I don’t think it is, it is a parody, written to criticize men writing women. As far as I can find, it isn’t an actual quote from a story, although it does sound like something Chuck Tingle would write.
You know that part of a book or other media that you don’t want to continue because you feel it’s gonna break everything, but you continue in hope it gets better and by curiosity.
I’m there.
i prefer how douglass addams put it
“Now, it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some have chosen to see it as the final proof of the NON-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:
“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that You exist, and so therefore, by Your own arguments, You don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
“Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. “
I can’t see that happening, or if it did happen, Dina breaking it off with Becky solely because of it.
On the other hand, a funny continuation:
Becky: “But . . . Dina, do you love me?”
Dina: “Yes, of course.”
Becky: “Do you love me more than dinosaurs?”
Dina: . . .
Dina: . . .
Dina: . . .
Becky: “Well?”
Dina: “I am thinking very carefully about how to answer that!”
Willis is definitely going to break up Becky and Dina, but not stop there. Next on the chopping block are Danny and Sal, then Lucy and Jacob, and then everyone else except Dorothy and Joyce.
The rest of DoA’s 50-year run will alterrnate between everyone being miserable and alone and cold and hungry and failing academically, and Dorothy and Joyce either fucking or making lovey-dovey faces at each other.
So I finally shelled out for Slipshine because people rave about it and…
I genuinely don’t get what’s so great about it? It was weird, stilted, and one particular line in it was the grossest thing I’ve ever read. Delivered like it was super sexy.
Thankfully there are other comics on Slipshine so I can spend my month poking around, but Willis’ strip there really wasn’t worthwhile. I wouldn’t keep voluntarily reading them if they were free, let alone for money.
More power to people who enjoy it, glad you’re having a good time, but I do not get how.
i’m just imagining driving by a normal graveyard, but gradually, you see this massive, silvery obelisk gradually riding up to the heavens somewhere in the field
Yeah, don’t be mean to cartoon characters! The way this comic handles time, depressive episodes may stretch out for years into the future. Think about that! It’s very serious.
IIRC, the readership was more worried about Billie, post breakup. We knew Ruth would be okay, ultimately. Or at least fine some sort of balance. Billifer? Not so much.
I think this has brought up a lot of the trauma of being rejected by Joyce in the first place, because she no longer has the excuse of “Joyce is completely straight”.
The problem is that Becky’s sanity hinges too much on clear-cut explanations like “Joyce is straight and that’s the only reason we’re not together” and “sexual attraction is static and unchangeable”. These rigid beliefs don’t hold up to the dynamic reality of interpersonal relationships, and if she places too much emphasis on them, she’s set up to fall hard.
And has been dodging, refusing to acknowledge or look at, and is now having a harmful effect toward someone she cares about. Everyone crashing on Dina in this while Becky is over here holding a torch for a friend who said ‘I’m not into you’, which is uncool of Becky to do toward both Joyce and Dina. Feelings are one thing, but apparently Becky’s been indulging them this entire time, rather than carefully managing them.
Which, well, she’s a teen. So this kind of fuck up is natural and a great learning lesson. But it’s not one Dina has to accept either, if she doesn’t want to.
Ideally Becky would understand that her current feelings are inappropriate and learn to handle them maturely. This is a comic about kids making dumb choices and learning slowly while super hero shit sometimes happens but is also sometimes serious medical issues. So the ideal probably isn’t happening for a while.
Considering Becky’s history and trauma, her mother’s mental heath collapse, and some of the things she is saying and ways she is reacting, I find this very alarming behaviour and not something to dismiss, or judge.
If I saw this in a person, I’d be signposting them to some urgent care helplines because it’s a warning sign for the potential of severe self harm.
I highly recommend those who find Becky to be merely ‘annoying’ or ‘overreacting’ to take some free training on suicide prevention. It’s available from places like this:
Yeah, I know, it’s a comic character in this case – but comics can investigate very serious topics and raise discussion about them.
People who are on the brink are able to notice the impatience and negative judgement of others towards their emotions and it generally has the effect of confirming their isolation and pushing them further down the path of no return. Or else they learn to supress SHOWING or TALKING about the reality of the strength of emotions they are talking about so that noone can pick up on the signs and reach out and help them in time.
Becky is a comic character who cannot read the people who are looking down on her mental health struggles in these comments, but real life people with mental health issues can read and absorb this judgement and learn to fear it and close themself off. Anyway, once again, I reccomend the above training.
I’ve been im depression spirals similar to Becky’s and what got me to run to a hospital and commit myself was a YouTube gaming video where they were talking about depressive episodes. Never underestimate who’s on the other side reading, watching or listening. To me, depression is all about moments. One moment, one reaction, on action you witness can literally differentiate between life or death to a person with depression.
Becky is fictional and is probably the character I’m least like personality wise, but her depression and everything that adds to it that has happened is the one thing that I relate to the most in this comic. Its very real to some of us. And even if its all fictional, this moment with Joyce’s revelation is a moment that can and will change her life forever for better or worse. And the problem here is that its not really anyone’s fault. I’m hoping this leads to Becky getting the help she so desperately needs and that Dina (who I get feeling is the right person to recognize this) supports her.
I’m depressed and have slipped in and out of suicidal tendencies throughout the years, but thank you for the condescending explanation. Was really necessary to add that to my statement. Because I absolutely said “omg Becky you awful human being how dare you overreact!” and not just merely stated that she is overreacting
Ok thanks comment section for reminding me why I stopped commenting for months. Yall are the “oh so you hate waffles?” tweet personified. I said none of the stuff being interpreted into that statement
Honestly, I think Atheist Becky has a better chance of becoming president than Dorothy ever would. Atheist Becky is untapped power and potential we have not yet witnessed.
I honestly prefer DoA to QC for pretty much those reasons, really. The plot is much faster paced here! And this is stupid and immature but this is the kind of stupid and immature I love seeing, becky is reeling from feeling “betrayed” and lashing out at everyone
It’s not SUPER slow, it’s just more that there’s no real measurable check of time other than the occasional timeskip. Like I don’t even know how long the major relationships were in QC since there were never any mentions of anniversaries or anything. Like the seasons change sometime?
Like it’s probably been like, years in-time since the start of the comic. But I have no idea how many.
Plus, like, QC is just not generally plot-focused. There are plots and arcs, but it feels like the day-to-day banter is the main thing that’s meant to be focused on, most of the time; DoA, at least from my perspective, puts plot more front and centre.
Plus there’s strain between Marten and Claire, with potential for a greasy wet breakup if that winds up going south (please go south please please please), which I understand isn’t a definitive breakup, but it’s possible.
Eh there have been some vibes regarding how overwhelmed and workaholic she is by the new job. I don’t think she’s doing anything wrong per se but also Marten has moved for her and mostly doesn’t have other friends in Cubetown so I don’t blame him if he’s thinking about going home. See the last two panels of #5672 lest you think this is all in my head.
Claire has been ignoring and back-burnering Marten for weeks or months, cancelling dates last minute and generally making it very clear the he is NOT a priority for her in any way, shape, or form. Someone less generally chill or specifically doormat-like in relationships than Marten would already have brought it up to her directly long ago.
She seems to have gotten a bit of a wake-up call with the hangover thing, but time will tell whether she actually tries for real work/life balance or just assumes ‘yeah I’ve been ignoring you sorry bout that’ I represents all the effort required from her on that point.
I mean, the text has been very clear that she has fully abandoned every other aspect of her life, to devote 110% of her total human attention and output to CubeTown, which is the exact thing that (IIRC) she felt afraid would happen before she really considered taking the job, and Marten pushed her into trying? And, now, Marten literally can’t get a minute with her, and feels like they’re drifting apart?
Claire doesn’t realize there is strain, and Marten is unwilling to admit that there is strain (until he’s blackout drunk), but characters being unaware of the strain doesn’t imply that it isn’t there.
We get this and the Clinton/Elliot breakup in the same few days…
Dina, you better go up there and cuddle your girl before she breaks further, she needs to feel loved right now.
Yeah, this was my thought. There’s a worry here that, even if Dina does manage to reassure Becky now, that we’re going to fall into a concerning grey area, where Becky’s going to constantly assume that Dina’s gonna break up with her in the way Elliot thinks Clinton was, regardless of what Dina says or does.
I’ve been there. It’s a dangerous spot in the relationship.
I think the fact that you want character conflict and interpersonal drama storylines in a soap opera means you’re the only person in the comment section that makes any sense
For real for real. I’m trying to figure out what it is, exactly, that some of the commentariat actually want out of the story. I think it’s possible to write a story without any sort of conflict, but those tend to be children’s books.
(To cut off any misunderstanding, I’m very pro Becky/Dina (and not just because I’m pro-F/F on general principle) and I agree that they’re bulletproof. But they’ve been heading for rough waters for a while now.)
Look, when the villain cuts off the hero’s arm, the “yes, yesss” part is there, but the healthy surface level reaction is “oh noooo”.
We’re all a part of the fiction.
But then there’s my kid with a Shanks Shrine and enough former one-armed favorites to make you wonder about healthy surface level reactions. (Grown kid, so it’s fine. Just an odd trope to keep falling into.)
I’d argue that good things feel good only in contrast to bad things. I don’t enjoy the conflicts themselves, no. But they are necessary for an emotional swing back up which I *will* enjoy.
Personally, I think of DoA as more of a slice of life than a soap opera. I would be perfectly happy with the comic just being the cast being cute and funny and romantic together without any big drama. I read a bunch of manga like that.
Dumbing of Age wouldn’t work without its dramatic soap opera elements. They’re the secret sauce. The central theme of this strip, expressed in its title, is that growing up is a process, and in the course of this process you are going to make some very stupid mistakes that you are going to regret later, but those mistakes are necessary to learn, grow, and mature. That’s going to create conflict, that’s going to create tension, that’s going to create drama.
I think trying to puzzle out what the commentariat as a whole “wants” is always going to fail. Too many people with too many polar-opposite opinions and expectations.
Desiring characters in a story entertain you rather than simply be given everything they want because it’d be mean to do something else? In the DOA comments section! Impossible!
Stories are meant to make you feel things. A story without conflict is often boring, but if the writer is doing their job right, we’re still rooting for the good guys.
And rooting for them means we want them to not have the issues they’re having.
It’s like how hunger is a negative emotion and no one really wants to be hungry, but it makes food really really tasty.
Whoa whoa whoa back up now, where’s this coming from? Is this Becky assuming that since Joyce “left” her that means she thinks everyone will leave her?
She’s been spiraling ever since the newspaper and she’s now unable to hold the depressive thoughts back. They are in control of her mind for the moment and that’s making her lash out and catastrophize. To Becky right now, she’s clearly not worthy of love, so Dina expressing something that could be construed as discomfort over her still having feelings for Joyce is the plainest sign there could be that she’s about to get dumped.
She’s a person with abandonment issues, feeling like she’s being abandoned by another person, and having a bit of a breakdown and pushing people away because she thinks everyone leaving is inevitable (in this moment)
Not exactly a healthy reaction, but also not exactly a surprising one
I think that’s part of it, but my read of the line is more “I just said something really shitty to my girlfriend, and if she’s mad I’d rather she leave me now [while I already feel like shit] rather than later.”
Living with someone with anxiety, I can say that for some people the thought of going through therapy is in itself highly anxiety-inducing… it’s not always simple.
Is Jeph really only a week ahead? I know probably nobody gets a year ahead like Willis, but when Jeph commented during the hiatus last year that he doesn’t go day-by-day without a buffer like he used to for years I figured he wasn’t just talking about one week lol.
like, I wanna clarify, I don’t mean this sarcastically. It’s a job that’s actually hard to do, requires several distinct skills to do well, and it’s time-consuming. If making a comic was easy, everybody would write one; hell, I’d probably have three!
On the one hand, breaking up Becky and Dina would be devastating, heartbreaking, nay, apocalyptic in the comment section
On the other hand it would bring my shoot-the-moon never-would-ever-happen stocks in ‘trans guy dina’ one millimeter closer, because if they’re already separate for other reasons, at least it won’t be over *that*
I’m not sure which Ethan is going through it right now, but Elliot is another web comic character whose breakup over personal anxiety is happening right now in Questionable Content, so I assume Ethan is similar.
Dina’s about to be hurt by Becky’s overzealous words/reactions while Becky is spiraling down so hard I legit do not know how she’s gonna be moving forward.
I really hope Dina is able to parse through Becky’s reactions & not take it as literal, & I hope it fully clicks for Becky that she has Dina now; she found something better after Joyce rejected her with (what was at the time) a true statement & doesn’t throw it all away.
Becky does not want Dina to leave. Part of her believes that everyone leaves her in the end, and in her depression she’d rather have it happen now than later.
I had a similar conversation with my then-fiancee not long after she had a bit of a breakdown; she thought she was undeserving of love, and I’d leave just like all of her other boyfriends had. (FWIW, we’ve been together for something over 28 years now, so I think she’s past that these days…)
The risk here is in whether Dina has the experience to know Becky does not want her to leave, or whether (and this is a higher risk potentially due to autism) she takes Becky literally.
I think, if anything is most likely, it’s that Dina won’t know how to cope with the evidence-based reasoning as to why that “if” is a “no,” does absolutely nothing to change Becky’s mind, nor improve her mood; it could be especially bad, if Becky is so far gone, that she fully insists to Dina that she thinks Dina is just lying to her.
That said, Dina might just nail this anyway, because she’s an absolute rock star. But there’s a lot of ways Becky could react right now, where it would not be unexpected for the average person in Dina’s position, to take that reaction poorly.
Point of order: Joyce never told Becky she was straight. She told Becky she didn’t feel that way about her, and she implied she wasn’t a lesbian: both things that were and remain true.
This is an important detail, actually; Becky only heard that Joyce was straight, because to her, that was the only other option in her mind at the time besides “lesbian.”
Yeah, I know this is true and all, she didn’t actually say it to Becky, but I think we may be emphasizing this too much. Fundie Joyce back early in the first semester wasn’t hedging about really being bi or something. She didn’t say the words “I’m not attracted to girls”, but she would have if she’d been pushed into it. She meant it.
Look, I am NOT saying Joyce was deliberately leaving the door open for being bi. Of course she wasn’t, she definitely did think she was straight,
But I am replying to this:
after Joyce rejected her with (what was at the time) a true statement
by pointing out that the specifics of what little Joyce said at the time are actually STILL true. She did not directly claim to be straight, so it’s not that she lied to Becky — either in the moment or in retrospect.
Also as they walked away after that conversation Joyce strongly implied she had a crush on Dorothy, or at least didn’t argue against her being referred to as her crush.
Hold on a sec, the Buffer watch currently reads August 28, 2026 but the side bar bluesky feed thing has a panel from a strip due to appear on three days later on August 31. Where are the strips for the 29th and 30th? Does Willis work on them out of order or in short batches of strips? Or, God forbid, did he forget to update the holy buffer watch?
Yes, I know: “The heart wants what it wants” and “I can’t tell someone how to feel.” But what you are telling Dina right now is that your heart was never truly hers. That you were using her to plug the Joyce-shaped hole in your heart. She deserves better and so do you.
And really: What’s changed? Yeah, Joyce likes girls? Or maybe she likes THAT girl. Either way, you were never an option. You were Joyce’s best friend, not her lover. And right now? You’re risking alienating your actual lover, moping over What Might Have Been.
