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Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
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This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
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Ha! The only reason why she’d ever have a Becky wiki would be to strategically spread false information to deliberately mislead her foes in 5D chess with time travel!!!
“BecKryptonite is not real. Do not believe everything you read on a wiki, dumbass!!!”
I could totally see Dina sharing that with Becky’s next partner if for any reason they separated, too. “Here, it’s everything I’ve learned about her. Study it well, I will be watching.”
I think you’re technically correct, but Becky’s a PoliSci major and works off of feelings. “Scandalized is bad, Happy is good, Scandalized and happy have the same value, that’s clearly inverse proportion.”
From a strictly logical standpoint, Good things should make you Happy and Happiness should make you feel Good. Becky saying that something good is making her happy and feeling good is making her feel and act distressed is counter to the definition of happiness.
In this case, religion and it’s taboos are creating a cognitive dissonance that wouldn’t exist from a purely scientific and secular point of view.
No, that isn’t what she said. She said that Dina making her very happy would lead to her projecting little scandal, whereas Dina making her not particularly happy would lead to her projecting a great deal of scandal, and that Dina making her unhappy would lead to her projecting a negative amount of scandal. More happiness —> less (projected) scandal. That seems intuitive, not counterintuitive.
Yeah, I actually thought about the mathematics of that for a bit…
The further Becky is away from Dina physically and mentally, the harder it will be for her to make her happy, the more scandalized she feels.
Therefore, the scandalized feeling acts as a kind of restorative force that aids the relationship while at the same time not depending on it.
Actually, this is much like strong nuclear force, in both the sense that the strength is inversely proportionate to distance, and that these two brains working together have a power like no other ever conceived!!! 🤯 🤩
Eh, I just compel myself to turn what they’re saying into a mental picture of the scenario. And if the picture doesn’t check out, they’re probably wrong.
Even if it turns out to be garbage in the end, it’s still fun to think about this stuff. In fact I miss being able to do it for fun as much as I used to.
I imagine it’s hard for mathematicians, but really you just have to turn off thinking about maths to listen to people. What they mean is often clear enough in context even if the actual words are grammatical and mathematical nonsense, as they often are.
What would work out even better is one dollar the first time someone used exponential growth incorrectly, then two dollars the second time, four dollars the third time, …
I think this could very well be a stresser point in their relationship. Dina was indifferent to religion before but will assume it is an active evil now. Becky has grown stronger in her faith because it was a comfort against the persecution of religious hypocrities and fundamentalists that was a major part of Jesus’ ministry (and helped get HIM killed).
They may talk past themselves to a temporary breakup.
Yes, there’s a difference between, “Religion is stupid because it’s worshiping invisible sky fairies” [i.e. same was Walky’s take] and “I believe that my loved one is in a cult mentality.”
Which is something I’ve experienced and I got VERY worried/angry/hostile.
Well, but Becky threw out the destructive stuff and kept the supportive stuff, while having a realistic, humorous, and progressive idea of the emotional work involved, while Joyce threw out the whole structure while not addressing the emotional backwash, thus driving herself into depression.
It’s one thing For Becky to say “I’m throwing out the bad parts and keeping the good” and another entirely to be able to ignore the shame and fear that’s been ingrained in her from the very beginning. I haven’t been a practicing Catholic for almost 20 years, and I still feel dirty and sinful sometimes when I have sex *within the confines of marriage.* It’s going to take a lot of time and work for Becky to get to a point where she doesn’t immediately feel and think the way she was taught to.
It’s a process. It’s not like Joyce has gotten rid of all the destructive stuff either, despite losing her belief.
The programming can be put into place using religion, but it isn’t the religion itself. It doesn’t go away in a flash if you stop believing and you can work on getting rid of it without losing the belief.
Very good point Needful. I know that terror all too well.
Becky’s naturally afraid of the unknown, afraid of change, of what’s to become of her in this endeavor. But at the same time, she’s even MORE terrified of what would happen if she doesn’t do something about her brain worms — having to live with the constant AGONY of knowing that her life, her mind, is not her own, of being trapped in certain unhappiness as opposed to the being free to pursue uncertain happiness in personal and intellectual freedom.
The work of brain worms like hers is not easily undone, and careful, methodical yet still scary measures are often necessary for the sake of those bound by them. And this is coming from an alien parasite that lives by possessing a human brain.
While I respect your right to your opinion on this storyline, I can’t help but vehemently disagree.
