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NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! 🤯
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Patrick Willems @patrickhwillems.bsky.social ⋅ 1m
The Verge @theverge.com ⋅ 2d
Transformers Wiki @tfwiki.net ⋅ 2d
Josiah Hawthorne @josiahhawthorne.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Transformers Wiki @tfwiki.net ⋅ 2d
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️𝓝𝓪𝓷𝓲 
Dina attacks Joyce!
It’s super effective!
Joyce is all like, “WHOA WAIT DINA TRUCE”
It’s not very effective…
(I mean, it’s not like they’re fighting)
also, all those EVIL DUCKS just swimming along
EVIL FISH
uh
evil… BARNACLES
how dare you slander ducks!
Ducks are pretty Ryan tho.
*sings Scientifically Accurate Ducktales*
We regret to inform you that Milkshake Duck is a sexual assaulter.
Who’s got a fowl mouth around here?
I think this is their swan song.
i cant believe i have to gander at these
You loons and your poultry puns.
I a grebe, this thread is diving to new depths.
Do you think we will be billed for befowling this fair website with our quacks?
If we are, someone should tweet about it.
Eh, we’ll just wing it.
Are you implying we’re flighty? That accusation will never take off.
No one gives a hoot.
Well OK, I guess it’s time to go owl out then, but if I get Barred I’m going to Screech.
I’m puffin to keep up with all of you.
I don’t want to make things aukward or tern this into an argument, but I don’t know what are you toucan about.
Well don’t start parroting me, now.
Oh Kea, I will be Lory of doing that!
Crane’s neck into the conversation.
I hope you won’t have egrets about sticking your neck out …
Act with integrity, no egrets.
I keep heron that phrase here, whatever could it be referring to?
Y’all are a bunch of loons!
How could you teal?
Slander? https://youtu.be/3LtiyefHCe4?t=1m16s
But… ducks are sinister!
I will eat all the leaves on this tree. In the morning there will be no leaves. And some animals will diiiiiie.
You eat those leaves, and this belt is gonna come off.
A-bloody-MEN!
so, joyces sympathy is worth less because she believes in god and noah’s ark and ect.
Not her sympathy, her definition. Difference
Yay Dina is back!!!!
More Dina = More awesome.
Can’t argue with simple math.
Not with that attitude, you can’t.
Really? You’re the one who’d argue you couldn’t fit that many species on the inside of the ark?
The Doctor’s theme song has some damn good lyrics. As far as I know, you have no theme song, and therefore no lyrics. This puts the Doctor beyond your capacity for criticism.
C’mon, you can’t expect primitive Hebrews to record the most sensitive information in a public record. Only a very few knew about the Doctor parking the TARDIS in the middle of the boat for a few months.
Because OF COURSE the Daleks were behind the flood.
“I would die for Riley”
Yeah, fuck the normies
I believe the standard response is “REEEEEE!”, but I can’t figure out why.
Uncle Taffy’s got alcohol on his breath…
Yyyyeah, that is definitely a “I should have been locked up” attitude Amber’s sporting.
Now that I think about it… what happened between Becky and Dina? Clearly, they did not have sex. Did they break up?
Becky found a place to stay that wouldn’t risk putting several of her friends, including Dina, Joyce, and Billie at risk of being evicted and suspended.
They haven’t been apart for very long in comic-strip time. Becky’s adventure in which she left class, confronted Robin, stayed over at Leslie’s, then went shopping for breakfast and *then* tried to play matchmaker with Leslie at the supermarket…all only took about two days.
So, presumably she was texting Dina all the way through that, and somewhere in the time skip they’ve probably met up a few times. I believe the invitation of Leslie’s couch has been taken up by Becky permanently.
Which I think is best for all involved! College freshman probably shouldn’t live with their romantic partners, you know? Give things time.
Exactly! They’re not by any means completely cut off from each other.
Even if Leslie’s place isn’t within walking distance, Becky can just hitch a ride to campus with her every day. (At least until she saves enough to buy a used bicycle or something.)
Dinah for elected office.
The h is a lie.
Reminds me of that cartoon about Noah’s Ark and how the survivors decided on who would be King of the Beasts:
LION: Choose your weapon!
SNAKE: Chews ARE my weapons!
LION: So are mine!
time to substitue a different normal, ’cause that boat, realistically, would’ve capsized.
But consider this:
A really, really big boat.
But, like, what if there were dinosaurs? Or maybe the sea was unsafe, so they had to keep all the big sea creatures in enclosures on board? It would have to take a biiiiiiiiiiig boat, and I dunno how one man, albeit long-lived and with a small family, could make it. :p
Maybe Noah’s Arc is like the Tardis: bigger on the inside. I mean, presumably the boat would have had some sort of supernatural power, since it’s not like it would have been the only boat in existence. You don’t need logic when you have the mystical powers of God.
If Noah was a Time Lord trying to save the Earth
As I said above, clearly the Doctor showed up and parked the TARDIS inside the Ark. Space issue solved.
We’re gonna need a bigger boat.
There is no limit to the number-of-angels-that-can dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin types of explanations for how Noah’s Ark worked. All the carnivores were vegetarians at that time and only ate meat AFTER the flood. They were all put to sleep and needed no food. The definition of species is modified, so one canine can become all the known canines in short order after the flood. Somehow this is not evolution but some other process. The amount of cognitive disorder that must be overcome is immense. Where did all the water come from? Enough to cover 10,000 ft mountains and flood the Sahara? Comets? deep underground springs? Where did it go? Apparently back into hammerspace. Such directed thinking or directed logic is a very human trait, since human are pattern recognition machines.
And, and I bet Dina hasn’t subtracted marine species from the total! The land based critters would totally fit!
shit dina is FAST. She had those figures on speed-dial, she didn’t even BLINK at Joyce barging in, no it was straight to flat-earth zinging, nought-to-a hundred in 0.3 seconds
Dina has trained for this day all her life.
Indeed, when you know the enemy, it helps to keep some ammunition against them nearby, just in case. In this case, the enemy is Biblical literalism (not Joyce).
For much the same reason, whenever anyone notes that the Bible prohibits homosexuality, I can not only note that it also prohibits shrimp, crop rotation, and poly-cotton blends, but that there’s an entire book that reads as a lesbian love story. “Ruth loved Naomi as Adam loved Eve.”
Thus loaded in my holster, I look at any Bible-thumper and say “You think you can take me? Go ahead on.”
Let’s not forget the torrid passion between David and Saul’s son Jonathan, now!
That’s another good one. Also, David and Saul’s really unhealthy obsession with mutilating dead male genitalia. Remember, David was tasked with collecting Philistine foreskins in order to marry Saul’s daughter and David gave him twice as many as required. That’s kind of sadistic on both their parts.
To be fair, Saul did that in the expectation that David would be slain while trying to collect the bride-price he assigned. It was more “he’ll never be able to do this and survive” than “I really, really want a hundred foreskins. You know, for… reasons.”
The foreskins make sense if you think about it. It’s the one piece of evidence that proves that he was killing 1) the men of 2) their distinctly not-Jewish enemies.
I mean, it’s still pretty weird, but at least there was a method to the madness.
Madness being the keyword here. Mainly because David brings TWICE the number asked for. It’s like…that was just unnecessary man. I mean, at least they were dead before you cut them off but still…why did you feel the need to take such grisly trophies from your extra kills David? Why? I mean, you did cut off Goliath’s head so we probably should have seen this coming but why?
Saul needed the foreskins for stem cell research. Do you know how much skin you can make with one of those?
I know you can make a nice poncho from a sperm whale’s foreskin! So that’s a fair amount.
Not sure WHY sperm whales have foreskins . . .
Time for some googling that will be difficult to explain to the authorities if my computer is ever seized!
Amen my brother! I like to use the good old “To God a thousand years is but the blink of an eye” quote coupled with the question of “Well, who measured those first seven days?” to get under creationists’ skin. Because since there were no humans, God would have had to measure those “days”. And God does not perceive time the same way as us. Thus, using only the Bible and elementary logic, you come to the conclusion that the creation time is entirely open to interpretation, with the idea that God could easily have measured those first “days” before humans to be hundreds of millions or even billions of years old. Thus, they have to accept non-creationism as entirely valid. All using just a couple verses from the good book and basic logic.
