260

Pores
Posted on February 28, 2016 by David M Willis

260 thoughts on “Pores”

  1. EdHead

    I’ve seen shoes Converse better.

    1. Nono

      Well, Adidas.

      1. Leorale

        She just had to air her Chinese Laundry.
        …which is kind of a racist name for a shoe company, and Dina’s of Japanese descent, and Sarah isn’t Asian at all. I’m sorry I couldn’t think of one for, like, Rocket Dog or something.

        1. Leorale

          I didn’t Start-Rite. That was a bunch of Croc, and I should be imprisoned in a Foot Locker. Ugg.

        2. Ana Chronistic

          It might not’ve been you–need to get some courtroom Sketchers in here.

        3. Doctor_Who

          Uggs, these pun comment threads are total Crocs. It’s Lugz like you guys that make us commenters look like real Heelys. I say Hush Puppies with the pun threads, or I’ll give you all a good Kickers.

        4. Leorale

          Yours ECCO some of mine, but I’m Li-Ning towards the Naotion that we’re both Champs.

        5. Tacos

          Shoe pun!

          Look, I don’t know stuff about shoes, ok?

        6. Chinoy Industries, Ltd.

          It’s okay, we’re all Supra tired at this hour.

        7. Betsumei

          The New Balance of power on this platform will depend on the ability to generate shoe puns at all hours of the day. It’s very important to be able to pump them out in the Nike of time.

        8. DSL

          Something something Thom McAn something Nunn Bush.

        9. yomi

          Well, whoever wants to win the pun comments should probably pray to Nike.

        10. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          I’m not very good at shoe puns either, compared to the rest of you…you’re All-Stars, I’m nothing. 😛

          (I did think about being the bigger man and not getting involved, but what can I say? I have no sole…)

        11. MortartarSaws

          All these puns are PUMA-nating my senses.

        12. Mordecai

          You didn’t bring a shoe pun to the table? Jordan trouble now.

      2. Aeron

        I love it when everyone Keds around.

        1. TamiDOA

          *old man voice* Yep, these Keds today just don’t know how to make a good pun. And get off my lawn!

      3. Ryek Hvek

        Hush, puppies.

    2. EdHead

      Damn Sarah, back at it again with the dark depression.

      1. Uniqueantique

        Sarah is attempting to have a real conversation with another human being.

        She pretty much stated the truth about Joyce (she drips alright), and Becky (an unflappable smart ass is a great description imo) and yeah Dina is sometimes hard to read. Dina sees things differently from most people and she is just too cute to believe.

        What is depressing about the statements Sarah made I wonder?

        1. Freezer

          it’s not this statement, in itself. It’s Sarah in general. She has misanthropic tendencies, almost no personal skills and tends to see the cloud in every silver lining. Even when trying to be sympathetic, she defaults to “This is why this sucks.”

          And frankly, you can see it on her face: She knows she’s a (lonely and isolated) wet blanket, but doesn’t really know how to do anything else.

        2. Kryss LaBryn

          Then Dina is probably the best person to hang out with right now, I’m thinking. Eh?

        3. RP

          Even when trying to be sympathetic, she defaults to “This is why this sucks.”

          But isn’t that generally how people do sympathy? “I’m sorry [bad thing] happened/is happening. I know this must be hard/terrible/distressing/etc.” Sympathy is basically acknowledging that someone is going through something bad.

          All Sarah is doing here is apologizing for what she did in the previous strip and asking how Dina is doing. She looks sad because 1) she screwed up by complaining about being “tragedy-adjacent” and 2) she just realized that Dina could be having a hard time with what happened too.

          And yeah, that’s not happy subject matter but this isn’t Sarah being “dark & depressing”.

        4. Cerberus

          Yeah, this. It’s nice hearing someone upset about how fucked up something is because it’s a reminder that yeah, it was fucked up and it shouldn’t have happened.

    3. Ana Chronistic

      Dina is best poker player

      1. inqntrol

        She can participate in WSOP then.

  2. AnvilPro

    Important questions from Dina, Willis.

    1. gkheyf

      priorities: she has them

    2. Kernanator

      She’s focused on the real/i> issues.

      1. Znayx

        HTML. This shit is real.

        …HTML jokes aside, Dina is very adept at separating that distracting human emotion from all the important facts. ‘Cause who cares about people and feelings when you’ve got dinosaurs, amirite?

    3. 3oranges

      Now I sincerely hope this is answered at some point. Seriously, to the point where I’d even welcome one more Ross comic for it.

      Just one, but still.

      1. Spink

        It’ll be in a slipshine.

        Mwa ha ha.

        1. David

          I’m not ready to see Ross mount someone in a dino costume. Or wear a triceratops effigy downstairs. Or deliver T-Rex soliloquies. Or all of the above.

        2. das-g

          If you aren’t ready, get ready. Somebody might already be drawing fanart to that end.

