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Oh no, you didn’t catch the sequel where Jesus raises Raptor from the grave for a team up against The personification of American imperialisms? It is a banger.
The part that makes me especially sad is that so many people I know who kept this shame had to find out the hard way that getting married absolutely did NOT magically vanish it.
depends on the person. to me those are COMPLETELY different things. with new partners (or even long time partners if I’m feeling particularly shy for some reason) it’s very difficult to undress myself, but getting undressed by them is not a big deal at all
It very much depends on what the issue is. The impression I’m getting is that Becky isn’t actually morally opposed to getting undressed in front of Dina in the same way as she is with pre-marital hanky panky (clue: literally suggesting it) she just can’t actually bring herself to do it. Dina undressing her isn’t a loophole in her beliefs, it’s a workaround for a condition her beliefs have left her in.
You gosh darn genius Dina. Who’s to say if this works but this might thread the needle of what Becky needs without activating her shame instinct. It’s technically Dina forcing Becky sort of but also it’s collaborative which helps Becky understand she has control here.
And being horny is plaguing Becky with how it hits her religious trauma.
I was so pessimistic about this but gosh dang darn it am I happy with how this is turning out.
A hacker like me sees a very special fourth option —
1. Open Task Manager
2. Right Click BECKY.EXE
3. Set Priority to Real Time or High, depening on OS Version
Now all Dina needs to do is find the analogous set of steps. My first guess is something to do with blood glucose, given the brain uses 25% of our energy.
But let’s see what the Empress of Evolution can do! 🧠🦕🦖
I’ve finally figured out what’s been bugging me about Becky’s hat: It looks like it should have a barcode or price printed on that center white piece. I keep waiting for some check-out clerk to appear with one of those beeping scanner things.
Ah i was wondering how someone was gonna twist this into Becky being a bad person without straight up crossing the line of “your religious sexual trauma means you’re abusive and Dina deserves better”
If the people I know interpeted “I want to be able to do this but I can’t” as “No”, I would literally have spent the last twenty years in a dark room being miserable.
Except that’s not at all what’s going on. Becky has explicitly expressed discomfort at the situation. Regardless of her rationalizing, she’s uncomfortable.
Becky is saying “I SHOULD want to do this but I can’t.” She’s doing the same thing as Joyce was, overcorrecting after leaving a life she’s no longer part of.
If she can’t bring herself to do these things, you don’t keep going and loophole your way through it. You stop and address the underlying reason as to WHY you can’t.
Okay you’re right, except it’s Becky trying to loophole her way out of her sexual guilt complex by having Dina pressure her into it so Becky can tell herself she tried to resist her sinful loins.
Becky wants sex, but she still relies on her fundie upbringing to tell her it’s wrong, as opposed to the possible truth of the matter where Becky was violently traumatized by her entire life getting thrown into a chaotic mess and sex is scary to her because being a good girl that says no to sex is the last part of Becky’s old life that’s left. Becky constantly reinforces in Dina that she wants to be perceived as sexy and enticing, so that’s why Dina’s exploring Becky’s boundaries without, explicitly, actually having sex.
Except Becky has already said why. She understands where the block is coming from, and is clearly unhappy about it.
Erring on the side of consent is absolutely the best way to go about it, but these characters are not new to us. We know that Dina is not the type to blunder about disregarding signals she has difficulty reading. Her history shows a tendency to do her best to learn when she can to do right by her peers, and if she is unsure about a situation she’s shown a history of asking or erring on the side of caution.
If any character in this strip deserves benefit of the doubt, it’s Dina. Seriously folks.
“These characters are not new to us”
What do you mean, every strip isn’t individually the oldest and most recent? I thought these events were all stand-alone bubbles devoid of context, to be picked apart for misbehavior and then discarded within 24 hours, not an ongoing story connected to previous stories!
I thought these events were all stand-alone bubbles devoid of context, to be picked apart for misbehavior and then discarded within 24 hours, not an ongoing story connected to previous stories
Regarding the discussion of “no means no” and whether Dina is coercing Becky… Becky’s made it very clear she’s interested in this sexual exploration thing, it’s just her own neuroses that are holding her back. As someone who has also had a lot of sexual anxiety in the past, I can confirm that:
“I am uncomfortable with this, but I dislike that I feel that way, and may need to find an alternate approach to help myself break through that mental barrier”
is very different from:
“I am uncomfortable with this and further attempts to get me to do it anyways would be unwelcome”
It is, but it’s definitely dangerous territory – especially if you start to use pressure to get past those barriers and/or those barriers keep them from clarifying what they want.
It isn’t, though. Becky WANTS to do things for Dina, wants to at the very least “sexy” for Dina without threatening their chastity. She also admits that her hesitation is not from lack of desire but from her own restrictive upbringing. It’s a delicate subject, to be sure, and one that should not be pressured, but she very obviously doesn’t want Dina to stop.
I’ve been reading this entire situation as Becky being sort of stuck in the mindset from her upbringing, and she’s just not super thinking about the sort of loopholes and alternate ideas that would let her act and be the way she clearly wants to act and be. Dina’s offering those other ideas, and each time Becky seems to be like “Oh yeeeaaaah! That’d work!”.
Part of it is that Becky wants that agency taken away from her. If she was the one instigating it, she’s consciously going against her fundie upbringing. So she wants Dina to be the one ravaging her, etc.
This isn’t a perfect solution, but Dina being in charge can be a decent way to test her boundaries.
She could stand to go against that upbringing a little more, tbh. It doesn’t seem like it’s bringing her a whole lot of happiness, at least in certain parts of her life. Hopefully Dina’s gentle pushing can help in that regard. Long as the pushing stays gentle and she doesn’t take it too far.
