I thinkthe implication is that Dina Jedi-mind-tricked her way into a hospital or pharmacy with her people-don’t-notice-me powers. Or possibly stole them from another student, hopefully someone just selling them instead of needing them.
It’s not magic if you can explain it with science? Richards is a known magic skeptic in a universe where magic definitely exists. He’s also recently become scientist supreme. A guy who basically does magic but it’s actually science.
“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
–”Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination”, Profiles of the Future (1962). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws
Magic seems to be definitely different than science in the Marvel universe.
There is an issue of Fantastic Four where Doom captures Reed Richards and traps him in a simple cell sealed with a very simple magic spell (‘that a four year old could learn’ according to Doom). Reed has to abandon any attempts at understanding and be spoon-fed by a weakened astral projection of Doctor Strange how to perform the counter spell. In the end he still can’t quite do it because he can’t comprehend how it works. It’s only when he essentially gives up trying to understand the magic and admit his inability to handle it (literally calling himself an idiot) that the magic works for him.
Maybe it’s just me, but I imagine when Dina’s prescribed a drug, she takes exactly the amount the doctor tells her too, and has nothing leftover when she’s done.
She seems like she’d be very diligent about that sort of thing.
Yeah, I definitely do that when I need antibiotics, but when I get prescribed pain killers, I try to take as little as I can manage with. Especially with Oxycontin– hated being on that stuff.
Yep, when I got my wisdom teeth taken out, I stopped taking the opiate pain killers early because I was sick of sleeping like 16 hours a day and being constipated.
After a certain surgery, I was excited to try my first opioid, Vicodin.
It was not a pleasant experience. Rather than anything fun, it made me jittery and unable to sleep – which is exactly the opposite of what you want after surgery.
Other way ’round. If you’re given painkillers to recover from a surgery, they’re reasonably likely to give you more than you’ll necessarily need, so you might wind up with an implied prompt of “take this many painkillers” and actually not need to take that many.
When it comes to pain killers, it’s “Take them as needed”. If that’s one every 6 hours for 2 weeks, that’s probably gonna use up your supply. But I think most people will have leftovers, and I’m not taking painkillers designed for surgery recovery because I stubbed my toe 5 months later
Analgesics often have “as required” on the label. And Dina’s definitely the sort to decide that if she’s not inconvenienced by pain then they’re not required, so…
I could see Dina saying, as Spock said: “Pain is a thing of the mind.” And reasoning her way out of needing pain meds prescibed after a dental procedure. She would want her reason and capacity for perception impaired. Post-surgical recovery is a fascinating opportunity for scientific observation of the biological processes…
Opioid anestesia is usually prescribed in a “take as the pain dictates” with an upper cap (max daily dosage) and a warning to take them as shortly as the development of the pain allows.
At least in the acute cases where patients are left to take them themselves. And no long-term chronic pain therapy plan has been worked out. Which – if I remember my cllinical training correctly, is the large majority of medical opiate use.
Is that a thing? I didnt get painkillers for either of my two wisdom teeth we’ve removed, just instructions to use some OTC ones when i got home, and with the second one they had to saw into the jawbone and pull it out along with the roots that held it like a barnacle
It’s definitely a thing (more often than it should be: see the whole opioid epidemic and chronic overprescription by medical professionals that contributed to it) but not always. I’m pretty sure I was just given high-dose ibuprofen.
and then there’s me, who had two major surgeries on my ankles. I had to get them fused and have 4 screws in each now, but because this was after the shift in the epidemic to underprescribing for fear of losing their license, i had to stick with extra strength excedrin for most of my recovery, and literally could not sleep for 2 weeks after the first surgery because of the pain, and the nerve block failing (i woke up in recovery *screaming* in pain apparently)
And the opiate cases are usually locked safes with strict access control (personal codes, only few people with acess) and evry in- and output stringently documented by law. Not rarely secured by camera, too.
The are after all by far the most likely targets of pharmacy theft.
Precedent regarding her Amazi-Condoms and the use of “rawdogging” in this strip does mean Dina will need to draw an A on that pill bottle for it to be Amazi-compliant
There is so,, so many reasons that she would hate RFK. She would kick his ass if she could. And no jury would convict her because no one saw her do it.
The Keener Presidency sadly leaves the world a barren ashen nuclear wasteland akin to Fallout due to the civil war from trying to give everyone free health care and kindness to immigrants.
Hell things are on the verge of civil war right now with nobody even trying to do that. The best they can offer is having a bit less medical debt and not kidnapping migrants off the street. And that is still an improvement to hiw things are!
Preach it.
Thats the largest differenc I see to the nineteen-thirties.
Back then there where strong, agressive socialist, communist and labour movements everywhere. Even the US.
And the rich oligarchs at least had some semblance of a plausible reason to fear a possible coming revolution.
This time?
They allied with and pushed the fascists against a frail, blodless liberal establishments of alread-bought pawns.
Who always shy away from even only politely asking for some less crumbs being taken away from at least the working poor.
Fells wholly “unprovoked” in comparison to back then.
Actually I think the current youngest generation has recently deuphemized rawdogging.
If I say I’m rawdogging the Dave Matthews concert, it doens’t mean I want to raw dogg Dave Matthews.
