142

Missing out
Posted on August 1, 2012 by David M Willis

142 thoughts on “Missing out”

  1. addude

    Dina is my animal spirit

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      Dina is a totem?

      1. Yotomoe

        I would buy a Dina totem.
        So long as it looked like her last pose from this

        1. Luke

          That’d be the best totem ever. I should tell the Cherokee in my blood about that, I think he’d enjoy it.

        2. Yotomoe

          you should see a doctor about that.

        3. Cody B

          Willis! Make things so we can buy them!

        4. Rachel Roth

          Yes, make us Dina Greeting cards and shirts so we can celebrate!

    2. Steven

      Dina is my Spirit Pokémon.

      1. nitpicker

        Dina is my Patronus.

        1. ThunderBeard

          Dina is my Daemon.

        2. shadowsneakz

          Dina is my FAAAACE.

  2. Kafloobop

    Trust me sister you ain’t missing a thing.

  3. David Herbert

    She knows how to look on the bright side.

  4. Michelle Alford

    What’s this about dinosaurs not changing? I feel like half the dinosaurs I learned about as a kid aren’t dinosaurs anymore or have different names.

    1. Yotomoe

      and all the planets are now moons, and all the islands were really continents, and all the teenage mutant turtles are aliens.

      1. Icalasari

        Yotomoe, we ignore the blasphemy that comes out of what Michael Bay creates

    2. Ian

      It’s not the dinosaurs that are changing. It is our understanding of them.

      1. Martigro

        I cannot press “Like” on this comment. But I like it. And so I am forced to express my liking of this comment by commenting on it.

  5. Tekkactus

    I wonder how Dina feels about feathered theropods.

    1. Bill M.

      I fully expect she found out about them and accepted them the same way I did, through Dinosaur Train. Besides, all that means is chickens are modern-day descendants of dinosaurs.

    2. Volkai

      The feathers add an interesting twist that must be researched further.

  6. Michael

    I’m pretty sure suddenly having feathers the whole time is a pretty big change right before her eyes

    1. gangler

      That never changed. We just learned more.

  7. John

    You say that, Dina, but I remember seeing actual rage from people being confronted with the feathers thing.

    Also, like this comic. It’s a good interaction.

    1. John

      Augh! My gravatar changed! I used to be goggles girl! Okay, this one’s okay too.

      1. Brasca1

        Mine was Monkey Master although I don’t mind, but I still wonder why it changed.

        1. Yotomoe

          Gravatars change periodically

        2. Regalli

          The Raidah icon got introduced, I think. Thus the gravatars were all reassigned.

        3. Tan

          No gravatars are constant but the customized ones.

          And then there’s Plasma Mongoose.

        4. Spazman

          really? Then I wonder what mine got changed to.

  8. Alex Stritar

    … That clinches it, Dina is my favorate character ever in anything.

    1. Jehosaphat

      Dina is winning all the things. ALL THE THINGS!!

      1. Groove

        Yeah, I love Dina.

        I’m so glad she gets to have the words to say.

        1. Spazman

          This is Dina. There are many like it but this one still has the “new Dina smell.”

          She smells like dinosaurs.

    2. Tapio Peltonen

      I always liked Dina, but DoA Dina is somehow even more adorable than It’s Walky’s Dina.

      1. TheLastOutlaw

        It’s the dino hat. It has a +5 modifier to her adorable stat. The old was a +5 to science.

      2. Volkai

        It helps that she hasn’t yet attempted to manipulate someone via constant application of booze.

        That… that was not so adorable.

        Also, slightly less dead. Dying is also not an adorable thing to do. In Dina’s case it was heroic, but heroic and adorable do not always go hand-in-hand.

        1. Historyman68

          Not quite adorable, but kind of consistent with her scientific mind. If you don’t understand how people work, and you discover a way to get them to work more consistently, then good job! Yeah, it’s manipulation, but still, consistent at least.

  9. Wonder Wig

    And so the Doctor appeared and whisked Dina away to the cretaceous period.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Hey now. That’s a surprise. New season hasn’t started yet.

      1. Chupi

        What the hell has been holding it up, anyway? Doesn’t it typically start pretty much right after the Christmas special?

        1. AndysDrawings

          Since the relaunch, it has started pretty regularly on Easter weekend. Moffat says he had it moved to later in the year because he was annoyed with having it on in the summer months – it’s a show to be enjoyed in the dark, not with sunlight streaming through the windows and the knowledge you could be outside enjoying the sun.

        2. Groove

          He was also busy co-writing Sherlock earlier in the year.