Dina’s “Dina: 1, god: 0” shtick at the end of the sexing struck me as very sad. And I’m as anti-Christian as anybody!
I just don’t think Dina and Becky have the same end goal, and that conflict is going to hurt. They have similar MIDDLE goals – clearing out the creationist cobwebs, as you point out – but Dina seems to want Becky completely unbelieving, and Becky emphatically does not want that.
It might be tempting (no pun intended) to think that this desire of Becky’s would simply cease to exist once they crossed into borderline sexual territory. But this is likely not the case.
Becky is fully aware of what Dina is doing, and actually wants it for the sake of proving herself to her personal God. If she at all fails to believe in general or hold on to her principles, she would not blame Dina, for to her that would be equivalent to blaming God and rejecting what he had gifted her, which to her is unthinkable. It would follow naturally that she must blame herself, for “not being strong enough”.
Yes, it is true as it is ATROCIOUS that Becky is left with a burden of shame that rightfully belongs with her long-dead indoctrinators.
This severe toxicity instilled in her brain through years of conditioning and abuse would be more than enough to compel Dina to take whatever action is necessary to free her beloved girlfriend from her wretched chains.
I doubt it. Becky seems to have some idea about the difference between religion and church teachings (contrast Joyce) and she seems willing to fight both to keep her faith and to get rid of her indoctrination. Dina I imagine understands that difference much better, and I can’t imagine she wouldn’t want to support Becky with both those separate but related struggles.
Even if she doesn’t completely understand why Becky needs to believe in God, I imagine she (Dina) respects that she (Becky) needs to. Trying to take that away from her and leave her with nothing would be an asshole thing to do, yes I’m looking at you Joyce.
That’s very clearly not what Joyce did. Joyce was, in fact, minding her own business. If there’s one member of that pairing that’s trying to take somethng away from the other, it’s Becky and her attempts to manipulate Joyce back into religion.
There clearly is a baby in the bathwater for Becky though. While she definitely has religious trauma, she also got some good out of it and she’s unwilling to give that up.
I don’t know when Joyce would have not been doing something to the effect. I know that she “wants” to make Becky see the light of atheism.
An atheism which is a new and exciting and completely unexamined way for Joyce to rebel against the beliefs she has been brought up with, that she also hasn’t examined. Compared to Becky who we have seen carefully studies both the Bible and her own neuroses to figure out all the things that are wrong with her beliefs and herself to try to fix them.
It’s true both Becky and Joyce are trying to push each other to revert back to a more familiar form for their own emotional comfort, and they’re both wrong. In that respect I’m going to forgive both of them for being two particularly emotionally ill equipped, codependent children left to their own devices in an uncaring world and struggling to hold on to anything familiar.
But that is not why I’m calling Joyce an asshole. It’s because she’s an evangelical atheist who doesn’t understand what atheism or religion or God is for, who barely understands any difference between any of those things, who still feels the need to convince everyone the impossibility of proving or disproving God’s existence has been solved because it turns out God is fake. It’s so entitled and judgmental and thoughtless it makes me angry, and I expect if she and Becky can talk through their conflicting wishes for each other, unless Joyce can grow up some more, her inability to tolerate people with different beliefs is going to be the thing that drives her and Becky apart.
“I don’t know when Joyce would have not been doing something to the effect. I know that she “wants” to make Becky see the light of atheism.”
No, she does not. She wants Becky to do so, but she doesn’t want to MAKE Becky do so, which is a super-important distinction. Only of those two actually actively tried to change the other’s stance, and that was Becky’s little song manouevre.
“who still feels the need to convince everyone the impossibility of proving or disproving God’s existence has been solved because it turns out God is fake.”
Again, this is not a thing that Joyce has initiated.
I mean yeah, I think that’s an important distinction to made.
Joyce is not trying to make Becky change. She will mock Becky to her face about it when they’re fighting, but the way she framed it at the end of the Faith-Off was “she’s smart, she’ll get it,” ie: Becky just has to figure out like Joyce did.
This is still mean, also it’s not “you’ve been lying to me FOREVER and I have to trick you into being Christian again.”
Like, Joyce’s actual response to the whole thing is the two-parter of:
i) meh’ing the whole situation and go focus on her comic, and
ii) repeatedly subsuming her own feelings, thoughts, and emotions to appease Becky, under blackmail by Dorothy, which Becky immediately used to try to “yank at the ol’ god-strings”.
“Just please understand that the exact magnitude of how scandalized I project myself is in inverse proportion to how happy you make me.”