One of my favorite videos of recent years was a newscaster talking about cardinals picking the new Pope, and how they weren’t allowed to have their phones with them. Attempting to sound cool, he said that they were doing what the youth call “rawdogging”.
Apparently we have AI generated chat summaries on Twitch. AI is letting new viewers know what is going on in the stream. Viewers are commenting on the current stream, with some recognizing that peggy is back and some joking about eating a dog raw.
I got a theory that doesn’t require magic. After surgery, the hospital sometimes prescribes more painkillers than a person needs. So all she had to do was take some from someone on the floor who’d had surgery. And that person was Malaya. They had an appendectomy or something through their navel, explaining how it went from horizontal to vertical.
Joyce noticed her bust got bigger at some point.
But that could be HRT, or even simpler wearing a pushup or leaving off a binder.
But Carly could definitely afford top-notch surgery and seems like somebody who would be thunder-running transition.
would it be confirmed whether or not willis just decided to change his art style along the years? unless it was a more recent /closer time beween strips
Gonna slip Amber some of the oxycontin I got when I had my wisdom teeth removed, which in hindsight was definitely an overprescribed option for a 19 year old with a standard wisdom teeth extraction.
Meh, I fucking hated how I felt taking Oxycontin. But I don’t know how my experiences of pain would have been without it (and, yknow, with something else– not just “what if I took nothing after getting my wisdom teeth yanked”).
If it makes you feel any better, a nonstandard wisdom tooth extraction at age 37 was how I found out that Oxycontin does NOTHING for pain management for me. I ended up fuzzy-headed, grouchy, but with full dry-socket pain.
At least alternating 800mg ibuprofen and 1000mg acetaminophen took the edge off.
(and to relate it to the strip, as a consequence I had like 30 oxys in a pill bottle sitting in the medicine cabinet for like a year until I took ’em to the pharmacy disposal. Maybe Dina happens to have run into Walkyverse Me.)
I think I was also on oxy when I get my wisdom teeth extracted. Sorry it didn’t do much for you, but count your lucky stars you didn’t have to take your SATs a few days later while doped out on painkillers…
Yeah, that’s the “get ’em out early” vs. “get ’em out as an Old” tradeoff — it took me like three weeks to recover from getting ONE out, but at least I had vacation days banked.
This is also how I discovered that my pain tolerance is apparently through the roof, as I rated “dry socket, not responsive to opiates” as a 6/10 ’cause I could still sleep through it.
I can equally not recommend having a wisdom tooth removal wherein the oral surgeon calls over all the interns/residents every time you show up for a follow-up with a “hey, guys, come look and see how bad an impacted wisdom tooth removal can get! This guy could be in the textbook.”
I don’t think they had Oxycontin yet when I had my wisdom teeth out. Don’t remember what they gave me then, back in the early 90s. Probably some other opioid based thing. Really wanted it the first day. Stopped a couple days later because I wanted to drive to the D&D game.
Did get actual (probably synthetic) morphine for a leg injury a few years early. That was fun. It was like it still hurt, but it didn’t matter at all.
Yeah, that’s actually part of what you (sometimes) want a good pain med to do. It’s part of why the right weed strain can be really good for pain, because reducing how much you *care* about the pain can have just as much impact as reducing the actual pain. It’s why, in a pinch and depending on circumstances and one’s personal reactions to said meds, antihistamines can occasionally be worth pairing up with pain meds- if antihistamines make you loopy and generally unbothered, that can help with pain too.
I’ve been reading this comic for 15 years, and just recently reread it, I still refuse to believe (even if the “about/read before posting” thing says otherwise) that her name is pronounced Deena, because if it’s pronounced as written it’s literally a pun. ~<3
That’s how it’s pronounced literally everywhere except in English. English is the one that underwent the Great Vowel Shift without updating any spellings.
I’ve always read it as Deena. In my experience, when the name is pronounced with a long I, it’s usually spelled with an ‘h’ on the end, like in “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”
Sadly, my experience with a close relative being assigned this stuff and the long recovery period leaves me kind of iffy. Hopefully, that’s not where they’re going with this.
That’s one of the morals for adults. It’s good to have lots of friends; you never know which one has unused prescription painkillers.
But im little worried for what Dina get those
Addendum – also dont touch your nethers sans a vigorous scrubbing first.
Oh – and dont eat hot ginger-heavy thai food and engage in OS within the next 20 minutes.
My GF first was “Huh, weird, warm but not bad” …. and then spent half an hour in the shower cursing me. That evening did not go well and I felt put upon, because it could just as well have gone the other way.
I really hope not. Not least because we don’t need any more media making people so scared of addiction that they won’t take or even seek out strong pain meds when they need ’em.
Opiates are not *that* risky- yes, they can be addictive, but it’s far from guaranteed. Especially when they’re taken responsibly. And a lot of the trouble with addiction and its ilk come from either doctor cutting off someone’s supply of safe meds and them resorting to something from the street because of how miserable going cold turkey is, or a doctor cutting off someone’s supply of safe meds and them resorting to street meds because they’re still in pain and desperately need pain relief. Either way, with better management you’d either have someone who tapers off of the meds and is fine, or someone who’s still on the meds (in a safe amount) because they *need* to be on the meds. But noo, lots of people can’t have that apparently.