Yeah, the shame block definitely has an aspect of ‘but if you just so happened to COMPLETELY LOSE CONTROL then I could give into my passions because it’s not MY fault you couldn’t control yourself and instigated it (please ravish me) and then if we do then hey, easier to ask forgiveness once the bandaid’s already ripped off once, right? And it’s okay if I enjoyed it if I didn’t START it.’
It’s the Old School Romance Novel Rape Fantasy Loophole, basically. The issue is Dina is then struggling to find where the line is between ‘No, stop, don’t, but also yes please I just feel obligated to say this’ and ‘actual, genuine no,’ because as Liz and Joe demonstrated a few in-strip days ago, even BECKY probably isn’t sure where that boundary truly is.
I was pretty optimistic but you’re all right that this is still dangerous territory.
@regalli – You have a pretty good read on Becky, where do you think this is going? Do you think this the right kind of boundary pushing or will Becky freak?
Even if Becky freaks a little, I’m sure Dina will know exactly what to do.
This is more than anything an extraordinary and exciting scientific endeavor, and Dina wouldn’t even be doing this unless she knew BOTH of them were prepared.
Dina’s a scientist as well as a partner here, but she’s more than that. She’s venturing into dangerous, uncharted territory, gathering knowledge that’ll help not only her and Becky, but those who’ll have to face the same challenges. She’s a HERO, and she’s about to show us what she’s made of!!!!
I’m not at all convinced Dina does know. It was only yesterday she was introduced to the concept that “sometimes when somebody says they don’t want to talk about it, maybe they want you to make them talk about it.”
She might well be right to apply that here, but it’s not at all clear she’s got a good handle on how to tell when it applies and when it doesn’t.
I think Dina is smart enough to know the difference between the vagueness of human contact and pressuring your partner into sex acts.
Like, the entire point of this interaction is that Dina wants to explore Becky’s boundaries, with Becky’s consent, without threatening her chastity. That is a thing that was said five days ago now.
Dina’s problems with social interactions is in how she can’t pick up social cues, whereas Becky has been a bundle of neuroses but has stated that she wants to be sexually enticing but without sex itself. Becky’s hangups are contradictory, but Dina herself has already plainly stated she’s not going to have sex with Becky now.
And as long as she’s not going to have sex with Becky now, it’s perfectly fine to do anything else over Becky’s objections, because stripping her doesn’t threaten her chastity, even though she’s clearly uncomfortable doing it?
Don’t get me wrong, I think Dina’s probably right here, but I’m not at all sure she is and even less sure she’s prepared to catch the nuances that’ll let her know she’s pushing too hard.
Becky wants to be sexually enticing without having sex. They are exploring her boundaries, it’s just that her boundaries are rooted in something more complex than she is capable of saying aloud.
Becky is, innately, going to be nervous about approaching sexual interactions. That’s why, specifically, this is meant to a safe exploring of a difficult subject.
Like, bud, I dunno how to tell you this, but we’re not in for The Story Where Dina Pressures Becky Into Sex Because She’s Too Blind To Social Cues.
She’s not just “not objecting,” they’ve made it abundantly clear that this only goes as far as Becky wants, won’t threaten her chastity, and Becky being sexually enticing to Dina is a thing that Becky has repeatedly, loudly and verbally, insisted she wants.
Your read is being filtered through the idea that a neurodivergent person is incapable of knowing when their sexual partner wants to stop in a scenario where boundaries are being repeatedly checked and acknowledged.
I feel pretty confident, based off past behavior, that Dina will lean on the side of ‘you said no, was that a hard no or a keep pushing no?’ or just stop outright – she needed the ‘sometimes people want to be asked even when they say no’ explained directly, but that means her default is ‘take a no at its word,’ and she has consistently been respectful of ‘Becky doesn’t want to have sex’ (it’s just that she also kind of does but struggles to articulate that directly). Which is good, because I think there’s a high chance Becky will in fact reach the Firm Nope Point, and given BECKY doesn’t seem to know where ‘I feel ashamed but it’s okay if someone else is in control’ gives way to ‘I am Not Okay With This’ I’m not sure she’ll realize they’re at the point until it’s crossed. (Note: If that point is crossed, it won’t be either of their faults any more than Joe and Liz’s encounter was a thing where they were ‘at fault.’ They’re teenagers. Liz and Becky have enough sexual shame that they don’t know for sure where their boundaries really lie because they haven’t had the space to safely contemplate sex at all. Joe and Dina can’t be expected to know better than their partners on that front – Joe could have been skeptical enough about it to say HE personally was uncomfortable having sex with HER, but taking Liz at her word was not in and of itself a bad thing. So long as they stopped when the other says ‘stop,’ that’s fine.)
All that said, if Leslie is teaching a unit on kink and safe words that would probably be beneficial for Becky given what we’ve seen of the ‘no I don’t want to have sex… but I’m disappointed you won’t give into your passions and rip my clothes off’ thing.
Peharps someone could say I was getting so far in my comment. Maybe yes.
Maybe because it’s a comic, and we already know how the Dina and Becky couple dynamic works.
It’s hard to think, and there’s so few author that creates about neuroatypical people. It took me a time to figure out Willis is not writing about a funny couple. How can a ex-fundie, who is struggling about her faith and a person that have some mental issues can live together?
And, something is bugging me: the boundaries between they, is the same like any other couple? …
If there’s only one thing I had to disagree with right off the bat though, it’s referring to neurodivergence as “mental issues”. I really prefer to think of it as the brain “functioning differently”.
Dina is testing around the edges, gathering data, searching for ways to bypass Becky’s Sunday School Defenses, and the latter is well aware.