Maybe this is a “You Just Don’t Get It” scenario. Maybe I’m MASSIVELY jumping the gun as to how this is going to shake out. But right here? Right now? Girl, no!
Buncha fuckin’ insecure martyrs around here. “Oh god, there’s even a 0.000000001% chance something I said might get a mildly negative response! Oh, this must be exactly how people feel when they’re being stoned to death!” Like settle down, goddamn.
You have posted multiple comments today asserting that Joyce may be literally only attracted to one woman but is otherwise straight. Extremely biphobic thing to do. Putting that aside, your complete inability to comprehend why Becky is upset shows an astounding lack of empathy
Like the issue is very much “calling Joyce straight” and “saying she might not ‘really’ be bi” or “saying she’s not ‘fully’ bi”.
It’s not the concept of Joyce being more frequently attracted to boys but of saying Joyce is only attracted to one girl, and therefore still straight in any capacity.
you’re right, there’s no way the catastrophically-traumatized person might have an inappropriate emotional reaction to one of their specific traumas being triggered, in a very intimate way, and there’s certainly no way such a person might have an out-sized emotional response to that.
like, shit, how dare the mentally-ill teenagers…be mentally ill. they should be acting saner. doesn’t she know her feelings aren’t logical?
to be fair, it’s one of the most real and believable relationship outcomes Jeph has ever wrote. Elliot is actually an anchor of a man to be in a relationship with: he’ll drag you under while you’re trying to save him.
I guess. It’s just weird since it’s been so long. Feels like it was set up to be more of a thing back near the start then dropped along with the characters only to be resurrected in flashback
I just figure he realized there wasn’t anything that interesting for him to mine out of the pairing; like, in particular, he may have realized quickly that “oh, every strip I write for Clinton and Elliot, after their honeymoon phase, can only be about one thing,” and that one thing is what is being demonstrated thoroughly in the brief flashbacks.
I really think this is a self worth thing more than a “I wish I was dating Joyce” thing.
She thinks the fact that Joyce likes women, but doesn’t like her specifically, means she’s “not good enough” for Joyce. Joyce has found her unworthy of love.
This casts into doubt the previous affirmation she got from Dina loving her. “Surely it’s only a matter of time before Dina sees what’s wrong with me and moves to greener pastures”
Oh becky, honey. College is a terrible time to run up against emotional pains you’ve never run into before, and she’s kind of picked up. All of them possible? Everything but a pregnancy scare or failing a class. I don’t blame her for this being the major straw.
I think Becky needs some help. I’m sure therapy is the answer cause that’s often referenced as the go to fix for psychological issues, but Becky needs something. She often reverts to this doomer mindset whenever something even slightly outside her expectations happen.
One the plus side if Dina does leave Becky, I really like her size difference and physicality with Joe. It’s one of my crack ships! Let’s go Dina x Joe! There’s a chance we can get that rolling!
Commentariat: The sapphic relationship between the former fundie turned atheist and the lifelong atheist should end so that Joe can once again have a girlfriend who at one point he denied attraction to yet makes him blush!
I think that would be an interesting route for them, if unlikely.
[Before anything, I want to be clear that I understand this thought could probably not be made canon-compliant]
The idea of Joe/Dina as an ace couple, Joe having realized that he was actually in a state of compulsory allosexuality*, is very intriguing to me.
*I have not seen this phrase used before but I feel like it must exist, and is probably more common in aces by percentage than comp het in gays.
Yeah, I was just skimming comments from the past few days and found someone replying to me to state that saying “I ship Dina and Joe” (and nothing else! just saying you ship them!) is “violently lesbophobic rhetoric”, so. Wanted to be here in your replies, heading that nonsense off at the pass.
I hope Dina is at least understanding. Your first crush is always special, and while she had (probably) moved on from Joyce, the surrounding context makes it sting quite a bit. I guess it depends on whether this changes their relationship
In a few chapters’ time the title is “I’m feeling very RARR! today” or similar. I accidentally saw it when I binged read DOA a coupla months ago and it’s made me worried for this moment ever since. Other people seem to have confidence in Becky and Dina being able to pull through, but I am scared they won’t – and they’re the ones I really want to pull through 😞
Point of order – the title is “What a RARR! Mood I’m In.” This is a pun on a lyric from Almost Like Being in Love by Nat King Cole, which is an upbeat and bombastic song about the joys of falling in love.
I feel like Dina will give Becky some time to process before definitively breaking up or staying together. Like, I think she can tell that Becky hadn’t realized that contrast until she (Dina) pointed it out, and that she probably didn’t intend it that way.
(I was thinking about that strip while reading this one. Dina already thinks of herself as Becky’s rebound, and didn’t break up with Becky despite it, so this is in itself nothing new for Dina, except that she’s talking with Becky about it for perhaps the first time. While Dina’s been thinking of herself as Becky’s rebound, and whether or not Becky’s thought of Dina that way (consciously and/or subconsciously), plausibly Becky hasn’t guessed that Dina has thought of herself that way. I semi-hopefully speculate that perhaps Becky feeling both touched and guilty about how Dina’s been thinking of the situation will help pull her mind off Joyce a little, but realistically rather than having concrete hope in one specific development path I will pay attention to and savour all words and behaviour related to Dina’s thought processes (which in all their forms have been a joy throughout).)
It seems in that comic Willis admitted that the only way Dina can get a date in any universe is if the person she fancies is on a rebound. (Walky in the Walkyverse, Becky in the Dumbingverse)
I’m hoping the DoA Dina can reason that Becky’s feelings for her, while completely true, still don’t hold a candle to her years-long crush on Joyce, and it might take YEARS for her to truly get over it. The Walkyverse Dina didn’t take being second-best to Joyce well at all, and, well, it caused a series of events that led her to get blown up/sent years into the future. https://www.itswalky.com/comic/you-dont-think-that-anymore/
I would’ve expected her to maybe befriend a coworker but other than sydney i guess there’s ken , and also lucy as a church buddy but idk how much she knws about her and joyce
Becky’s pain is absolutely understandable, relatable, and also entirely in her own head. No one did anything to her. If anything, the hoops Joyce and Dorothy were willing to go to protect Becky – while either minimizing or mocking the people they were dating has just enabled Becky’s self-pity spiral. Becky has to deal with the fact that someone who never expressed interest in her romantically still has no romantic feelings for her. That’s not nothing. But it’s also much less significant than what has occurred to Joe or Walky, who have both echoed “it’s a me problem, not a them problem” to a rather grotesque degree.
I am most interested to see how Dina responds to all of this. Not just in terms of Becky, but in terms of Joe, who seems not insignifcant to her.
Someone had said that Joyce’s inner romantic has re-arranged her story to make herself believe she was ALWAYS madly in love with Dorothy, and I think that point in particular has shattered Becky’s heart. No doubt Joyce was swept up in the heat of the moment in seeing her best friend confess her love and then nearly get horribly injured by the police, and that caused her feelings for Dorothy to intensify into romantic feelings, but telling Becky that she was ALWAYS in love with Dotty since the moment they first met confirmed everything Becky was fearing and Dina having a simple heart to heart conversation with Becks isn’t going to mend her heart instantly.
I will say that Dina is right in flat out punching Joyce the next time she sees her, not just in that she broke Becky’s heart but she’s still stringing Joe along while telling Dorothy that she wants her and no one else…
It’s not even VALID reasons for punching. Like, if they wanted to punch Ross or Blaine or whatever, that’s one thing, but punching Joyce for not putting her lovelife on hold just so Becky, who ISN’T part of that lovelife, can feel good about herself is wild shit.
I’m reminded of a very difficult situation I had that tainted an otherwise good friendship. I had an ex from many years past, and we had always stayed close. Timing had just never really been on our side but we cared for each other. She ended up single for the first time in years. I didn’t really think too much of it, as I was already married by then. After a short time she started dating someone and hid it from me, and even eventually lied to me about it as she was afraid her dating someone would somehow upset me – which was super weird as I was only on board platonically. her lying to me about her dating someone and trying to hide it from me ended up completely damaging our friendship – it crossed boundaries that were important, broke my ability to trust her, and led to a lot of confusion and added a lot of short term stress to my marriage. Hence my deep dislike of what Joyce and Dorothy have done here. By prioritizing Becky’s response they have validated a lot of super toxic behavior – both their own and hers. And doing it while being pretty callous (to varying degrees) about their actual pre-existing partners… it’s super unlikeable.
You can owe people courtesy and consideration in certain circumstances – this really is not one of them. Becky needs to reign this in, and Joyce and Dorothy should not have bothered validating her jealous/self-centered response
I used to really dislike Becky when she first appeared, but she’s grown on me a lot and is one of my favorite characters now. That said, she really needs new friends. I don’t think Becky has anyone she can be completely honest with without fear of driving them away. Those relationships are important.
I mean, if Becky got new friends, those would immediately become the people who she can no longer be completely honest with, because she would be afraid of driving them away. It’s not a Becky’s Friends problem, it’s a Becky problem.
I would’ve expected her to maybe befriend a coworker but other than sydney i guess there’s ken , and also lucy as a church buddy but idk how much she knws about her and joyce
I think Joe/Dina is interesting, and I wouldn’t at all be opposed to it, but just like how Joyce/Dorothy is ruined for some people due to how it got started, I feel like Joe/Dina would be likewise tainted for me if it was a rebound from this whole protest-kiss relationship implosion.
Maybe it should happen in better circumstances but I’m not opposed to Becky and Dina breaking up. The rest of the cast gets to play relationship musical chairs, they should too. Only problem is I don’t know who’d be a good partner for Becky.
Honestly, it’s probably not great to see your partner so hung up over someone else – A theoretical “one who got away” – While you’re sitting right there like “What am I, chopped liver?”
But if there’s anyone who’s not going to have a knee-jerk reaction to basically being told “If I could have been with her, there’s no way I would have ended up with you”, it’s Dina.
And honestly, it’d kind of be a totally fair knee-jerk reaction for anyone to have in this situation. Becky’s being a little too up her own rear right now to really realize just how horrible of a thing that is to say or even imply to Dina, especially in such an utterly inelegant way. Becky’s gone into full-on losing-her-got-dang-dookie meltdown over this.
Like it’d be one thing if she was bummed/sulky and when Dina asked, she calmly (or as calmly as possible, anyway) admitted to feeling some annoyingly strong inner turmoil over the whole situation and reassured Dina that despite that, she still cares about her and their relationship.
But, y’know, these are a bunch of college kids, not even out of high school a full year by this point (for the freshmen, anyway). And in Becky’s case, she’s especially had a tumultuous life overall and past year specifically. So, you can’t really expect her to be a pillar of emotional maturity.
Nevertheless, as I said above – If there’s *anyone* in this cast who would not only hear their partner out on this sort of thing, but also truly attempt to sympathize with them and not take things personally, it’d be Dina.
The real question comes down to whether or not after the dust settles, Dina reflects on whether Becky’s always going to be hung up over Joyce, and if any partner Becky has is always just going to be a placeholder in Becky’s mind.
After this upwelling of emotions passes, I strongly do think that Becky will need to demonstrate some sort of willingness to do something about her unhealthy fixation on Joyce. Dina’s not just going to coldly toss Becky aside in a moment of heightened emotional stress, but she’s also no fool and not going to want to spend her whole life wondering if Becky’s just going to try to romance Joyce, should Joyce and Dorothy should ever break up – Like, the literal second that Joyce becomes available.
Without being a complete doormat, Dina’s going to be there for Becky through this. But Becky had better get this sort of fixation on Joyce sorted sooner rather than later. Not just to fix any potential damage to her relationship with Dina, but for any future relationships with literally anyone else, should this all prove too frustrating for Dina to continue to tolerate.
Oh yeah – To tie it all back to the “If I could have been with her, there’s no way I would have ended up with you”:
I really hope Becky has the realization that brings that mentality back around to the point of “I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be with you if I had been able to get into a relationship with her. I would have missed out on all of this wonderfulness”
Oh yeah, it’s the inevitable Dina – Becky break up / meltdown we’ve all been waiting for! With a bit of luck, the Danny – Sal relationship will become collateral damage in the process, leaving every(?) longer running relationship in smoking (Sal!) ruins.
How would Dina and Becky breaking up affect Sal and Danny? I don’t think the four of them have even been in the same room at once post-timeskip.
Now Dorothy’s actions MIGHT affect Danny and Sal, given Walky is Sal’s brother and Danny and Dorothy used to date, but Danny doesn’t seem to be holding a candle for Dorothy at all and Walky’s too far in denial to admit Dotty breaking up with him a second time, despite being the one who wanted to get back together in the first place just a few days earlier, affected him whatsoever. He’s not even admitting it to Billie, his oldest friend, and he and Sal aren’t really as close as he is with Billie…
1. Here is Walky dating YET ANOTHER PERSON in his romantic past.
2. While he’s happy with Sal, there may be misplaced annoyance of the above that could be read as unresolved feelings about or of Ethan brought to the fore while simultaneously opening in-roads to Sal and Asher. We have yet to see what if ANY conflict might bubble up between Sal and Danny, these could be it.
I’m not saying Sal and Danny will cheat on each other, just guessing how far reaching Dorothy and Joyce’s relationship hits everyone else in blast radius.
This seems like a huge stretch. First, Ethan than Asher would have to break up. Then, Walky would have to realize he’s not straight. Then, he and Ethan would have to get together somehow even though they barely interact and have shown no chemistry when they do. It would make a lot more sense for him to get together with Asher. Then Danny would have to be so bothered by this relationship, even though he’s barely thought or interacted with Ethan since the timeskip and doesn’t seem to care about his current relationship that he blows up his own relationship with Sal.
I really don’t think it’s going to happen, and even if it did, there are so many intermediate steps and weird character takes to make it happen that you could barely call it a result of Joyrothy anymore.
Ethan and Asher can just double team Walky’s sadness right out of him. There’s no reason they have to break up.
Also, what you’re describing there is years worth of writing in a very relatable arc for a character who could use some more focus on his interiority. Realizing he’s into men, getting close to Ethan and Asher (and Joe, let me dream). Falling into bed with them, etcetc.
I don’t think Dina’s gonna leave Becky. She just seems confused at how Becky’s religious beliefs work. And as another atheist who’s never been very religious, I can relate to that.
I think Becky isn’t just reeling because of Joyce being in love with Dorothy. I think it’s also because Becky’s queer-realization was her 1) not getting to be with the 1st person she fell in love with, 2) losing her family over it, 3) losing her living situation over it, 4) nearly losing her life over it. Joyce got to keep all of those, she got to be with the first girl she fell in love with, her dad’s response amounted to a shrug, she gets to keep her same life, and no one is in danger over it. It’s not *just* “why couldn’t Joyce have been in loved with me,” it’s “why me” on multiple levels
Now Becky and Dina both have something in their lives that was an enormous struggle for them that Joyce got more or less handed to her without much difficulty. Not Joyce’s fault, of course, but it must seem so cosmically unfair.
She’s also still reeling from the double whammy of learning that people’s sexuality can change over time in some cases, which lead to suicidal ideation on her part, and really knocked her for a loop – which piled on to the stress that she’s already experienced thanks to everything you’ve already mentioned, and which lead to Dina experimenting with her gender presentation to try to help Becky work through those issues. Learning about Joyce and Dorothy as well as Hank being mostly fine with everything was YET ANOTHER stressor on someone who is already dealing with far too much stress – and Becky is in a VERY dark place because of it. Hopefully Dina can get her through her current depressive episode and keep her from trying anything long enough for her to get into therapy and work through all these issues that she’s been burying up until this point (and which are now bubbling through and taking her to a very dark place).