Wait, really? Like, I know people do sometimes say “I’m not hinting that I want you to…” when they actually do want you to, but I read this comic as Amber meaning exactly what she said, hence complaining in the last panel about Dina ignoring her wishes because her wellbeing is more important.
If she’s caught with the pills in her posession and her name isn’t the one on the label a bit of trouble, but it’s not likely to be a large enough quantity to justify posession with intent to sell. Could also be kicked out of college, but unlikely to actually happen because she would be out of the comic in that case.
For just taking them likely none unless she’s being drug tested for some reason.
“It is not magic. I am merely aware of the true nature of the universe. Space-time is quantized and defined only locally, and continuity is merely an illusion in the eye of the reader. Any time I am ‘off-panel’, I cannot be observed, so my location becomes undefined, and I might be anywhere. The same is true of other objects. Thus, these opioids.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t ibuprofen an anticoagulant? I know I’ve been instructed not to use it after a surgery, but maybe that varies depending on the type of surgery.
Anyway my crackpot grimdark theory is that Dina didn’t actually steal these opioids at all; this is actually the exact same bottle of pills that was in Bonnie’s hands when Becky found her
It’s an anti-inflammatory, which means that it helps keep down swelling. This can be a good thing after surgery as it helps keep the swelling down around the surgical site, but one of the things that the inflammatory response does is close down the capillaries around the wound site, which can lead to additional bleeding. Not great if you’re also taking blood thinners at the same time, since you lose both the ability for swelling to close down the capillaries AND the coagulation that helps seal up the injury, making it a lot more likely for you to bleed excessively – but it’s not necessarily bad to take ibuprofen on its own after surgery.
Of course, it’s best to talk with your doctor about these sorts of things, because there are a boatload of factors that can throw things out of whack and make even generally safe medications dangerous for someone to take.
https://imgchest.com/p/xny8ezwz2yb (NSFW)
Did I ever post this Walky/Amber picture? I was in a mood one day and wanted to draw them. I doubt they’ll happen in canon anytime soon but I can always create art of my OTP.
Wait…. is that Walky lifting Amber? How did he get so strong?
…oh, wait, I think she’s holding herself up by gripping his shoulders with her legs while letting the wall behind her take much of her weight. That makes more sense.
Amber should also be taking Tylenol! Or at least that what they had me doing after surgery. 800mg ibuprofen and 1000mg (I think?) acetaminophen, alternating between the two every four hours (so eight hours between each dose). I had some oxy too with instructions to take it if I was ever still in pain, even if I thought I could power through it, cuz it’s hard to heal when you’re in pain. I took it a few times but honestly the only thing it helped with was making me tired enough to sleep through the pain; it didn’t really reduce the pain, as far as I could tell.
Honestly the pain wasn’t fun but it was the lack of sleep and having to wake up every four hours, every day, for 7+ days in a row, that really did me in. (7 days? 14? I really can’t remember, those first few weeks are a blur.)
Opioids are usually prescription-controlled though, so assuming she was indeed able to purchase these legally, one must wonder at what circumstances Dina was under to require opioids? (Wisdom teeth extraction comes to mind, but I do not know if Dina or possibly someone else in the wing recently had them.)
You guys are overthinking this. Just like how Dina walked in and out of the Liquor Store, with that bottle of booze, she just walked into the Pharmacy, grabbed the bottle of opioids, left money on the counter, and walked out.
I’ve lived with chronic pain for years, and recovered from some really traumatic surgeries. Can attest that people do sometimes have leftovers. Sometimes in the freezer, because you just never know.
But after my last major surgery I was on morphine for a long time and then some other opioid long enough that when I stopped it was a really uncomfortable week or so. As a result I try to avoid painkillers when I can.
The Alt Text… is saying that Dina will eventually Renounce Empirical Evidence and Embrace Magical Thinking?! *gasp* *shock* *horror*
Because the one thing emperical evidence cannot prove is “magic” because if it understood it, tested it. could codify it and describe its laws, it would no longer be magic, but some branch of science.
Even literally pulling a rabbit from one’s hat would be something like “Extradimensional lagomorph transportation, facilitated by remote activation of miniature wormholes by vocal and gesture-related stimuli” or something, and the knowledge about it would create so many branches of science that she would essentially spend the rest of her days happily studying it like some sort of freaking wizard.
High up in a tower, wearing a pointed hat, occasionally riding across the countryside on a pterosaur named Goldblum that she brought from the ancient past through said absolutely-not-magical-because-it’s-science! glittery time portals.
I’m not entirely convinced of that. Certainly if it could be understood, codified and the laws tested, it would make sense to understand it as science, but that kind of presupposes that magic was science to start with.
It’s certainly possible to imagine magic working like that, but it’s not clear that it has to. As an example, magic that was essentially miracles performed through divine intervention would be nearly impossible to study or codify beyond “God can do stuff”.
Those would be classed as “miracles”, not “magic” (D&D and similar games get kind of dodgy with the terminology, but then again using abilities in Starfield that are granted via brain implants is still called “casting” by the devs, so…). Magic that operates by rules and performs consistently (the only sort I could ever envision Dina messing about with) is just a science that we don’t understand yet.
`Last time I had surgery they sent me home with 3-day supply and a *prescription* for Oxycodone… which no pharmacy would fulfill. They were all “Currently out of stock, we don’t know when we’ll get more in, but let us take that silly prescription off your hands and we’ll let you know…”
Was it because they thought your prescription was fake, or because they did not want to fill even a real prescription for fear of the side effects? Or some other reason?