      2. a snow ʍousɐ

        Or by Willis himself

      3. Screwball

        Given just how fanatically religious Toedad is, I recon he would be 1 of those people who would write to someone in authority about banning the entire Jurassic Park/World saga, due to it’s “heathen portrayal of evolution (no way he’s not a Creationist) & commenting on ‘Dinosaurs’ as if they ever actually existed on God’s green Earth”…

        I mean, he thought Dina’s Tri-horn jacket was a Pokemon & feared for her soul because of it…

        1. Amazi-Stool

          This is not not a tri-horn jacket. It is a Tricera-Top™.

        2. Screwball

          Sorry, my bad. Maybe I’ll get Daniel the human 1 for his birthday or something now I know the name…

  3. Someone

    Dina is slowly becoming Deadpool

    1. Doctor_Who

      Dina should be in Deadpool 2. In fact, Dina should be in every movie, without exception.

      1. Mr k

        What about torture porn movies? (I’m sorry)

        1. Emily

          Quietly watching from the corner.

        2. Mr k

          Also, what about hardcore porn?

        3. Doctor_Who

          Holding the camera and asking really awkward questions.

        4. Vex Godglove

          Dina becomes a porn director for research purposes.

        5. Opus the Poet

          Taking copious notes from the finished cut.

        6. Shiro

          Galasso is her director of photography for the same reason.

        7. Deanatay

          G: Am I… the guy is the one on top?
          D: I’m pretty sure that’s a girl.
          G: Really?? But, the tattoos…
          D: My notes indicate that women have those now, too.
          G: But, I thought ‘Tommi’ was a boy’s name…
          D: It can also be a girl’s. And, even if it is a man’s name, it could still be on a man’s body. The evidence does not preclude this.
          G: So confused…

        8. David

          Asking the right questions.

        9. winter

          Depends. Is Dina going to be the one doing the torturing? (I’m not sorry.)

        10. Mr k

          What would she even torture people for?

        11. winter

          To make quality torture porn, oc. Although (so long as it’s quality) I guess it wouldn’t be real torture then so much as pretend torture for the fans.

        12. winter

          Either that or she would torture creationists with her FACTS. Obviously this would make the best torture porn imaginable.

        13. Opus the Poet

          This is another reason why this comments section needs an upvote capability.

        14. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Or she could make a Steven Spielberg look-alike stay in a cage with a bunch of pissed-off roosters.

        15. a snow ʍousɐ

          Just upvote, though. No downvote.

        16. Cye

          Believing that dinosaurs couldn’t have been feathered because they weren’t giant chickens.

        17. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          I’ve never understood that argument. Most reptiles tend to be ridiculously calm, but birds are generally aggressive as all hell.

        18. No Name

          Most crocodilians are pretty aggressive. But then they’re more closely related to sparrows than to lizards, so it could go either way.

        19. StClair

          If I recall correctly…
          They’re very calm until they aren’t. They’re optimized for short bursts of activity. It’s an ectotherm thing.

        20. Reltzik

          ……..

          You know, every now and then, I wonder exactly what I did to end up in this crowd. Then I realize that I have an answer, and the answer is itself an answer.

          Answer: No. “Movie” generally implies full length feature, and porn (with a few exceptions) is nearly always on the order of 30 mins tops. They should be considered different formats.

        21. Gordon

          Have you never seen or heard of a full length porn film? Cuz geez. I’ve see-*cough* I mean… heard of porn films, and I don’t mean like anthology “best of” collections and what have you, that come in two parts with an almost six hour total run time.

          But 20-30 minutes is just typically just a single scene. With usually 4-6 scenes per movie.

          Unless my, uh… friend’s… sampling is biased.

        22. Reltzik

          Well let me put it this way.

          When people pay to see a normal movie at a hotel (with the time the TV’s on being logged), they typically watch the whole movie, or at least a good chunk of it.

          When they pay to see porn, they typically watch about 8 minutes.

      2. Tacos

        How do you know she wasn’t already in Deadpool 1? Remember, she’s super good at being unnoticed.

        1. Emperor Norton

          It’s a little known fact that Dina has appeared in every sing DoA strip and Slipshine story.

        2. modulusshift

          …oh my god, Dina and Becky could be in a Slipshine someday.

        3. Emperor Norton

          2040 is the projected year when all the DoA fans is going to lose it!

      3. Someone

        A grossly misrepresented Dina would first have to appear in a Wolverine movie

      4. Disloyal Subject

        How do you know she isn’t already in every movie? How could you tell?

        1. Screwball

          I think I saw her behind the door at 1 point…

      5. Roborat

        She is in every movie, you just haven’t seen her, she is that good.

    2. inqntrol

      No! She will get her face disfigured!

      1. Mr k

        Hopefully Becky isn’t too superficial then.