This is science Dina’s doing. She’s experimenting, building a model of Becky’s Fundie Programming, and will proceed to gain better and better understanding of how it works so they can exploit it to both their benefit, as with any other phenomena in the universe.
Hate to break it to ya Becks, but there’s no guarantee that Fundie Shame Mental Block(TM) will actually go away once you’re married. Best work on breaking it down now, so you can be happier later in life.
Becky is able to dissociate from any part of her upbringing that contradicts that God loves her.
Becky still needs sexual purity to count because she’s afraid of changing (my guess is that losing her virginity is the last sign that Good Girl For Jesus Becky with alive parents and a Joyce bestie is dead and gone forever), and so it still has a foothold in her head as something she needs to justify to herself.
I am so sad for Becky, she is in such a weird place, Orphaned, and her Bestie, Joyce, changing so much. It looks like Dina is just the best thing that might happen in her whole life. I am fraught, Fraught I Say, with hope and fear, wishing it goes well for her, and that she can rise to the challenge.
I was thinking more in terms of adult life. Parents weren’t quite that hands-on, so I had to change my own clothes while I played with my Bionicles/PS1.
Y’know, this is an amazing storyline and a great moment in that storyline, but I’ve been playing a lot of Disco Elysium and right now all I see is Becky’s hat having an RCM halogen watermark X)
I’m kinda hoping this works and helps Becky get out of her fundie issues with nakedness and sex. And from my interpretation of Becky’s face in the last panel, she seems to be ok with Dina’s solution.
Dang it’s almost like Becky grew up in an authoritarian household with a controlling parent who instilled in her that disobedience was a moral and spiritual failing, and so problems instilled in her by another source are now failings on her part.
Like how the strip where we find out Becky’s trying to convert Joyce back had her insist “she hates me more than she’d be willing to come back to Jesus” or how being told about asexuality by Leslie and Robin led her to start blaming her sinful horniness.
the first time i encountered the idea that some large majority of the cells in your body aren’t genetically _you_, it creeped the absolute shit out of me. fast forward to reading _Brave New World_: the already heavy “62400 repetitions make one truth” pretty much triggered an existential crisis over how much of me is actually me psychologically and mentally.
been living a life of frantic idiosyncrasy ever since
Having thought about the strip as an autistic, can everyone who’s saying Dina is naive about consent because she’s autistic stop, it’s infantilising in its implication and deeply ableist.
It has only been a conversation so far and Dina has just now started getting physical, always being clear verbally. Yea she isn’t getting every piece of info but she also hasn’t pushed Becky’s boundaries because of a lack of it. All that’s occurred is questions and suggestions.
I understand some of the worries with Becky, I’ve had them too, but that’s all Becky’s internal stuff, and making all of Becky’s choices Dina’s responsibility whilst also treating her as naive because autism is not cool.
Not naming names and I don’t wanna fight about it but it makes me uncomfortable.
To be clear, I’m also uncomfortable with following that logic for a moment myself.
Yeah, as a neurodivergent, this is EXACTLY why I HATE labels like “autism” — they’re just so overgeneralizing, and lead to people making REALLY hurtful assumptions about us.
I feel that telling neurotypicals “autism is a spectrum and we’re all different” isn’t enough, with that one label their brains are all too tempted to extrapolate and project traits that aren’t there and wind up painting over our intellect and personality with a single brush stroke.
For now, I guess just autocorrecting with the better “neurodivergent” works, but I really just wish we had a better system for describing our unique stripes of neurodivergence the same way we describe our gender or sexuality with like 10 billion options to choose from.
The system we have for describing neurodivergence now, you might as well try to capture the beauty of an Aurora Borealis with a disposable camera.
You know, although I think this model needs work, at the very least this is actually a good starting point for understanding all kinds of neurodivergent stripes, “autism” or not! I can see traits that belong in current categories like ADHD and various anxiety disorders going in here too for instance!
I’m not so sure about vague parts of it though. What exactly does “aggression” mean? Who gets to define what makes for “””abnormal””” speech?
One of the biggest things I hate about package deals like the “autism” label is that it makes it VERY hard for neurotypicals to tell the difference between our disabilities and our PERSONALITIES.
In fact, in a very strict sense, labels like this were never even originally meant to help us at all, but marginalize us so neurotypicals wouldn’t even need to give a thought about us, let alone understand us. “Autism” is actually Latin for “morbid self absorption”, and that alone says A LOT about the AWFUL place these labels came from without going into the gruesome details.
Even today, speaking realistically, these labels are practically controlled by neurotypicals managing popular media who rarely have our best interests, and are inevitably a VERY distorted lens to attempt to understand us from, and an ESPECIALLY distorted lens to develop a CHARACTER from.
That said, it still gives me hope that we’ll be able to find better ways to describe ourselves, and show all our beautiful, unique stripes of gender, sexuality and neurodivergence for all the world to see!
No worries , it’s an ongoing conversation that should always be about preferring our perspective as neurodivergent folk and not governments for example
I like both terms. For me, “autistic” is the specific type of neurodivergence that I am. It’s what I was diagnosed with fairly recently, and it’s not my fault that some neurotypical people have some harmful misconceptions about what the word “autism” means. I try to educate those people on those misconceptions when I can and I feel up to it. While autism can be more disabling for some than others, I feel more comfortable with the neurodivergency way of looking at it. My brain just works differently than most people.
Kinda wondering how many people are actually gonna see this comment since the next strip updates in about an hour.
It’s all about what makes us comfy, and yea I still like autism as a descriptor despite its baggage. The real problem is we is orgs like ‘autism speaks’ being the bigger voice than autistic and neurodvergent folk in general
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it feels early in their relationship for assisted care but WHATEVER WORKS!