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Super Full Moon AND Dina being a badass gangsta to help her sick friend?
This night is lit yo! ^-^ <3
it’s soooo pretty out tn 🙂
imma play pokemon under the stars rn B)
time for dina to do a drug dealing side hustle 8D
Dina Does a Deal!
Dina’s got connections!
I thinkthe implication is that Dina Jedi-mind-tricked her way into a hospital or pharmacy with her people-don’t-notice-me powers. Or possibly stole them from another student, hopefully someone just selling them instead of needing them.
I think it has been established by now that Dina is gay and does crimes.
Hee hee heeeee.
y’see amber, its not magic, its sleight of hand.
“Not Tricks, Michael. Illusions!”
Don’t trust Asher..…supplied kitchen doctors!
It’s a real Reed Richards situation with Dina and magic
You mean it’s stretching things?
It’s not magic if you can explain it with science? Richards is a known magic skeptic in a universe where magic definitely exists. He’s also recently become scientist supreme. A guy who basically does magic but it’s actually science.
“magic” is a 5-letter word for any science that’s not yet understood :p
Arthur C. Clarke:
“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
–”Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination”, Profiles of the Future (1962).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws
He also appears to have said that he didn’t believe in astrology because, as a Sagittarius, he’s naturally skeptical.
That is totally a Clarke thing.
Magic seems to be definitely different than science in the Marvel universe.
There is an issue of Fantastic Four where Doom captures Reed Richards and traps him in a simple cell sealed with a very simple magic spell (‘that a four year old could learn’ according to Doom). Reed has to abandon any attempts at understanding and be spoon-fed by a weakened astral projection of Doctor Strange how to perform the counter spell. In the end he still can’t quite do it because he can’t comprehend how it works. It’s only when he essentially gives up trying to understand the magic and admit his inability to handle it (literally calling himself an idiot) that the magic works for him.
(Issue 500 ‘Unthinkable’ by Mark Waid)
“Unthinkable”, AKA “Mark Waid REALLY Does Not Understand Victor Von Doom.”
Dina’s the real superhero!
Dina’s a heroine but hopefully none of the pills are.
Ah I see shes going into pharmacology
Omg Dina no whoever you yoinked those from probably needs them
(I know it’s probably leftover pills from having wisdom teeth removed)
Is that Dina lore? She’s had her wisdom teeth removed?
Pretty sure it’s just a guess about a mundane reason she might have leftover painkillers.
Who said they were her wisdom teeth?
Maybe they were leftover Moopsy bait.
Maybe it’s just me, but I imagine when Dina’s prescribed a drug, she takes exactly the amount the doctor tells her too, and has nothing leftover when she’s done.
She seems like she’d be very diligent about that sort of thing.
That’s definitely the right idea for antibiotics. I’m not sure it would be recommended for opioids.
Yeah, I definitely do that when I need antibiotics, but when I get prescribed pain killers, I try to take as little as I can manage with. Especially with Oxycontin– hated being on that stuff.
Yep, when I got my wisdom teeth taken out, I stopped taking the opiate pain killers early because I was sick of sleeping like 16 hours a day and being constipated.
After a certain surgery, I was excited to try my first opioid, Vicodin.
It was not a pleasant experience. Rather than anything fun, it made me jittery and unable to sleep – which is exactly the opposite of what you want after surgery.
The only painkillers I ever take unprompted by doctors are Ibuprofen.
Other way ’round. If you’re given painkillers to recover from a surgery, they’re reasonably likely to give you more than you’ll necessarily need, so you might wind up with an implied prompt of “take this many painkillers” and actually not need to take that many.
When it comes to pain killers, it’s “Take them as needed”. If that’s one every 6 hours for 2 weeks, that’s probably gonna use up your supply. But I think most people will have leftovers, and I’m not taking painkillers designed for surgery recovery because I stubbed my toe 5 months later
Analgesics often have “as required” on the label. And Dina’s definitely the sort to decide that if she’s not inconvenienced by pain then they’re not required, so…
I could see Dina saying, as Spock said: “Pain is a thing of the mind.” And reasoning her way out of needing pain meds prescibed after a dental procedure. She would want her reason and capacity for perception impaired. Post-surgical recovery is a fascinating opportunity for scientific observation of the biological processes…
Would *not* want to be impaired, I mean…
So she can…transcend dental medication?
OOOOHHH!!! x-D x-6
That was … breathtaking.
*hands you Reltzik’s crown of punishment*
Opioid anestesia is usually prescribed in a “take as the pain dictates” with an upper cap (max daily dosage) and a warning to take them as shortly as the development of the pain allows.
At least in the acute cases where patients are left to take them themselves. And no long-term chronic pain therapy plan has been worked out. Which – if I remember my cllinical training correctly, is the large majority of medical opiate use.
Is that a thing? I didnt get painkillers for either of my two wisdom teeth we’ve removed, just instructions to use some OTC ones when i got home, and with the second one they had to saw into the jawbone and pull it out along with the roots that held it like a barnacle
It’s definitely a thing (more often than it should be: see the whole opioid epidemic and chronic overprescription by medical professionals that contributed to it) but not always. I’m pretty sure I was just given high-dose ibuprofen.
and then there’s me, who had two major surgeries on my ankles. I had to get them fused and have 4 screws in each now, but because this was after the shift in the epidemic to underprescribing for fear of losing their license, i had to stick with extra strength excedrin for most of my recovery, and literally could not sleep for 2 weeks after the first surgery because of the pain, and the nerve block failing (i woke up in recovery *screaming* in pain apparently)
That’s not her problem.