…
I normally get said good book thrown at me quite a bit actually.Totally worth it though to spring traps on the Bible thumpers using the Bible itself. And Ruth and Naomi is always a good example to bring up. And occasionally I’ll suggest that either Jesus and John or Jesus and Lazarus were in a serious relationship to really push their buttons. Because I’d bet my life on Jesus being bisexual and gender fluid, since he was “human in all ways”. That means he would have to have had times when he felt more comfortable as being female and probably had romantic feelings towards members of all genders. Plus, he would have had the ability to change his biological body from male to female if he so chose because of the God powers. Because someone who can manipulate matter the way he does in the Bible (water into wine, tons of fish and bread out of nowhere, cure other’s diseases, bringing dead people back to life, repairs body parts and nervous systems) would definitely have had some sort of shape shifting ability at that point.
Not my reading. By my reading he “did” those things by praying for them. Asking God to do those things.
He even comments to the others that if they only had faith, they could do the same, be it walking on water or summoning mountains.
Granted, the last time I even LISTENED to the bible, and that just the New Testament, was…(carry the three…), awhile ago.
I like to point out that the chronology of Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 are incompatible – 1 has plants coming before animals, while 2 has Adam talking with God before the first plants grew.
Also, Noah’s given two mutually-contradictory sets of instructions for gathering his animals – two of each, and seven pair of each kosher animal and two pair of each “unclean”.
Then again, the part that really seems to nail the problem with Biblical literal inerrancy comes at the ends of the four Gospels – specifically, Jesus’ last words before He died. In two of them, He shouts to God, asking why He has been “forsaken”; in one, he merely screams (which could be reconciled with the others, if we assume that author didn’t hear properly); and in one, the Gospel According to John, he whispers, “It is finished.” No yelling in that one. Therefore, at least one of the Gospels is wrong. And about a pretty doggone significant detail, too, one with lots of witnesses.
Another important detail that everyone forgets, was that until the late 1300s or early 1400s no one understood the Bible as being literal, or historically and scientifically accurate. Throughout the first thousand to eleven hundred years after the Council of Nicea, it was generally read through the lenses of allegory and metaphor, unless it was the Ten Commandments or anything Jesus said, then you were supposed to take that literally. Did the ark really carry two of each animal? From the Medieval mindset, no. It was merely an allegory for good people being saved from hell by a person chosen by God, thus foretelling the coming of Jesus. As for the Gospels, they were written by different people over a period of 30-40 years, at least thirty years after the event, and John was the only one who actually witnessed the event (if he was in fact the Apostle John who was the author) remembering an event from about 60 years ago as a very old man. Some inconsistency was to be expected, because the main view was that while divine inspired, scripture was, at the end of the day written by humans. And humans make mistakes. Even if they are divinely inspired, there will be errors in translation. Then, the Black Plague wiped out most of the clergy in 1345-1349 because they were catching it from doing last rites for people. So the seminaries were pumping out as many priests as possible as quickly as possible to replace the dying ones. And these priests were poorly trained, basically only knowing how to perform the sacraments. When the Black Death ended, these poorly trained priests were in charge of training the next generation of priests, meaning that the quality of priests took centuries to improve as it was up to naturally skilled priests to overcome that poor training until they could get back to pre-Black Death levels of training quality. Then Gutenberg invented his version of the printing press and started making bibles in the mid-1400s meaning that literate people could finally read the Bible themselves. Poor quality priests and easily accessed bibles meant that people started to interpret the Bible by themselves for the first time, and literal reading of the Bible started. Add to that increasing Church corruption as poorly trained and less than ethical priests started filling by default high church positions (and then doling them out to their relatives, such as the Borgias) and you had the perfect storm for Martin Luther to start the Protestant Reformation with a century and a half of horrible results (religious wars all year every year) despite good intentions.
…
Sorry. That got a bit long winded. Point is, from a non-Protestant theological view your are not ever supposed to take the Bible as 100% literal, and are supposed to acknowledge inconsistencies because God’s word passing through a regular human will have errors in translation. Especially if you then pass it through three rounds of further translation.
The Noah story seems to be two different versions, in alternating chunks instead of one after the other.
Oh, Naomi x Ruth? That’s pretty cool to learn.
Minor nitpick: the linen/wool thing doesn’t traditionally apply to any other fabric blends. Like pretty much all commentators specifically say “the prohibition is on sheep’s wool and linen being mixed, and this rule should not apply to e.g. cotton and polyester or even e.g. cotton and linen”. Sorry about this, it’s just one of those minor things that gets passed around as a talking point but is not actually right.
From flat-earth to scorched earth, 0.3 seconds.
Earth may not be flat, but it will be when I’m done with it.
Dina and Becky recently had a Q&A on Young Earth Creationism. Remember the vapor canopy?
Mind you, Dinah is taking time to zing Joyce’s belief in Biblical literalism when she’s trying to be comforting about a shared ATTACK both had experienced where Joyce broke her arm.
That’s Walky levels of dickishness there.
I reject your normal and substitute my own!
Beat me to it
Same.
I reject your normal and substitute David Lynch’s! *becomes a giant platypus who dances with a giant*
Very glad this was done, and that I decide to check first to see if it had been before doing it.
Oh, Dina, she means well. Usually.
I’ve forgotten Dina and Joyce’s history together. Why is Dina being hostile to her?
i think probably because joyce is assuming that being normal is something dina would care about
I think it’s more of a creationist vs scientist thing
eh, that too
but dina is not normal in multiple ways and i feel like the conception of normal just doesn’t make sense to her, and being considered normal would not be a comforting or affirming thing
Joyce kind of said that Dina only talked about evolution and dinosaurs just to get attention, implying that Dina’s passion is akin to someone spreading Flat Earth conspiracies to be annoying because everyone knows that it’s silly and made up.
Eh? Joyce has said a bunch of crappy things to and about Dina, but I can’t find anything that could be interpreted that way…certainly nothing said within earshot of Dina.
It’s because Dina is deeply devoted to biological science and holds Joyce in contempt. You know, despite being Becky’s bestie. Dina can have unpleasant qualities you know.
Such as insulting someone deeply worried about her and Amber.
also, this is the answer Amber! You’ve got enough protector-vigilantes here to get a team going. IU’s Angels.
I can see that working really well in a comic-sub-universe- their respective strengths and foibles are kind of complimentary huh. CAPES FOR EVERYONE (except for Dino-girl. she’ll just have a feathered ruff. capes are impractical)
NO CAPES!
Capes are awesome and Edna Mode can bite me.
As long as they’re tear-away.
(Heck, shouldn’t ALL clothing be tear-away?)
no you need to write it <edna>NO CAPES!</edna> so it reads (edna mode on)NO CAPES!(edna mode off)
Don’t close those tags!
NEVER DISABLE EDNA MODE MODE!!!
Oh, Amber :c
And, Joyce…I can’t help but think she’s about to make things so much worse with only the very best of intentions.
I mean, she’s had two of her closest friends saved by Amazi-Girl (and Dina). She owes two worlds to Amber at this point.
She does, but Amber’s in no state to hear the very valid truths Joyce looks like she’s about to drop on her head
I think it’s possible Joyce actually has a better chance of getting through to Amber than anyone else; after all, Amber knows Joyce couldn’t go outside alone as long as he was “out there somewhere”. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/somewhere/ What Dina is saying is great, and personal, but it’s still a bit abstract compared to what Joyce could say…
Then again, Amber’s in a real bad place, so maybe not.
WE’LL JUST HAVE TO INJECT THE HUGS DIRECTLY INTO HER HEART
That sounds painful.
That sounds… messy.
I think that would also turn out to be in vein
#DoctorJoyceInTheHouse
I’ll need a teddy bear, a Snuggie, some down pillows, a high-speed blender, and a syringe.
Okay that combo of items and that very Professor Layton-esque Avatar….
Well, it makes it sound like you’re going to try and solve some sort of puzzle.
If the puzzle is ‘What’s the best way to create pure, concentrated hugs to make them injectable?’
Would searching the room be normal police procedure?
Also how did she hide them so the police wouldnt be able to find them???
Outside her room? Those guys are good at finding things.
It wouldn’t be unusual. I remember weekly ‘confiscated drug paraphernalia’ and similar reports in my school’s newspaper; I think technically Public Safety was in charge of that type of thing, but dorm rooms are pretty much open to searches since the rooms are the school’s property and not the occupant’s, and the school is more than willing to let it be searched.