YES STEVE!!
(alt)
Steve and his cereal have really made an impact.
Honestly that’s all I really want, I miss Steve
EH STEVE!
here the needfuldoer, have a trophy
I, for one, love and adore a HSR reference.
I’m gonna buy you a pizza!
AND THEN THEY UNDRESSED
WHAT IS THIS LAME SHIT
–Yelling Bird
Alt-text had better frigging follow through after getting my hopes up like this
Word
Unfortunately, Becky’s Guilt Complex already thought of that, and she dressed in layers.
Dina is in for some hard work.
Maybe Dina will teleport Becky out of her clothes. Wouldn’t that be a trip.
Undressing your partner can be a lot of fun. Kind of like unwrapping a present!
And so the battle against the Chains of the Sunday School BEGINS!!!
Everyone get popcorn and soda!!! Or your refreshments of choice! This is gonna be EPIC!!!!
Empress of Evolution, show us your POWER!!!
*plays “Landfall” by Cycerin on Hacked Muzak*
jesus vs raptor
na na na na na na
He went extinct for our sins
Oh no, you didn’t catch the sequel where Jesus raises Raptor from the grave for a team up against The personification of American imperialisms? It is a banger.
More like painful.
OR, we’re gonna skip back to Sarah.
Whelp, guess they’re really doing this.
Becky’ face in that last panel: Yep, there goes the fuse.
Clever girl.
Man I hope the alt text is serious that would be a hilarious way to censor via scene change
Well it can’t be Dina eating a bowl of cereal, she will be otherwise occupied.
She’ll be eating her breakfast, but it won’t be cereal.
Doesn’t seem likely. Recall that the very first time we saw her in spaghetti straps was a picture of her eating cereal!
I’m afraid you don’t appreciate my comedy stylings.
Not that I don’t appreciate it. I just don’t like to count my dinosaurs before they hatch, if you know what I mean.
“I heard I’m supposed to do this like my name is Romaine, so I’ve drafted some mock legal documents.”
Riley eating cereal.
Censorship via strategically placed foreground props.
^THIS
Yes.
I won’t be suprised if we’re gonna cut back to poor Joyce or the Sarah-Liz-Family-Drama
We definitely need more Sarah and Liz in the car scenes. Even if it’s just the two of them glaring at each other.
I don’t think we’re done here though, even if we cut away, we’ll be back.
QC Steve is the zoomr driver. He parked on the side of the road to munch on cereals, because drivers need to refuel, too.
No lie, I would be all over a strip that is just Sarah and Liz glaring at each other silently for however many panels.
…Clever girl.
Dina sneakily undermining Becky’s religion with technicalities, is awesome on so many levels.
Steve eating cereal is such a mood, also it makes me want cereal.
I guess I’m going to get some cereal for a midnight snack.
You and me both.
Dina really out here trying to kill god.
She truly is a Shin Megami Tensei protagonist.
More so than you might think.
She is pure, yes, but that purity has a dark side.
That all will soon see…
https://imgur.com/a/kbTYOx8
Okay, Taffy, you just won the award for best comment of the evening. Congrats.
**heartfelt applause**
Seriously good to see some SMT love.
My favorite Persona is Slime. Whether that affects your response I cannot know.
I’m admittedly a sucker for the absurdly adorable mascot. Hee-ho!
As a Persona fan, I concur!
I don’t think those guys have the copyright on trying to kill god.
that would be the fantastic four
I’m pretty sure it’s in the public domain by now but I definitely don’t think they have it.
“The God you so cravenly worship is dead.”
– Joyce, descending from the sky in front of Tokyo Tower
I think the filter is eating my comments but I have no idea why unless Willis is doing it.
Willis, can you shed some light on why the comments are being eaten?
Comments are Willis’s cereal?
Artists gotta eat somethin’, right?
Willis drinks tears, but we never before knew what counted for food.
I’m going to try again, but the phrase I keep trying to post is: K,a,m,i w,a s,h,i,n,d,a
Yep it got eaten again, clearly Willis is eating them or the filter is picking up on something for some unexplainable reason.
They’re getting auto-flagged as spam, possibly because things that aren’t in English are deemed by akismet as likely to be spam.
Dang, akismet racism moment?
Perhaps I’d better stop posting in Latin.
I dunno, I once invoked Cthulhu in the comments and the filter didn’t flag it as spam.
I would assume majority english comments are fine, but if you wrote a comment entirely in Gaeilge or something, you’d run into problems
Post enough English filler text with your non-English bits, and Akismet lets it through.
Mi wonder dewe da filter feels ere da use fo belta?
Hakuna Matata to you too?
Add to that Hasa Diga Eebowai.
Can’t kill what was never alive to begin with.
~an Atheist. xD
Well, that’s one way to solve that problem. XD
Dina is a veritable fountain of good ideas.
Dang, Dina been doing some sexy research!
The part that makes me especially sad is that so many people I know who kept this shame had to find out the hard way that getting married absolutely did NOT magically vanish it.
also, hellllll yeah Dina, thinkin’ of solutions!
Becky: AT LAST, A LOOPHOLE
I don’t know. Undressing and letting yourself be undressed don’t seem all that different. Like those old bullying PSA’s on being a bystander.
depends on the person. to me those are COMPLETELY different things. with new partners (or even long time partners if I’m feeling particularly shy for some reason) it’s very difficult to undress myself, but getting undressed by them is not a big deal at all
Like rape fantasies? Becky undressing is SIN. Becky getting undressed by her gf is out of her control so not her fault.