She’ll just steal them a replacement from someone else
I would assume she offered a fair price to somebody who is in the business of selling these things under the table.
There’s a whole market for that sort of thing.
She could also just stole it from a farmacy.
I think that would actually get cops called on her. Pharmacies are locked up ridiculously tight.
Dina is more powerful haven’t you been paying attention
Dina is powerful *because* no one pays attention.
She puts all her points in DEX, not STR.
And the opiate cases are usually locked safes with strict access control (personal codes, only few people with acess) and evry in- and output stringently documented by law. Not rarely secured by camera, too.
The are after all by far the most likely targets of pharmacy theft.
I mean, she made it <a href="https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/tighter/"into a bank vault, so I definitely wouldn’t put it past her!
correct link: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/tighter/
fair poin – I had forgotten that.
Didn’t she get in and out of a bank vault? Pharmacy lockers are easy.
Nah, lots of people on the floor have stocks of emergency painkillers in case Ruth defemurs them.
it’s just hammerspace, it’s just hammerspace, it’s just hammerspace
Hopefully stolen from cops
Cops would have a panic attack and raise a media storm if they so much as touched them, so she’s really doing everyone a favour.
Cops have panic attacks over everything though. They’re the most scared organisms on the planet.
That would only happen if you told them it was fentanol.
Maybe we should try telling them their guns are laced with fentanyl?
Nice. Or even pre-emptively: “Hey dude, is there something on your steering wheel? Does that… look like… fentanyl? Oh hey lookithetime, gottago.”
Just look the cop dead in the eye and say “Good luck cuffing me, my entire epidermis is coated in fent and woke mind virus glaze.
annnnnnd then he retreats three paces and empties his magazine in your direction.
Let’s hope it’s not the purest cocaine in the history of the city.
putting the more in morphine ayyyyyyyyyyyy
Flintstone’s Chewable Morphine!
If you need to drink something to wash that down, may I suggest some Coca(ine) Cola?
Original formula, eh?
Things like this are why Dina is my favorite character.
Precedent regarding her Amazi-Condoms and the use of “rawdogging” in this strip does mean Dina will need to draw an A on that pill bottle for it to be Amazi-compliant
Unless she already has.
Amazi-contin?
Dina for US Secretary of Health and Human Services. Please.
There is so,, so many reasons that she would hate RFK. She would kick his ass if she could. And no jury would convict her because no one saw her do it.
Clever girl.
The Keener Presidency sadly leaves the world a barren ashen nuclear wasteland akin to Fallout due to the civil war from trying to give everyone free health care and kindness to immigrants.
Hell things are on the verge of civil war right now with nobody even trying to do that. The best they can offer is having a bit less medical debt and not kidnapping migrants off the street. And that is still an improvement to hiw things are!
Preach it.
Thats the largest differenc I see to the nineteen-thirties.
Back then there where strong, agressive socialist, communist and labour movements everywhere. Even the US.
And the rich oligarchs at least had some semblance of a plausible reason to fear a possible coming revolution.
This time?
They allied with and pushed the fascists against a frail, blodless liberal establishments of alread-bought pawns.
Who always shy away from even only politely asking for some less crumbs being taken away from at least the working poor.
Fells wholly “unprovoked” in comparison to back then.
Dina what the fuck…*where* the fuck??? I—
You know what? I’m not gonna ask. Hope Amber feels better.
Until proven otherwise, I’m just going to assume she got them from Charlie.
Why would Charlie have some?
She likes the taste.
Or Asher left them with Dina while Amber was out cold so they didn’t get lost.
cops? on MY ass? h-how? 😳
It’s jug, part two
Dina’s got yer supplies for peg parties and post-kitchen-surgery recovery. Whatev you need!
….Peg Parties? O.O
[George Takei] Oh my.
Okay, Dina is a Smooth Criminal
An Amber strip called “Raw-Dogging” is much less horny than I would’ve expected.
I’m a bit disappointed.
She keeps using that word. I do not think it means what she thinks it means.
Actually I think the current youngest generation has recently deuphemized rawdogging.
If I say I’m rawdogging the Dave Matthews concert, it doens’t mean I want to raw dogg Dave Matthews.
One of my favorite videos of recent years was a newscaster talking about cardinals picking the new Pope, and how they weren’t allowed to have their phones with them. Attempting to sound cool, he said that they were doing what the youth call “rawdogging”.
Apparently we have AI generated chat summaries on Twitch. AI is letting new viewers know what is going on in the stream. Viewers are commenting on the current stream, with some recognizing that peggy is back and some joking about eating a dog raw.
Ahh someone got it
Amazi-Girl is always prepared, but Amber has never used a condom in her life.
That’s how you can tell them apart. Amazi-girl prefers safety and Amber lives dangerously.
Imagine the internal struggle of wills next time Ambs goes to pound town.
Amazi-girl: “We must use the condom. It is precious to usssss!”