They probably would’ve searched on the basis of ensuring Amber didn’t have like a stockpile of knifes or other weapons since she hurt the other person, even if it was self-defense, which the school would be more than okay with since they don’t really want a third violent crime involving this same dorm floor in, like, a month.
Our replies crossed each other; that makes sense. Especially so if Amber inflicted serious damage to Ryan.
I think otherwise. It’s her home at present. I understand that hotels have gotten in trouble for assuming they have the run of their own rooms, and that supers of apartment buildings have to have a legitimate reason to enter a tenants apartment, other than being the agents of the owner of the building.
Now, school lockers are school property, and schools have gotten away with searching them, but I suspect, but can not prove, that a dorm room would be considered a residence, and thus under typical 4th amendment protections.
That said. “Ryan” suspected her of being AmaziGirl, so probably gave them reasonable suspicion to search her room for vigilante paraphernalia. They may have even had a warrant.
It’s been a while since I’ve lived in a dorm, but IIRC, the dorm rules are closer to the rules for high school lockers than they are for rented apartments.
My (maybe incorrect) understanding is that the school owns the dorms and the students are closer to “houseguests” than tenants or someone who rents a hotel room. So it’s not a renter/landlord relationship.
My undergrad dorms had all kinds of rules that would be unenforceable in a hotel or apartment building; no overnight guests without prior written approval, no vistors at all after a certain hour at night, no microwaves, hot pots, etc., other limitations on private possessions, and a bunch more.
In the dorms we WERE subject to random search from RAs. I remember once our RA used his master key to get into our dorm room because he smelled incense, which was prohibited. (Luckily it had burned down a couple minutes previously so there wasn’t any when he came in; we said we’d sprayed air freshener. I doubt he believed us but he let it go.) The reason incense wasn’t allowed was because it could start a fire (no candles either, although I always had those too). If there was reason to suspect that Amber might have items that would endanger others, I can definitely see the school searching her room.
As far as letting the *police* search it – I honestly don’t know. I think police presence on campus varies from college to college. At the college where I now teach, police are absolutely NOT allowed in any campus buildings except under very, very specific circumstances (like if there was an active shooter or something similar). But I know of schools where police are completely within their rights to be on campus and go into campus buildings.
It looks like you’re right about dorms falling under similar protections as apartments, which is definitely how it should be. I have a feeling many students wouldn’t think of that, however, especially if the school has already given permission (that isn’t theirs to give).
I think most schools do have internal rules in place that pretty much say you have to let Public Safety/campus security and school staff in, though usually they can only visual searches. The problem usually ends up being that students don’t know/don’t think about their rights at the moment it happens, so may unintentionally consent. And the staff could bring police with them (though you can say the police have to wait outside; again, many people may not realize that).
So I have a feeling there’s probably many cases of the ‘campus staff can do a visual search’ being a foot in the door that leads to students giving their consent without realizing they could withhold it.
(More specifically to DoA: the Dean has already laid out his feelings about school rights vs. student rights regarding dorms as a result of Roz and Joe’s sex tape. While a different situation, I can at least see it as a sign the Dean would be more than happy to help the police get to the dorm room if he thought it would help the school save face).
I wouldn’t think the police would normally search Amber’s room. IMHO, the case seems pretty cut-and-dried. Man with a knife threatens two women. One of those women defends herself. We know it was caught on securtity camera, so there is no “he said/she said” going on.
The fact that they did search her room makes me worry that Amber went well beyond what might be considered reasonable “self defense.”
My guess about the costume and stuff is that she hid it elsewhere in the dorm. I’ve lived in dorms; there are a million little nooks and crannies, especially in the big dorms where people might never look.
Joyce’s heart is in the right place (and, again, I think Amber *does* need to hear from someone who suffered due to Ryan and who is undoubtedly feeling relieved and vindicated right now). But I really do not like Joyce’s use of the word “normal.” There is no such thing. There is “normative,” but that is simply whatever people in a given place and at a given time choose to see as “acceptable” and is often a result of society’s prejudices and hatreds. I find the word “normal” very offensive because it makes a value judgment about someone’s behaviour and identity. And of course with the judgement of “normal” comes “abnormal,” which is an incredibly loaded and dangerous term. Those who are labelled “abnormal” are often shunned, attacked, locked up, and/or killed because they don’t fit into some artifical conception of acceptability. *rageface*
I take issue with you calling “normal” a very offensive term. I take issue with you considering the notion of “abnormal” a loaded and dangerous term. I feel like when you’re imposing those judgments you’re laying a complicated minefield around the way people use language. You’re letting your darkest antipathies condemn innocents. Joyce isn’t anywhere near Joseph Cotton, or for that matter, her mother.
For God’s sake, are you going to deny Dina the comfort of hearing that she’s not weird just to shove it down her throat that there is no normal?
*Henry Cotton sorry
I apologize for offending you and I completely respect your usage of language and understanding of the word.
I should have qualified that this is how *I* feel about the word. It is a major trigger for me. I have had it used against me and seen it used against other people, including in clinical ways.
I am atypical (I hope that’s a relatively innocuous way to put it). I am Queer, don’t fit the U.S. standard of beauty for women, clinically depressed, very mildly non-neurotypical, have a chronic health condition, am a bookworm, a geek, and have some pocket social anxiety. All my life I’ve been called “abnormal” and thus internalized the idea that I was a bad person because, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t live up to other people’s definition of “normal.” (And trust me, I TRIED – the less said about the Nineth Circle of Hell that was my middle school years, the better.)
My experience of the word “normal” is that of people using it as a value judgement to belittle and abuse others. This is my personal experience and I really should have made that clear. Nevertheless, I don’t use the word and I don’t like it.
Your description of yourself, your middle-school experiences, and your relationship with the word normal sound exactly the way I would describe mine.
I have yet to hear any non-academic or meta use of normal that doesn’t invite contempt. Usually it turns out to be a code word that tags the speaker as boring and judgy.
“Weird” was what I heard on a daily basis, and I still react to things being called weird by assuming they are intriguing and delightful, not because I view myself that way (although therapy has helped) but because being released from the dogfight of trying to be normal left me free to develop my own interests–why not? they were going to be judged weird anyway–and I found a whole bunch of things that are awesome.
It makes me so sad that “normal” has been used as a weapon against so many people – I’ve been very lucky in that my experience with (and usage of) the word has been as a synonym for “okay”, as in “it’s normal to grieve”, “it’s normal to freeze up and not know what to do”, “it’s normal to want to withdraw”, “it’s normal to be confused”. How easily language can be subverted to the will of the user!
Yeah, it can be used either inclusively or exclusively. That’s what bothers me a bit about the commentariat’s strong reaction to Joyce’s words here: She’s not telling Dina that she isn’t normal or that she needs to be normal, she’s including her in a broader normal. Specifically, she’s including their violence – attacking someone to protect another – as normal.
The concept of “being normal”, or more specifically, the idea that being normal is something good and valuable is absolutely used as a cudgel, shaming and insulting people who do not conform to some nebulous standard. I’m a white, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied and mostly nuerotypical man, and I still had this used against me while I was growing up, for being only slightly different from my peers. I had to embrace the idea of being “weird”, and be proud of it, so it couldn’t be used to harm me. It may not always be used that way, but it very often is.
So yeah, Joyce means well, but Dina doesn’t care about being normal. Nor should she. Nobody should.
Bingo.
My dad’s the same way. He’s, what, 64 now? And he still gets quiet and bitter whenever he has to remember his school days.
He did not go on to university. He’s one of the most curious and intelligent people I know personally–he loves reading and excels at academic and practical learning–and his background is middle-class, so there was definitely the money for him to do so. I wonder sometimes how the rest of his academic, professional, and financial life after high school would have been different if he hadn’t been so badly treated in secondary school.
“Normal” does not need to carry judgment. Statistically, there is “normal” and there are “outliers.” Normal is not “better” or worse than outliers. They’re just different points in the data. Normally, I stay home, but sometimes, I go to the beach. Beach days are outliers in my schedule, but they’re not somehow worse than other days.
Some people do use “normal” and “abnormal” as value judgments, because these are people who have a deep desire for conformity and are made uncomfortable by other people being different. But many people do not; many people use normal or abnormal completely absent of judgment. And many people, regardless of what they think about conformity, simply aren’t normal and may wish to speak about it.