        1. Disloyal Subject

          I hear chicks dig scars.
          “Hot damn, my girlfriend’s a badass.”

    3. caesaria82

      Now I’m imagining Dina jumping off of stuff yelling ‘Maximum effort!’ and that makes me very happy.

  4. Jacket

    *Plays “Working for the Weekend” on the new Hacked Muzak*

    1. Wolf

      This strip is about Becky though…

      1. Jacket

        Ok…

        *Plays “Jurassic Park Theme” on the new Hacked Muzak*

        1. Wolf

          At least you notice the last panel… Right Dallas?

        2. Dallas

          I am breaking in Jiro, robbing a bank. We are in the middle of an assault. A bulldozer just shot Clover. Please, if you have any regard for life Wolf, you’d leave me out of this.

        3. Jason

          who the heck are you “people”

        4. inqntrol

          Characters from some games(Hotline Miami, Payday).

    2. Stephen R. Bierce

      *hijacks the Muzak back for some Hevisaurus*
      https://www.youtube.com/user/HevisaurusVEVO

      1. Jacket

        You’ll have to get past the assault waves….

      2. Dallas

        Eh… Don’t mind Mr. Jacket. He upgraded the system with mega-surround sound. That way even Mr. Willis can hear it beautifully.

      3. Thalass

        \m/

  5. Shanunu

    Is… is this breaking of the 4th wall?

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      More like leaning.

    2. Pat

      …no? She’s addressing another character, talking about something that happened to her in the story. Where’s the fourth wall come in?

      1. Viktoria

        It’s not the 4th wall, but Clever Girl was a mood-killing out-of-place gag that made it very clear the situation was artificial. “Breaking the 4th wall” isn’t accurate, but it’s the closest shorthand we have for that situation.

        1. Seer Of Rage

          (¬_¬)

        2. TexasDex

          TVTropes refers to this sort of thing as “Lampshade Hanging“.

        3. Disloyal Subject

          And the term predates the site by far, as certain storytellers will point out with a hilarious amount of anger.

        4. No Name

          It seems that your link has been neutralized. Let me fix that for you.

        5. No Name

          Hmmmm…. This is odd. Do you think the recent site redesign has anything to do with this?

        6. No Name

          Oh, wait, I forgot to close the string! Anyway, here’s the link you want.

          http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging

        7. David M Willis

          Posts like that make me want to lean back in the direction of titling Book 6 “Clever Girl.”

        8. TamiDOA

          It’s one of those phrases that can have many different and possibly contradictory meanings depending on the reader. That usual makes a good title.

        9. TamiDOA

          *usually
          (Error proves that I’m not a “Clever Girl”.)

        10. trlkly

          Uh, no? This comic is all about finding small bits of humor in otherwise tragic situations. It’s why it’s fun to read, rather than maudlin and depressing.

          Maybe it pulled you out, but you can’t make that claim for the audience in general.

        11. Marc in MN

          You mean the mood wasn’t killed a few seconds earlier when a college aged girl jumped a burly man with a gun while pretending to be a dinosaur?

        12. Spencer

          Those both happened in the same strip.

        13. John

          I find that entirely plausible and in-character for Dina.

        14. Screwball

          Indeed. She used the Raptor’s tactic of distracting the target in 1 direction, then ponced from the side. Using that kind of tactic when attacking an enemy who’s definitely superior to yourself, that you need to take down to protect something, all I can say is clever girl…

        15. 3oranges

          Like in Jurassic Park itself! The raptor doesn’t actually jump on Muldoon the way any sensible ambush predator would, it chivalrously gives him space to say some last words before eviscerating him. It interrupted the documentary feeling and with an indication this was really a drama artificially constructed for humans to enjoy.

          So the “clever girl” in Willis’ comic is just about as non-awesome as it was in the movie. That is how people thought of that line, as really pointless and jarring, right? No? Not even me? Huh.

        16. Shiro

          Taken straight from Dina’s card about why she can’t, in good conscience, recommend Jurassic Park, I’m sure.

        17. Emperor Norton

          I was a teenager when I watched that movie, so I did not find it jarring then. I probably would find it somewhat jarring now. Only somewhat, because at least it would be an original thing.

          The particular comic strip, on the other hand, was extremely jarring because it was doing a “Look at how cool the ‘Clever Girl’ reference still is”* right in the middle of what was a tense and chilling situation; completely taking away all sense of danger that was going on in that moment.

          Not that it is alone in doing that. It is a symptom of almost all action movies/TV shows today that one-liner quips in the middle of danger has to be inserted for the sake of making someone look cool -even if it is not otherwise consistent with their character-**. But the overall effect is that I end up never thinking these people are really in any danger, so why worry about them, eh?

          *Personally, I find that thanks to the internet, the ‘Clever Girl’ phrase is as played out as a certain “N. Byson” phrase was in this comment field; so even without it being placed at the worst possible moment, I wouldn’t have found it to be much of a good strip.