Amber: “No! It hurts us!”
Walky: *waiting with the most confused boner*
Maybe Willis will reuse that title for an Amber/other person slipshine one day.
well some ppl do call being unmedicated ‘rawdogging life’ XD
Pretty Cure Raptorgirl!
So I guess Dina has Squirrel Girl adjacent powers.
I got a theory that doesn’t require magic. After surgery, the hospital sometimes prescribes more painkillers than a person needs. So all she had to do was take some from someone on the floor who’d had surgery. And that person was Malaya. They had an appendectomy or something through their navel, explaining how it went from horizontal to vertical.
Carla had recent surgery, no?
Augmentation, I thought was implied.
HRT
Joyce noticed her bust got bigger at some point.
But that could be HRT, or even simpler wearing a pushup or leaving off a binder.
But Carly could definitely afford top-notch surgery and seems like somebody who would be thunder-running transition.
but her navel has also changed shape.
That is an incredible detail to have noticed and I admire that.
… are we sure that isn’t just art style update?
Or they both lost weight; or they’re both standing more upright in the pictures where it’s vertical…
Thats actually something I learned in a sketching class once – person sits, navel smiles, person stands, navel gasps.
maybe the model had a round navel instead of vertical or horizontal.
They mentioned before that they wear a binder. So they haven’t necessarily had top surgery
An appendectomy isn’t top surgery.
What if you are upside down?
Chicken and winnigish.
would it be confirmed whether or not willis just decided to change his art style along the years? unless it was a more recent /closer time beween strips
“inconsistent character model” is boring.
Pretty sure Dina is Doraemon in disguise.
Listen, Dina, I understand what your whole deal is and whatnot but, I’m sorry, you have magic powers.
that aint no magic at work
she’s got Autistic Ultra Instinct B)
Nah she just has 100+ points in her thievery/sneak skill 8D
If your friends won’t steal drugs for you are they really friends?
i can’t even get a text back sometimes
What if I don’t text back, but give you drugs when you need them?
i mean i don’t do drugs but if they treat me to a meal that’d be great
Gonna slip Amber some of the oxycontin I got when I had my wisdom teeth removed, which in hindsight was definitely an overprescribed option for a 19 year old with a standard wisdom teeth extraction.
luckyy
i just got ibuprofen and i’m fuckin 6’4
my extraction sites were aching for months xD
Meh, I fucking hated how I felt taking Oxycontin. But I don’t know how my experiences of pain would have been without it (and, yknow, with something else– not just “what if I took nothing after getting my wisdom teeth yanked”).
If it makes you feel any better, a nonstandard wisdom tooth extraction at age 37 was how I found out that Oxycontin does NOTHING for pain management for me. I ended up fuzzy-headed, grouchy, but with full dry-socket pain.
At least alternating 800mg ibuprofen and 1000mg acetaminophen took the edge off.
(and to relate it to the strip, as a consequence I had like 30 oxys in a pill bottle sitting in the medicine cabinet for like a year until I took ’em to the pharmacy disposal. Maybe Dina happens to have run into Walkyverse Me.)
I think I was also on oxy when I get my wisdom teeth extracted. Sorry it didn’t do much for you, but count your lucky stars you didn’t have to take your SATs a few days later while doped out on painkillers…
Yeah, that’s the “get ’em out early” vs. “get ’em out as an Old” tradeoff — it took me like three weeks to recover from getting ONE out, but at least I had vacation days banked.
This is also how I discovered that my pain tolerance is apparently through the roof, as I rated “dry socket, not responsive to opiates” as a 6/10 ’cause I could still sleep through it.
I can equally not recommend having a wisdom tooth removal wherein the oral surgeon calls over all the interns/residents every time you show up for a follow-up with a “hey, guys, come look and see how bad an impacted wisdom tooth removal can get! This guy could be in the textbook.”
Wisest move is to not have wisdom teeth.
I don’t think they had Oxycontin yet when I had my wisdom teeth out. Don’t remember what they gave me then, back in the early 90s. Probably some other opioid based thing. Really wanted it the first day. Stopped a couple days later because I wanted to drive to the D&D game.
Did get actual (probably synthetic) morphine for a leg injury a few years early. That was fun. It was like it still hurt, but it didn’t matter at all.
Yeah, that’s actually part of what you (sometimes) want a good pain med to do. It’s part of why the right weed strain can be really good for pain, because reducing how much you *care* about the pain can have just as much impact as reducing the actual pain. It’s why, in a pinch and depending on circumstances and one’s personal reactions to said meds, antihistamines can occasionally be worth pairing up with pain meds- if antihistamines make you loopy and generally unbothered, that can help with pain too.
…what the
i mean it’s not the first time she stole tho better this than the alcohol
Dina is *good* at this.
Must be the dinosaur magic.
I’ve been reading this comic for 15 years, and just recently reread it, I still refuse to believe (even if the “about/read before posting” thing says otherwise) that her name is pronounced Deena, because if it’s pronounced as written it’s literally a pun. ~<3
The official canonical (says me) walkyverse pronunciation of the name for the archaic clade is “deenosaur”. HTH.
I think that’s how it’s pronounced in German, actually.
That’s how it’s pronounced literally everywhere except in English. English is the one that underwent the Great Vowel Shift without updating any spellings.