10/10 analysis. There is so much more to explore within Becky’s POV since its literally been just a year of her life falling apart and her needing to build herself back up.
No, that would imply they were partners. The word you’re looking for is “rejected.” Joyce rejected Becky. And really usure what the Walky thing is, because Walky and Joyce didn’t hook up. Walky basically got the same treatment as Joe, except he got laid.
Legit Question: Where are, geographically speaking, Dorothy and Joyce doing their Slipshine deed? Because I think Joe and Sarah are in Joyce’s room and I think Becky is in her room, judging by the persepolis poster on the wall (isn’t she Dorothy’s roommate?)
The only reason I ask is because, it makes it extra shitty (for Becky) that she feels this way about Joyce/Dorothy while they’re getting down next door. (And no, I’m not bashing those two for getting it on, I’m just saying it sucks.)
I know it was a joke in the comic, and not really supposed to be thought all that deeply about, but the idea of Becki being just down the hall and having the newspaper be a replacement for a sock on the door to Joyce’s room makes it seem really mean spirited.
Credit where credit is due, Willis, this is the storyline that has made me relate to and appreciate Becky more than any other.
I’ve struggled with borderline personality disorder for most of my adult life. It complicates my ability to form and maintain healthy relationships. I have a crippling fear of abandonment, and when I’m spiraling every little thing someone says to me registers as a sign that they are about to leave me, and sometimes it’s a struggle not to just yell at them to just get it over with. And when rejection actually occurs, it shatters me. I go lower than you can imagine, and it’s all I can do to stop the voices in my head that are telling me that I am completely, utterly worthless and undeserving of love or consideration from driving me to doing something terrible. These are not rational responses to stimuli, but they happen anyway, and despite working on managing them for years, it’s still a struggle.
Becky is not pouting. She is not throwing a fit. She is in the middle of a deep, depressive spiral which is especially alarming given her family history of suicidal depression. She does not need to “get over herself,” she does not need to buck up, she needs professional assistance and the engagement of her support system. I am genuinely shocked and appalled by the lack of empathy for her being displayed in some of the comments under this strip. I don’t think some of you can be trusted around depressed or suicidal people.
If I could thumb’s up a comment, I would. I get it, people find Becky annoying, but this isn’t a tantrum. This isn’t Becky being an unreasonable bongo or rude, this is a mental health crisis.
This is certainly true; however, the fact that some specific people choose to focus on and criticize the former detail first, and fully exclude the second detail, says a lot about where their values and priorities lie, and how caring they actually are.
This website has been full of unsafe people for a long, long time. If you’re actually experiencing depression, mental illness, suicidal thoughts, or a variety of neurodivergence that isn’t TV-quirky enough, at least half of the people here genuinely can’t be trusted not to try making your situation worse by belittling, berating, and otherwise putting you down.
Just so you know this, you actually were one of those people for me one time, saying some stuff to me that really make me spiral and almost got to wrote to you some very explicit and disturbing stuff about hurting myself. Luckily i managed to think it through before actually pressing send. I don’t type this to accuse you or deflect your point, just as a reminder that we all could be a little kinder.
Man, I’ll do you one better and say you AND Taffy were both on my “don’t interact with this JERK” list for a while, because you yourself toss off the occasional nasty one-liner. (and so do I).
Ok since we are here and in a relatively neutral emotional state, what the hell do you mean with this “one liner” stuff?! I am being genuine, i have no idea what is it you are talking about, but you had bringing up multiple times and it is starting to bug me.
You have a tendency, and I have noticed this as well, to comment on posts with short responses that aren’t very substantial but come off as having a ridiculing, dismissive, or rude tone.
Ok, well at least now i know what you mean with that. Not much i can do about it, this is just how i talk sometimes. I don’t always fell like doing a whole paragraph about why i disagree with someone or think what they say it’s weird.
I mean, sure, but a bare “what the fuck are you talking about” to something that is perfectly clear that you just don’t like is gonna come off as rude as hell at best.
Big Z: I mean it wasn’t perfectly clear to me, that is why i asked. The what the hell wad to emphasize my confusion about the whole thing.
Dot: With that logic there isn’t much point to replying to anything with anything. I just don’t see eye to eye with you on this, that is fine with me. 🤷
@nadamás, at least to me, the gulf between “what the fuck are you talking about” and something like “can you clarify that” is big enough to drive Becky’s current emotional pain through without scraping the sides. The former is almost never going to come across as “honest lack of understanding” in text without any tone, and IMHO pretty much always reads as “I disagree with you so hard that I am going to pretend it’s confusing in order to further dunk on your idea”.
I am sorry i guess for not thinking about any of this when i made my comment? These stuff simply don’t go through my head. I was not pretending i was confused i was genuinely confused. You can have taking it the wrong way because of the words i used but i clarified as much as i can that i meant what i say honestly. I don’t know what else to say here.
I wasn’t really looking to fuscuss that no. Dorry if i said something that give the wrong impression and turned into this whole confusing conversation (at least it was confusing for me).
Snd i srgue in my defense, i don’t think i have that tone any more often that most people here. And reading tone from text can be very difficult, so some might mistake shortest of the sentence with rudeness. I am sure sometimes i am not the best person, especially when i am stressed out or mad, so i apologize for that if i was.
I used to have so much anxiety around you in the comment section. Whenever I interacted, I would be stressed even before you responded. The day before you took a break for a while, I remember replying to you and then having to do breathing exercises when thinking about it later. Luckily, when you came back after a month or so, I no longer felt so anxious. I did recognize you under the new name by going, “Oh, it’s that person I mostly agree with who is really mean.”
Sorry i guess for making you fell that way? I can’t really recall any particular interaction with you, but i mean it. If it makes you fell better i really not a scary person irl in the slightest, i am just some random loser that still live his parents and drop out of school. I don’t you should care about any of what might say to you.
And also honestly i grt you, i also get unreasonable anxious about talking with some people here, when i think they gonna have a negative reaction to something unexpectedly. Right now i am trying my best to just ignore them altogether.
Fair enough. I’m assuming part of it was that time I said you weren’t a person? I am sorry about that, it was out of line. I wasn’t doing great at the time either (meds had run out), but that’s no excuse. Probably don’t go hurting yourself over some bullshit I said, of all people.
Yeah don’t worry i didn’t, thanks and like i said before i am also sorry if i really said anything that provoked you, i can’t really remember it. We all have our bad moments.
On top of everything else, that’s a highly stigmatized diagnosis. But like, as someone who has friends with BPD: you’re not scary or unsafe to be around. You’re not somehow more dangerous than NT people. I love my BPD friends. Your brain is just extra mean to you sometimes, and I’m so sorry you have to deal with that.
Thanks <3 I usually have a pretty good handle on it, but it is upsetting seeing people lambast Becky for expressing feelings that I know extremely well and that I know she can’t help right now.
And like, I am definitely in camp “poor Dina”, but you can actually be in both camps! It’s possible to sympathize with both of them, to know it must suck to hear Becky say these things and also that Becky is… “lashing out” isn’t even the right word. 🙁
Like, this is completely accidental damage being dealt, because Becky is in a headspace where she can’t conceptualize herself as being worth enough as a person to be able to hurt Dina in any real way. It’s the complete opposite of malicious or self-centered.
Yeah, lashing out isn’t necessarily the right term, it’s more… it’s like, you feel absolutely certain, for a fact, that something that is going to hurt you down to your soul is going to happen, and it feels like it’s just dragging on without getting it over with, and you just want to scream to just pull the pin and drop the grenade already so you can get on with blowing up.
Yeah. It feels like something you’re just trying to get over with so that the hurt can fully hit YOU, right? Ripping off an extremely painful bandaid, basically. Not a situation where ripping off the bandaid might conceivably hurt anyone else around you.
(I’ve listened, I think this mentality is very understandable. It’s not the same, but I’ve had my brain tell me mean things that weren’t true before, too, and I am not wholly unfamilair with the kind of headspace where you don’t feel capable of hurting other people because you’re so down on yourself.)
I hope you can see this and my comment doesn’t fade away into limbo, but I really appreciate your words here.
Circumstances were different, but I’ve been where Becky is now. I was fortunate enough to drag myself out long enough to get the help I needed, but I’ve known a few people that never did.
Sadly, I’m not surprised at the empathy scarcity. To misquote/borrow verbiage from Daphne from waaaay back in Penny and Aggie— “I’m a person on the Internet, remember? I don’t expect empathy.” And some folx have been mean as shit lately.
Surprised how many people think that “if Joyce could be X for Dorothy why couldn’t she be for me” is a thing that would not hurt Becky if she truly loved Dina. I don’t think that’s true even for someone who *doesn’t* have Becky’s crippling anxiety about abandonment.
I know it’s showing how badly Becky’s doing, but her eyes Herr are pretty creepy. Kinda zombie-like.
On a more serious note, I can really see how things between Joyce and Dorothy as well as with Hank could be a serious one-two punch for Becky. “Joyce isn’t into me because she isn’t into women” -> “Oh, she is… so it’s me…” And possibly, “My dad couldn’t handle my sexuality and love me for who I am because of the attitudes and beliefs of our church” -> “Oh, dads from our church *can* love their queer children… so it’s me…”
(For that second one, like no, it’s very clearly her dad; self-blame spirals don’t care, though.)
Yeah, Becky was… visibly very distressed as things calmed down, and she said no to pizza in a way that was I think deliberately ambiguous: it could’ve all been negative reactions to Dorothy and Joyce being twee.
But remember that when she threw herself onto Hank as a distraction, she told Joyce to run.
I think Yumi and others are right on the money here.
I also wonder if ^^^ what we are seeing here from Becky…… if maybe part of her thought, “hey, if Mr. Brown turns out to be just as awful and unsafe as my dad was, I might die saving Joyce today, and there are worse ways to go”.
I remember watching the movie “Signs” and being nonplussed by the way Gibson’s character switched his faith off and on. Something bad happened? God must not be real. It had a silver lining? Well then God must be real after all. Outside my head, he either exists or he doesn’t.
The only thing I remember about Signs is that some dumbass thought it’d be a good idea to make a movie where aliens to whom water is apparently toxic invade a planet whose surface is 75% water and where it routinely rains.
Like, it even would have worked if they, like, had a spacesuit, or something. If they had armor, and we couldn’t throw the water on them, until Baseball Guy smashed their visors in or whatever, and the aliens realizing we grasped tool use and tactics, is what made them leave. But, like all Shyamalan flicks, every single insipid random detail, is merely in service of the eventual twist.
Would they still do it if lava routinely fell from the sky, and planet’s inhabitants routinely threw lava at the lush green loveliness because lava is what the lush green loveliness needs to BE lush green loveliness?
Yep! We’d just engineer around it once we got there. Thermal power, special walkways and subterranean hides for lavafalls, etc. Wouldn’t even be that hard.
I mean, that movie also featured aliens who were allergic to water invading Earth, whose surface is over 70% water, so rational writing clearly wasn’t a priority there.
Becky needs hugs. Something Dina’s not well equipped to provide. I trust they will work this out. Amber is hearing all this. She’s a goblin who likes mess, but this is more consequences that she bargained for.
Dorothy and Joyce were rightly worried about how Becky would react but they let her walk away and jumped into bed. No wonder Becky thinks everyone has abandoned her.
This might not be in character for Dina, but what I want to happen next is Dina saying, “No,” and giving Becky a big hug. (I saw Andy’s comment above after I typed this.)
In my personal experience, autistic touch tends to swing directly from “this is uncomfortable” to “squeeze my soul back into my body”, so yes, great big hug here would not be out of place.
It wasn’t really the physical contact that I thought might be out of character, but that it would mean skipping the analysis and jumping right to the emotional solution.
Becky has abandonment issues. Her mother ended her own life, her father didn’t choose to die but chose his religious fantasist bullshit over her and blamed her for what happened. Now Joyce has “left” her. Oh also the girl she was into over in that Christian school she got expelled from cause she didn’t lock the door and got caught
She’s been hurt by people she cares about going away so many times, she assumes Dina will do the same. She doesn’t express her insecurities outwardly much, but in moments like this they come front and center
One hopes that IU has walk-in counseling services for students like my university did in the late 1990s, because this poor kid has issues that go beyond reacting to a friend’s changing romantic life.
I mean, I’m sure I’m just projecting (but hey it’s a comic, it’s okay if I do that), but like sexuality doesn’t mean you suddenly owe someone a date. Even if you’re friends. I identified lesbian as a teen, later coming out as bi/pan and the amount of men that acted like this was unreal. The amount of friends that gave me the silent treatment when I met my now partner was also bigger than 1. So yeah. I don’t like it. I don’t think your friend coming out means you get to have a break down. Joyce didn’t leave Becky. Joyce loves Becky.
You’re operating under the assumption that Becky thinks Joyce owes her anything, and I don’t think she does. Yes, Joyce loves Becky, but Becky is *in love* with Joyce, and has been her entire life. After she was rejected, she boxed up those feelings with the justification that Joyce was straight and so things couldn’t work between them anyway, but now that excuse is gone and Becky has to confront the real, raw truth that no, Joyce isn’t straight, but she isn’t gay for Becky – she’s gay for Dorothy, her new best friend, the one with whom she has formed a half-joking rivalry to paper over her extremely thinly papered-over anxieties about being replaced in Joyce’s life – anxieties that, now, seem to have been confirmed.
She wasn’t good enough for her mom to stick around – she killed herself. She wasn’t good enough for her dad to love her unconditionally – he died rather than accept who she was. She wasn’t good enough for Joyce to love her the way Becky loved her – she wanted Dorothy instead. And oh, now Dina is saying something that maybe vaguely implies she’s upset with Becky. May as well get it over with and let her walk away like everyone else does. Everything in Becky’s head is screaming that she’s worthless, that nobody needs her, that everyone will eventually abandon her and the things she hinged her self-worth and sanity on are not immutable and subject to change at anytime.
No, Joyce does not owe Becky her romantic love, but does that matter right now? What Becky is feeling is about so much more than just a crush.
I actually think Dina is the one that needs some assurance and reaffirmation. Because it took Dorothy kissing Joyce to shatter the belief in God for Becky, who had previously said DINA was her proof he existed.
It’s not really fair to expect Dina to instantly switch to “Take care of Becky’s hurt” and just swallow her own down.
They can take care of eachother, but Dina was not the subject of conversation.
If I’d been responding to a comment claiming Dina having the sads about this was evidence of some toxic ideology I obviously would’ve been more specific to her end of this.
@Perils: I want to gently draw attention to your wording on that last bit, because I don’t think you meant it this way, but “I don’t think your friend coming out means you get to have a breakdown” is a very uncharitable way of describing mental health crises.
You did not deserve the reactions you faced, and Joyce doesn’t deserve to be blamed for what’s happening right now with Becky, but just like Joyce coming to terms with her sexuality isn’t something she “did to” Becky, falling into a depressive spiral isn’t something Becky is “doing to” Joyce.