          ** It is an unfortunate fact that the biggest movie stars will hire their own script writers to look over the script and rewrite the lines for the character to make said character look cooler/more kick-ass, not taking into account if this makes any sense for the character: http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-why-bad-movies-are-allowed-to-happen/

          So if DoA was a movie/TV show, I would have assumed that the actor playing Toedad would have been the driving force behind the “clever girl” moment.

  6. CC

    Well, sounds like she has her priorities in order

    1. TamiDOA

      Sounds more like denial to me.

      1. Dana

        Yeah, she’s trying to process a traumatic event but getting stuck on the most superficial aspect of it.

      2. Willoughby Chase

        Displacement activity.

  7. Doctor_Who

    Maybe he was protesting outside a showing of Jurassic Park for that movie’s depiction of dinosaurs coming from millions of years ago, and he heard people quoting it.

    1. doubleW

      Honestly, he might just see the whole ‘don’t play god’ theme and ignore everything else that might bother him

      1. Captain Button

        Well, since the scientist creating those dinosaurs were operating from fundamentally wrong theories, of course things went bad.

        Dinosaurs recreated by creation scientists would be tame and friendly, subsisting on coconuts.

        1. Michael Haneline

          Dinosaurs recreated by creation scientists would become domesticated livestock, just like they were for the cavemen of ancient times. I know this from this fantastic creation science documentary I watched called “The Flintstones”, you should check it out.

  8. Cacturne

    Remember when I said [anybody aside from Dina] was my favorite DoA character?

    I lied.

  9. Skizz

    The answer is, of course, “Yes”

  10. inqntrol

    Jurassic Park, where dinosaurs are brought to life…I doubt Toedad would watch something which includes science and creatures brought back to life by it.

    1. Cthulhu's Intern

      Well, if the Creation Museum is anything to go by, fundies LOVE dinosaurs.

      1. Captain Button

        I’ve always interpreted that as “kids love dinosaurs, so we have to take them over and make them all about God”. Which is organized religion’s approach to everything, of course.

        1. Cerberus

          That and everyone loves dinosaurs…

          Not to mention these sorts of people love to look to old shows like the Flintstones as if they were documentaries that “prove” that “proper gender roles” likes in the early 60s were universal up until evil hippies and feminists ruined everything in the 70s and thus confused everyone about their proper place, creating “evil” like sex education, means of preventing dying or getting pregnant from sex, and queer people (cause those didn’t at all exist until the modern day, obviously).

        2. Sunny

          Dinosaurs and sharks. And then there were sharks that lived AT THE SAME TIME AS dinosaurs! That completely blew me away as a 7-year old. Other megafauna was also kinda cool, but dinosaurs and sharks were the absolute BEST.

          Giant sloths got a favoured status among mammals, because there may have still been a few sloths the size of elephants around just a couple hundred years ago. As big as an elephant, but with fluffy fur and wicked awesome claws, and compared to dinosaurs, REALLY recently.

        3. Screwball

          Have you seen Australian megafauna, both extinct & still living?

        4. inqntrol

          The British really had guts to colonize that continent… too bad for the Aboriginal Australians though.

        5. Screwball

          They did dump a lot of their convicts here. That said, to survive here, it can take some toughness & tactics to survive all the Dropbear attacks, spiders, hoopsnakes, etc…

          That said, the Aboriginals were dealing with them for ages before the Brits showed up, so that makes them even more badass…

    2. Cephalo the Pod

      Yeah, but the dinosaurs kill a bunch of people, showing that the whole thing was a bad idea.

      1. Dean

        Humans set themselves on a level with God by creating life, and are punished for their hubris. Sounds like a good Christian message to me.

        1. Screwball

          I doubt Toedad would see it that way, he’d probably just see dinosaurs & science, cry “HERESY!!” OR “DEVIL’S WORK!!” & ban any family members from seeing it. Maybe even warn others in the community for seeing it too…

      2. David

        Killing a bunch of people is a bad idea? I mean, the Biblical God was constantly mad at Saul because Saul repeatedly failed to kill as many people as commanded.

        1. Captain Button

          It isn’t about killing, it is about authority and obedience. Killing when God tells you to – good. Killing when God told you not to – bad. Not killing when God told you to – bad.

    3. TamiDOA

      Toedad wouldn’t watch since he KNOWS that “dinosaur bones only exist to test our faith that the world is only 6000 years old”.

      1. Tacos

        Or he would watch it and reason to himself that since he’s a Man of God, he can resist the temptations.

        1. Otter

          You’d think that, but Fundies stay away from anything that doesn’t fit their world view. I guess their faith just isn’t that strong.

        2. modulusshift

          I believe the actual line is “Of course liberal media is all temptations from the devil no man can resist, I mean, no offense, but look at you.” (omit the no offense for non Joyce-types.)