I think some fans have speculate that Becky even wanted that for sex, for Dina to be uncontrollably horny and ravish Becky, so Not Becky’s Fault.
It very much depends on what the issue is. The impression I’m getting is that Becky isn’t actually morally opposed to getting undressed in front of Dina in the same way as she is with pre-marital hanky panky (clue: literally suggesting it) she just can’t actually bring herself to do it. Dina undressing her isn’t a loophole in her beliefs, it’s a workaround for a condition her beliefs have left her in.
*considers God’s Loophole for the Hacked Muzak, then remembers that song is for the straights.*
Take her go-karting, Dina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__d03IqV4BE
HOLY CRAP!!!! 🤯🤯🤯
That would make for the Best Science Experiment EVER!!! 🤩🤩🤩
In fact, if given the right ingredients, I might just be able to turn this scenario into a game….
How about just Loophole by Noel Miller? I mean it’s about derfing but everything he does is for the lesbians.
Oooh!! I wonder if I can try that argument on my wife. That solution sounds quite…..intriguing.
Man, the whole rest of the cast really does do all of Becky’s character development for her, don’t they.
Lifelong brainwashing is DIFFICULT. Becky’s doing a ton just by being here and expressing absolutely everything that’s going on for her.
You gosh darn genius Dina. Who’s to say if this works but this might thread the needle of what Becky needs without activating her shame instinct. It’s technically Dina forcing Becky sort of but also it’s collaborative which helps Becky understand she has control here.
And being horny is plaguing Becky with how it hits her religious trauma.
I was so pessimistic about this but gosh dang darn it am I happy with how this is turning out.
You can see, like, the wheels of an entire Swiss clock factory turning in Becky’s eyes right now.
BECKY.EXE has stopped responding. Abort/Cancel/Retry?
A hacker like me sees a very special fourth option —
1. Open Task Manager
2. Right Click BECKY.EXE
3. Set Priority to Real Time or High, depening on OS Version
Now all Dina needs to do is find the analogous set of steps. My first guess is something to do with blood glucose, given the brain uses 25% of our energy.
But let’s see what the Empress of Evolution can do!
🧠🦕🦖 
yeees
When you read this and QC and fully burst out laughing at the hover comment
Fantastic.
I’ve finally figured out what’s been bugging me about Becky’s hat: It looks like it should have a barcode or price printed on that center white piece. I keep waiting for some check-out clerk to appear with one of those beeping scanner things.
I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be something like a Carhartt toque, with a logo printed or embroidered on that patch.
“Vote For DeSanto”
Points to Becky for some honesty and self-awareness here. No wacky deflection, just admitting it to Dina and herself. It’s genuinely refreshing.
Big emphasis on the “No wacky deflection”.
Especially in panel 3, that’s Becky really letting down her guard and telling the truth of what’s deep down.
It’s definitely nice to see that from Becky. Especially since her wacky deflections have been grating on my nerves for some time now.
I’m super glad Becky recognizes her behavior *when she’s getting something she wants*.
Note the sarcasm.
Ah i was wondering how someone was gonna twist this into Becky being a bad person without straight up crossing the line of “your religious sexual trauma means you’re abusive and Dina deserves better”
I guess it’s a huge no, Dina. You better stop.
Yeah no, Becky’s clearly uncomfortable. This is rapidly approaching Squick territory.
Becky is clearly Intrigued by Dina’s suggestion in the last panel.
…No. That’s not how it works.
No means no. It doesn’t matter the reasoning, if someone says no, you stop. End of discussion.
If the people I know interpeted “I want to be able to do this but I can’t” as “No”, I would literally have spent the last twenty years in a dark room being miserable.
Except that’s not at all what’s going on. Becky has explicitly expressed discomfort at the situation. Regardless of her rationalizing, she’s uncomfortable.
Becky is saying “I SHOULD want to do this but I can’t.” She’s doing the same thing as Joyce was, overcorrecting after leaving a life she’s no longer part of.
If she can’t bring herself to do these things, you don’t keep going and loophole your way through it. You stop and address the underlying reason as to WHY you can’t.
Okay you’re right, except it’s Becky trying to loophole her way out of her sexual guilt complex by having Dina pressure her into it so Becky can tell herself she tried to resist her sinful loins.
Becky wants sex, but she still relies on her fundie upbringing to tell her it’s wrong, as opposed to the possible truth of the matter where Becky was violently traumatized by her entire life getting thrown into a chaotic mess and sex is scary to her because being a good girl that says no to sex is the last part of Becky’s old life that’s left. Becky constantly reinforces in Dina that she wants to be perceived as sexy and enticing, so that’s why Dina’s exploring Becky’s boundaries without, explicitly, actually having sex.
I’m interested to see how close a commenter gets to throwing the R-word I’m Dina’s direction. I really am.
Except Becky has already said why. She understands where the block is coming from, and is clearly unhappy about it.
Erring on the side of consent is absolutely the best way to go about it, but these characters are not new to us. We know that Dina is not the type to blunder about disregarding signals she has difficulty reading. Her history shows a tendency to do her best to learn when she can to do right by her peers, and if she is unsure about a situation she’s shown a history of asking or erring on the side of caution.
If any character in this strip deserves benefit of the doubt, it’s Dina. Seriously folks.
“These characters are not new to us”
What do you mean, every strip isn’t individually the oldest and most recent? I thought these events were all stand-alone bubbles devoid of context, to be picked apart for misbehavior and then discarded within 24 hours, not an ongoing story connected to previous stories!