–perfectly happy in her abnormality
Language is fun, isn’t it?
I absolutely agree that “normal” can be used in different ways and have different connotations depending on usage. For example, I have absolutely no problem with a biologist saying, “That bacteria culture shows a normal rate of growth,” or something similar. But when the words normal/abnormal are used about human beings, I kind of go into emotional overload. This is my own personal trigger and of course YYMV.
I’ve switched to “normative” because I don’t personally see it as carrying the same possible connotations are “normal.” I am non-normative. I am perfectly fine saying this and am okay if someone else says it about me. I don’t fit the ideology, morality, appearance, set of behaviours, etc. that are considered the status quo by many people in my place and time. I’m HAPPY that I don’t! But if someone said to me, “You’re not normal,” I’d probably need to go curl up in a ball somewhere dark. The latter, to me personally, implies there is something *wrong* with me.
Part of my strong reaction is the way that mentally ill people (especially women) and Queer people have historically been labelled “abnormal” as a justification for forced instiutionization, abuse, imprisonment, and even death. A clinically depressed woman like myself, not that long ago in the U.S., could have been forcibly imprisoned in her house (the rest cure), committed to a mental institution, or even forced to undergo a clitorectomy (seriously – look it up!) all because she was clinically diagnosed “abnormal.” The supposed “abnormality” of Queer people led to notorious anti-gay laws, imprisonment, forced committal to mental institutions, children being taken away from parents, police brutality, “Queer-bashing,” and abuse and murder. Heck, one of the biggest arguments against same-sex marriage was (and continues to be), “It’s not normal.”
Again, all this is IMHO and YMMV. I don’t want to “police” anyone else’s language and everyone has the right to use language how they want (as long as you’re not getting into hate speech, but that’s an ENTIRE other discussion!). I have many feels about language and my personal usage of it because I literally make my living from words (English prof. and writer). But, for example, unless they are engaging in hate speech I don’t tell my students what words they can and can’t use, even if I don’t personally agree with the usage of some of those words.
Normal doesn’t need to, but take it from someone who spent the first 20-odd years of his life getting told to “just be normal!” and who had all manner of abuse excused because I was abnormal and “that’s what you get if you insist on being weird and attracting attention to yourself. Just try to fit in more.”: It sure as hell does carry judgement in North American culture.
North America, for all it claims to treasure the exceptional, is all about the average Joe or Jane. If you’re not average Joe or Jane, you’re not merely weird – you’re wrong. Morally wrong. How dare you not be straight? How dare you not be cis? That black kid is up to something. Why is that Native person hanging out on a corner? Must be dealing drugs. I could go on. But the fact is, if you’re not “normal” – by which society means strait, cis, white, and Christian – people think you’re not just deviant, but evil to a large extent.
Think all the gay people are pedophiles shit that was (still is) so popular as a scare-mongering tool most of the past century. Think of bathroom panic. Think of white flight and the genocide Canada and the US both enacted on our indigenous populations. And, yes, think of the death threats atheist children get for demanding their science classes actually teach real science and not religious origin stories.
Normal vs abnormal when applied to individual people (as opposed to statistical phenomena or medical lab results) is absolutely loaded language in North America, and you’re either very lucky to have never experienced it, or you’re merely pedantic and particular about the precision with which language is used and ignoring the current reality about how the word is actually used to complain about how it doesn’t need to have those connotations.
If the former: You are really lucky, but trust me that your experience is not universal. I could very easily go into a litany of shit that other people did to me, which was blamed on me for being so abnormal. To the point that I honestly feel like if I’d been assigned male at birth, I could’ve died. A kid who was about as weird as me had others beat him into a coma on two separate occasions before he changed schools in fear of his life, and my parents weren’t ever going to “let” me “run away from” my problems by changing schools. I was supposed to instead kill off everything that made me who I am (my biness, my masculine gender presentation, my love of books and facts and numbers and weather, my lack of concern for clothing and fashion, etc), duck my head and fit in.
If the latter: Please be mindful of the fact that normal vs abnormal as applied to individual people is extremely charged for a lot of folks (myself included, I admit). To you, it might literally be an irritation with society for imprecise use of language, but for some of us, “abnormal” as a label was a cudgel with which we were beaten or a brand to mark us for abuse. I take pride in my abnormality as an adult – but that doesn’t mean I don’t flinch if I’m asked why I can’t be normal. It brings back too many memories for me.
Not asking you to change how you use language – am asking you to not judge those of us who have life experience that makes us extremely cautious of anyone who says “normal” as if that’s something to aspire to (or conversely, who treats abnormal as if it’s something shameful, like Joyce is doing here even if she doesn’t know it) or that makes us flinch when we hear those terms applied to ourselves or someone else.
Just as one possibility: Ryan called her Amazi-girl right before he went after her. If he was in a shape to talk to police afterward, he could have told them he was attacked by a vigilante (a second time even).
Oops, credit to SeanR for already saying so.
…Because it’s a race to get in all the obvious points first, and even as the comments pass two pages, you’re still obligated to read every other post, to make sure you’re not duplicating something said by someone else.
You’re fine. Thank you for the credit, though.
Did they actually have the dimensions of Noah’s ark written down somewhere? I don’t remember that being in the Bible.
they use a term that is estimated by people into a modern equivalent. If i am remembering right at least.
God straight up gives him dimensions.
Genesis 6:15
This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.
“Riiiiiiight.
What’s a cubit?”
It’s about the length of an Egyptian’s thumb.
It’s the hand and Forearm. Measured from the point of the elbow to the top of the middle finger with the hand held flat (not a fist) . It’s something like 18 inches long approximately
Some wonky tomb art aside, I don’t think Egyptian thumbs were THAT long.
Well, not since the Cleansing.
I understood that reference
https://youtu.be/CgsFCyD4nEw
IIRC, it’s supposed to be the distance between your thumb and your elbow: approximately, 18 inches/ 1½ feet/ 0.457 meters.
God told Noah to make the ark 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high, which equates to about what Dina said.
…and with a single window for the entire structure, and that window is about 18″ square!!! Hooray for the divine ventilation scheme!
There were a lot more than two of every animal, too. If I remember correctly, a chancy thing, I’ll acknowledge, he ordered two of every CLEAN animal, and, was it six? of the unclean ones.
Or maybe it was the other way around….
Anyway. More than one breeding pair, of at least a large portion of the species.
It’s easier to fathom if you allow for evolution in the millennia after the flood. After all, is a kangaroo mouse, and a packrat, and common field mouse, really all different species? How about a dog, a coyote and a grey wolf?
Of course, then you have to ask yourself, did Moses transport any Kangaroos, and if so, how’d they all end up in Australia after the flood?
Seven of every clean animal, 2 of the unclean. I think the idea was to have one of every clean animal for a sacrifice when they reached land and could build an altar.
Compare Gen 6:19–20, Gen 7:8–9, and Gen 7:14–15 against Gen 7:2.
God told Noah to take either two of each kind (Gen 6:19) or seven couples of each clean kind and two of each unclean kind (Gen 7:2), or perhaps gave different orders on different occasions. What Noah actually did was to take two-and-two (i.e. two couples) of each kind (Gen 7:8–9 and 14–15).
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/twos.html
Another point:
Whether by twos or by sevens, Noah takes male and female representatives from each species of “every thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (It’s #46 under Genesis.)
What about snails? Slugs? You know, the hermaphroditic creatures? What about the sexless ones? Did Noah just “wing it” or something, grab two/seven and hope for the best?
God straight up gives him dimensions.
Genesis 6:15
This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.
Which to someone ~3000 years ago, a boat that big would be unimaginably large, but is absolutely tiny by today’s standards of “large s hip.”
Dina is not normal, and that’s a good thing. Normal people suck.
Why be normal? Normal is boring.
Normal is at right angles to whatever your current reality is.
People who get seen by society as normal often find that standard boring, and try their best to be seen as more interesting. People who society doesn’t admit as normal often find it as safe, and try their best to fit under that umbrella.
I’ve noticed the same thing with labels and boxes. Some people reject them as confining; others are happy to find one where they actually belong. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the former is the proper way to look at them — it really depends!