I’ve been trying to adjust to it, because I’ve been talking about her out loud, but damn is it an adjustment.
I’ve always read it as Deena. In my experience, when the name is pronounced with a long I, it’s usually spelled with an ‘h’ on the end, like in “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”
I never read it any other way, but then I knew several Dinas when I was was growing up, and they all pronounced their name as “deena”.
…We SURE there isn’t any connection to the It’s Walky!verse? Because she really seems to have powers
See also Joyce’s teleportation ability.
Be magic, do crimes.
<3
Sadly, my experience with a close relative being assigned this stuff and the long recovery period leaves me kind of iffy. Hopefully, that’s not where they’re going with this.
That’s one of the morals for adults. It’s good to have lots of friends; you never know which one has unused prescription painkillers.
But im little worried for what Dina get those
It’s a college campus
Are there any creams for that?
Yeah but they’re all kidney-flavored.
I recently learned that after putting capsaiacin cream on arthritic hands…. do not go anywhere near your face with those chilli flavoured hands.
You’re not the boss of me.
Also do not go anywhere south of the border with those hands.
Wait so does that mean you shouldn’t wipe your butt?
You gotta wash REAL well first.
Addendum – also dont touch your nethers sans a vigorous scrubbing first.
Oh – and dont eat hot ginger-heavy thai food and engage in OS within the next 20 minutes.
My GF first was “Huh, weird, warm but not bad” …. and then spent half an hour in the shower cursing me. That evening did not go well and I felt put upon, because it could just as well have gone the other way.
And now begins the “Amber/Amazi-Girl develops a crippling opioid addiction” arc.
Glad I checked to see if someone had already wondered about that.
I really hope not. Not least because we don’t need any more media making people so scared of addiction that they won’t take or even seek out strong pain meds when they need ’em.
Opiates are not *that* risky- yes, they can be addictive, but it’s far from guaranteed. Especially when they’re taken responsibly. And a lot of the trouble with addiction and its ilk come from either doctor cutting off someone’s supply of safe meds and them resorting to something from the street because of how miserable going cold turkey is, or a doctor cutting off someone’s supply of safe meds and them resorting to street meds because they’re still in pain and desperately need pain relief. Either way, with better management you’d either have someone who tapers off of the meds and is fine, or someone who’s still on the meds (in a safe amount) because they *need* to be on the meds. But noo, lots of people can’t have that apparently.
I love how wildly different the stakes are for Amber than for everyone else at all times.
Literally the “Wolverine Subplot” meme
Good on Dina for understanding what that meant. I have a friend who is so literal that you really do have to be careful how you say things!
Wait, really? Like, I know people do sometimes say “I’m not hinting that I want you to…” when they actually do want you to, but I read this comic as Amber meaning exactly what she said, hence complaining in the last panel about Dina ignoring her wishes because her wellbeing is more important.
Dina is here to be gay, do dino stuff, and also crimes. And Becky isn’t in the room.
legally i wonder how much trouble amber would get in for taking it versus dina for stealing it lol
If she’s caught with the pills in her posession and her name isn’t the one on the label a bit of trouble, but it’s not likely to be a large enough quantity to justify posession with intent to sell. Could also be kicked out of college, but unlikely to actually happen because she would be out of the comic in that case.
For just taking them likely none unless she’s being drug tested for some reason.
It definitely feels like Dina has magic powers at this point. Along with a few other characters too.
“It is not magic. I am merely aware of the true nature of the universe. Space-time is quantized and defined only locally, and continuity is merely an illusion in the eye of the reader. Any time I am ‘off-panel’, I cannot be observed, so my location becomes undefined, and I might be anywhere. The same is true of other objects. Thus, these opioids.”
Dina feels like she came from the Octopus Pie Universe.
If not magic, why magical?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t ibuprofen an anticoagulant? I know I’ve been instructed not to use it after a surgery, but maybe that varies depending on the type of surgery.
Anyway my crackpot grimdark theory is that Dina didn’t actually steal these opioids at all; this is actually the exact same bottle of pills that was in Bonnie’s hands when Becky found her
It’s an anti-inflammatory, which means that it helps keep down swelling. This can be a good thing after surgery as it helps keep the swelling down around the surgical site, but one of the things that the inflammatory response does is close down the capillaries around the wound site, which can lead to additional bleeding. Not great if you’re also taking blood thinners at the same time, since you lose both the ability for swelling to close down the capillaries AND the coagulation that helps seal up the injury, making it a lot more likely for you to bleed excessively – but it’s not necessarily bad to take ibuprofen on its own after surgery.
Of course, it’s best to talk with your doctor about these sorts of things, because there are a boatload of factors that can throw things out of whack and make even generally safe medications dangerous for someone to take.
Given all the autism in this strip, I’m surprised they didn’t give Amber Tylenol! Wakka Wakka !
huh, i always thought it was oxycotin just the n and the end and not two
There is oxycontin, oxycodone, and a hormone called oxytocin.
man the ppl who named those must be trolling on purpose lol
Dina is an angel. A scientific angel.
Too late, Amber XD
https://imgchest.com/p/xny8ezwz2yb (NSFW)
Did I ever post this Walky/Amber picture? I was in a mood one day and wanted to draw them. I doubt they’ll happen in canon anytime soon but I can always create art of my OTP.
Nice. Walky learning a bit how to ne more dom.