I thought these events were all stand-alone bubbles devoid of context, to be picked apart for misbehavior and then discarded within 24 hours, not an ongoing story connected to previous stories
ok i know youre being sarcastic but
Regarding the discussion of “no means no” and whether Dina is coercing Becky… Becky’s made it very clear she’s interested in this sexual exploration thing, it’s just her own neuroses that are holding her back. As someone who has also had a lot of sexual anxiety in the past, I can confirm that:
“I am uncomfortable with this, but I dislike that I feel that way, and may need to find an alternate approach to help myself break through that mental barrier”
is very different from:
“I am uncomfortable with this and further attempts to get me to do it anyways would be unwelcome”
It is, but it’s definitely dangerous territory – especially if you start to use pressure to get past those barriers and/or those barriers keep them from clarifying what they want.
It isn’t, though. Becky WANTS to do things for Dina, wants to at the very least “sexy” for Dina without threatening their chastity. She also admits that her hesitation is not from lack of desire but from her own restrictive upbringing. It’s a delicate subject, to be sure, and one that should not be pressured, but she very obviously doesn’t want Dina to stop.
I’ve been reading this entire situation as Becky being sort of stuck in the mindset from her upbringing, and she’s just not super thinking about the sort of loopholes and alternate ideas that would let her act and be the way she clearly wants to act and be. Dina’s offering those other ideas, and each time Becky seems to be like “Oh yeeeaaaah! That’d work!”.
Maybe that’s just me.
Part of it is that Becky wants that agency taken away from her. If she was the one instigating it, she’s consciously going against her fundie upbringing. So she wants Dina to be the one ravaging her, etc.
This isn’t a perfect solution, but Dina being in charge can be a decent way to test her boundaries.
She could stand to go against that upbringing a little more, tbh. It doesn’t seem like it’s bringing her a whole lot of happiness, at least in certain parts of her life. Hopefully Dina’s gentle pushing can help in that regard. Long as the pushing stays gentle and she doesn’t take it too far.
Yeah, the shame block definitely has an aspect of ‘but if you just so happened to COMPLETELY LOSE CONTROL then I could give into my passions because it’s not MY fault you couldn’t control yourself and instigated it (please ravish me) and then if we do then hey, easier to ask forgiveness once the bandaid’s already ripped off once, right? And it’s okay if I enjoyed it if I didn’t START it.’
It’s the Old School Romance Novel Rape Fantasy Loophole, basically. The issue is Dina is then struggling to find where the line is between ‘No, stop, don’t, but also yes please I just feel obligated to say this’ and ‘actual, genuine no,’ because as Liz and Joe demonstrated a few in-strip days ago, even BECKY probably isn’t sure where that boundary truly is.
I was pretty optimistic but you’re all right that this is still dangerous territory.
@regalli – You have a pretty good read on Becky, where do you think this is going? Do you think this the right kind of boundary pushing or will Becky freak?
Even if Becky freaks a little, I’m sure Dina will know exactly what to do.
This is more than anything an extraordinary and exciting scientific endeavor, and Dina wouldn’t even be doing this unless she knew BOTH of them were prepared.
Dina’s a scientist as well as a partner here, but she’s more than that. She’s venturing into dangerous, uncharted territory, gathering knowledge that’ll help not only her and Becky, but those who’ll have to face the same challenges. She’s a HERO, and she’s about to show us what she’s made of!!!!
*plays “Cross the Stormy Sea” by Shinji Miyazaki on Becky’s Phone*
Well I’m hoping for the best
Good tune by the by
I’m not at all convinced Dina does know. It was only yesterday she was introduced to the concept that “sometimes when somebody says they don’t want to talk about it, maybe they want you to make them talk about it.”
She might well be right to apply that here, but it’s not at all clear she’s got a good handle on how to tell when it applies and when it doesn’t.
I think Dina is smart enough to know the difference between the vagueness of human contact and pressuring your partner into sex acts.
Like, the entire point of this interaction is that Dina wants to explore Becky’s boundaries, with Becky’s consent, without threatening her chastity. That is a thing that was said five days ago now.
Dina’s problems with social interactions is in how she can’t pick up social cues, whereas Becky has been a bundle of neuroses but has stated that she wants to be sexually enticing but without sex itself. Becky’s hangups are contradictory, but Dina herself has already plainly stated she’s not going to have sex with Becky now.
And as long as she’s not going to have sex with Becky now, it’s perfectly fine to do anything else over Becky’s objections, because stripping her doesn’t threaten her chastity, even though she’s clearly uncomfortable doing it?
Don’t get me wrong, I think Dina’s probably right here, but I’m not at all sure she is and even less sure she’s prepared to catch the nuances that’ll let her know she’s pushing too hard.
Okay but Becky isn’t objecting. That’s the point.
Becky wants to be sexually enticing without having sex. They are exploring her boundaries, it’s just that her boundaries are rooted in something more complex than she is capable of saying aloud.
Becky is, innately, going to be nervous about approaching sexual interactions. That’s why, specifically, this is meant to a safe exploring of a difficult subject.
Like, bud, I dunno how to tell you this, but we’re not in for The Story Where Dina Pressures Becky Into Sex Because She’s Too Blind To Social Cues.
That’s fair. As I said, I think she’s probably right here.
I just think this is treacherous territory and just “not objecting” is really not enough to be sure.
She’s not just “not objecting,” they’ve made it abundantly clear that this only goes as far as Becky wants, won’t threaten her chastity, and Becky being sexually enticing to Dina is a thing that Becky has repeatedly, loudly and verbally, insisted she wants.
Your read is being filtered through the idea that a neurodivergent person is incapable of knowing when their sexual partner wants to stop in a scenario where boundaries are being repeatedly checked and acknowledged.