See, I’m just not sure what makes people want to play a game that’s built around them losing? Though I guess its that some people enjoy the game, and just feel like they’re either forced to be on the wrong team, or just hate the losing aspect of it.
Me, I just kind of feel like its not a game particularly worth playing and think it’d probably be better if it just got thrown out, but well not really my call.
Because whether we get to play “the game” isn’t really up to us. I’d love to be considered normal; it’d reduce my fears about various authorities ruining my life by a thousandfold.
Because it’s not a game for everyone. Partly because as XMS says others take it seriously; but also partly because it matters to how people construct their own identities.
To torture an analogy, ideas like being normal or fitting into labels are sort of like instruction manuals. Sure, some people can say “screw these instructions for a plane, mine is going to be a spaceship!” They’re not wrong. But they might be people who have practice building, or got a kit close to what they want anyway.
Other people are going to look at the instructions and say “oh, that’s how you get the wings to stay on.” And some didn’t want a plane at all, and will be grateful to find alternate instructions that show them, yes, you can build a boat with these pieces too. I don’t think they’re wrong either.
We run into serious problems when we judge people for how well they conform to some norm. But not caring about being or passing as normal is kind of a privilege, and some people do have good reasons to care. Don’t judge them on that either!
“But not caring about being or passing as normal is kind of a privilege”
ohhh. thank you, that connected some things in my brain.
All the cinnamon rolls are lining up to tell Amber she’s not a monster.
Can I say that Dina is one of my favorite fictional characters? I feel like a proud older brother right now.
Science + freaking lovable DINA > Joyce + Christianity.
It’s true
First of all, Dina is the best.
And let’s also take a moment to see how much Amber actually cares about Dina here. First of all, she gives Dina clear instructions on how things are, and that is exactly what Dina’s requested in the past. Even in her own dark mood, Amber does not forget about how Dina likes her communication!
Do you understand how important this is? Because if there is any evidence that Amber is not Blaine, then this is it. Amber cares about other people, Blaine does -not-.
And also a few days earlier (as panel two indicates), she hid her AG-stuff specifically to allow Dina to have her girlfriend over. I suppose she could be lying to Dina in the second panel about why she hid it, but I find it unlikely*.
And let’s also not forget the strip two days ago, where we got some more insight into why Amber did what she did to Sal. She was so ashamed of her own actions because she could not defend Ethan. She was supposed to be there for him back then, and she still blames herself for it to this day (mostly thanks to Blaine’s rotten “upbringing”).
Just reread (if you can) the flashback section of that robbery. She would not have been that upset about that robbery if Ethan hadn’t gotten involved and she could do nothing about it. And it was when Blaine scolded her for not standing up for him that something finally clicked inside her. And that flashback was triggered by Blaine taking Danny hostage.
If only Amber could see this main difference between her and Blaine: That she actually cares about other people’s feelings. Yes, she has a capacity for violence that is frightening, but if she learns to understand herself better, if someone manages to convince her that she gives a shit about other people’s wellbeing in a way that her scumbag of a DNA donor does not…
Well, it would still be a long process, because she still has to resolve her capacity for violence, frightening as that is. But knowing that she is not Blaine, knowing to the bone that she does indeed care for other people and respect their wishes… I think that would be a really important step on the road to recovery.
*At the very worst, I suppose it is possible that she was looking for an excuse to hide the AG-stuff and Dina’s request made it easier. At the very worst.
Oh, and just to pre-empt any comments about Blaine’s comment saying “you couldn’t even stand up for him”. That’s not evidence that he actually cared about Amber or Ethan. He just wanted another thing to shame her for.
Yessss, I wanted to touch on the communication bit in my comment but couldn’t quite words it out. You’ve done it beautifully, though.
You want words? Sergei can give you better words. Is very better than stupid North American words. Very cheap too. Trust Sergei.
Yup. Dina’s and Amber’s relationship is evolving to something respectful, constructive and downright beautiful.
To be fair, Joyce has ALSO attacked someone to protect someone else.
That seems to be the point.
We need Sal in here as well.
So has Sarah! And Billie. And Ruth.
Y’know, I think Dorothy is the abnormal one.
Don’t pacifism-shame Dorothy.
The problem about caring about someone that doesn’t want to be cared about is that they tend to hurt themselves and others if only to “prove” their point of not being worthy of that caring.
So I’m a bit concerned about the direction this is about to take.
Dina, while I will acknowledge and applaud that sick burn, at the moment you and Joyce are on the same side. I think.
Re: alt-text; Personally, I definitely could have done without mosquitoes.
Ants, go die. I just squished one.
Eh, ants are ok as long as they stay outside my house. I kinda respect the little guys. Especially that one species from Africa that you can use in place of stitches. Heals a whole hell lot better too. But mosquitoes? They do literally nothing for any ecosystem they’re found in. There have been studies that show that if we made mosquitoes extinct (which we could with a special little man-made virus that selectively attacks mosquitoes) the earth would be ecological fine, if not better. Because everything that eats mosquitoes has various other food sources that make mosquitoes a small part of there diet.
Most species of mosquitoes are not blood suckers and all of them are pollinators.
I think it is very dangerous for us to assume that organisms we have no direct use for are something we can afford to eliminate.
“To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering” (Aldo Leopold 1949)
That study (which, if I remember correctly wasn’t even an actual study, just someone who claimed to be an expert who the media latched onto) is bullshit. Mosquitos are basically nature’s taxation system, and for a lot of species, they’re their main source of food; sure, it’s supplemented by a lot of other foods, but it’d be really really bad, like “all forms of grain in the world dissapear” levels of bad.
no! the news of that study were sensationalism, mosquitoes are very important for the environment! you can’t wipe out BILLIONS of insects in one go and think it’s not going to have a negative effect on the food chain!
So many bats, frogs, birds and bigger insects DEPEND on mosquitoes for food! wiping them out would be an ecological disaster!!!
and yet… I’m still tempted. Those little fuckers love my blood.
I’ve said this before, but I’ve never met a normal person. I think they’re just a myth created by conservative siws (social injustice warriors).
I personally call the SQCs. Status Quo Cowards. Because they personally benefit from status quo and are deadly afraid of others having the privileges they havs.
Which means being abnormal is normal. As normal as anybody, like Joyce says.
Right, now onto Dina.
As I said, Dina is receiving clear communication from Amber, the way she prefers it. And she responds in kind. She doesn’t make empty platitudes, she says what she thinks the straight truth is. And right now, that’s quite important, because Dina seems to be the only one Amber is even remotely listening to.
And then Joyce barges in. And that, I think, is what makes Dina upset here. Not Joyce’s comment in herself, but the way she was clearly listening in, and then just barging in without any respect for the occupants of the room. Dina was on the verge of making progress with Amber here, and then it’s all interrupted by someone who, however sincere she is, does make a platitude that for Dina (and Amber) -is- meaningless. Dina does not harbor any illusions that she’s as normal as anyone else, and she does not have patience for people trying to tell her she is, because it simply is not true.
The mistake Joyce makes (apart from barging in) is that she makes a comment that somehow equate “normal” with “good” or “lovable” or even worse, “a proper full human being”. Knowing Joyce, she probably does not realise this is happening; but that’s why platitudes are often worse than meaningless: They have a whole different meaning than you’d initially think, when you take a closer look at them.
All of these things —listening in on a private conversation, barging in on a private conversation, telling an empty platitude that won’t help— are why Dina ended up snapping so hard at Joyce. And I do not blame her.
Can you tell that near the end of this comment, I’d forgotten some of the things I typed earlier?
That usually implies you’re up past your normal bedtime, and it’s time to put the mouse down and get some rest.
Also, I didn’t get that from this post. Looked like a recap, to me.
Maybe that means I need to get some rest, too.
Well, basically, at first I said “not Joyce’s comment in itself”, and then later on described how it was, in fact, pretty bad in itself.
Hold up.
Joyce has also attacked someone–Toe Dad. So if there’s discussion about whether or not attacking someone who is trying to hurt someone you love is abnormal, Joyce has a right to an opinion the subject.
Further, Joyce is actually more connected to both of these incidents than Dina–she was personally harmed by and terrified of what’shisname, and Becky has been her best friend (and Toedad one of her rolemodels in a world with few rolemodels) for practically her whole life.