    2. Allison

      Well there /are/ supposed to be dinosaurs this series. Personally, I think she’d make a good addition to the Primeval team…

    3. Roborat

      Where they were both promptly eaten, then the micro organisms that travelled with them caused the dinosaur extinction.

  10. Yotomoe

    It took me this long to realize that Sarah is a pretty bad influence on Dina.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      It’s a bit soon for Sarah to be classed as any kind of influence on Dina.

    2. SpaceInvader42

      I agree, it’s really rather unfair of Sarah to infect Dina with her hatred of people. Just because she had some bad experiences doesn’t mean that everyone everywhere is bad and deserves only to be hated.

      1. Khrene Cleaver

        Yeah Sarah needs a hug… and maybe a good lay.

        1. Yotomoe

          Meanwhile*
          Joe: My Joe sense is tingling!

        2. Jehosaphat

          Joe *from behind the foliage*: “Sooo… you girls gonna make out any time soon?”

        3. TheLastOutlaw

          Yep, that would be Joe.

        4. Spazman

          or The Todd.

          *sighs*

          I miss Scrubs.

      2. TheLastOutlaw

        Now I’m picturing Sarah as the emperor and Dina as Vader in training. “Let the hate flow through you!”

        I wish I time to draw this because it would be awesome.

    3. Dr. Bolty

      Eh, Dina’s got on just fine without much social interaction so far. She seems pretty capable of handling herself when she actually has to. I don’t think a dose of cynicism is going to ruin her ability to get along in the world.

      1. fellixe

        *having bad thoughts about Dina ‘handling herself’

    4. Historyman68

      I don’t think Dina’s impressionable enough to have Sarah’s feelings become her de-facto opinions. She’s getting data from one source, she needs data from other sources before coming to a conclusion. And keep in mind, they both just got snubbed by some bullies- it’s fair that they’ll both be a little bitter at humanity.

  11. Plasma Mongoose

    Not sure if this counts as a warm and fussy moment or not.

    1. Yotomoe

      This moment can’t compare to Joyces Boots.

      1. Krashthemystro

        I thought the appropriate term was sweater vest puppies.

        1. Yotomoe

          I thought the appropriate term was Boots but whatevs

        2. Jehosaphat

          Why would Joyce stick boots in her sweater vest? Thats just silly!

      2. Khrene Cleaver

        I’m JOYCE witch! You see these motherlovin’ BOOTS! Let the no-premarital-hanky-panky-party begin!

        1. Yotomoe

          So if you poor beer on her she’ll melt?

  12. Edd

    Dina is so great she deserves her own wallpaper.
    Especially since last time we saw her in the original series she was, um, turned into wallpaper.

    1. Audiophillie

      That just made me cry a little inside. D:

    2. Regalli

      No, no, not true! We saw her in the end bit with Ruth and Walky and everyone who died! *Still sad*

      1. Edd

        Totally forgot about that.
        In that scene they clearly establish that it is a repository for dead souls, unless Dina was right and Walky was hallucinating, but Mike shows up so the first theory is right.
        In either case Dina is still dead. There is no need to be in denial dude, just read the writing on the wall.

        1. Regalli

          Well, yes, but it’s much better than the last time we see her being all exploded. I know she’s dead, it’s just that that scene was significantly less explode-y.

        2. Edd

          Blarg, my “writing on the wall” joke was wasted.

          But yea, that scene was a good way to give closure to her death.

    3. Rognik

      Really? I thought she was turned into carpeting.

      1. Khrene Cleaver

        Either way Dina makes for a bloody good interior designer!

        1. Isoprops

          Its whats on the inside that counts.

  13. AliaPie

    Dina you are so adorable aaaaah.

  14. Deemah

    Oh Dina.

    She just needs her own show. Or just her own comic.

    1. Yotomoe

      just call it “That’s our Dina”
      I’ll have to draw that out.

  15. Wack'd

    Except our knowledge of dinosaurs, as with all things about the past recorded or not, is constantly changing and adjusting to new studies and observations. Nothing is static, not even the past.

    I mean, does Dina still think brontosaurs were real?

    1. Yotomoe

      I think unless it’s the square root of a negative number, everything is real.

      1. Kernanator

        Math jokes.

        1. Rognik

          At least he’s imaginative.

        2. Khrene Cleaver

          Please get real

        3. Gundi

          Can I get a slice of this pi?

        4. Kernanator

          You guys are so irrational.