I feel pretty confident, based off past behavior, that Dina will lean on the side of ‘you said no, was that a hard no or a keep pushing no?’ or just stop outright – she needed the ‘sometimes people want to be asked even when they say no’ explained directly, but that means her default is ‘take a no at its word,’ and she has consistently been respectful of ‘Becky doesn’t want to have sex’ (it’s just that she also kind of does but struggles to articulate that directly). Which is good, because I think there’s a high chance Becky will in fact reach the Firm Nope Point, and given BECKY doesn’t seem to know where ‘I feel ashamed but it’s okay if someone else is in control’ gives way to ‘I am Not Okay With This’ I’m not sure she’ll realize they’re at the point until it’s crossed. (Note: If that point is crossed, it won’t be either of their faults any more than Joe and Liz’s encounter was a thing where they were ‘at fault.’ They’re teenagers. Liz and Becky have enough sexual shame that they don’t know for sure where their boundaries really lie because they haven’t had the space to safely contemplate sex at all. Joe and Dina can’t be expected to know better than their partners on that front – Joe could have been skeptical enough about it to say HE personally was uncomfortable having sex with HER, but taking Liz at her word was not in and of itself a bad thing. So long as they stopped when the other says ‘stop,’ that’s fine.)
All that said, if Leslie is teaching a unit on kink and safe words that would probably be beneficial for Becky given what we’ve seen of the ‘no I don’t want to have sex… but I’m disappointed you won’t give into your passions and rip my clothes off’ thing.
That sounds about right, especially with Becky hitting a “no” point. Yea Becky might really benefit from exploring kink even if it’s only research.
Peharps someone could say I was getting so far in my comment. Maybe yes.
Maybe because it’s a comic, and we already know how the Dina and Becky couple dynamic works.
It’s hard to think, and there’s so few author that creates about neuroatypical people. It took me a time to figure out Willis is not writing about a funny couple. How can a ex-fundie, who is struggling about her faith and a person that have some mental issues can live together?
And, something is bugging me: the boundaries between they, is the same like any other couple? …
I see you find this fascinating! Excellent!
If there’s only one thing I had to disagree with right off the bat though, it’s referring to neurodivergence as “mental issues”. I really prefer to think of it as the brain “functioning differently”.
Yeah, I’m sorry. I’ll pay attention for this.
No problem bruh!
Dina is testing around the edges, gathering data, searching for ways to bypass Becky’s Sunday School Defenses, and the latter is well aware.
This is science Dina’s doing. She’s experimenting, building a model of Becky’s Fundie Programming, and will proceed to gain better and better understanding of how it works so they can exploit it to both their benefit, as with any other phenomena in the universe.
And it’s 10 billion percent EPIC!!!
*plays “Chemical G Funk Mix” on Hacked Muzak*
U know, I aways click on the link, to read your comments while I’m listen the song…
I mean, she doesn’t, but she does? This is definitely starting to head into “are you sure” territory, and that’s gonna be hard to navigate.
Yeah, this is definitely autobiographical.
*reads alt text*
Wait hold on gotta look something up.
Ok yeah, this is funny.
Inaction/ being passive is also sin and that have sad implication
Hate to break it to ya Becks, but there’s no guarantee that Fundie Shame Mental Block(TM) will actually go away once you’re married. Best work on breaking it down now, so you can be happier later in life.
I’m trying to figure out how she got past the Fundie Shame Mental Block™ about getting married to someone of the same sex.
Becky is able to dissociate from any part of her upbringing that contradicts that God loves her.
Becky still needs sexual purity to count because she’s afraid of changing (my guess is that losing her virginity is the last sign that Good Girl For Jesus Becky with alive parents and a Joyce bestie is dead and gone forever), and so it still has a foothold in her head as something she needs to justify to herself.
Damn you Willis, I just made a Steve from QC comment yesterday.
I suspect this will only end when God sends his dinosaurs to eat all his chosen people while the others are “Left Behind”
That’s right, the Velocirapture.
I assume he’ll use bigger raptors but the Utahrapture might give people the wrong idea
The Dino-Mormons were right all along?
the alt-text made my night 100% thank you mr willis
If you actually make tomorrow’s strip just Steve eating cereal I will physically mail you five dollars
I will match this. Make it happen, Willis!
There was once a hovertext that promised the next day’s strip would be a Mary/Galasso hookup. I’m still waiting.
There was a QC cameo so there is precedent.
Would not be surprised if there was a Coffeeright Theft somewhere in the area
Steve eating cereal! Do iiiiiiiiiiit!!!!
Dina’s line and Becky’s face in the last panel are the best Valentine’s present I got this year. Thanks Mr. Willis!
Sounds like some serious parasocial relationship you’ve got going on there Geneseepaws =P
I am so sad for Becky, she is in such a weird place, Orphaned, and her Bestie, Joyce, changing so much. It looks like Dina is just the best thing that might happen in her whole life. I am fraught, Fraught I Say, with hope and fear, wishing it goes well for her, and that she can rise to the challenge.
Look like someone is about to be absolved of guilt by not undressing herself!
And let’s be honest, even in non-sexy contexts, it’s more fun getting undressed by someone else anyway.
You mean like when you were a kid and you would go right on playing with your toys while a parent pulled off your clothes? Yeah that was neat
I was thinking more in terms of adult life. Parents weren’t quite that hands-on, so I had to change my own clothes while I played with my Bionicles/PS1.
Questionable Content Steve? (I don’t really read Questionable Content, so I don’t know if it actually has a character named Steve)
Questionable Content has many characters and one of them is Steve.
He eats Cereal sometimes
Sometimes when things get too dramatic the author cuts away to Steve just eating cereal.