Addenda: I think we’re also forgetting, when we make this about “Joyce rejected Becky” or “Joyce came out”, that two of the things that trigger Becky especially badly are “people in general can change sexuality at all” and “my best friend is changing in ways I didn’t specifically anticipate”.
It’s not really about the SPECIFIC change, it’s about the twin fears of “Joyce is becoming someone I am not sure I know” and “if JOYCE can decide she likes girls, I could potentially decide I DON’T and that’d make everything different in some really nasty ways”.
I don’t even think this is a hot take. I’m not really seeing comments arguing that Joyce did anything *to* Becky or owed her anything. That’s also not what I read into Joyce & Dorothy’s concern about Becky finding out.
But sometimes things are about consequences, not fault. That Joyce could be gay for someone, just not Becky, was going to be a gut-punch to Becky. That doesn’t need to imply anybody thinks anybody did anything “wrong” to her.
There’s a lot of jokes about religion that I might normally make, but all of them fall apart when I see that face and that response.
I’ve been there. Or at least, somewhat near it.
She can’t change how she feels, she feels what she feels, and she knows that the fact that she can’t change those feelings is going to destroy everything. And she’s just trying to hold on until whatever happens, happens, and she can pick up the pieces after.
At least then Becky and Elliot from Questionable Content would finally be able to get together. (Or at least, they can as soon as Elliot becomes a lesbian.)
I believe that Becky is coming from a place of trauma, sorrow, shock, and self loathing here, and that is very tough. I sympathize greatly. That said:
Don’t do that, Becky. Don’t put the onus on Dina to “fix” or “end” this for you, without any explanation from you. This is not Dina’s fault. It is not her job to soothe OR leave Becky so Becky can have positive or negative closure. Dina deserves acknowledgment and a conversation which she seems to want. Not Becky avoiding the conversation and basically asking Dina to twist the knife. Dina deserves better from everyone, especially her girlfriend.
How much do you really sympathize if you are not capable of recognizing that Becky is not in a headspace to have a conversation like that right now? She needs to be brought down from her spiral first, and then she can talk.
Two things can be true at once: Becky is not doing this maliciously, and I do not actually hold it against her, because she clearly is in a bad headspace from the trauma, shock, etc.
Also true: Dina is not responsible for any of that, and it is very unfair to her—not consciously from Becky, but in terms of Dina’s emotions— to put her in the position of “well, I feel bad, so if you’re going to end our relationship, which would be sad for you and obviously hurt me more, just do it.”
I sympathize with Becky. That does not make this fair to Dina, or make it a good. Sympathizing with Becky and wanting these two to have a conversation and work this out, and agreeing with Becky’s behavior, are not the same. Just as I’m sympathetic to why Becky is taking this so hard, but also think that Becky actually has no real right to be upset/angry that her friend is in love with another woman. It sucks for Becky that Joyce loves another woman, and I sympathize with Becky’s shock and disappointment. That does not make response a good one.
It is certainly part of the reason Becky is upset, which is emotionally understandable. That does not change my point. At no point did I say that Becky needs a lecture on this, now or ever. At no point did I say that Dina needs to blatantly say any of this to Becky, now or ever. What I did say is that regardless of Becky’s legitimate reasons to feel the way she does, and deserve sympathy which I have for her, it is STILL not fair to Dina to put the burden of a breakup on her shoulders to validate Becky’s self loathing. Becky in this state is unquestionably not thinking logically. That totally makes sense. It is also true that Becky is being self destructive here, and foisting some of that on to Dina. And that is not fair to Dina. I can sympathize with Becky for how she feels, and what she’s going through; I can sympathize with Dina for being put in a sad and unfair situation through absolutely no fault of her own and want her to get to talk about it as she seems to want to, and find Becky’s behavior part of that, WHILE ALSO understanding that now is not the time to have a direct confrontation with Becky about it.
Dina is also Becky’s girlfriend? Like, I know this kind of shit gets kinda close to “romantic partner as a therapist”, I’m not saying Dina needs to FIX Becky but as her girlfriend (considering Becky is an ORPHAN and literally has NO FAMILY TO TALK TO) that I think Dina would be the exact person who is supposed to be there to support her? Becky isn’t saying “leave me damn it fuck you”, she’s terrified that admitting the Joyce thing hurts her means Dina will leave her. The best outcome of that imo is Dina reassuring her “I know you still had complicated feelings about Joyce. I’m still here for you”.
i mean, assuming it was a comphet marriage, even if she loved becky, she probably was a factor if she felt that she couldn’t just ‘escape’ the family by running away
People are very convinced Becky’s mom killed herself because she was a lesbian, but as far as I can tell you’re right and we’ve never seen any evidence of this.
Another situation where I think someone’s fantheory became “I think I remember…” canon.
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!
I am SHAKING IN MY boOOOTS
I can’t bear to watch… (T~T)
I originally (almost?) read this as “I am shaking in my boobs!”, which is a lot funnier.
Especially in this context.
Not “I’m shaking my boobs!” ? 🙂
I’m breasting boobily to the stairs and titting downwards!
I’m a guy and I can breast boobily down the stairs if I really put my mind to it. xD
So titillating!
I’m still amazed that breasting boobily is an actual quote.
I don’t think it is, it is a parody, written to criticize men writing women. As far as I can find, it isn’t an actual quote from a story, although it does sound like something Chuck Tingle would write.
Here’s the original source of “breasted boobily,” in case folks are curious:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/breasted-boobily
You know that part of a book or other media that you don’t want to continue because you feel it’s gonna break everything, but you continue in hope it gets better and by curiosity.
I’m there.
schrödinger’s god
i prefer how douglass addams put it
“Now, it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some have chosen to see it as the final proof of the NON-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:
“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that You exist, and so therefore, by Your own arguments, You don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
“Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. “
Dina would never
Fully agreed.
the one relationship in this that I have 100% faith in is Becky and Dina. ~<3
85 for Danny and Sal
100 for Walky and McNuggets
psht
He cheats with that taco place all the time.
They are in an ofpe arrangement.
Its not cheating if the nuggets agree and want pics.
I have tried asking urbandictionary and duckduckgo and I do not know what ofpe means
It means they share dipping sauces.
(Willis reads your post and laughs evilly)
I can see just one way it MIGHT happen…
Dina: “Becky. Do you love me?”
Becky: “Yes. Of course I do.”
Dina: “Do you love me more than you love Joyce?”
Becky: “…”
Dina: “…”
Becky: “… No.”
For the record, I am praying this DOESN’T happen.
I can’t see that happening, or if it did happen, Dina breaking it off with Becky solely because of it.
On the other hand, a funny continuation:
Becky: “But . . . Dina, do you love me?”
Dina: “Yes, of course.”
Becky: “Do you love me more than dinosaurs?”
Dina: . . .
Dina: . . .
Dina: . . .
Becky: “Well?”
Dina: “I am thinking very carefully about how to answer that!”
but this might open her eyes to the nuance of these things
Absolutely.
why not? everyone else does.
( u_u )
“I just know something BAD is going to happen…” T~T
Oof. That’s not a good sign.
Yeah, you better run, Willis.
You break up this couple and the comment section will never recover.
Theyve had their time.
Its the longest and most stable relationship romance relationship by far.
and it was on the rebound.
Willis is definitely going to break up Becky and Dina, but not stop there. Next on the chopping block are Danny and Sal, then Lucy and Jacob, and then everyone else except Dorothy and Joyce.
The rest of DoA’s 50-year run will alterrnate between everyone being miserable and alone and cold and hungry and failing academically, and Dorothy and Joyce either fucking or making lovey-dovey faces at each other.
Willis commands that in order compensate for the glorious slipshine there can now only be one happy couple!
He Giveth And He Taketh Away
Just sayin’, if it’s so glorious, it should be able to stand on its own, without requiring the destruction of everything else.
*cough*🇺🇲*cough*
So I finally shelled out for Slipshine because people rave about it and…
I genuinely don’t get what’s so great about it? It was weird, stilted, and one particular line in it was the grossest thing I’ve ever read. Delivered like it was super sexy.
Thankfully there are other comics on Slipshine so I can spend my month poking around, but Willis’ strip there really wasn’t worthwhile. I wouldn’t keep voluntarily reading them if they were free, let alone for money.
More power to people who enjoy it, glad you’re having a good time, but I do not get how.
Ngl you’ve got me morbidly curious now what ththat “grossest line” even was
Uuuuuuuuuuuuugh.
And weirdly, Dorothy and Joyce would constanly be still cheating everyone and their mamas.
Ok, but who gets the nickels?
There’s a fountain on Mike’s grave/columbarium for all of our mom’s nickels.
i’m just imagining driving by a normal graveyard, but gradually, you see this massive, silvery obelisk gradually riding up to the heavens somewhere in the field
i love it!
Delicious.
Worth it.
I’d be shocked if they actually split over this, but we’ll see
Well that’s an overreaction and a half
This feels like a very callous response to a character who is clearly spiraling into a depressive episode
Yeah, don’t be mean to cartoon characters! The way this comic handles time, depressive episodes may stretch out for years into the future. Think about that! It’s very serious.
For comparison, how long did Ruth’s depressive episode last?
IIRC, the readership was more worried about Billie, post breakup. We knew Ruth would be okay, ultimately. Or at least fine some sort of balance. Billifer? Not so much.
In real time, about three years. In comic book time, six minutes.
She’s doing the thing where she’s trying to find a logical pattern in an emotional response.
Its a completely understandable crash out.
Not to me. And I’m clearly not alone in that.
Then just be grateful that you don’t get crash outs like that. They suck.
And yeah, knowing intellectually that you shouldn’t makes it feel *worse*.
Trust me: I am grateful that I don’t get it.
agreed (and this from someone who often has… not a lot of patience with Becky)
I think this has brought up a lot of the trauma of being rejected by Joyce in the first place, because she no longer has the excuse of “Joyce is completely straight”.
The problem is that Becky’s sanity hinges too much on clear-cut explanations like “Joyce is straight and that’s the only reason we’re not together” and “sexual attraction is static and unchangeable”. These rigid beliefs don’t hold up to the dynamic reality of interpersonal relationships, and if she places too much emphasis on them, she’s set up to fall hard.
It’s her own can of fundie brainworms she has to deal with.
And has been dodging, refusing to acknowledge or look at, and is now having a harmful effect toward someone she cares about. Everyone crashing on Dina in this while Becky is over here holding a torch for a friend who said ‘I’m not into you’, which is uncool of Becky to do toward both Joyce and Dina. Feelings are one thing, but apparently Becky’s been indulging them this entire time, rather than carefully managing them.
Which, well, she’s a teen. So this kind of fuck up is natural and a great learning lesson. But it’s not one Dina has to accept either, if she doesn’t want to.
Ideally Becky would understand that her current feelings are inappropriate and learn to handle them maturely. This is a comic about kids making dumb choices and learning slowly while super hero shit sometimes happens but is also sometimes serious medical issues. So the ideal probably isn’t happening for a while.
Becky does not half ass emotional reactions.
Considering Becky’s history and trauma, her mother’s mental heath collapse, and some of the things she is saying and ways she is reacting, I find this very alarming behaviour and not something to dismiss, or judge.
If I saw this in a person, I’d be signposting them to some urgent care helplines because it’s a warning sign for the potential of severe self harm.
I highly recommend those who find Becky to be merely ‘annoying’ or ‘overreacting’ to take some free training on suicide prevention. It’s available from places like this:
https://www.zerosuicidealliance.com/suicide-awareness-training
Yeah, I know, it’s a comic character in this case – but comics can investigate very serious topics and raise discussion about them.
People who are on the brink are able to notice the impatience and negative judgement of others towards their emotions and it generally has the effect of confirming their isolation and pushing them further down the path of no return. Or else they learn to supress SHOWING or TALKING about the reality of the strength of emotions they are talking about so that noone can pick up on the signs and reach out and help them in time.
Becky is a comic character who cannot read the people who are looking down on her mental health struggles in these comments, but real life people with mental health issues can read and absorb this judgement and learn to fear it and close themself off. Anyway, once again, I reccomend the above training.
Gods, I wish there was a way to like or upvote comics, because this, all of this.
comments, not comics… bad brain weasels….
Thank you.
Thank you Holly. That was important to say.
Brilliantly laid out. But I’ve been told empathy is a cancer on humanity now, so…
fuck those guys. That is still brilliant and caring.
Good comment. The part about noticing the impatience and judgement is especially important.
That is a super important comment!
I’ve been im depression spirals similar to Becky’s and what got me to run to a hospital and commit myself was a YouTube gaming video where they were talking about depressive episodes. Never underestimate who’s on the other side reading, watching or listening. To me, depression is all about moments. One moment, one reaction, on action you witness can literally differentiate between life or death to a person with depression.
Becky is fictional and is probably the character I’m least like personality wise, but her depression and everything that adds to it that has happened is the one thing that I relate to the most in this comic. Its very real to some of us. And even if its all fictional, this moment with Joyce’s revelation is a moment that can and will change her life forever for better or worse. And the problem here is that its not really anyone’s fault. I’m hoping this leads to Becky getting the help she so desperately needs and that Dina (who I get feeling is the right person to recognize this) supports her.
I’m depressed and have slipped in and out of suicidal tendencies throughout the years, but thank you for the condescending explanation. Was really necessary to add that to my statement. Because I absolutely said “omg Becky you awful human being how dare you overreact!” and not just merely stated that she is overreacting
wow it’s almost like becky has serious self-esteem issues and a clinically-intense fear of abandonment
Ok thanks comment section for reminding me why I stopped commenting for months. Yall are the “oh so you hate waffles?” tweet personified. I said none of the stuff being interpreted into that statement
Becky 🙁
…Damn you, Willis.
He has upset Dina. That’s a capital crime.
not yet, but hes about to
Dina seems more concerned than upset.
Anyway with how the comments have gone thus far I think Imma head out for my own sanity. But I really feel awful for both of them.
I think don’t trust god is very obviously the takeaway here right?
The original format was God likes Lesbian relationships ( or close ) so Jorothy proves it.
God also likes Atheists, so this is Gods way of making becky atheist and Joyce queer.
Honestly, I think Atheist Becky has a better chance of becoming president than Dorothy ever would. Atheist Becky is untapped power and potential we have not yet witnessed.
If by “God” you mean “Willis”, then yes.
Who else did you have in mind?
MY BABIES
😭😭😭
Yikes
I can’t believe the day has come when I can say it again:
I like the current drama in QC more than in DoA.
I honestly prefer DoA to QC for pretty much those reasons, really. The plot is much faster paced here! And this is stupid and immature but this is the kind of stupid and immature I love seeing, becky is reeling from feeling “betrayed” and lashing out at everyone
It’s not even just the “kind” of stupid and immature, it’s that the QC characters are all Danny Glover at this point (too old for this shit).
Wait this comic has faster pacing??? How slow is QCs pacing????
It’s not SUPER slow, it’s just more that there’s no real measurable check of time other than the occasional timeskip. Like I don’t even know how long the major relationships were in QC since there were never any mentions of anniversaries or anything. Like the seasons change sometime?
Like it’s probably been like, years in-time since the start of the comic. But I have no idea how many.
Plus, like, QC is just not generally plot-focused. There are plots and arcs, but it feels like the day-to-day banter is the main thing that’s meant to be focused on, most of the time; DoA, at least from my perspective, puts plot more front and centre.
What is QC?
