that obvious.
If for no other reason than that Joyce/Amazi-Girl/Sal’s rescue of Becky from her father is already the inverse of Sarah’s intervention to save Dana. It would feel repetitive.
I just thought of a dark possibility that the Joyce’s dad preview panels are because Sarah’s concern for Joyce are starting to distract her from her work and Sarah just defaulted to her option 1 and called her dad.
Probably not going to happen, admittedly.
I don’t think so, because while Dana’s family was a safe place for her, Sarah knows now that Joyce’s family is not. Not anymore.
Honestly, my guess is that the answer to that is yes and that the person is probably going to be Becky, largely because Becky is the one who understands just how much of a divergence this is and what that means and also because Becky probably still has some of her “I need to do everything I can to support my friend” from back when she first learned about Ryan’s assault of Joyce.
The problem might be that Joyce might not be in a headspace to accept help and support from Becky, what with her embodying her crisis of faith in a lot of ways.
But for everyone else, Walky is still very immature and has been shown to have a mostly antagonistic relationship with her so far, Billie doesn’t believe she can help anyone except maybe Ruth and has especially rejected trying to help Joyce because she views herself as the type to “just make things worse”, Mike is Mike, and Dina is not going to assume she’s the best person to handle complex emotional situations alone.
I love how much Billie and Walky are in sync. “Joyce is rated PG now” is totally something Walky could have said.
Ironic clothing, quoted swears…
Is Dina going through a phase!?
Dina’s in college, too. College is for learning.
Don’t be silly…she’s a 12 year old who hangs out on campus for some reason.
It actually took me going to the comment section to ascertain that Dina is, in fact, not expected to swear.
But… she also didn’t?
Joyce actually kept punctuation-peppering her speech with “gosh darn”s, which was what made her personal swear filter so noticable, amusing and a popular topic. Dina expresses herself in different ways, but she has shown no reluctance to use the actual words. She just happened not to.
And she is still not swearing. She is stating facts.
Characters’ confusion is just related to them still viewing Dina as an incapable child, someone who isn’t capable of understanding proper impact/usage/nuance of those words and therefore shouldn’t use them at all.
She is, ah, not. And does not expect others to view her as such.
This strip is funny because of widespread infantilization of autistic people 😀
This and it’s also a weird sort of infantilization as you note. They all claim to see her as 12, but 12 year olds often have (incorrect) ideas about sex and curiosity about what is happening with their bodies, 12 year olds swear and often playact at being way more adult than they are. I’ve got 7th graders in some of my classes and Dina is not treated like she’s one of them. She’s treated like some sort of adult infant, incapable of understanding the world unless lead by the hand, expected to retain an “innocence” where she is ignorant of swear words and incapable of higher level rhetorical analysis. Like some grade schooler or younger who is expected to goof around with her crayons and her dinosaurs and not someone fully capable and fully interested in conversing with fellow adults, but just has some neurological hurdles with regards to fully grasping nuances of non-verbal and emotional communication.
I love that everyone seems surprised at Dina . . . But Becky. Becky GETS her girlfriend.
Well, it’s been shown a lot that Becky is the only one that doesn’t assume or treat Dina like she’s 12 just because of the combination of her size, her naivety, her neurodivergence, and (possibly) her race.
Which is one of the reasons that Dina has fallen for her, because Becky treats her like the intelligent young woman she is rather than some plucky kid sidekick.
Becky hasn’t gotten her girlfriend yet, that was just a joke Dina had made to freak out Joyce.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/item/
Becky called Dina her girlfriend twice. So unless Dina is leading her on, I think they’re an item.
I always find it slightly amusing how they put so much focus on which words Joyce uses. In my country, damn and shit are about equal. Meaning they’re even less offensive than heck, which is why you might even observe christians using them.
Hell however, is on par with fuck and when combined with a lesser swear to create the sentence “Damn you to Hell.” it will cause elderly women to cover their grandchildrens’ ears. And we’re one of the most secular countries in the world.
In the end, it’s not the number of swears Joyce uses or whether or not they’re religiously themed that’s important, but what they mean to her. Which of her own taboos she’s breaking, and how it makes her feel to deal with the situation she’s in.
Yeah. Joyce told us before that when she swore she wanted the words to have power, that she wanted everyone to know that she was really upset. Well, she is. This is not the scatological logorrhoea of the potty-mouthed. She’s not assimilating. She’s really upset.
I was going to post, “Joyce is working her way up to George Carlin’s Seven Words.” But you are correct, she’s not just swearing, she’s deliberately invoking religious concepts as if to summon them by sheer will.
I think I said about a previous strip, she’s actually fervently praying. But I think she’s going past even that, now. She is Blaspheming.