        5. Yotomoe

          Stop acting so improper or I’m going to have to divide you

    2. Chupi

      She’s more or less describing “I have Asperger’s.” In fact this entire storyline since they arrived at the mall has. So given that if I recall correctly, Dina’s personality is based on someone Willis encountered or knew in real life she probably keeps up with it juuuuust fine.

      God knows nothing happens in the AvP franchises without my mind scanning over and theorizing about every little new detail and integrating it into the bundles of knowledge already acquired… Yet somehow I just can’t seem to get my head around performing proper social routines. It’s a lot easier online or in writing than in person, but… Well, you get the idea.

      1. Bruceski

        I dunno, the line between “socially inept” and actual not-self-diagnosed-Asperger’s is pretty fuzzy. When you’re very analytical it can be relaxing to take all those niggles about people and decide not to worry about them. It’s made me a lot happier, if a bit oblivious.

        1. Chupi

          True enough. Though really, watching Dina here and Abed in Community feels a whole lot like looking into a mirror sometimes. A slightly exaggerated mirror, with race and sometimes gender bending involved. Funnily, neither of them are officially diagnosed. But the basis of the behavior at least feels obvious. But maybe my brain is just making some links that aren’t really there in order to more closely relate.

        2. Alyssa

          I was looking at this scene and pretty much thinking “OMG SOMEONE LIKE ME.” (I am legit diagnosed with Aspergers, and was on the border between that and autistic disorder… took people forever to figure it out though, partially because I tried really hard to keep them from doing so.)

        3. Bruceski

          Feels like a mirror here as well, and I fall solidly on the “socially inept” side of the line. I’m sure we’re both picking out some details in particular.

        4. Alyssa

          The fact that she showed no hesitation to act like a dinosaur in public, at all, kinda suggested to me, and that she needed to ask about the posture, suggested to me that it might be something Autism Spectrum Also, her body language feels odd, and it seems like she’s looking at noses, not eyes.

        5. Historyman68

          Yeah, panel 3 had a definite “Abed speech” feel to it. As I understand it, Abed himself was at least partially based on Dan Harmon. Though of course, most writers will tell you that EVERY character came from inside themselves.

          To bring it back to the comic, clearly there’s an aspect of Dina inside Willis, as I think his Transformers Wiki obsessiveness possibly indicates- and the fact that he’s such a good observer of people, as this entire career of his indicates. There’s a part of every character in him.

    3. gangler

      Of course the past is static. You stated it quite clearly. Our knowledge changes. The past itself does not.

      With people you can learn something today and find it to no longer be true tomorrow. They are not the same person they were when you learned this. The information is out of date.

      With Dinosaurs you can learn that what you learned yesterday was inaccurate, but the dinosaurs themselves don’t change so that the information that was true yesterday becomes false as of today.

      They’re entirely different things. You learn about disosaurs. They do not change. This is not true of people.

      1. David

        Thank you.

      2. Volkai

        Beat me to it.

  16. Alex

    Is it safe for me to assume that Dina falls somewhere on the Autism spectrum? Difficulty relating to other people, fixation on a single topic, seems to fit as far as I’m aware.

    Apologies if I’m making a false assumption here.

    1. Animaniac

      As Willis keeps pointing out: Dina has never been [i]diagnosed[/i] as anything

      1. Rognik

        Try triangle brackets next time instead of square one. The tags are all listed below the text box before posting.

      2. Buckybone

        Just because she hasn’t been diagnosed doesn’t mean she doesn’t have it.

    2. Yotomoe

      Dina could just be a weird girl. All you people and your diagnostics and junk. It just sounds like people are always trying to find something wrong with people just because they don’t fit into their definition of what a normal girl should be like. I dunno…I don’t like that people are so obsessed with Dina’s physiological mental development.

      1. Rognik

        Have you met most people? The instant they meet you, they classify you into some category. Sometimes, they even judge mental acuity, such as here. It’s human nature: you will be judged.

        1. Yotomoe

          If I’d met most people, then I’d probably have amassed an amazing collection of languages.

    3. Alyssa

      I totally thought the same thing, speaking as someone who is spectrum.

  17. Romanticide

    Given than we tend to discover new things about dinosaurs as each year passes I wouldn’t be so sure. But yeah people can be really hard to understand.

    1. Jetstream

      Yeah but while your understanding of them deepens and you learn new things, Dinosaurs themselves are static. It’s the learning that’s insufficient, not their own dynamic nature.

      1. Romanticide

        that is a good point though… by the moment you think you have understood certain facets of some people they change again…

  18. Shade

    Gonna have to side with Sarah, in general. People suck.