Questionable Content, which is currently showing flashbacks to the breakup between two other characters (which happened during a timeskip).
Plus there’s strain between Marten and Claire, with potential for a greasy wet breakup if that winds up going south (please go south please please please), which I understand isn’t a definitive breakup, but it’s possible.
I detect zero strain between Marten and Claire, though Liz may cause a misinterpretation hijink.
If Claire and Marten don’t break up soon, I’ll be genuinely surprised. Liz or no Liz, those two look like they’re on their way out the door.
Eh there have been some vibes regarding how overwhelmed and workaholic she is by the new job. I don’t think she’s doing anything wrong per se but also Marten has moved for her and mostly doesn’t have other friends in Cubetown so I don’t blame him if he’s thinking about going home. See the last two panels of #5672 lest you think this is all in my head.
Claire has been ignoring and back-burnering Marten for weeks or months, cancelling dates last minute and generally making it very clear the he is NOT a priority for her in any way, shape, or form. Someone less generally chill or specifically doormat-like in relationships than Marten would already have brought it up to her directly long ago.
She seems to have gotten a bit of a wake-up call with the hangover thing, but time will tell whether she actually tries for real work/life balance or just assumes ‘yeah I’ve been ignoring you sorry bout that’ I represents all the effort required from her on that point.
I mean, the text has been very clear that she has fully abandoned every other aspect of her life, to devote 110% of her total human attention and output to CubeTown, which is the exact thing that (IIRC) she felt afraid would happen before she really considered taking the job, and Marten pushed her into trying? And, now, Marten literally can’t get a minute with her, and feels like they’re drifting apart?
Claire doesn’t realize there is strain, and Marten is unwilling to admit that there is strain (until he’s blackout drunk), but characters being unaware of the strain doesn’t imply that it isn’t there.
How long until Raven gets a job doing science in CubeTown?
Oh heavens that poor CubeTown. :O
raven was eaten by the director
Nah, she’s out hunting the allosaurus that ate Sarah.
I mean, today this feels coincidentally like the same storyline.
….
do y’all know that Clinton is breaking with Elliott, right?
(what’s a time)
Broken up with.
I hear Joe and Walky are newly available.
Joe is still waiting for Joyce to come back for that conversation.
He may be waiting for a while
they might see each other next lunch, at the very least
Oh no
Do they still have biology class together?
Bold of you to assume Joyce and Dorothy won’t be skipping lunch in favor of ‘lunch’ at least until the honeymoon period is over.
The talk is tomorrow, for them. For us, it’s January ’26.
lol at this point they’re gonna graduate with walky having dated half the cast
We get this and the Clinton/Elliot breakup in the same few days…
Dina, you better go up there and cuddle your girl before she breaks further, she needs to feel loved right now.
Yeah, this was my thought. There’s a worry here that, even if Dina does manage to reassure Becky now, that we’re going to fall into a concerning grey area, where Becky’s going to constantly assume that Dina’s gonna break up with her in the way Elliot thinks Clinton was, regardless of what Dina says or does.
I’ve been there. It’s a dangerous spot in the relationship.
I am legit rooting for it– conflict gives me life in a way that’s hard to overstate, and Dina having an arc/focus gives me life.
is “hahaha YES” the right thing to say here?
Willis has been edging closer to giving these two some real dramatic conflict since the timeskip, so I’m glad to see it come to fruition here.
I still think these two are basically bulletproof, though. Rough waters, but they’ll come out the other side stronger for it.
I think the fact that you want character conflict and interpersonal drama storylines in a soap opera means you’re the only person in the comment section that makes any sense
A+. I’ve been trying to figure out how to articulate that sentiment for ages.
This is our Dumbing of Age Superbowl.
Well said
For real for real. I’m trying to figure out what it is, exactly, that some of the commentariat actually want out of the story. I think it’s possible to write a story without any sort of conflict, but those tend to be children’s books.
(To cut off any misunderstanding, I’m very pro Becky/Dina (and not just because I’m pro-F/F on general principle) and I agree that they’re bulletproof. But they’ve been heading for rough waters for a while now.)
Look, when the villain cuts off the hero’s arm, the “yes, yesss” part is there, but the healthy surface level reaction is “oh noooo”.
We’re all a part of the fiction.
But then there’s my kid with a Shanks Shrine and enough former one-armed favorites to make you wonder about healthy surface level reactions. (Grown kid, so it’s fine. Just an odd trope to keep falling into.)
I’d argue that good things feel good only in contrast to bad things. I don’t enjoy the conflicts themselves, no. But they are necessary for an emotional swing back up which I *will* enjoy.
Personally, I think of DoA as more of a slice of life than a soap opera. I would be perfectly happy with the comic just being the cast being cute and funny and romantic together without any big drama. I read a bunch of manga like that.
Dumbing of Age wouldn’t work without its dramatic soap opera elements. They’re the secret sauce. The central theme of this strip, expressed in its title, is that growing up is a process, and in the course of this process you are going to make some very stupid mistakes that you are going to regret later, but those mistakes are necessary to learn, grow, and mature. That’s going to create conflict, that’s going to create tension, that’s going to create drama.
But it’s never been that!
I think trying to puzzle out what the commentariat as a whole “wants” is always going to fail. Too many people with too many polar-opposite opinions and expectations.
Desiring characters in a story entertain you rather than simply be given everything they want because it’d be mean to do something else? In the DOA comments section! Impossible!
Stories are meant to make you feel things. A story without conflict is often boring, but if the writer is doing their job right, we’re still rooting for the good guys.
And rooting for them means we want them to not have the issues they’re having.
It’s like how hunger is a negative emotion and no one really wants to be hungry, but it makes food really really tasty.
There’s a few of us.
DON’T YOU DARE HURT DINA.
she might bounce back quicker than becky tho but hopefullyu they talk through it more
Shit.
Fuck fuck fuck! I ain’t ready for this conversation
Whoa whoa whoa back up now, where’s this coming from? Is this Becky assuming that since Joyce “left” her that means she thinks everyone will leave her?
Yeah, I think it’s happening. First her parents, then Joyce…it’s kind of sad really
Her parents did. (Yes, I know, there’s no rational way she’s to blame for any of it, but who the hell ever said depression was rational?)
She’s been spiraling ever since the newspaper and she’s now unable to hold the depressive thoughts back. They are in control of her mind for the moment and that’s making her lash out and catastrophize. To Becky right now, she’s clearly not worthy of love, so Dina expressing something that could be construed as discomfort over her still having feelings for Joyce is the plainest sign there could be that she’s about to get dumped.
And yes, there’s a factor of “everyone leaves me, might as well get this one over with” to it as well.
Hit the nail on the head, sadly. Hoping they get through this, but at this age with THIS much trauma that’s so hard to do.
Yes, her trauma response is very bad. Its bad for good reason considering EVERYTHING that happened to her, but its very bad.
She’s a person with abandonment issues, feeling like she’s being abandoned by another person, and having a bit of a breakdown and pushing people away because she thinks everyone leaving is inevitable (in this moment)
Not exactly a healthy reaction, but also not exactly a surprising one
Exactly.
I think that’s part of it, but my read of the line is more “I just said something really shitty to my girlfriend, and if she’s mad I’d rather she leave me now [while I already feel like shit] rather than later.”
Willis, don’t do this three days after Jeph broke up Clinton and Elliot. Especially since you wrote it a year ago and he wrote it last Tuesday.
The Clintelliot one was kind of on the wall, though it’s in a way that I can at least understand.
It was obviously coming to a head if he did not get his blatant anxiety addressed.
But like.
He could have got his blatant anxiety addressed.
That was always an option.
There was a series of strips where it seemed like he might get help, then there was a time skip, then we found out they had split up.
Havent seen them in so long I had to read it again to see who the hell they were!
Not off-screen, it wasn’t
The coincidence gets even weirder when you consider that this comment could’ve also been written about the Becky situation with just a pronoun change.
Living with someone with anxiety, I can say that for some people the thought of going through therapy is in itself highly anxiety-inducing… it’s not always simple.
Is Jeph really only a week ahead? I know probably nobody gets a year ahead like Willis, but when Jeph commented during the hiatus last year that he doesn’t go day-by-day without a buffer like he used to for years I figured he wasn’t just talking about one week lol.
I hadn’t even heard he stopped going day-by-day.
making comics is just really hard, actually.
like, I wanna clarify, I don’t mean this sarcastically. It’s a job that’s actually hard to do, requires several distinct skills to do well, and it’s time-consuming. If making a comic was easy, everybody would write one; hell, I’d probably have three!
whaaaaat
becky that is not how this works
tell that to [gestures at the timeline of her entire life]
On the one hand, breaking up Becky and Dina would be devastating, heartbreaking, nay, apocalyptic in the comment section
On the other hand it would bring my shoot-the-moon never-would-ever-happen stocks in ‘trans guy dina’ one millimeter closer, because if they’re already separate for other reasons, at least it won’t be over *that*To be clear, I would also be a little heartbroken
Ethan, I mean Elliott, I mean Becky…
That sounds like a reference to something, but I don’t know what. Which is a shame because it sounds hilarious.
I think the category is ‘webcomic characters self-destructing over something they should really have been in therapy for a long time ago’.
I’m not sure which Ethan is going through it right now, but Elliot is another web comic character whose breakup over personal anxiety is happening right now in Questionable Content, so I assume Ethan is similar.
I’m thinking, Ethan of DOA is depressed because his best friend Mike died.
Also, did Ethan and Danny “break up” before they ever started dating? I kinda feel like they did
Ethan in Control-Alt-Delete. Currently in a toxic dating arc with a manipulative girlfriend of Blaine-level despicability. Worth a read.
Dina’s about to be hurt by Becky’s overzealous words/reactions while Becky is spiraling down so hard I legit do not know how she’s gonna be moving forward.
I really hope Dina is able to parse through Becky’s reactions & not take it as literal, & I hope it fully clicks for Becky that she has Dina now; she found something better after Joyce rejected her with (what was at the time) a true statement & doesn’t throw it all away.
Becky wants Dina to leave. It’s easier for her than actually dealing with shit. I fear what happens when Dina says ‘I’m not’.
Becky does not want Dina to leave. Part of her believes that everyone leaves her in the end, and in her depression she’d rather have it happen now than later.
I had a similar conversation with my then-fiancee not long after she had a bit of a breakdown; she thought she was undeserving of love, and I’d leave just like all of her other boyfriends had. (FWIW, we’ve been together for something over 28 years now, so I think she’s past that these days…)
The risk here is in whether Dina has the experience to know Becky does not want her to leave, or whether (and this is a higher risk potentially due to autism) she takes Becky literally.
Fortunately, at least in today’s strip, Becky said “If yer gonna leave me”. That’s a very important “if”.
I think, if anything is most likely, it’s that Dina won’t know how to cope with the evidence-based reasoning as to why that “if” is a “no,” does absolutely nothing to change Becky’s mind, nor improve her mood; it could be especially bad, if Becky is so far gone, that she fully insists to Dina that she thinks Dina is just lying to her.
That said, Dina might just nail this anyway, because she’s an absolute rock star. But there’s a lot of ways Becky could react right now, where it would not be unexpected for the average person in Dina’s position, to take that reaction poorly.
Dina thinks differently than I do, but my reaction would be “why would I do that?”
TBH I wouldn’t be all that surprised if Dina opens with something like that.
Point of order: Joyce never told Becky she was straight. She told Becky she didn’t feel that way about her, and she implied she wasn’t a lesbian: both things that were and remain true.
This is an important detail, actually; Becky only heard that Joyce was straight, because to her, that was the only other option in her mind at the time besides “lesbian.”
Yeah, I know this is true and all, she didn’t actually say it to Becky, but I think we may be emphasizing this too much. Fundie Joyce back early in the first semester wasn’t hedging about really being bi or something. She didn’t say the words “I’m not attracted to girls”, but she would have if she’d been pushed into it. She meant it.
Look, I am NOT saying Joyce was deliberately leaving the door open for being bi. Of course she wasn’t, she definitely did think she was straight,
But I am replying to this:
after Joyce rejected her with (what was at the time) a true statement
by pointing out that the specifics of what little Joyce said at the time are actually STILL true. She did not directly claim to be straight, so it’s not that she lied to Becky — either in the moment or in retrospect.
(Probably folks are remembering this strip: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/foranybody/
But Becky isn’t present here, she didn’t hear Joyce say this or anything like it, so Joyce did not, in fact, “lie” to Becky, even unconsciously.)
Also as they walked away after that conversation Joyce strongly implied she had a crush on Dorothy, or at least didn’t argue against her being referred to as her crush.
Didn’t argue because she read it as just Becky teasing, not because she was already aware that she was crushing on Dorothy.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo
Hold on a sec, the Buffer watch currently reads August 28, 2026 but the side bar bluesky feed thing has a panel from a strip due to appear on three days later on August 31. Where are the strips for the 29th and 30th? Does Willis work on them out of order or in short batches of strips? Or, God forbid, did he forget to update the holy buffer watch?
Buffer is probably automatic, but Willis doesn’t upload the comics to the server immediately after drawing them. It’s why the buffer jumps.
he sometimes works on them out of order, yes
Dina clearly has some stuff going on in her head which is hurting, but Becky’s completely lost it.
I hope they both get out of this okay I’m so worried for themmmmm
Oh, Becky. Becky Becky Becky…
GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF.
Yes, I know: “The heart wants what it wants” and “I can’t tell someone how to feel.” But what you are telling Dina right now is that your heart was never truly hers. That you were using her to plug the Joyce-shaped hole in your heart. She deserves better and so do you.
And really: What’s changed? Yeah, Joyce likes girls? Or maybe she likes THAT girl. Either way, you were never an option. You were Joyce’s best friend, not her lover. And right now? You’re risking alienating your actual lover, moping over What Might Have Been.
Maybe this is a “You Just Don’t Get It” scenario. Maybe I’m MASSIVELY jumping the gun as to how this is going to shake out. But right here? Right now? Girl, no!
(Oh and “Damn you, Willis.”)
Thank you for pulling that grenade so I do not have the endure the slings and arrows of outrageous replies.
You brave soldier.
Lmao people are so dramatic about being disagreed with. This is the second day in a row someone used the phrase “slings and arrows” to describe it.
Sorry not in a row, there was a day between them. But twice in a week is still so funny.
Buncha fuckin’ insecure martyrs around here. “Oh god, there’s even a 0.000000001% chance something I said might get a mildly negative response! Oh, this must be exactly how people feel when they’re being stoned to death!” Like settle down, goddamn.
This is the shit I was referring to to a T. People that make up ad hominem bullshit about people they don’t even know.
It’s not an ad hominem, get a grip.
The irony that I wrote about how the comments section eats their own and then the next few replies are taking my joke seriously.
Sure, just accuse people of cannibalism for disagreeing with you. That’ll win you a lot of favor.
OK, first, we don’t eat our own, we eat our *young*.
And second: …nah, I’ve got nothing.
SillyGoose, don’t go just telling people about the potluck. That’s not for everyone, especially narcs.
You have posted multiple comments today asserting that Joyce may be literally only attracted to one woman but is otherwise straight. Extremely biphobic thing to do. Putting that aside, your complete inability to comprehend why Becky is upset shows an astounding lack of empathy
Wouldn’t be the DoA comment section without thermonuclear takes being slung left and right.