Interrupting is rude, barging into someone’s dorm room is rude, and Joyce may be approaching Amber from 100% the wrong direction, but Joyce certainly means well and has every right to her opinions. But flipping this into an insult about Joyce’s religious beliefs? That’s kind of mean and certainly not productive.
And Joyce doing all those things also were not productive in any way, and frankly kind of mean at this point. Not just rude, but mean.
And as for her having good intentions… Yep, would never deny that for a second. Joyce has practically never had any non-good intentions in this comic. But intentions can only get you so far; you have to make sure that your actions and the consequences they lead to will match your intentions. Otherwise, the intentions, like Joyce’s platitude just now, are pretty meaningless.
And yeah, Joyce also attacked someone to protect someone she loved. But that’s not what she’s conveying at all here. I mean, if we can’t avoid her listening in on a private conversation, and if we can’t avoid her barging in where she’s not invited; then at the very least, she could have opened with something that stated this fact. “Hey, is there room for one more person who knows what that feels like?” or something like that… That would at least make it harder to dismiss Joyce’s opinion.
I dispute that Joyce is offering platitudes and not saying something she genuinely believes. We also have yet to see whether, long-term, Joyce is useful or not.
And sure, Joyce could talk like an emotionless robot. But she’s not one. She is someone with extremely strong opinions on the subject of the guy who tried to rape her.
“I dispute that Joyce is offering platitudes and not saying something she genuinely believes.”
These things are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Joyce was sincere, but that doesn’t make her comment any less something that, when you look closer at it, isn’t at all a helpful thing to say. Again, good intentions can go only so far.
Also, I never suggested Joyce should act like a robot. But if you think it’s too much of me to ask of Joyce to start consider her actions more carefully, then I find it really weird that you clearly do not think it’s too much to ask the same of Dina. After all, Dina is someone with very strong opinions about f.ex. the man that kidnapped her girlfriend with a gun while she was present. What makes it OK for Joyce to have strong opinions to the point that she’s completely absolved from showing some basic respect, and yet not Dina?
Consider also that Joyce hasn’t exactly made the best impression on Dina and has in fact blown up at her on several occasions for believing in evolution (Dina has generally done her best to avoid the subject with Joyce, meanwhile Joyce has repeatedly attacked Dina for not being a creationist). Becky and Amber know there’s a lot more going on with her than Dina is aware of – Dina hasn’t had time for her impression of Joyce to evolve past the toxic first impression a lot of us originally had of Joyce (hell, go back and find some of my comments from back before Joyce realized how fucked up what she was doing to Ethan was…). We know she’s grown. Dina hasn’t seen it yet. As far as Dina’s concerned, Joyce is the obnoxious one who starts pushing fairy tales as better than her special interest at her every time she gets a chance. I am both unsurprised to see Dina start to push back against her and I’m more than a little pleased to see Dina make a conscious decision to own her weirdness rather than worry too much about what others think of her.
You don’t have to attack someone to have a right to an opinion. Everyone has a right to opinions.
The problem is that attacking someone doesn’t give Joyce any rights to eavesdrop on a private conversion, barge in into Amber’s and Dina’s room uninvited, etc..
>Everyone has a right to opinions.
Of course, but some opinions are more relevant than others. In this case, Joyce’s are relevant.
Just look past Joyce’s religious beliefs, Dina, and the concept of normal gets slightly balanced on the scales.
Noah was using the (Time) Lord’s technology.
Oh. Joyce, do yourself a big favor and do *not* bring up that whole “kinds” thing to Dina.
What I find downright adorable is that Dina has read those “Answers in genesis” links Joyce sent her. She wants to understand their argument so she can refute them.
And of course, she want to understand where Becky comes from so she can better “Save this one” and guide her to true evolutionary understanding because she is a doooooofus
Oh, and by the way. Joyce is a Social Justice Barbarian. It seems that Dina is a Social Justice Cleric of… well, not a god of knowledge, just of knowledge itself. She’s too good for any of the gods.
Not even Ioun?
The god of being stoned?
This is some quality content.
I’d probably say Thoth or Tengri the Sky-Father. Then again, a Tengri cleric would actually probably be a shaman but I’m not sure there is a shaman class. So Thoth it is….unless we make her Social Justice Rogue instead, given her aptitude for stealth and sneak attacks. No. Wait. Saurina Aves, goddess of birds and Dinosaurs. Oh yeah. That works.
Dinah, please stop sharing your weirdo cult statements. You’re entitled to believe whatever mumbo jumbo you want like moon landings and electricity you want but that doesn’t give you the right to preach it at people who don’t want to hear it.
I bet she believes the earth is (practically) a globe too.
Yeah and I bet she hooks herself up to weird meters too! *gets her blood pressure checked* Madness.
Of course he could fit them all on a boat. Noah was secretly Ray Palmer.
1,000,000 points to Amber for being clear and specific when talking to an autistic person instead of talking to her like a child or just trying to communicate “normally” and getting mad when Dina can’t parse allistic-ese.
That’s honestly all we ask for in a conversation. Normal communication is tedious, and when I try to mimic it, I get weird looks.
Random aside, the conversations in this forum have made me want to include a neuroatypical person as one of the heroine’s love interests in my next urban fantasy novel. Dinah and her inspiring me to do more research on the subject has been really helpful in the writing.
If you want another good example of a neuroatypical character, Billy Cranston on Saban’s Power Rangers (2017) is my recommendation. It took that kind of representation for me to be properly open about my own mind-state.
Look, I’ll stop shilling that movie when it stops being as good as it is.
WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CONSTANTLY REPLYING TO YOURSELF, YOU WEIRD FUCK???
Brandon Sanderson is good at neurodiversity too.
i feel this real hard
Buuurn
Did Joyce just enter through the bathroom?
Joyce: I will not let you feel bad about yourself because deeling bad is NOT GOOD!
Dina: An intruder! I reject your INTRUSION OF PRIVACY and AGGRESSIVE POSITIVITY by unleashing SICK BURNS!
Fuck, it’s feeling not deeling
Hey, dealing bad ain’t good either.
Normality is overrated.
“Don’t comfort me.”
Me: Don’t tell me what to do !
I really like Dina in the fourth panel. “Hmmmmmm. :/”
She’s sad that Amber feels horrible, so horrible she won’t accept any consolation, but Dina takes it into account and proceeds cautiously.
Contrast that with Joyce’s barrage of .
Goddangit.
It’s “Joyce’s barrage of agressive positivity”.
Yeah, its pretty clear at least to me that Dina is trying to work within the limits of what Amber will accept, especially with Amber making it clear where the limits are.
Kind of an “Okay I won’t say that specifically, but here’s something that might make you feel a little worse and is also just how I see the situation” sort of approach.
Dina has more self-awareness of being different from other people. Even if Joyce is learning, her instinct is still to assume that everyone more or less works the same way as she herself does.
I really hope this incident starts to get the gears turning for Amber receiving the professional help she needs. Ruth was checked into a hospital because her depression had Carla and Billie worried she was gonna die, right? So there’s precedent for “Character Strongly Exhibits Deathwish, Gets Medical Attention”.
…Okay I know therapy and medication can’t always fix everything but goddammit it’s a start and I just want Amber to be okay you guys, this is a woman who seems like she hasn’t seen a mentally healthy day in her life and she can’t keep going like this and ;_;
I’m thinking Stacy tried to persuade Amber during the timeskip to get therapy. But you can’t really force someone to go to therapy. Unless it’s mandated by the court or university or other official authority, I guess? I also want Amber in therapy, and I know that loads of other commenters do too. Many commenters have therapy themselves, including me, and it can be very helpful. But it’s really hard to get someone to go if they don’t think they deserve help and support.
I don’t think Joyce’s words in the next strip(s) will help either, because she’s barging into a private, safe space and trying to force feed things Amber has stated she does not want, however well-meaning and deserved they may be.
-sigh- Yeah, I know, one of the times profession help doesn’t help is when you’re forced into it. I’m in therapy myself but I wasn’t always in a place where I could admit I was “ill enough” for it, if that makes any sense. I guess what I want is for *Amber* to realise she needs and deserves help, and seek it out rather than continuing to punish herself. Something’s gotta give and all that.
Today I learned – I am married to (a) Dina, and this method of tell-splaining works in all universes.
Wait, WAS the son of a preacher???
Am I reading too much into that?