Dina, on the other talon, is just the opposite. She can use worse words without heat or malice, because to her, they’re just words.
Which is a very George Carlin way of looking at it:
“There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions, and wooooords.”
“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”
…….. Mark Twain
I want to give to give Willis a high 5 for the alt text but i am afraid that his epicness might make me explode… hehe
*high 5 with armor glove*
Dina…yes.
Be awesome.
[btw alt text is amazing]
Is it just the first panel, or is Billie gaining a few? Freshman 15 came early?
The earlier art style kind of hid it (bigger heads, smaller bodies), but she was not really in cheerleader form from day one. (Ruth called her “tubbo” and “tubs” for a reason).
Also compare to this strip (NESFW).
Anyone else thinks it’s adorable how Dina seems to use swear words casually and only by mentioning them like just some words that exist?
this is sooo hard to translate… but in my country (catholic mayority, Mary worshippers, Mother is sacred, etc) the worst swear words are those of sexual overtones and if you target the mother concept it goes stronger. But the likes of “dios te maldiga”, “maldito de dios”, are outlandish and comical. I have never ever heard or read “infierno” as a swear word. You send people (cover your eyes) “to the conga that birthed you” (uncover), not to hell, for some reason.
You live in Spain right?
Heh. In Spain we are so catholic that we have the privilege to say, quite literally: “¡Me cago en Dios!” which is to say, exactly, to poop on God himself. ( it is commonly used in fits of rage or extreme frustration).
I would like to see what would happen if I said the same thing in english, in the States. But yes, naming someone´s mother in less than stellar words seems quite the universal attitude in swearing, at least in the most offensive cases. However, a word of caution: when in South America, do not swear with ease. What is easily viewed in Spain as a common interjection, can be viewed in these parts of the world as unhealthy use of words. The Spanish language is diverse…
Billie must be freezing!
This comic reminds me of the movie Airplane!
(ask me why)
why?
I will happily oblige: Why?
Dina reminds you of the little old lady that speaks Jive, doesn’t she?
GETTING HIGH ON GLUE!
Since we have seen Dina in a rage so rarely, it’s hilarious when she uses words she has not had occaision to use.
Yet, I doubt that there is any emotional element to Dina’s words. That is part of what makes this funny – imagining her cuss in this clinical, detached tone of voice.
You know how you can tell Mike is stunned to hear Dina swear?
His fists are unclenched.
Mike has found his protege.
What is “The Way of Mike”? “Fist To The Face”, similar to Tai-Kwan-Leap?
Oh Dina, never change.
Wait no. Continue to change at your current pace.
And hurray the Willis kids will (probably) share a birth month with me I don’t know why that seems important but there it is
Word.
And they may start taking over/helping on the comic in about 15 years or so.
Universities are going to be abolished or reformed beyond recognition before DoA reaches Spring Break.
I feel like Goddamn would be more of a PG-13 offense, considering how touchy (including Joyce formerly) some people are about that.
Does anyone know what Dina is doing with her fingers in the last panel? One person mentioned the “Asian self-point,” but a quick google just found Kawaii girls taking selfies, so I’m not sure if that’s the right context.
she’s pointing at herself to accentuate what she’s saying.
You see it a lot in Hong Kong movies, if you watch a lot of Hong Kong movies.
Nah, in HK that’s “come at me, bro”
She points at her heart, not her face. Because that’s where the ‘me’ is.
That was unexpected from Dina, but a cute surprise. Also, is it just me, or does Billy look pregnant in panel 1?
Not pregnant, just has wide hips. She is not one of those Slender Build types of women. She’s very curvy.
Dina. You could say pretty much anything, and I would still find you adorable. ;;;;;;;;;;;;
Also, yeah. Once you open the flood gates, they don’t really close. I still do most of my cursing in my head, but…..
I find it strange that so many here think saying the words is the same as swearing. I know people who would never, ever say those words, but swear with non-swear words with such intensity as to make others blush and children cry. It’s not the words, it’s the intent behind it.
Joyce swore, Dina didn’t. (That doesn’t means she can’t or won’t.)
“You’d have trouble pouring water out of a boot, with the instructions written on the heel” ? 😀
To paraphrase Mark Twain: “Joyce has the words, but not the tune.” http://homepage.smc.edu/larsen_lyle/mark_twain_and_the_art_of_sweari.htm
Other way around. Dina’s saying the words, but not singing the tune. Joyce has actually had the tune all along; it’s only just recently that she’s singing the real lyrics.
This would make Joyce slightly lower in the ratings scale than The Transformers Movie (1985)?
Although, it doesn’t make you giggle in quite the same way as the Transformers Movie when it happened.
And on that day…everybody knew that Joyce…gave up exactly zero fucks.