Eat a fucking roast beef sandwich about it.
Mmm. Roast beef.
I don’t think that Joyce is otherwise straight, but I’m not clear why admitting it as a possibility is necessarily biphobic.
Because even if Joyce is only ever attracted to one girl in her entire life, she’s still bi, not straight.
Like the issue is very much “calling Joyce straight” and “saying she might not ‘really’ be bi” or “saying she’s not ‘fully’ bi”.
It’s not the concept of Joyce being more frequently attracted to boys but of saying Joyce is only attracted to one girl, and therefore still straight in any capacity.
File this under “things to absolutely never ever say to someone who is suicidally depressed.”
Abso-fucking-lutely.
you’re right, there’s no way the catastrophically-traumatized person might have an inappropriate emotional reaction to one of their specific traumas being triggered, in a very intimate way, and there’s certainly no way such a person might have an out-sized emotional response to that.
like, shit, how dare the mentally-ill teenagers…be mentally ill. they should be acting saner. doesn’t she know her feelings aren’t logical?
jeez damn is it breakup season in webcomic city or what
Ah just got here from Clinton/Elliot aftermath huh? Any other ones I should be aware of?
nah that’s the one that came to mind
I’m still upset about that one.
It feels like it’s out of the blue since we haven’t seen them in so long. I know it’s getting a flashback but it still feels weird.
to be fair, it’s one of the most real and believable relationship outcomes Jeph has ever wrote. Elliot is actually an anchor of a man to be in a relationship with: he’ll drag you under while you’re trying to save him.
I guess. It’s just weird since it’s been so long. Feels like it was set up to be more of a thing back near the start then dropped along with the characters only to be resurrected in flashback
I just figure he realized there wasn’t anything that interesting for him to mine out of the pairing; like, in particular, he may have realized quickly that “oh, every strip I write for Clinton and Elliot, after their honeymoon phase, can only be about one thing,” and that one thing is what is being demonstrated thoroughly in the brief flashbacks.
I don’t think this is heading towards a breakup. I think Dina is just trying to make actual sense of what’s happening to Becky beyond jealousy.
Becky, Becky I need you to calm down. You’re going into a downward spiral, do not self destruct over this.
This isn’t a good response
This isn’t a healthy response
This also isnt a surprising response
since “yes” or “no” might be ambiguous in this context, I will respond to all three with “correct” (IMO).
Now this I understand (and co-sign).
thank you for getting a concept that 75% of the readers seem oblivious to.
I really think this is a self worth thing more than a “I wish I was dating Joyce” thing.
She thinks the fact that Joyce likes women, but doesn’t like her specifically, means she’s “not good enough” for Joyce. Joyce has found her unworthy of love.
This casts into doubt the previous affirmation she got from Dina loving her. “Surely it’s only a matter of time before Dina sees what’s wrong with me and moves to greener pastures”
I also saw it this way.
Becky.
YES A NEW HATE MAGNET APPEARS
THE COMMENTATI FEASTS ONCE MORE
Hate magnets? A stretch goal in the next Kickstarter?
Eyeing the RL calendar.
Eyeing this old strip: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/03-see-you-in-the-funny-page/unforeseen/
Willis, I swear to God and/or I swear to absence of God………….
another rare instance of Walky being the smartest main cast character in the whole comic
Oh becky, honey. College is a terrible time to run up against emotional pains you’ve never run into before, and she’s kind of picked up. All of them possible? Everything but a pregnancy scare or failing a class. I don’t blame her for this being the major straw.
I think Becky needs some help. I’m sure therapy is the answer cause that’s often referenced as the go to fix for psychological issues, but Becky needs something. She often reverts to this doomer mindset whenever something even slightly outside her expectations happen.
I would say she resorts to compartmentalization and deflection, not a doomer mindset. Rather similar to Walky actually.
Now this is some tasty drama!
(Not worried; I have faith (lol) that they’ll make it through this.)
Oh sweetie… no. You’ll be okay.
Damn it. Fictional characters.
“But if you wanna leave you can. I’ll remember you, though. I remember everyone who leaves”
(points to first one who knows what that’s from)
… Lilo and Stitch?
:3 Yep.
My favorite Disney Movie.
It’s a pretty good one. I don’t think it’s my top one but it’s up there.
I go back and forth on my favourite one but I think right now it’s Brother Bear.
I need to rewatch that one. Haven’t seen it as an adult.
I don’t wanna trade one sailing Sapphic ship to sink another!
Well unfortunately if everyone got what they wanted all the time not only would it not be unrealistic but there wouldn’t be any stakes.
One the plus side if Dina does leave Becky, I really like her size difference and physicality with Joe. It’s one of my crack ships! Let’s go Dina x Joe! There’s a chance we can get that rolling!
its a GOOD crack ship
Okay but consider MY crackship: Dina/Asma.
I’d never want Becky and Dina to break up. But that would be the best of a bad situation.
Commentariat: The sapphic relationship between the former fundie turned atheist and the lifelong atheist should end so that Joe can once again have a girlfriend who at one point he denied attraction to yet makes him blush!
Monkey paw: *curls a finger*
Becky or no Becky, the Empress of Evolution is strong and has my eternal oath ;-;
I think that would be an interesting route for them, if unlikely.
[Before anything, I want to be clear that I understand this thought could probably not be made canon-compliant]
The idea of Joe/Dina as an ace couple, Joe having realized that he was actually in a state of compulsory allosexuality*, is very intriguing to me.
*I have not seen this phrase used before but I feel like it must exist, and is probably more common in aces by percentage than comp het in gays.
inb4 anyone else calls this lesbophobic: Dina is bi and gray-ace, not a lesbian.
I mean Dina herself said sex with Joe is a possibility for her in the scene that is the main I even ship them at all.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/tedium/
Yeah, I was just skimming comments from the past few days and found someone replying to me to state that saying “I ship Dina and Joe” (and nothing else! just saying you ship them!) is “violently lesbophobic rhetoric”, so. Wanted to be here in your replies, heading that nonsense off at the pass.
someone above mentioned transmasc Dina, but frankly, it’s shit like this that proves Dina would be hot in Every Gender.
That was me, pushing my Gay Agenda
“Meanwhile, other responses”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/reallearning/
i feel like she and joe are more sibling like but i suppose it would be interesting for joe to date someone more ace leaning
We’re finally getting drama and it’s from a relationship that wasn’t involved with cheating!
Nah, Dina’s been fuckin’ like four people a week since winter break started.
awesome
She’s been busy busy busy, and Becky doesn’t know about any of it.
It’s a comparative blind study. It would be ruin the science to inform the participants.
yet!
I hope Dina is at least understanding. Your first crush is always special, and while she had (probably) moved on from Joyce, the surrounding context makes it sting quite a bit. I guess it depends on whether this changes their relationship
In a few chapters’ time the title is “I’m feeling very RARR! today” or similar. I accidentally saw it when I binged read DOA a coupla months ago and it’s made me worried for this moment ever since. Other people seem to have confidence in Becky and Dina being able to pull through, but I am scared they won’t – and they’re the ones I really want to pull through 😞
Point of order – the title is “What a RARR! Mood I’m In.” This is a pun on a lyric from Almost Like Being in Love by Nat King Cole, which is an upbeat and bombastic song about the joys of falling in love.
here’s to hoping that implies “I’m excited to learn more about how to love my clinically-depressed girlfriend,” then
NOOO NOT THE TERRIBLE LIZBIANS!
Becky <3
Dina <3
That is all
I feel like Dina will give Becky some time to process before definitively breaking up or staying together. Like, I think she can tell that Becky hadn’t realized that contrast until she (Dina) pointed it out, and that she probably didn’t intend it that way.
The only place Dina’s going is to wait outside Joyce’s room so that she can pounce upon either Joyce or Dorothy when they’re at their most vulnerable.
Yes, physical violence against innocent people will definitely make things better. That’s very in-character for Dina. /s
I mean, it would be in character, but Joyce has only emotionally hurt Becky, not stated incorrect things about dinosaurs.
Remember that whole “you’re probably her rebound” thing Sarah said like a decade ago?
Well,
What is it with Willis making Dina the rebound girl to someone lusting after Joyce specifically…
https://www.itswalky.com/comic/too-much-beer/
i really hope Dina doesn’t get exploded again
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/riddles/
Disastrous foreshadowing. Millions sad. More news at 11:09.
Oh wow *literally* nearly ten years ago, in like three months. I pulled that number at random.
(I was thinking about that strip while reading this one. Dina already thinks of herself as Becky’s rebound, and didn’t break up with Becky despite it, so this is in itself nothing new for Dina, except that she’s talking with Becky about it for perhaps the first time. While Dina’s been thinking of herself as Becky’s rebound, and whether or not Becky’s thought of Dina that way (consciously and/or subconsciously), plausibly Becky hasn’t guessed that Dina has thought of herself that way. I semi-hopefully speculate that perhaps Becky feeling both touched and guilty about how Dina’s been thinking of the situation will help pull her mind off Joyce a little, but realistically rather than having concrete hope in one specific development path I will pay attention to and savour all words and behaviour related to Dina’s thought processes (which in all their forms have been a joy throughout).)
It seems in that comic Willis admitted that the only way Dina can get a date in any universe is if the person she fancies is on a rebound. (Walky in the Walkyverse, Becky in the Dumbingverse)
Oh God…she really is gonna date Joe, isn’t she?!
it would be interesting to see who they’d both date next but id think after this they’d wanna be single for a while
I’m hoping the DoA Dina can reason that Becky’s feelings for her, while completely true, still don’t hold a candle to her years-long crush on Joyce, and it might take YEARS for her to truly get over it. The Walkyverse Dina didn’t take being second-best to Joyce well at all, and, well, it caused a series of events that led her to get blown up/sent years into the future.
https://www.itswalky.com/comic/you-dont-think-that-anymore/
I’m SO sorry for how these things are going….
But I am kind of relieved that these things are finally out in the open.
I would’ve expected her to maybe befriend a coworker but other than sydney i guess there’s ken , and also lucy as a church buddy but idk how much she knws about her and joyce
Becky’s pain is absolutely understandable, relatable, and also entirely in her own head. No one did anything to her. If anything, the hoops Joyce and Dorothy were willing to go to protect Becky – while either minimizing or mocking the people they were dating has just enabled Becky’s self-pity spiral. Becky has to deal with the fact that someone who never expressed interest in her romantically still has no romantic feelings for her. That’s not nothing. But it’s also much less significant than what has occurred to Joe or Walky, who have both echoed “it’s a me problem, not a them problem” to a rather grotesque degree.
I am most interested to see how Dina responds to all of this. Not just in terms of Becky, but in terms of Joe, who seems not insignifcant to her.
Someone had said that Joyce’s inner romantic has re-arranged her story to make herself believe she was ALWAYS madly in love with Dorothy, and I think that point in particular has shattered Becky’s heart. No doubt Joyce was swept up in the heat of the moment in seeing her best friend confess her love and then nearly get horribly injured by the police, and that caused her feelings for Dorothy to intensify into romantic feelings, but telling Becky that she was ALWAYS in love with Dotty since the moment they first met confirmed everything Becky was fearing and Dina having a simple heart to heart conversation with Becks isn’t going to mend her heart instantly.
I will say that Dina is right in flat out punching Joyce the next time she sees her, not just in that she broke Becky’s heart but she’s still stringing Joe along while telling Dorothy that she wants her and no one else…
It’s always you with the punching. Genuinely weird take to keep repeating so often
It’s not even VALID reasons for punching. Like, if they wanted to punch Ross or Blaine or whatever, that’s one thing, but punching Joyce for not putting her lovelife on hold just so Becky, who ISN’T part of that lovelife, can feel good about herself is wild shit.
My headcanon: Corey C. is an aspiring boxing coach and trying to figure out which characters to recruit.
I’m reminded of a very difficult situation I had that tainted an otherwise good friendship. I had an ex from many years past, and we had always stayed close. Timing had just never really been on our side but we cared for each other. She ended up single for the first time in years. I didn’t really think too much of it, as I was already married by then. After a short time she started dating someone and hid it from me, and even eventually lied to me about it as she was afraid her dating someone would somehow upset me – which was super weird as I was only on board platonically. her lying to me about her dating someone and trying to hide it from me ended up completely damaging our friendship – it crossed boundaries that were important, broke my ability to trust her, and led to a lot of confusion and added a lot of short term stress to my marriage. Hence my deep dislike of what Joyce and Dorothy have done here. By prioritizing Becky’s response they have validated a lot of super toxic behavior – both their own and hers. And doing it while being pretty callous (to varying degrees) about their actual pre-existing partners… it’s super unlikeable.
You can owe people courtesy and consideration in certain circumstances – this really is not one of them. Becky needs to reign this in, and Joyce and Dorothy should not have bothered validating her jealous/self-centered response
I mean, suplexing works too, as Ruth has done to so many characters, but I don’t think Dina has the strength for that.
I used to really dislike Becky when she first appeared, but she’s grown on me a lot and is one of my favorite characters now. That said, she really needs new friends. I don’t think Becky has anyone she can be completely honest with without fear of driving them away. Those relationships are important.
I mean, if Becky got new friends, those would immediately become the people who she can no longer be completely honest with, because she would be afraid of driving them away. It’s not a Becky’s Friends problem, it’s a Becky problem.
I would’ve expected her to maybe befriend a coworker but other than sydney i guess there’s ken , and also lucy as a church buddy but idk how much she knws about her and joyce
if this is what eventually leads joe to dina, that’d be interesting
I think Joe/Dina is interesting, and I wouldn’t at all be opposed to it, but just like how Joyce/Dorothy is ruined for some people due to how it got started, I feel like Joe/Dina would be likewise tainted for me if it was a rebound from this whole protest-kiss relationship implosion.
Maybe it should happen in better circumstances but I’m not opposed to Becky and Dina breaking up. The rest of the cast gets to play relationship musical chairs, they should too. Only problem is I don’t know who’d be a good partner for Becky.
man this run has been a real downer.
Honestly, it’s probably not great to see your partner so hung up over someone else – A theoretical “one who got away” – While you’re sitting right there like “What am I, chopped liver?”
But if there’s anyone who’s not going to have a knee-jerk reaction to basically being told “If I could have been with her, there’s no way I would have ended up with you”, it’s Dina.
And honestly, it’d kind of be a totally fair knee-jerk reaction for anyone to have in this situation. Becky’s being a little too up her own rear right now to really realize just how horrible of a thing that is to say or even imply to Dina, especially in such an utterly inelegant way. Becky’s gone into full-on losing-her-got-dang-dookie meltdown over this.
Like it’d be one thing if she was bummed/sulky and when Dina asked, she calmly (or as calmly as possible, anyway) admitted to feeling some annoyingly strong inner turmoil over the whole situation and reassured Dina that despite that, she still cares about her and their relationship.
But, y’know, these are a bunch of college kids, not even out of high school a full year by this point (for the freshmen, anyway). And in Becky’s case, she’s especially had a tumultuous life overall and past year specifically. So, you can’t really expect her to be a pillar of emotional maturity.
Nevertheless, as I said above – If there’s *anyone* in this cast who would not only hear their partner out on this sort of thing, but also truly attempt to sympathize with them and not take things personally, it’d be Dina.
The real question comes down to whether or not after the dust settles, Dina reflects on whether Becky’s always going to be hung up over Joyce, and if any partner Becky has is always just going to be a placeholder in Becky’s mind.