*hides in corner embarrassed that ^that post should have been on yesterday’s strip*
Let’s see. People in this comic who’ve attacked someone to protect someone else:
Dina
Amber
Amazi-Girl
Sal
Sarah
Joyce
Da Broheims
Toedad (for certain values of “protect”)
Billie (for certain values of “attack”)
Becky (for certain values of “attack”)
Anyone I’m missing?
Sans Toedad and Da Broheims, also all good people who have a lot of baggage.
…
Also, has Willis officially termed them “Da Broheims”? Because if he hasn’t he should. That’s a great blanket name for them.
Perhaps the Ark was like the Tardis: bigger on the inside.
Perhaps the Ark was like the TARDIS: entirely fictional.
Ding ding ding. We have a winner! Although apparently I’m personally supposed to say “mythological” instead of “fictional” if I don’t want to be excommunicated but they’re basically the same thing.
The difference between “mythological” and “fictional” is that at one time the mythological one was regarded as true by a society.
Let’s all share our favorite alcoholic beverages, for no particular reason. Explanations are welcome.
Bacardi and Coke, for me, because for a -50% Dexterity penalty, every interesting emotion gets amplified like a dozen times, and the crippling anxiety leaves me the fuck alone. Mike’s Hard Lemonade, as well, for the great flavor and silence.
Any sort of 40-or-more%-alcohol beverage is my choice of drink when with friends, just to get drunk as quick as possible. I’d drink pure ethanol if it was presented to me. Hell, I hear n-propanol is pretty effective, too.
Although when it comes to slow drinking with, like, family, it’s a recent tie between chocolate Vodka Mudshakes and Sommersby’s apple cider.
Ethanol.
…..
People drink it in various impure forms, so it’s technically a drink.
I DON’T drink it, but it burns pretty and I like its environmental benefits.
Okay, fine Dina. Your a freak of nature. Happy?
Immediate rejection
It’s going to take a very long time for Joyce to heal from that burn!
Well, it’s really the three of them — Joyce also attacked Becky’s father to protect her.
I’m not neuroatypical myself, but I know several people who are, including being the mother of one of them.
I didn’t read Dina’s words as an attack on Joyce, especially not one caused by Joyce having just done something to make her angry.
It came across to me as simply factual: you’re offering to include me in a group of assumed normality that I do not respect and do not want. So I reject that offer.
I don’t think Dina ever aims to make someone feel bad. She knows that when she doesn’t filter her words, she can make people feel bad without meaning to, so she does filter them. Except in situations like this one where she feels the truth so strongly that the filter doesn’t get a chance to cut in. She didn’t decide to hurt Joyce’s feelings; she just forgot to aim not to. IMO.
I don’t want to speak for anyone with autism, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that with my husband, if he said something like this, he would be completely aware that he is irritated by the illogical intrusion and therefore refuting them, but as for harm, I kniw he would not explicitly desire harm towards someone, especially someone who could be reasonably called a tentative friend, but he wouldn’t be intentionally not harming them either, if that makes sense. It is not his responsibility to protect anyone from the stupid things that they say, and he is well within his right to make a logical, factual, useful statement. In summary, I think he just wouldn’t give a shit.
I took it as heavily sarcastic. Dina has many good qualities but there’s no sign she has any respect for Joyce or her worldview.
Does Dina do sarcasm? Stating things contra to reality is perceived as confusing and pointless to a lot of people with autism, and I’ve always read Dina as someone like that.
Well not sarcastic but as a put down.
Imagine this instead:
“You’re fine, Dina. Protecting your herd is a perfectly acceptable survival strategy promoting natural selection, providing a valuable evolutionary asset.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Joyce?”
“Goshdarnit, Dina, that’s not the point of my intrusion of your personal space”
Best burn in the series so far. Nobody can deliver them like the “straight man” archetype, and nobody is more literal and earnest than Dina.
Dina, being exactly what Amber needed
How many of us out there know and love someone on the spectrum and/or are on the spectrum and/or love dinosaurs and just think Dina is the greatest fucking character ever? Because I get the feeling it’s a lot of us
Anyway, sick burn, dinosaur chick
yup. I think Dina was the reason I came back to this comic after dismissing it during joyce’s early annoyingness.
Dina doesn’t have a disease. She’s just shy and quirky. Please don’t try to label her with vague afflictions to try to rationalize her.
wtf? aspergers is not a disease, and it’s been clear Dina’s on the spectrum for some time now.
That’s really uncool of you. Autism isn’t some “vague affliction”, and people suggesting she’s on the autism spectrum are doing so because its a perfectly assumption. She has trouble reading people’s expressions, interpreting sarcasm and jokes, she gets overwhelmed in crowded social situations.
Even if the signs WEREN’T there, there’s absolutely nothing at all wrong with someone projecting that on her anyway, because few are “rationalizing” Dina (whatever that means). Fishie very clearly identifies with Dina.
It’s very unkind of you to react to the suggestion that Dina might be autistic as if that were some kind of insult.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: This panel is so beautiful. Like, both are doing so amazingly right by each other. Amber is summarizing her emotional state and that she doesn’t want to be comforted and Dina accepts it without question, acknowledging and valuing that request. It’s such a healthy interaction because it’s a lovely demonstration of consent.
Like, I’m not 100% sure Amber really needs isolation right now, but being pushed on it after she’s requested not to be comforted would be worse because it would tell her that her wishes and consent and attempt to regain power are worthless. And it’s beautiful that Dina gets that so much better than most neurotypical people.
Panel 2: And this is another beautiful demonstration of how far this friendship has grown and how much Amber is trusting Dina. Like, even to her best friend she gives almost nothing, but to Dina, she’s open and frank about that which she can be open and frank about.
And the mutual care is beautiful, knowing what things the other would care deeply about. Dina lets Amber know her secret is still safe, that her alter has not been compromised and Amber lets her know that she intentionally moved it to a new location in order to make it a more inviting location for Dina to bring over Becky for dinosaur cuddles.
Though, the mention that police searched her room is really worrying. I wonder what they were thinking the crime was before they decided it looked more like self-defense and whether that opinion might change when Ryan’s dad gets involved and starts using his social power to make noise.
Panel 3: I love Dina’s quiet acceptance of the gesture. Like, oh, that’s really sweet of you.
Also, I’m really concerned about Amber’s decision to stand in front of the window and not move. Like, I dunno, when I’m stuck in single-position mode it usually means I’m in a bad way and when I’m looking out windows or wanting to go on a balcony, it’s usually because I’m feeling the urge to jump.
I dunno, probably me reading too much into things, but I’m really worried about Amber right now.
“when I’m stuck in single-position mode it usually means I’m in a bad way and when I’m looking out windows or wanting to go on a balcony, it’s usually because I’m feeling the urge to jump. I dunno, probably me reading too much into things”
Maybe not reading too much in. This is exactly why I got rid of all my guns. People who have not struggled with suicidal ideation react with horror, minimize, gaslight, and generally have no clue. They can barely imagine having such an impulse once in a
yeardecade, let alone ten times in an hour.I’m sorry, truly, and you have my deepest sympathies and encouragement.
Thank you. That was the worst years. I had some help and some medicine. It has abated as I’ve gotten older but I still wouldn’t have a gun around.
Yeah, I’m really happy that my anti-depressants drop that frequency to couple of times every two weeks from all the damn time. And yeah, that’s pretty much the exact reason I have no sharp blades in my bedroom and refuse to leave the bed when the jump feelings start. Too easy to turn a moment’s weakness into a permanent consequence.
aand I’m really glad my default is strongly inclined towards inaction. I guess freezing up isn’t completely without advantages
Yes.
*agos*
Panel 4: Again, I love the display of consent practices between the two. Amber requests her not to say she’s okay so Dina understands and acts accordingly. Again, most neurotypical people would have socially normalized pushing past requests like that and treat that request as a cry for help instead of just accepting it at its face.
And that type of small consent is important. It builds trust and it’s likely why Amber is using her remaining spoons here with Dina rather than being as curt as she was with everyone else.
Panel 5: Now this? This might reach Amber in a way a lot of other stuff didn’t. Because Dina likes building a consistent moral framework for behavior. And so seeing Amber tear herself apart and call herself a monster for doing an action that was in the end, an act of intentional violence to try and protect another knowing the risk to one’s slef.