Wait…. is that Walky lifting Amber? How did he get so strong?
…oh, wait, I think she’s holding herself up by gripping his shoulders with her legs while letting the wall behind her take much of her weight. That makes more sense.
Don’t be surprised if they do. Booster said Amber was deliberately trying to sabotage Dorothy and Walky so she could have Walky all to herself.
Dina coming in CLUTCH!
Amber should also be taking Tylenol! Or at least that what they had me doing after surgery. 800mg ibuprofen and 1000mg (I think?) acetaminophen, alternating between the two every four hours (so eight hours between each dose). I had some oxy too with instructions to take it if I was ever still in pain, even if I thought I could power through it, cuz it’s hard to heal when you’re in pain. I took it a few times but honestly the only thing it helped with was making me tired enough to sleep through the pain; it didn’t really reduce the pain, as far as I could tell.
Honestly the pain wasn’t fun but it was the lack of sleep and having to wake up every four hours, every day, for 7+ days in a row, that really did me in. (7 days? 14? I really can’t remember, those first few weeks are a blur.)
Dina is, in my opinion, absolutely The Realest. I love her sense of loyalty and intense focus. And her casual sense of. Legality. is really good.
Having a friend with super powers is so nice XD
Dina did not steal those; she left some money on either the counter, or in the cabinet where she found them, and then walked away.
Opioids are usually prescription-controlled though, so assuming she was indeed able to purchase these legally, one must wonder at what circumstances Dina was under to require opioids? (Wisdom teeth extraction comes to mind, but I do not know if Dina or possibly someone else in the wing recently had them.)
“Didn’t steal them” and “legally acquired them” aren’t quite the same statement though. Especially with something like opioids.
Yeah, I’m assuming SOMEONE that Dina knows had leftover wisdom tooth pills — that’s the right age group for it.
You guys are overthinking this. Just like how Dina walked in and out of the Liquor Store, with that bottle of booze, she just walked into the Pharmacy, grabbed the bottle of opioids, left money on the counter, and walked out.
Dina: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Now, what was that you mentioned about rawdogging? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) “
“I am not magic. I am science. Here.”
“I must not take these. Would you please get me some water to take these with?”
I don’t think rawdogging is probably the safest thing to be doing right now, but I guess if she’s horny, she’s horny.
I’ve lived with chronic pain for years, and recovered from some really traumatic surgeries. Can attest that people do sometimes have leftovers. Sometimes in the freezer, because you just never know.
But after my last major surgery I was on morphine for a long time and then some other opioid long enough that when I stopped it was a really uncomfortable week or so. As a result I try to avoid painkillers when I can.
“I was being sarcastic but also gimme”
The Alt Text… is saying that Dina will eventually Renounce Empirical Evidence and Embrace Magical Thinking?! *gasp* *shock* *horror*
Because the one thing emperical evidence cannot prove is “magic” because if it understood it, tested it. could codify it and describe its laws, it would no longer be magic, but some branch of science.
Even literally pulling a rabbit from one’s hat would be something like “Extradimensional lagomorph transportation, facilitated by remote activation of miniature wormholes by vocal and gesture-related stimuli” or something, and the knowledge about it would create so many branches of science that she would essentially spend the rest of her days happily studying it like some sort of freaking wizard.
High up in a tower, wearing a pointed hat, occasionally riding across the countryside on a pterosaur named Goldblum that she brought from the ancient past through said absolutely-not-magical-because-it’s-science! glittery time portals.
I’m not entirely convinced of that. Certainly if it could be understood, codified and the laws tested, it would make sense to understand it as science, but that kind of presupposes that magic was science to start with.
It’s certainly possible to imagine magic working like that, but it’s not clear that it has to. As an example, magic that was essentially miracles performed through divine intervention would be nearly impossible to study or codify beyond “God can do stuff”.
Those would be classed as “miracles”, not “magic” (D&D and similar games get kind of dodgy with the terminology, but then again using abilities in Starfield that are granted via brain implants is still called “casting” by the devs, so…). Magic that operates by rules and performs consistently (the only sort I could ever envision Dina messing about with) is just a science that we don’t understand yet.
Friendship is magic-Dina.
I don’t think I want to know how she got those
aw, wholesome friendship moment in the messiest of circumstances <3
Dina’s ability to simply walk places and be not noticed has been used like four or five times total and each time it’s perfectly executed.
I hate to be technical, but rawdogging would imply 0 pain relievers. I mean, hope this doesn’t become Doping of Age or anything, but we’ll see.
`Last time I had surgery they sent me home with 3-day supply and a *prescription* for Oxycodone… which no pharmacy would fulfill. They were all “Currently out of stock, we don’t know when we’ll get more in, but let us take that silly prescription off your hands and we’ll let you know…”
Was it because they thought your prescription was fake, or because they did not want to fill even a real prescription for fear of the side effects? Or some other reason?
I’m assuming they thought it was a forgery, and that a “real” scrip for serious opiates would come in electronically.
I always fill hard to get prescriptions through the hospital.
I’m just glad to be getting back to Amber. I was worried about her.
But we still haven’t found out how Amazi-Girl is doing!
Dammit, Becks, this is not where you should be seeking comfort for this particular problem.
Unless you already tried Robin and Leslie and found out they’re in jail.
(how did I put this on the wrong page??)