        3. Tacos

          Never underestimate the things people will tell themselves in order to not feel guilty.

      2. Lord Stoneheart

        Seeing as Willis wrote Joyce and Becky to have a similar religious background to him, I believe the explanation they would have for dinosaur bones is that dinosaurs went extinct after The Flood.

        I think Jurassic Park would still run him the wrong way because it implies that dinosaurs were around hundreds of millions years ago.

  11. DarkoNeko

    THE WORLD MUST KNOW

  12. tim gueguen

    If Ross has seen any of Jurassic Park it’s some weird bootleg version with a dubbed on commentary from some preacher, pointing out every instance where it disagrees with Young Earth Creationism.

    1. Captain Button

      Or maybe they can just edit out all of the stuff that contradicts the Bible. Like that dinosaur book I saw at the tire store with the pages very selectively torn out.

      1. DarkoNeko

        That’s… that’s horrible.

        1. Deanatay

          “He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.” – John Milton

        2. TamiDOA

          “Reason and logic have NOTHING to do with religion, so religious people will have nothing to do with them.” – Me

      2. Screwball

        *Most of Jurassic Park is instead replaced with Episodes of Hymmel the Hymael, complete with familiar faces…

    2. trlkly

      I really don’t remember much that it violates, other than mentions of stuff being millions of years old, but, as creationists, we were used to ignoring that.

      Sure, you might keep your kid from watching it, but people more steadfast in the faith were allowed to watch other stuff. Did you know the TV show Charmed had a huge fundamentalist older male following?

      1. Harvey Janus

        I’m both surprised and unsurprised. That show got… Weird about gender pretty quickly.

  13. Dean

    It’s a valid concern- if someone you consider to be a bad person has things in common with you, does that mean you could be a bad person yourself?

    1. Mr k

      That’s dumb. It’s a case of Hitler Ate Sugar: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlerAteSugar.

      Just because you share something in common with someone bad doesn’t make you bad yourself.

      1. Disloyal Subject

        But does linking TVTropes make you bad?

        1. Captain Button

          Hitler never linked to TVTropes.

          (Waits for someone resubbing that movie scene to be a rant about TVTropes.)

        2. Jhon

          Of course Hitler never linked to TVTropes — That’s what Goebbels was for.

      2. Rutee

        That’s not automatically true. It /can/ be true. In the case of hitler ate sugar, hitler shares something otherwise innocuous in common with you. Hitler did a lot of things. Was this innocuous before the introduction of Hitler, is the question.

        The answer can be yes, of course, /but you should have the self awareness to check/.

  14. Leorale

    Maybe he’s the type of fellow who goes to see the wicked heresy so that he knows how to decry it better.

    1. Mr k

      “Ross, why are you watching lesbian porn?

      “I watch it to understand how not to sin”

      1. inqntrol

        “Becky come over here, I have to show you how not to sin!”

      2. Leorale

        ‘I watch it in slow motion, over and over. The masturbation also helps me understand better.’

        1. Cerberus

          I feel these two responses to Mr k couldn’t be more unfortunately paired.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Careful, someone might take that as a challenge.

        3. Leorale

          blugh. That’s his daughter, inqntrol!

        4. inqntrol

          Sorry, didn’t think it through.

        5. Leorale

          No worries, I totally think with my mouth, too.

      3. ObiKemnebi

        I heard an awesome explanation once about how gay men are sinning but lesbians are not. Because, since woman was created specifically and solely to provide companionship, gay men are blasphemously spurning god’s first gift to mankind. Lesbians only exist because the men they were created for are depriving them of the ability to serve their primary purpose, and thus are forced to provide companionship to each other. Therefore, continue to condemn male homosexuality, but until all gay men have repented, be forgiving of and compassionate toward female homosexuality. It’s not their fault, and god won’t send those women to hell because that’s just how he made them.

        1. Michael Haneline

          I think we have different definitions of the word “awesome”

        2. ObiKemnebi

          Awesome (adj) — extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear

          I was impressed and in awe of how much thought went into this particular set of reasoning (compared to much more common things like “the bible says so” or “it’s just unnatural”, for example). I am in fear because this guy is much more likely to convince gray area individuals to join homophobic mob-mentality.

          “Awesome” does not inherently mean “good”.

  15. Ana Chronistic

    okay wow, new motherboard means I in fact reload a billion times yet end up with the new comic appearing only after 29 others =|

    1. Ana Chronistic

      (others being comments)

      1. Dallas

        I want to apologize for thew behavior of my colleagues.

        1. nothri

          Your “colleagues” being other commenters or other terrifying clown like beings with flags over their faces?

        2. Wolf

          Ya got the clown thing right!

          And don’t forget the chicken mask!

    2. TamiDOA

      Different network interface drivers? (I assuming you didn’t get a whole new OS etc.)