    You guys know people can in fact not understand people as a whole without being autistic right?

    1. Buckybone

      It isn’t so much Dina not understanding people, it’s the rest of her social skills. Add her apparent obsession with dinosaurs, and it would be enough to get an Asperger’s diagnosis from the school psychologist in my hometown.

    2. Bruceski

      People suck, but persons can be pretty awesome.

      1. Rex Hondo

        How was it that Agent K put it? “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”

    3. HeatPhoenix

      And autistic people can be well-adapted human beings that don’t whine at humanities flaws at every turn.

      Tch, misanthropy, childish.

  19. Swissaboo

    Oh misanthropy, so adorably naive.

    1. begbert2

      Tch, optimism, so adorably childish.

      (Not entirely serious, but…yeah, a lot of people suck a lot of the time. It is as it is.)

      1. thomas0comer

        I prefer cynical optimism. The glass is half-full, because the rains of change are pouring in through that hole in your roof. And it’ll flood soon.

      2. Historyman68

        Apparently, when people are pessimistic, they’re understanding more of the real situation than when they’re optimistic. Not quite sure how they did that study, but it is interesting. Not enough to get me to stop being optimistic, though.

  20. Rognik

    You want Dina to get to know people? Give her a job dealing with the public. Being forced to deal with people will either teach you about people quickly, or get you fired.

    I’m almost certain Sarah has had some public service jobs in the past. Nothing like having to deal with the dredges of humanity to make you hate the world and everyone in it.

    1. Yotomoe

      I would love to see Dina working at the customer service desk of any store.

    2. Rex Hondo

      True. Cashiering at Meijer for a couple of years certainly taught me that I didn’t want to work a job dealing with the public any more.

      1. James

        Truth.

    3. Historyman68

      I’ve had a couple service industry jobs- Apple Store, pizza place, coffee shop – and I’ve enjoyed all of them a bunch. Sure, there’s annoying customers at times, but it’s generally been the management who have gotten on my nerves rather than the customers. The feeling of appreciation when you give someone something they want is really quite a nice feeling.

  21. Uniqueantique

    Dina’s cute. I like Sarah, she’s got her head and a** wired together.

    1. Valdrax

      I don’t think that sounded as flattering towards Sarah as you may have thought it did in your head.

    2. Kernanator

      So, you Sarah because she’s got her head up her ass?

      That doesn’t sound like a good thing.

      1. Yotomoe

        maybe he admires the flexibility.

      2. Bruceski

        It means her butt jiggles when she talks.

  22. TheRealAllPurposeGuru

    Today’s Google Doodle reminds me of Sal. Except instead of playing field hockey in the Olympics, I envision her doing donuts in the middle of the field hockey field on her motorcycle.

  23. jake36x

    Yum donuts

  24. Bugberry

    Dina is the Dino-Goddess, always and forever.

  25. Zaxares

    Is… Is Sarah making a new friend?? The mind boggles! O.o

  26. TexasUberAlles

    Oh mah gawd, Dina is Brainiac.

    Any moment now she’s going to start talking about her plans to digitize the entire Sol system and then destroy it so that no new information can be generated and she will forever know everything that could possibly be known about it.

    1. Jimmy

      Sounds like she’s joined the Brain Spawn. She’d better watch out for Fry and the Nibblonians!

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        With Walky being Fry of cause.

  27. Doom shepherd

    I love this friendship. Combine these two characters, sprinkle in a little Mike, and you have me.

    Clearly, this will all end horribly.

  28. Gneiss

    Poor Sarah. She’s my favorite character, but she’s so bitter, I hope she and Dina end up being good friends.

  29. Maycroft

    It just get better and better

  30. Rally-oh

    I just have to say that lamp post in the first post is very awesome.

  31. Rally-oh

    Gah, I mean in the first panel.

  32. JA

    I hate people too. Especially those who drive under the speed limit in the left lane.

    GET THE HELL IN THE RIGHT LANE FFS!!!

  33. Scoops!

    Have there been requests for “Rarr!” shirts, yet?

  34. Tunasammich

    Awwww I want Dina and Sarah to be BFFs

  35. Hitoshi

    I have trouble understanding people and most of the ones I do, I hate. I’m the inbetweener of the group!

  36. Michelle J Caboose

    Now I just want to give Sarah a big hug. Not because I think she needs one, but because I agree with her.

    I also want to give Dina a big hug, but that’s because she’s just so adorable.

  37. Rik

    Is Dina an aspie?

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