It eats at her. If Amber thinks herself a monster, then what must she think of Dina who didn’t even need to be pushed to the brink to pounce and attack Toedad to try and protect Becky? And that undercuts the stream of abuse Amber is using to beat herself up.
She’s convincing herself that an action of having a “fight” trauma response instead of “freeze” and having a moment where she really did want to hurt a person somehow makes her the equivalent of her abusive father who intentionally hit and hurt people who couldn’t fight back to feel powerful.
And well, she’s not. Her whole self-abuse is built on a false equivalence that feels real because well, when you have been raised by abusive parents or feel you have a poison of violence inside of you, you react to every use of that violence in utter horror and worry that every moment is a gateway to becoming the monster you always feared you would.
Like, I feel it a lot. There are moments, moments I am not proud of, where I want to hurt people. People like the Republican senators who cheerfully voted to kill me and friends of mine, the people who cheerfully support a fascist because of their hatred of folks like me unseen, open abusive harassing nazis.
There are moments I want to hurt people like that and I beat myself up a lot about those feelings, because a large part of me still holds those narratives of the DID person who’s a murderer close to chest.
And the irony of it is that it interrupts my ability to even use a minimum of violence to protect myself. Like, I lock up in self-defense classes and “freeze” and dissociate is likely to always be my initial trauma response.
It means even when someone is threatening me with death, the capacity for physical violence flees from me with a start.
For Amber, the Amber alter, she’s always been terrified of that, she’s let AG hold all of that and turn it into something “good” so it wouldn’t be in her. So having it all explode in a “fight” trauma response, right after someone told her she is doomed to become her father? It’s breaking her and she feels like an irredeemable monster.
But Dina cuts through that narrative. Because it’s so much easier to condemn ourselves in ways we would never condemn another.
Like, those of us who’ve been assaulted frequently come up with all sorts of abusive victim-blaming crap to throw at ourselves about what we would have done that we’d never say to any other survivor. And those of us who fear our violence would never hold others to the obscene and inflexible standards we hold ourselves to.
I’m hoping this piece gets through to Amber, because it’s what she needs.
Panel 6: Oh dear Joyce. I get the reason for your intrusion, but it might be poorly timed. And I love Dina’s response here. Like, it’s not trying to be mean, but it’s pointing out that she doesn’t hold much truck with Joyce’s idea of normal because Joyce’s idea of normal is a bit askew.
But it’s a good sentiment that Joyce tried. I imagine good sentiment, poorly timed and executed is going to be Joyce’s interaction with Amber as well.
Also, I just want to note Dina’s distress. And this is sometimes the problem with that natural tendency to beat ourselves over the little stuff. It means we model that behavior for others. Make them feel they should have our obscenely high standards for ourselves.
But yeah, it’s hard to stop. That natural tendency is intense. I still don’t know how to effectively fight that fast spiral when I raise my voice or feel a bit upset about something I have more than enough reason to feel upset about. Like, fuck, I have actively resisted feeling angry about my most recent sexual assault. How fucked is that?
How can we sign up for the Pearl academy? “♪ ♫ ♬ ♭ You know You’re not Really built for fighting But that doesn’t mean you’re not prepared to try…”
*hugs*
“There are moments I want to hurt people like that”
of course you want to hurt them. they’re a threat. that makes perfect sense to me. it sounds like you also *don’t* want to hurt them, or at least want to not want to.
…
can those two opinions talk without screaming at each other, yet?
I… ugh, there’s too many distractions around and I’m losing my thoughts, but, something in there reminded me of how I respond to internet jerks. damnit, it made sense a couple of minutes ago
like… you seem pretty good at dealing with conflict in the comments, whereas I either go super-analytic with my own feelings and ego mostly offline (which runs more risk of accidentally hurting people’s feelings, I fear) or Ruby shows up and the best I can manage is swear-and-leave. In the moment, those feelings can be so strong that most of my language skills go out the window, which removes the option of anything graceful. And it’s a feedback loop. But I’ve noticed a few moments lately with non-anger emotions where I’ve been able to step back and think about what’s going on and what I really want, and act on that higher-level desire instead of the shortsighted primitive ones, without them feeling ignored. And… I think that could be strengthened to the point where I could use it even through anger. 
The catch is that it requires practice, and seems guaranteed to be messy and clumsy at first.
Which is why it’s wonderful that I feel safe enough here to take that risk, to try out alternate ways of responding to things, knowing that if I screw it up, the world won’t end and people won’t hate me forever.
So… maybe that concept could be useful for you too? Could you find a self-defense class where you feel safe enough to work towards something other than freeze? It’s harder with physical reactions, I suppose, since actual physical damage is kind of inconvenient
but maybe with a stronger, more skilled partner? with a punching bag? with the air?
“I have actively resisted feeling angry about my most recent sexual assault. How fucked is that?”
*cough*Sapphire*cough*
Have you watched Keystone Motel and Friend Ship recently? it’s not the same situation, but the feelings sound pretty similar.
*hugs* And yeah, as far as internally, the alter who’s all “fuck those assholes in particular” and the one who’s all “no, anger is bad and you should feel bad for having it” have gotten a lot better at talking to each other about it without being dicks, but instincts remain instincts.
“Like, I feel it a lot. There are moments, moments I am not proud of, where I want to hurt people. People like the Republican senators who cheerfully voted to kill me and friends of mine, the people who cheerfully support a fascist because of their hatred of folks like me unseen, open abusive harassing nazis.”
It breaks my heart to read this. Because I have moments where I want to hurt those people too. I really do.
And not just those people, but other people that just treats people as inferior. I mean, today I read this comic; which is nothing I haven’t heard before, but it still did not fail to enrage me: https://thenib.com/medicine-s-women-problem?t=recent
Same old story about how women are not taken seriously by “professional” doctors. And I want to go to those doctors (except the last one, of course) and punch each and every one of them in the face. Each. And. Every. One.
And I feel proud of myself for doing that. Or if not exactly proud, then at the very least not ashamed of it. And I say that as a personal pacifist.
TINY SPOILER RE: Inside Out coming up
I think that this is something that the movie Inside Out got right, when it depicted anger not as a villain, but instead as someone integral to the part of making a person work. Anger was depicted the one standing up to the injustice of the world. Joy introduced him by saying “He cares very deeply about things being fair.” And yes, Anger did some misguided things… But then again, so did Joy. A lot. No emotion is safe from being used to do bad things.
The fact that you want to hurt the assholes of the world is nothing to be ashamed of. At all. In fact, I think if anything, your anger is an emotionally healthy response to all the fucking bullshit the world is throwing at you. How you direct that anger can be another issue, but I beg you, I really beg you, to not be ashamed of it.
Because if there is one thing I’m certain of, Cerberus, is that you will never use that anger to become a monster.
“No emotion is safe from being used to do bad things”
(Grabs pencil, writes down)
“Because if there is one thing I’m certain of, Cerberus, is that you will never use that anger to become a monster.”
+1 with feeling
This is why Joyce is my favorite. She’s surrounded by people that disagree with her, even think she’s an idiot, but they’re her friends god dammit, and the world making her friends sad makes her furious. She’s like Friendship Juggernaut: Not the brightest, but unstoppable.
Dina… You just lost a little bit of respect in my eyes.
How so?
Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering too.
Dina’s giving Amber some comfort of the kind that nobody else can give right now; not even Ethan and his Transformer. Heck, that’s why Amber is even talking to her at all. To be able to make some progress with Amber is at this point something even most psychiatrists would have trouble with; but Dina was doing it nevertheless: Starting to make some progress.
And then Dina’s shutting down someone who is
a) barging in where they are not invited,
b) clearly have been listening in on a private conversation, and finally
c) trying to tell Dina and Amber something that seems comforting, but doesn’t really work, because it plain isn’t true. I mean, good intentions and all; but Dina’s not comforted by things that are not true. She just isn’t. To her, trying to re-assure her that she’s normal is nothing but an empty gesture.
I’d be pretty pissed if I was interrupted in making some progress too.
While seemingly for Amber Dina is challenging at times (yes yes blasphemy) Amber is aware of Dina’s concerns, and accepts them while indicating at this time Amber doesn’t wish to discuss them.
Yeesh, wanted to use pronouns in there a few times, but it felt necessary to cut down on possible confusion.
Oooooh Dino-burn!!! Very nicely done ^^