Science will find the way <3
Is it just me, or is there a bit of Dina nibbling on her lower lip in that last panel?
Checkmate, fundies!!! Now on to Dina Master Strategist: The Chronicles.
IF YOU CUT AWAY FROM THIS SO HELP ME GOD WILLIS
Once again, Dina prove to be a genius ♡.
You mean Steve might show up more here than in QC? Lol
Y’know, this is an amazing storyline and a great moment in that storyline, but I’ve been playing a lot of Disco Elysium and right now all I see is Becky’s hat having an RCM halogen watermark X)
SLIPSHINE APPROACHETH
I’m kinda hoping this works and helps Becky get out of her fundie issues with nakedness and sex. And from my interpretation of Becky’s face in the last panel, she seems to be ok with Dina’s solution.
I really wonder how much of this is autobiographical.
Getting through the fundy shame mental block is like picking a lock, but there’s almost no way to do it well.
A click out of one, two is binding, nothing on three…
“The problem is always me.”
Dang it’s almost like Becky grew up in an authoritarian household with a controlling parent who instilled in her that disobedience was a moral and spiritual failing, and so problems instilled in her by another source are now failings on her part.
Like how the strip where we find out Becky’s trying to convert Joyce back had her insist “she hates me more than she’d be willing to come back to Jesus” or how being told about asexuality by Leslie and Robin led her to start blaming her sinful horniness.
the first time i encountered the idea that some large majority of the cells in your body aren’t genetically _you_, it creeped the absolute shit out of me. fast forward to reading _Brave New World_: the already heavy “62400 repetitions make one truth” pretty much triggered an existential crisis over how much of me is actually me psychologically and mentally.
been living a life of frantic idiosyncrasy ever since
QC steve.
That’s a DEEP cut reference at this point.
Having thought about the strip as an autistic, can everyone who’s saying Dina is naive about consent because she’s autistic stop, it’s infantilising in its implication and deeply ableist.
It has only been a conversation so far and Dina has just now started getting physical, always being clear verbally. Yea she isn’t getting every piece of info but she also hasn’t pushed Becky’s boundaries because of a lack of it. All that’s occurred is questions and suggestions.
I understand some of the worries with Becky, I’ve had them too, but that’s all Becky’s internal stuff, and making all of Becky’s choices Dina’s responsibility whilst also treating her as naive because autism is not cool.
Not naming names and I don’t wanna fight about it but it makes me uncomfortable.
To be clear, I’m also uncomfortable with following that logic for a moment myself.
Co-signed. It’s weird and a little gross.
I hesitate with call-outs but it keeps happening with this storyline
Sexual puritanism and ableism.
Name a more iconic duo.
It really feels like the idea that sex can be bad without there being deeper moral implications is alien to some, maybe it just doesn’t work out
I feel that telling neurotypicals “autism is a spectrum and we’re all different” isn’t enough, with that one label their brains are all too tempted to extrapolate and project traits that aren’t there and wind up painting over our intellect and personality with a single brush stroke.
For now, I guess just autocorrecting with the better “neurodivergent” works, but I really just wish we had a better system for describing our unique stripes of neurodivergence the same way we describe our gender or sexuality with like 10 billion options to choose from.
The system we have for describing neurodivergence now, you might as well try to capture the beauty of an Aurora Borealis with a disposable camera.
I find the autistic circle is useful for any neurodivergence
https://themighty.com/2020/03/autism-spectrum-wheel/
Specifically in discussing differences
I’m not so sure about vague parts of it though. What exactly does “aggression” mean? Who gets to define what makes for “””abnormal””” speech?
One of the biggest things I hate about package deals like the “autism” label is that it makes it VERY hard for neurotypicals to tell the difference between our disabilities and our PERSONALITIES.
In fact, in a very strict sense, labels like this were never even originally meant to help us at all, but marginalize us so neurotypicals wouldn’t even need to give a thought about us, let alone understand us. “Autism” is actually Latin for “morbid self absorption”, and that alone says A LOT about the AWFUL place these labels came from without going into the gruesome details.
Even today, speaking realistically, these labels are practically controlled by neurotypicals managing popular media who rarely have our best interests, and are inevitably a VERY distorted lens to attempt to understand us from, and an ESPECIALLY distorted lens to develop a CHARACTER from.
That said, it still gives me hope that we’ll be able to find better ways to describe ourselves, and show all our beautiful, unique stripes of gender, sexuality and neurodivergence for all the world to see!
Thanks for sharing Florence!!!
No worries
, it’s an ongoing conversation that should always be about preferring our perspective as neurodivergent folk and not governments for example
I like both terms. For me, “autistic” is the specific type of neurodivergence that I am. It’s what I was diagnosed with fairly recently, and it’s not my fault that some neurotypical people have some harmful misconceptions about what the word “autism” means. I try to educate those people on those misconceptions when I can and I feel up to it. While autism can be more disabling for some than others, I feel more comfortable with the neurodivergency way of looking at it. My brain just works differently than most people.
Kinda wondering how many people are actually gonna see this comment since the next strip updates in about an hour.
I see every comment. Especially the autistic ones.
It’s all about what makes us comfy, and yea I still like autism as a descriptor despite its baggage. The real problem is we is orgs like ‘autism speaks’ being the bigger voice than autistic and neurodvergent folk in general
passively standing by while another party has their way with your body, yeah, that sounds like a fetish a fundamentalist Christian would have
I think that’s just bondage.
It also seems relatively common in gag manga, for some reason.
Manga artists seem to love inserting their favorite fetishes and playing them for laughs
Well, Willis does already have the gag manga habit of naming chapters and characters after puns.
I can strangely relate to this.