XD
Everybody vote for december 3rd — aka my birthday
well, cross your fingers
guess what
Congratulations are in order? (Both for the presence of babies, and for Maggie not having to get sliced open to get to point a?)
I see from tweets I assumed wrong on that second bit. Well, congrats on the Mini-Willises, in any case.
obligatory Walky/Sal twin coincidence joke
Omigosh!
Congratulations!
i just saw the patreon update and holy shit willis
THAT IS SO TOTALLY BABIES
[sorry it was necessary]
Congratulations, David and Maggie!
Congratulations!!!
I am so fucking happy for you!!
You are going to make a great Dad.
33 Days Premie? twins are routinely early. I was.
They will probably have 2 weeks of incubation. Its not uncommon anymore.
So many congratulations! I’m glad you and Maggie made it through OK, and of course, welcome to Zachary and Chase!
This strip feels…empty.
It’s just characters making observations on Joyce’s behaviour that just about every reader has already made. Is this strip necessary?
Dina says fuck and shit. Doesn’t that justify its existence enough?
Also it shows Billie catching onto the changes in Joyce. Which might be important if they interact more in this storyline? It’s hard to tell at this point. You can’t judge a four panel strip in a vacuum.
I don’t know that every strip has to be necessary. But this one isn’t just pointing out the obvious fact that Joyce swears now. It shows the other characters recognizing it (which might lead into the next comic) and hints that at least Becky might understand there is more to this.
Oh, good point. That is important.
But…funny. Funny can be enough all by itself… this always happens when the Drama Tag get pulled, no one is ever satisfied with silly anymore…
I do like the punchline.
Are you attempting to be ironic, by pointing out this strip is like Seinfeld?
Even pointing out Observational comedy is series of shallow pointless observations, is Seinfeld meta Joke used on Seinfeld , about his character on the show.
If serious :
But when Joyce has a visible freak out —or has an existential crises or acts religious religious crazy —-its unreasonable for you to expect that web comments are a substitute for what will be actually published in the book.
Comments dont preclude the story from happening ( which was written months in advance ) .
I predicted a Sal/ Amazi-girl team-up against Toedad. Willis didnt stop that from happening. When I was correct, did I say: This is all pointless since I predicted it? No. I Picked up my cat and did My “I told you so dance”.
Was it necessary? Of course it was.
Think that through. if I didnt do my “I told you so dance” then I wouldn’t be able to tell you that I did now.
Then all causality would be destroyed.
Then narcissists, cynics, and nihilists, could question if this comment was even “necessary” .
( to say nothing of the space/time continuum )
If this comment can be held to that impossible standard of supposed necessity, Then all comments can be.
If all comments have to necessary before they are even made , then No comments can claim any intrinsic utility and they are all useless —even yours.
That makes it Futile to even ask that question ( “Is this comic necessary?” )since it inexorably leads to usm all going back to bed and never getting up.
Even if Mike Knew what you were thinking ( ahead of the plot ) —- He’d still punch you and say he’d “did your mother for a quarter.” It wouldn’t stop him.
Filler has to happen!
In panels four and five, the background walks on without them, and Dina has to beckon it back…
I appreciate this post.
The time is right for Billy to show Joyce how to drink to solve her problems. Booze can fix anything!
What makes it even better is that Dina is wearing Becky’s Anderson University sweatshirt. I wish this particular conversation could have somehow taken place on the Anderson campus. Imagine the panic that would ensue if a girl wearing a dinosaur cap uttered the word “fuck” around all those pristine ears…
I wonder if Mike is kind of intrigued by what new angry Joyce means for the dynamic of the group. He likes making people break, but he didn’t do this one.
I’m going to sing that alt text to my kids one day.
Plus, let the record show that twin babies are being born on the same day an adorkable dinosaur lesbian said “Fuck”.
…Christmas came 22 days early!
-Aaaand if you give a GODDAMN take me baby, or leave me.
years later Willis’s children are going to look back on these comments and go
who is that Someone guy? He sounds like a moron.
Wait…
PG…
Perfect Girl…
…heh.
In my head, Joyce sounds like Pinkie Pie, so it’s like hearing Pinkie Pie swear
Mike looks honestly concerned and hasn’t said anything shitty yet. This it the first time I’ve actually liked him!
In case you haven’t seen them yet, 2 baby Willis’ on Tumblr. Yea!
http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/134503637707/its-zachary-dashiel-and-chase-alexander-willis#_=_
Never before has his Tumblr title been so apropos.
Congratulations, Williseses!
Well in your case Dina its damn cute
Hah! When I voted for December 3rd on the poll, the idea was that I’d get blown out of the running immediately. The lesson here: go big or go home.
*
Only Dina can look so adorable swearing
Even mike is staring at her surprised.