After this upwelling of emotions passes, I strongly do think that Becky will need to demonstrate some sort of willingness to do something about her unhealthy fixation on Joyce. Dina’s not just going to coldly toss Becky aside in a moment of heightened emotional stress, but she’s also no fool and not going to want to spend her whole life wondering if Becky’s just going to try to romance Joyce, should Joyce and Dorothy should ever break up – Like, the literal second that Joyce becomes available.
Without being a complete doormat, Dina’s going to be there for Becky through this. But Becky had better get this sort of fixation on Joyce sorted sooner rather than later. Not just to fix any potential damage to her relationship with Dina, but for any future relationships with literally anyone else, should this all prove too frustrating for Dina to continue to tolerate.
Oh yeah – To tie it all back to the “If I could have been with her, there’s no way I would have ended up with you”:
I really hope Becky has the realization that brings that mentality back around to the point of “I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be with you if I had been able to get into a relationship with her. I would have missed out on all of this wonderfulness”
Oh yeah, it’s the inevitable Dina – Becky break up / meltdown we’ve all been waiting for! With a bit of luck, the Danny – Sal relationship will become collateral damage in the process, leaving every(?) longer running relationship in smoking (Sal!) ruins.
Or, as it’s otherwise known, a college Tuesday.
Damn you, Willis! You enjoy tormenting us!
How would Dina and Becky breaking up affect Sal and Danny? I don’t think the four of them have even been in the same room at once post-timeskip.
Now Dorothy’s actions MIGHT affect Danny and Sal, given Walky is Sal’s brother and Danny and Dorothy used to date, but Danny doesn’t seem to be holding a candle for Dorothy at all and Walky’s too far in denial to admit Dotty breaking up with him a second time, despite being the one who wanted to get back together in the first place just a few days earlier, affected him whatsoever. He’s not even admitting it to Billie, his oldest friend, and he and Sal aren’t really as close as he is with Billie…
Well…Walky dating Ethan could certainly do some damage to Sal and Danny.
Why Sal? It’s not like she’s currently threatening Ethan with a knife.
It would have a double effect on Danny.
1. Here is Walky dating YET ANOTHER PERSON in his romantic past.
2. While he’s happy with Sal, there may be misplaced annoyance of the above that could be read as unresolved feelings about or of Ethan brought to the fore while simultaneously opening in-roads to Sal and Asher. We have yet to see what if ANY conflict might bubble up between Sal and Danny, these could be it.
I’m not saying Sal and Danny will cheat on each other, just guessing how far reaching Dorothy and Joyce’s relationship hits everyone else in blast radius.
This seems like a huge stretch. First, Ethan than Asher would have to break up. Then, Walky would have to realize he’s not straight. Then, he and Ethan would have to get together somehow even though they barely interact and have shown no chemistry when they do. It would make a lot more sense for him to get together with Asher. Then Danny would have to be so bothered by this relationship, even though he’s barely thought or interacted with Ethan since the timeskip and doesn’t seem to care about his current relationship that he blows up his own relationship with Sal.
I really don’t think it’s going to happen, and even if it did, there are so many intermediate steps and weird character takes to make it happen that you could barely call it a result of Joyrothy anymore.
Why do Ethan and Asher have to break up?
To fulfill the prophecy, of course.
Ethan and Asher can just double team Walky’s sadness right out of him. There’s no reason they have to break up.
Also, what you’re describing there is years worth of writing in a very relatable arc for a character who could use some more focus on his interiority. Realizing he’s into men, getting close to Ethan and Asher (and Joe, let me dream). Falling into bed with them, etcetc.
Oh crud. I mean, it will take more than that to push Dina away. The question is how deep into the pit of despair is Becky.
I don’t think Dina’s gonna leave Becky. She just seems confused at how Becky’s religious beliefs work. And as another atheist who’s never been very religious, I can relate to that.
The puppy has been kicked one time too many ^^u Don’t worry, Dina is there.
I think Becky isn’t just reeling because of Joyce being in love with Dorothy. I think it’s also because Becky’s queer-realization was her 1) not getting to be with the 1st person she fell in love with, 2) losing her family over it, 3) losing her living situation over it, 4) nearly losing her life over it. Joyce got to keep all of those, she got to be with the first girl she fell in love with, her dad’s response amounted to a shrug, she gets to keep her same life, and no one is in danger over it. It’s not *just* “why couldn’t Joyce have been in loved with me,” it’s “why me” on multiple levels
“I guess living life just being gay comes easier for other people,” is a interesting angle to explore.
Now Becky and Dina both have something in their lives that was an enormous struggle for them that Joyce got more or less handed to her without much difficulty. Not Joyce’s fault, of course, but it must seem so cosmically unfair.
She’s also still reeling from the double whammy of learning that people’s sexuality can change over time in some cases, which lead to suicidal ideation on her part, and really knocked her for a loop – which piled on to the stress that she’s already experienced thanks to everything you’ve already mentioned, and which lead to Dina experimenting with her gender presentation to try to help Becky work through those issues. Learning about Joyce and Dorothy as well as Hank being mostly fine with everything was YET ANOTHER stressor on someone who is already dealing with far too much stress – and Becky is in a VERY dark place because of it. Hopefully Dina can get her through her current depressive episode and keep her from trying anything long enough for her to get into therapy and work through all these issues that she’s been burying up until this point (and which are now bubbling through and taking her to a very dark place).
…OK, I was thinking Becky needed to get the fuck over herself but you’re right on all these things. it’s not about joyce herself.
10/10 analysis. There is so much more to explore within Becky’s POV since its literally been just a year of her life falling apart and her needing to build herself back up.
Becky is sad because Joyce cheated on her with Dorothy, and Joe… and even Walky.
No, that would imply they were partners. The word you’re looking for is “rejected.” Joyce rejected Becky. And really usure what the Walky thing is, because Walky and Joyce didn’t hook up. Walky basically got the same treatment as Joe, except he got laid.
Legit Question: Where are, geographically speaking, Dorothy and Joyce doing their Slipshine deed? Because I think Joe and Sarah are in Joyce’s room and I think Becky is in her room, judging by the persepolis poster on the wall (isn’t she Dorothy’s roommate?)
The only reason I ask is because, it makes it extra shitty (for Becky) that she feels this way about Joyce/Dorothy while they’re getting down next door. (And no, I’m not bashing those two for getting it on, I’m just saying it sucks.)
Joe and Sarah are in Joe’s room. Joyce and Dorothy are in Joyce’s room 33 steps down the hall.
You’re right! I thought they Joe and Sarah were in Joyce’s room, but they’re not (I got confused).
That said, I hope they have the courtesy to keep the volume down, because Becky does not need to hear them right now getting their freak on.
I know it was a joke in the comic, and not really supposed to be thought all that deeply about, but the idea of Becki being just down the hall and having the newspaper be a replacement for a sock on the door to Joyce’s room makes it seem really mean spirited.
I didn’t think of that, but yeah in context it comes off as a little thoughtless when the rooms are so close.
Dina deserves a better partner than someone who loves a third party more than her.
What Dina deserves is her decision.
No it’s Willis’ decision, Dina is just a collection of semiotic symbols used to convey ideas to the reader.
Oh no, she is spiralling…
NO
no no NO Becky.
and don’t you dare answer “…do you really want me to ?” Dina. Be a bit assertive on this.
Congratulations, Joyce!
Hope y’r happy.
She’s very happy right now, thanks! And she doesn’t owe Becky control over her love life, no matter how it makes Becky feel.
Besides, Becky had it comi
ng for spending the money on a haircut.
I’ll gladly toss Joyce/Dorothy out of the window if it keeps Dina/Becky around.
I agree, but in reverse.
You’ll toss them in the window?
Refenestration?
Credit where credit is due, Willis, this is the storyline that has made me relate to and appreciate Becky more than any other.
I’ve struggled with borderline personality disorder for most of my adult life. It complicates my ability to form and maintain healthy relationships. I have a crippling fear of abandonment, and when I’m spiraling every little thing someone says to me registers as a sign that they are about to leave me, and sometimes it’s a struggle not to just yell at them to just get it over with. And when rejection actually occurs, it shatters me. I go lower than you can imagine, and it’s all I can do to stop the voices in my head that are telling me that I am completely, utterly worthless and undeserving of love or consideration from driving me to doing something terrible. These are not rational responses to stimuli, but they happen anyway, and despite working on managing them for years, it’s still a struggle.
Becky is not pouting. She is not throwing a fit. She is in the middle of a deep, depressive spiral which is especially alarming given her family history of suicidal depression. She does not need to “get over herself,” she does not need to buck up, she needs professional assistance and the engagement of her support system. I am genuinely shocked and appalled by the lack of empathy for her being displayed in some of the comments under this strip. I don’t think some of you can be trusted around depressed or suicidal people.
If I could thumb’s up a comment, I would. I get it, people find Becky annoying, but this isn’t a tantrum. This isn’t Becky being an unreasonable bongo or rude, this is a mental health crisis.
*sending faraway hugs*
I agree Dot. There are shocking amounts of callous comments.
I mean, depressed people can be annoying and hurtful and need to get over themselves, whilst also VERY much deserving support and professional help.
This is certainly true; however, the fact that some specific people choose to focus on and criticize the former detail first, and fully exclude the second detail, says a lot about where their values and priorities lie, and how caring they actually are.
Dot – No one could have put this better.
This website has been full of unsafe people for a long, long time. If you’re actually experiencing depression, mental illness, suicidal thoughts, or a variety of neurodivergence that isn’t TV-quirky enough, at least half of the people here genuinely can’t be trusted not to try making your situation worse by belittling, berating, and otherwise putting you down.
You know who you are.
Just so you know this, you actually were one of those people for me one time, saying some stuff to me that really make me spiral and almost got to wrote to you some very explicit and disturbing stuff about hurting myself. Luckily i managed to think it through before actually pressing send. I don’t type this to accuse you or deflect your point, just as a reminder that we all could be a little kinder.
Man, I’ll do you one better and say you AND Taffy were both on my “don’t interact with this JERK” list for a while, because you yourself toss off the occasional nasty one-liner. (and so do I).
Ok since we are here and in a relatively neutral emotional state, what the hell do you mean with this “one liner” stuff?! I am being genuine, i have no idea what is it you are talking about, but you had bringing up multiple times and it is starting to bug me.
You have a tendency, and I have noticed this as well, to comment on posts with short responses that aren’t very substantial but come off as having a ridiculing, dismissive, or rude tone.
Ok, well at least now i know what you mean with that. Not much i can do about it, this is just how i talk sometimes. I don’t always fell like doing a whole paragraph about why i disagree with someone or think what they say it’s weird.
I mean, sure, but a bare “what the fuck are you talking about” to something that is perfectly clear that you just don’t like is gonna come off as rude as hell at best.
If all you have to say to someone is that you disagree with them, there’s not much point in replying, though.
Big Z: I mean it wasn’t perfectly clear to me, that is why i asked. The what the hell wad to emphasize my confusion about the whole thing.
Dot: With that logic there isn’t much point to replying to anything with anything. I just don’t see eye to eye with you on this, that is fine with me. 🤷
@nadamás, at least to me, the gulf between “what the fuck are you talking about” and something like “can you clarify that” is big enough to drive Becky’s current emotional pain through without scraping the sides. The former is almost never going to come across as “honest lack of understanding” in text without any tone, and IMHO pretty much always reads as “I disagree with you so hard that I am going to pretend it’s confusing in order to further dunk on your idea”.
I am sorry i guess for not thinking about any of this when i made my comment? These stuff simply don’t go through my head. I was not pretending i was confused i was genuinely confused. You can have taking it the wrong way because of the words i used but i clarified as much as i can that i meant what i say honestly. I don’t know what else to say here.
I mean, I figured we’re discussing people who push our buttons sometimes, figured I’d let you know because 95% of your posts are good stuff.
I wasn’t really looking to fuscuss that no. Dorry if i said something that give the wrong impression and turned into this whole confusing conversation (at least it was confusing for me).
Snd i srgue in my defense, i don’t think i have that tone any more often that most people here. And reading tone from text can be very difficult, so some might mistake shortest of the sentence with rudeness. I am sure sometimes i am not the best person, especially when i am stressed out or mad, so i apologize for that if i was.
I used to have so much anxiety around you in the comment section. Whenever I interacted, I would be stressed even before you responded. The day before you took a break for a while, I remember replying to you and then having to do breathing exercises when thinking about it later. Luckily, when you came back after a month or so, I no longer felt so anxious. I did recognize you under the new name by going, “Oh, it’s that person I mostly agree with who is really mean.”
Sorry i guess for making you fell that way? I can’t really recall any particular interaction with you, but i mean it. If it makes you fell better i really not a scary person irl in the slightest, i am just some random loser that still live his parents and drop out of school. I don’t you should care about any of what might say to you.
And also honestly i grt you, i also get unreasonable anxious about talking with some people here, when i think they gonna have a negative reaction to something unexpectedly. Right now i am trying my best to just ignore them altogether.
Fair enough. I’m assuming part of it was that time I said you weren’t a person? I am sorry about that, it was out of line. I wasn’t doing great at the time either (meds had run out), but that’s no excuse. Probably don’t go hurting yourself over some bullshit I said, of all people.
Yeah don’t worry i didn’t, thanks and like i said before i am also sorry if i really said anything that provoked you, i can’t really remember it. We all have our bad moments.
Internet gesture of support?
On top of everything else, that’s a highly stigmatized diagnosis. But like, as someone who has friends with BPD: you’re not scary or unsafe to be around. You’re not somehow more dangerous than NT people. I love my BPD friends. Your brain is just extra mean to you sometimes, and I’m so sorry you have to deal with that.
Thanks <3 I usually have a pretty good handle on it, but it is upsetting seeing people lambast Becky for expressing feelings that I know extremely well and that I know she can’t help right now.
🫂 Understandably!
And like, I am definitely in camp “poor Dina”, but you can actually be in both camps! It’s possible to sympathize with both of them, to know it must suck to hear Becky say these things and also that Becky is… “lashing out” isn’t even the right word. 🙁
Like, this is completely accidental damage being dealt, because Becky is in a headspace where she can’t conceptualize herself as being worth enough as a person to be able to hurt Dina in any real way. It’s the complete opposite of malicious or self-centered.
Yeah, lashing out isn’t necessarily the right term, it’s more… it’s like, you feel absolutely certain, for a fact, that something that is going to hurt you down to your soul is going to happen, and it feels like it’s just dragging on without getting it over with, and you just want to scream to just pull the pin and drop the grenade already so you can get on with blowing up.
And obviously that’s hurtful to hear to people who love you, but you are not capable of processing that you’re a person who can be loved anyway.
Yeah. It feels like something you’re just trying to get over with so that the hurt can fully hit YOU, right? Ripping off an extremely painful bandaid, basically. Not a situation where ripping off the bandaid might conceivably hurt anyone else around you.
(I’ve listened, I think this mentality is very understandable. It’s not the same, but I’ve had my brain tell me mean things that weren’t true before, too, and I am not wholly unfamilair with the kind of headspace where you don’t feel capable of hurting other people because you’re so down on yourself.)
I hope you can see this and my comment doesn’t fade away into limbo, but I really appreciate your words here.