  16. Cheshrin

    Dina Saruyama asks the hard-hitting questions.

  17. RJ

    Panel 4: I’M CRYING
    Panel 5: I AM LAUGH

  18. Archivist

    Plot twist he’s seen Jurrassic Park but wasn’t referencing it.

    1. Jason

      Or, he’s never seen it but is familiar with the meme!

  19. Kamino Neko

    Dina is Dina, thus Sarah is able to be Sarah. Thus, life is good.

  20. Spencer

    Do people still say “unflappable”?

    1. Mr k

      Hopefully, you don’t forget the first “l”

    2. Disloyal Subject

      Yup, but the internet and books tend to keep even words far more archaic or obscure than it in use, so that’s not saying much.

    3. nothri

      Yes we do.

    4. Peduncle

      Google it. There’s a book title (2012), a hashtag, Carly Fiorina, and more.

      I wish I were unflappable.

    5. Rutee

      About as much as ever.

  21. Lord Stoneheart

    I feel Dina’s pain.

    Well not the pain of being thrown to the ground. I mean the wondering whether that was an intentional reference by Toedad.

  22. Just Me

    It’ll get real enough, Sarah. Just give it time.

  23. caesaria82

    “Joyce drips what she’s feeling at any given moment out of her pores” is an incredibly on-point description of Joyce, what a great observation by Sarah there.

    1. Mr k

      She should go to a dermatologist then.

  24. Breaking Piggy

    That’s our Dina for you

  25. Yixin

    I can relate to this on a way more shallow level. I passed out at work while making an iced jasmine tea and swear to god, I still think about that and wonder if they got it. “how many scoops did I put in before I passed out, did they steep it long enough/too long? What about the other drinks in the que?”

  26. Opus the Poet

    I was wondering the same thing, Dina…

  27. Cheryl

    I cant even right now David XD

  28. Shiro

    WILLIS

    I BEG YOU

    DRAW THAT FUCKING ALT TEXT

    also silly Dina fundies don’t watch dinosaur movies, he hasn’t even seen The Land Before Time.

    1. brionl

      He’s a real fan of The Land That Time Forgot, though.

    2. Dara

      I know, right? “MY GIRLFRIEND DEMANDS TO KNOW.” XD

    3. Architex

      I tried, but it’s pretty crappy. I think everyone has an idea of it going down in their heads though, I dunno.

  29. Uniqueantique

    I think Sarah has it nailed.
    Joyce does drip, Becky is an unflappable smart ass, and Dina is hard to read.

    I think she became hard to read in last panel. When Sarah got straightforward with her and expressed concern for her. Dina sidetracked. We’ve seen her lying awake – and I’m pretty sure it isn’t Toedad’s remark keeping her awake. But then, what she said to Sarah at the beginning was straight, she doesn’t want Becky to change a lot while she’s away: so she said what was on her mind.

    Whatever way it goes, it does appear that Dina does get Sarah to be Sarah around her with no censure. Good for both of them. Sarah needs a friend, and Dina will get the straight goods from Sarah who never sugar coats anything.

    1. RP

      I think Dina interpreted Sarah’s question as, “How are you doing in relation to what Becky’s dad did?” not as, “How have you been doing since that *in general*”? So not really a direct dodge, just answering a slightly different question.

      Of course, I could be proven wrong as soon as tomorrow if the next strip has Dina admitting that what happened has been bothering her.

  30. TwinkleToestheBerserker

    I’m not saying I could see Dina doing the alt text, but yes, she would do that.

  31. Cerberus

    The interesting thing is that might actually be a big deal for her and legitimately upsetting her. Not just because in trauma, especially fresh trauma your brain picks weird ass things to focus on. I remember when I was sexually assaulted, it was at a convention, so I got hyper focused on the bit of why that convention and whether the guy was a fan of the people speaking because it was a way for my brain to avoid focusing on what happened to me.

    But also because these things may be silly to most but matter most to her. She doesn’t want to worry that a beloved movie that makes her feel good to watch is going to conjure up images of Toedad shoving her head into the dirt.

    Additionally, it’s an unknown and Dina strikes me as someone who likes to filter information into all its known parts and as such, the part she feels she has the least grasp on in the whole tragedy is what she’s fixating on.

    Point being, it may not be as much of a dodge from real emotional weight as Sarah thinks.

    1. Emily

      Yeah, I really doubt it’s a dodge it may just be that that’s the only thing in that sequence of events that she doesn’t understand and being Dina and it being even tangentially related to dinosaurs she has to understand. It’s entirely possible that she isn’t even particularly affected by Toedad’s violence against her because some people can just shrug violence off without much in the way of psychological trauma.