Circumstances were different, but I’ve been where Becky is now. I was fortunate enough to drag myself out long enough to get the help I needed, but I’ve known a few people that never did.
Sadly, I’m not surprised at the empathy scarcity. To misquote/borrow verbiage from Daphne from waaaay back in Penny and Aggie— “I’m a person on the Internet, remember? I don’t expect empathy.” And some folx have been mean as shit lately.
…ok that got bleak. But thank you.
Surprised how many people think that “if Joyce could be X for Dorothy why couldn’t she be for me” is a thing that would not hurt Becky if she truly loved Dina. I don’t think that’s true even for someone who *doesn’t* have Becky’s crippling anxiety about abandonment.
People seem to forget that emotions are very complicated and all over the place.
I still believe Jeph and Willis are a couple. Look what couple he is breaking today.
Fun fact: Nike’s slogan “Just do it” came from an advertising firm who took it off the last words of someone who was on death row.
I know it’s showing how badly Becky’s doing, but her eyes Herr are pretty creepy. Kinda zombie-like.
On a more serious note, I can really see how things between Joyce and Dorothy as well as with Hank could be a serious one-two punch for Becky. “Joyce isn’t into me because she isn’t into women” -> “Oh, she is… so it’s me…” And possibly, “My dad couldn’t handle my sexuality and love me for who I am because of the attitudes and beliefs of our church” -> “Oh, dads from our church *can* love their queer children… so it’s me…”
(For that second one, like no, it’s very clearly her dad; self-blame spirals don’t care, though.)
Next storyline title is “I’m the Problem, It’s Me.”
Here I was having forgotten that and thinking of that song anyway.
well shit I hadn’t even considered that Hank being accepting might add into everything else. Ugh I wanna give Becky a hug so baaaaad
Yeah, Becky was… visibly very distressed as things calmed down, and she said no to pizza in a way that was I think deliberately ambiguous: it could’ve all been negative reactions to Dorothy and Joyce being twee.
But remember that when she threw herself onto Hank as a distraction, she told Joyce to run.
I think Yumi and others are right on the money here.
I also wonder if ^^^ what we are seeing here from Becky…… if maybe part of her thought, “hey, if Mr. Brown turns out to be just as awful and unsafe as my dad was, I might die saving Joyce today, and there are worse ways to go”.
Dina is realizing Becky’s faith in God is entirely undependent on science in this situation and it’s throwing her.
I remember watching the movie “Signs” and being nonplussed by the way Gibson’s character switched his faith off and on. Something bad happened? God must not be real. It had a silver lining? Well then God must be real after all. Outside my head, he either exists or he doesn’t.
Dina take the wheel…
The only thing I remember about Signs is that some dumbass thought it’d be a good idea to make a movie where aliens to whom water is apparently toxic invade a planet whose surface is 75% water and where it routinely rains.
Like, it even would have worked if they, like, had a spacesuit, or something. If they had armor, and we couldn’t throw the water on them, until Baseball Guy smashed their visors in or whatever, and the aliens realizing we grasped tool use and tactics, is what made them leave. But, like all Shyamalan flicks, every single insipid random detail, is merely in service of the eventual twist.
If there was a planet that was 75% lava and 25% Lush green loveliness, humans would absolutely not bat an eye about going there (assuming we could).
Would they still do it if lava routinely fell from the sky, and planet’s inhabitants routinely threw lava at the lush green loveliness because lava is what the lush green loveliness needs to BE lush green loveliness?
Yes, absolutely. Humans are fucking stupid.
Yep! We’d just engineer around it once we got there. Thermal power, special walkways and subterranean hides for lavafalls, etc. Wouldn’t even be that hard.
I mean, that movie also featured aliens who were allergic to water invading Earth, whose surface is over 70% water, so rational writing clearly wasn’t a priority there.
“All right, but I’m taking the Persepolis poster with me.”
Poor Becky.
She’s had so much loss in such a short time. This was the last straw. She needs therapy STAT.
Becky needs hugs. Something Dina’s not well equipped to provide. I trust they will work this out. Amber is hearing all this. She’s a goblin who likes mess, but this is more consequences that she bargained for.
Dorothy and Joyce were rightly worried about how Becky would react but they let her walk away and jumped into bed. No wonder Becky thinks everyone has abandoned her.
Joyce and Dorothy running after Becky would not have been helpful.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
It would have been like Jennifer with Walky: a very, very impotent attempt at being helpful, that would definitely make everything worse.
Dina please don’t break up with Becky. It’s not exactly ideal but you *knew* Becky was hung up on Joyce….
I mean… knowing something is true doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to decide it isn’t actually something you want to deal with after all.
i don’t think she will. at least not witho0ut first sasking “do you want to breakup/still wanna be together?” versus giving space
This might not be in character for Dina, but what I want to happen next is Dina saying, “No,” and giving Becky a big hug. (I saw Andy’s comment above after I typed this.)
Sympathy through heavy physical contact would, I think, be absolutely in character for Dina here.
In my personal experience, autistic touch tends to swing directly from “this is uncomfortable” to “squeeze my soul back into my body”, so yes, great big hug here would not be out of place.
i mean, not like she wouldn’t show physical affection to a gf as opposed to comforting an acquaintance she barely knows that way
It wasn’t really the physical contact that I thought might be out of character, but that it would mean skipping the analysis and jumping right to the emotional solution.
becky why would that mean that.
Yeah, it’s like she’s not in her right mind about all this.
Becky has abandonment issues. Her mother ended her own life, her father didn’t choose to die but chose his religious fantasist bullshit over her and blamed her for what happened. Now Joyce has “left” her. Oh also the girl she was into over in that Christian school she got expelled from cause she didn’t lock the door and got caught
She’s been hurt by people she cares about going away so many times, she assumes Dina will do the same. She doesn’t express her insecurities outwardly much, but in moments like this they come front and center
This is just awful in that i dont like seeing Becky and Dina hurting and Becky spiraling into a depressive state.
Also i don’t want to see Dina hurt as well thats kind of a given though.
One hopes that IU has walk-in counseling services for students like my university did in the late 1990s, because this poor kid has issues that go beyond reacting to a friend’s changing romantic life.
They do:
https://healthcenter.indiana.edu/counseling/index.html
Hang on tight and ride it out, love. We’re rooting for you. And for Dina.
Becky x Dina died so that Joyce x Dorothy could live
so, Dina shouldn’t exist then?
I shan’t wonder as to what would be the strongest proof against a god, except if it’s the thing that Joyce and Dorothy are doing right now
Hot take: I feel for Joe and to a lesser extent Walky, Joyce owes Becky N O T H I N G with coming out. This makes me dislike Becky so much.
Becky, I am sure, understands that intellectually, but she is not operating on a rational level right now.
I mean, I’m sure I’m just projecting (but hey it’s a comic, it’s okay if I do that), but like sexuality doesn’t mean you suddenly owe someone a date. Even if you’re friends. I identified lesbian as a teen, later coming out as bi/pan and the amount of men that acted like this was unreal. The amount of friends that gave me the silent treatment when I met my now partner was also bigger than 1. So yeah. I don’t like it. I don’t think your friend coming out means you get to have a break down. Joyce didn’t leave Becky. Joyce loves Becky.
You’re operating under the assumption that Becky thinks Joyce owes her anything, and I don’t think she does. Yes, Joyce loves Becky, but Becky is *in love* with Joyce, and has been her entire life. After she was rejected, she boxed up those feelings with the justification that Joyce was straight and so things couldn’t work between them anyway, but now that excuse is gone and Becky has to confront the real, raw truth that no, Joyce isn’t straight, but she isn’t gay for Becky – she’s gay for Dorothy, her new best friend, the one with whom she has formed a half-joking rivalry to paper over her extremely thinly papered-over anxieties about being replaced in Joyce’s life – anxieties that, now, seem to have been confirmed.
She wasn’t good enough for her mom to stick around – she killed herself. She wasn’t good enough for her dad to love her unconditionally – he died rather than accept who she was. She wasn’t good enough for Joyce to love her the way Becky loved her – she wanted Dorothy instead. And oh, now Dina is saying something that maybe vaguely implies she’s upset with Becky. May as well get it over with and let her walk away like everyone else does. Everything in Becky’s head is screaming that she’s worthless, that nobody needs her, that everyone will eventually abandon her and the things she hinged her self-worth and sanity on are not immutable and subject to change at anytime.
No, Joyce does not owe Becky her romantic love, but does that matter right now? What Becky is feeling is about so much more than just a crush.
I think you can be sad about being rejected without it meaning you think somebody “owes” you a date.
I think this is a “Becky needs some reaffirmation from her girlfriend” moment not a “Becky needs a seminar on consent and boundaries” moment.
+1
I actually think Dina is the one that needs some assurance and reaffirmation. Because it took Dorothy kissing Joyce to shatter the belief in God for Becky, who had previously said DINA was her proof he existed.
It’s not really fair to expect Dina to instantly switch to “Take care of Becky’s hurt” and just swallow her own down.
They can take care of eachother, but Dina was not the subject of conversation.
If I’d been responding to a comment claiming Dina having the sads about this was evidence of some toxic ideology I obviously would’ve been more specific to her end of this.
It is not a zero sum game, but Becky is the one spiraling right now.
@Perils: I want to gently draw attention to your wording on that last bit, because I don’t think you meant it this way, but “I don’t think your friend coming out means you get to have a breakdown” is a very uncharitable way of describing mental health crises.
You did not deserve the reactions you faced, and Joyce doesn’t deserve to be blamed for what’s happening right now with Becky, but just like Joyce coming to terms with her sexuality isn’t something she “did to” Becky, falling into a depressive spiral isn’t something Becky is “doing to” Joyce.
Addenda: I think we’re also forgetting, when we make this about “Joyce rejected Becky” or “Joyce came out”, that two of the things that trigger Becky especially badly are “people in general can change sexuality at all” and “my best friend is changing in ways I didn’t specifically anticipate”.
It’s not really about the SPECIFIC change, it’s about the twin fears of “Joyce is becoming someone I am not sure I know” and “if JOYCE can decide she likes girls, I could potentially decide I DON’T and that’d make everything different in some really nasty ways”.
I don’t even think this is a hot take. I’m not really seeing comments arguing that Joyce did anything *to* Becky or owed her anything. That’s also not what I read into Joyce & Dorothy’s concern about Becky finding out.
But sometimes things are about consequences, not fault. That Joyce could be gay for someone, just not Becky, was going to be a gut-punch to Becky. That doesn’t need to imply anybody thinks anybody did anything “wrong” to her.
There’s a lot of jokes about religion that I might normally make, but all of them fall apart when I see that face and that response.
I’ve been there. Or at least, somewhat near it.
She can’t change how she feels, she feels what she feels, and she knows that the fact that she can’t change those feelings is going to destroy everything. And she’s just trying to hold on until whatever happens, happens, and she can pick up the pieces after.
At least then Becky and Elliot from Questionable Content would finally be able to get together. (Or at least, they can as soon as Elliot becomes a lesbian.)
god i feel so bad for them both 🙁
I believe that Becky is coming from a place of trauma, sorrow, shock, and self loathing here, and that is very tough. I sympathize greatly. That said:
Don’t do that, Becky. Don’t put the onus on Dina to “fix” or “end” this for you, without any explanation from you. This is not Dina’s fault. It is not her job to soothe OR leave Becky so Becky can have positive or negative closure. Dina deserves acknowledgment and a conversation which she seems to want. Not Becky avoiding the conversation and basically asking Dina to twist the knife. Dina deserves better from everyone, especially her girlfriend.
somehow, i don’t think “rational correction of her behavior” is what becky actually needs, right now?
How much do you really sympathize if you are not capable of recognizing that Becky is not in a headspace to have a conversation like that right now? She needs to be brought down from her spiral first, and then she can talk.
Two things can be true at once: Becky is not doing this maliciously, and I do not actually hold it against her, because she clearly is in a bad headspace from the trauma, shock, etc.
Also true: Dina is not responsible for any of that, and it is very unfair to her—not consciously from Becky, but in terms of Dina’s emotions— to put her in the position of “well, I feel bad, so if you’re going to end our relationship, which would be sad for you and obviously hurt me more, just do it.”
I sympathize with Becky. That does not make this fair to Dina, or make it a good. Sympathizing with Becky and wanting these two to have a conversation and work this out, and agreeing with Becky’s behavior, are not the same. Just as I’m sympathetic to why Becky is taking this so hard, but also think that Becky actually has no real right to be upset/angry that her friend is in love with another woman. It sucks for Becky that Joyce loves another woman, and I sympathize with Becky’s shock and disappointment. That does not make response a good one.
That is not why Becky is upset, or more accurately it is not the only reason Becky is upset.
It is certainly part of the reason Becky is upset, which is emotionally understandable. That does not change my point. At no point did I say that Becky needs a lecture on this, now or ever. At no point did I say that Dina needs to blatantly say any of this to Becky, now or ever. What I did say is that regardless of Becky’s legitimate reasons to feel the way she does, and deserve sympathy which I have for her, it is STILL not fair to Dina to put the burden of a breakup on her shoulders to validate Becky’s self loathing. Becky in this state is unquestionably not thinking logically. That totally makes sense. It is also true that Becky is being self destructive here, and foisting some of that on to Dina. And that is not fair to Dina. I can sympathize with Becky for how she feels, and what she’s going through; I can sympathize with Dina for being put in a sad and unfair situation through absolutely no fault of her own and want her to get to talk about it as she seems to want to, and find Becky’s behavior part of that, WHILE ALSO understanding that now is not the time to have a direct confrontation with Becky about it.
Dina is also Becky’s girlfriend? Like, I know this kind of shit gets kinda close to “romantic partner as a therapist”, I’m not saying Dina needs to FIX Becky but as her girlfriend (considering Becky is an ORPHAN and literally has NO FAMILY TO TALK TO) that I think Dina would be the exact person who is supposed to be there to support her? Becky isn’t saying “leave me damn it fuck you”, she’s terrified that admitting the Joyce thing hurts her means Dina will leave her. The best outcome of that imo is Dina reassuring her “I know you still had complicated feelings about Joyce. I’m still here for you”.
you know folks, i’m starting to think that Becky literally believes she’s the reason her mom killed herself.
That’s natural, is it not?
It’s not true or even rational, but it’s what just about anybody would think in her shoes.
I feel like that much was obvious.
i mean, assuming it was a comphet marriage, even if she loved becky, she probably was a factor if she felt that she couldn’t just ‘escape’ the family by running away
I don’t know that we’ve ever gotten an indication that Becky’s mother was also a lesbian? People kill themselves for a lot of reasons.
People are very convinced Becky’s mom killed herself because she was a lesbian, but as far as I can tell you’re right and we’ve never seen any evidence of this.
Another situation where I think someone’s fantheory became “I think I remember…” canon.
tbh i guess being married to toedad would make most ppl suicidal
Y’all… Beckysaur was my ride or die, if they break up I am gonna straight-up ugly cry. 😭
i think they’lol be fine, or maybe take a break and try again
i wonder what beeckys looking up on her phone unless it’s bc she can’t make eye contact with dina right now
Either she’s looking at a picture of Joyce, possibly a picture of Joyce, and Becky, or she just can’t make eye contact.
Doomscrolling.
Don’t know the theological term, but Dina proves there is a benevolent God, but Joyce proves God is not omnipotent, maybe?