      1. john

        It probably helps that in Dina’s first confrontation with Toedad she was the one who had been taken by surprise, and was forced to rely on social deception, which is one of her greatest weaknesses, but attained nearly flawless victory anyway. The second time, she was the one who initiated a hand-to-hand fight, from a position of stealth, which is one of her greatest strengths. I’m not sure she was scared at all; I think she was thinking “this guy might look tough, but he’s got nothing on me.” She apologized to Becky for failing to completely defeat Toedad because that seemed like a realistic outcome, the same way effortless As on college-level math seemed realistic to Walky.

        1. Cerberus

          I think you’re both right. I think she really did think she could take him or at least die trying, because she made a promise to protect Becky from him and doggonit she was going to try as hard as she could to fulfill that.

          And I think it was the moment that didn’t make sense. It’s like, okay, hunting us, I guess I can see that from his behavior earlier and the gun would follow from that, but Becky wasn’t exposed to dinosaurs before me and he made a Jurassic Park reference… this doesn’t fit. Must devote all my brain cycles to worrying over this inconsistency instead of the raw horror of having my face slammed into the ground by the angry father of my girlfriend, a parent who very much wanted to kill me.

    2. RP

      She doesn’t want to worry that a beloved movie that makes her feel good to watch is going to conjure up images of Toedad shoving her head into the dirt.

      That is an excellent point.

      I’m very sorry that happened to you.

    3. Elizabeth

      No kidding. I found this response very relatable. When I’ve experienced trauma I’ve tended to feel like little peripheral details about it were the Big Issue, rather than the trauma itself.

  32. Cerberus

    Also, I feel like Sarah doesn’t at all know how to handle trauma and traumatized people very well. It seems her default mode is to assume people are “irreparably broken” when they get a bit depressed and turn to coping strategies and that might be adding too much stress to how she handles roommate situations.

    1. Leorale

      This is very true. Sarah doesn’t even feel she knows how to handle people who aren’t in trauma, and who might be having feelings. She is suspicious of everyone, and once she’s convinced that somebody is an OK person, she must then defend that person from everyone else. Possibly with a baseball bat. It must be exhausting.

    2. Bagge

      True, but not strange given how much her attempt at trauma help blew up in her freshman year.

    3. Spencer

      I’m thinking you’re onto something with the theory that Sarah didn’t help Dana quite as much as she hoped you mentioned a while back.

    4. Fwip

      We’re all prisoners in our own perspectives. If Sarah’s own experiences with emotional turmoil lead her to bitter cynicism, her natural reaction would probably be to assume others will not only go the same way, but that those who don’t are in some way delusional or coping. If no-one’s ever helped her break that viewpoint, there isn’t much reason for her to do so herself.

  33. Mr D.

    Dina likes Jurassic Park? But it’s full of inaccuracies!

    1. Bagge

      She has even listed them!
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/piano/

      I’m pretty sure it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure for her. She loves it enough to learn the piano just to play that one song, and I bet a young Dina learnt a LOT of dinosaur lore just fact checking the movie.

      1. No Name

        She didn’t learn the piano just to learn that song! She also learned the Barney Theme!

        1. StClair

          A 2m tall purple and green T. rex with bare (plush) skin and a bite pattern of two flat semicircles is entirely in keeping with the fossil record.

        2. Heavensrun

          We don’t even know that she actually learned the piano. She may have just learned those songs.

        3. Heavensrun

          (in fact that was the very next comic.)

  34. nothri

    Okay, in a master list of priorities it wouldn’t be my top pick in this situation either, Sarah. But you have to admit….that IS a valid question. It would kind of completely upset my image of Toedad as this conservative crazy shut in that shuns all pop culture as the devil’s playground.

  35. Cerberus

    Also good on Sarah reaching out and checking in on Dina once she realized she was talking to one of the central figures of the tragedy. Sarah does really try to be good people despite herself.

    1. Emily

      Sarah is good people, but she’s good people with zero esteem in humanity including herself.

      1. Bunk

        Yeah, I like this Sarah way better than Walkyverse Sarah. Walkyverse Sarah never saw concern, even after Joyce vanished.

        1. Bunk

          Showed, not saw. Why did I say Saw?

  36. Nik

    If you’d told me 3 years ago my favorite webcomic character would be a dinosaur-loving college freshie who is canonically indistinguishable from a 12-year-old I’d have been all ‘what’

  37. BenRG

    That… is surprisingly meta. However, given that this is Dina, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised!

  38. Kitschensyngk

    I bet to Toedad, Jurassic Park was a historical documentary.

    1. Needfuldoer

      You’re thinking of The Flintstones.

  39. Bagge

    There will be a heart-to-heart about this later.

    “Becky, I have to know… did you ever watch Jurassic Park in your family?”
    “Dunno, I lost TV privileges for life at age 8 (toots worth it though)”
    “I MUST KNOW!!!”

  40. Bagge

    And here we thought Dina was lovesick when she was just wondering about ToeDad’s movie preferences. Silly us.
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/thoughtless/

  41. Pierre-Eric

    tfw when there is no dinosaur girl in your life to have unreal conversations like this with.

  42. Lia47

    HOly fucking shigt you should have saved that alt text idea for a patreon bonus strip or something

  43. trlkly

    Okay, guys. I know we like to analyze and overanalyze this comic. But can we take a step back, and try to figure out if Willis saw this stuff in the comments and made a joke about it, or if he predicted stuff a long time ago?

    I do sometimes think that the analysis ignores the comedic aspects of this comic. This was a joke. We need more jokes after the heart break that was the end of the last arc.

    1. trlkly

      And note, that’s not me saying anything bad about analysis: I like it, too.

    2. nightsbridge

      No. Willis’ buffer is over a month ahead of us.

      1. Jason

        That comic was over 3 months ago, though. He might not have written this one by that point.

      2. Kamino Neko

        The Buffer is currently about 4 months ahead of us. After the twins were born, it stalled for a few weeks, but I don’t think it ever got less than 2 months ahead.

    3. StClair

      We’re just that predictable.

      1. Heavensrun

        Or Willis just does what he wants to do, and the comic has attracted an audience that shares his narrative pattern preferences.

      2. Cerberus

        We are all his puppets and we dance merrily on his strings.

        1. Captain Button

          We’re just his Jack in the Box.

  44. Emily

    Dina asking the important questions we all need the answer to as always.

  45. Reltzik

    #Priorities

  46. Willoughby Chase

    Is Dina suffering a bit of PTSD?

  47. Jason

    I suppose Sarah is kneeling in the chair now? She’s a lot higher than in the last two strips.

    1. Captain Button

      Looks like it. In the last panel of yesterday’s she turns around and climbs up. She has her arms resting on the back of the chair. Note that Dina is now on her right instead of her left.

      Obviously there is some hidden political meaning here.

  48. thumb

    Oh good, now I don’t get to sleep either.

  49. Charles Phipps

    Ehhh, Toedad saw it. Hypocrisy is no stranger to certain sects of fundamentalism. After all, plenty point to Leviticus for reasons to loathe X group but don’t follow any of the others.

  50. OnyxIdol

    Oh man, this was a good laugh. Thanks, I needed that.

  51. Kaffeeteria

    Gotta love the Dinasaur. 🙂

  52. Wublub

    Never change, Dina. Never change.

  53. Sigurther

    Further reason why I love Dina.

  54. Deanatay

    I wish my life were buffered up until June 6th. I could really use the certainty right now.

  55. Sili

    Didn’t some commenters just the other day credit Dina for always using proper grammar?

    Though I guess “laying” can be put down to a spelling mistake in the transcription.

    1. Peduncle

      Lack of sleep (Dina’s or Mr. Willis’s).

    2. No Name

      She’s a dino nerd, not a grammar nerd. Just because she may be on the spectrum doesn’t mean she can use English like a Victorian grammarian.

  56. Marc in MN

    That depends. Did he say it with an Australian accent?

  57. raza

    Part of PTSD can often be anxiety – which can often look like lying awake at night thinking obsessively about little seemingly insignificant things associated with trauma.
    Also it’s possible Dina is just a bad ass and that is seriously the only thing that bothers her about the situation now that Becky is relatively safe.
    It can be hard to tell with high functioning folks on the autism spectrum sometimes, what the significance is of the details they cling to. Speaking from significant experience with both asperger’s and PTSD.

    1. Fwip

      It could also just be a natural response to a highly stressful event. PTSD isn’t a universal experience, even for people who undergo traumatic experiences. Anxiety, stress, troubled thoughts… These are a natural response to a trauma and don’t become a pathology unless they refuse to go away and actively impair someone’s life.

      PTSD is a specific diagnosis for a specific set of behaviours, not the universal human response. Even people who exhibit behaviours that normally characterize PTSD aren’t necessarily suffering from any disorder; they might just be human beings working through something. Normal behaviour ain’t a pathology. Pathology is when the normal behaviours become harmful.

  58. Bunk

    I too wondered that Dina

  59. whispl

    I would not get along well with Sarah. I live for real conversations, to desire to avoid them is just…

    1. TamiDOA

      Sarah not happy about the conversation going less real either. Check her eye-roll.

      As to living for conversation, wait till you’ve gone 3 months on a mountain top without anyone to talk to. You want to tie the first person you see to a chair so they have to talk to you! (Rocks and mud are terrible conversationalists. I had lengthy discussions with the trees about them. 🙂 )

      1. Rheios

        I know, right? The trees at least WAVE to you.

        1. TamiDOA

          And they’ll whisper too. Rocks just growl and bite. 🙂

  60. Porto

    I’m so glad that this was actually addressed. It’s beautiful.

  61. JW

    Wouldn’t Dina know the difference between lying and laying?

    1. Ana Chronistic

      the conundrum distresses her THAT MUCH

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