…wait, so does that mean that if Becky projects as a lot scandalized, then Dina has only made her a little happy? Or has the math part of my brain finally quit working like everything else?
(Basically what I’m trying to figure out is if this is a “y=-x” thing or a “y=1/x” thing).
Yes, the correct meaning of “inversely proportional” is definitely Y=1/X.
Dina must somehow be guessing Becky’s actual intended meaning here, or she wouldn’t describe it as “counterintuitive”. Instead, it would probably seem counterfactual to her. Further observation is likely to confirm that Becky’s more scandalized behavior does NOT imply that Dina is making her less happy.
Y=-X doesn’t work as you can’t have a negative magnitude and Becky specified magnitude. The magnitude of X and -X is the same as |X|=|-X|.
Now it’s true that what Becky said was Happyness = 1/(constant projection(|Scandalization|)), but what she meant and Dina correctly understood was Happyness/projection(|Scandalization|)=constant.
Joyce is homeschooled and she’s good at math. And Becky’s only in PoliSci because she has to, she wanted to be a scientist (probably more specifically biologist).
I don’t think homeschooling has anything to do with it.
Yeah, what Becky’s saying is: “don’t worry, Dina. I feel I have to project myself as scandalized, but you made me so happy that I am projecting just a little bit.”
Joyce will find out when Becky vents to Dorothy’s as of yet unrevealed siblings about it and Joyce tracks them down with Dina and walks in on it, it will be a whole thing, the comments section will hit 1000 comments
I mean this is a secret she can keep until she’s ready. Who you fuck and when is pretty personal. Joyce doesn’t need to know every detail of Becky’s life. I would feel a little weird if my friend came and told me they just banged someone. It would be an awkward high five at best.
And also that Becky in-universe considers herself entitled to everything that goes on in Joyce’s personal life, including hearing what she’s thinking and whether she’s allowed to wear glasses.
Look, Joyce made her decision when she busted down Becky’s door, pinned her to the wall by the throat, and screamed “GOD IS DEAD” down Becky’s throat like in that scene from Godzilla (2014). It’s her own fault.
Freaking thank you, so many people acted like Joyce owed Becky her coming out as athiest RIGHT AWAY, and she better confess or she’s a bad friend, but now that Becky’s the one with the secret, well Joyce doesn’t need to find out as it’s her secret to keep!
People’s ability to decide what is fair and okay based on who they like will always baffle me.
It’s almost like atheists. Who have been a minority from before the middle ages, aren’t the powerful party picking on the religious.
There just disbelieving but disbelief in the majorities favourite spiderman fiction gets you killed on this planet.
And almost like most media still shows atheists as needing to apologize for there being or be considered villains. Really shit double standard to stand for a minority group that is still treated like it needs to apologize for the abuse we take.
But hey religious people I apologize and lemant in dust and ashes for hurting your feelings for finding your fiction unconvincing. Should I wear sackcloth to so you don’t kill me?
It is really good when what your problem is is intrusive nonsense thoughts, yeah. CBT is great for people with certain kinds of depression.
To quote a friend, though, CBT seems to assume you’re just dealing with your own inner voice, and not your inner voice acting as a casual redelivery mechanism for a big list of pre-existing trauma, and that is not the case for some people.
Intrusive thoughts from my own inner voice feels like a good summary of what’s been going on for me. Every single action I took I had to justify while hating myself for not doing something else, or not doing it right, anything I could do I would inevitably find a reason for why it’s bad. Being properly medicated to the point where I was able to successfully study for the first time in my life for my college assessment probably did a lot for my ego too, let alone that I was able to focus enough to read books again and start writing my own.
I like to describe it that my problems are imaginary, and so I killed them with an imaginary gun. They are “all in my head” and that’s the worst place they can be, because I couldn’t tangibly deal with them.
My husband is always really bad with intrusive thoughts. I’ll be sitting here like “Well, the intrusive thoughts are saying that the world is better off without me, but I know that’s a lie my brain is telling me.”
And meanwhile, my husband is like “But… Who am I if not the thoughts I have? How can my brain tell me things that it doesn’t believe?”
Hmmm, Becky. I mean, keep whatever things private that you want, that’s 100% your right and prerogative. Buuuuut I think you should also seriously and frankly consider whether you even like Joyce or count her as a friend. I’ll keep private things private, but the sense is only one of ‘gotta hide this ammunition so that jerk doesn’t find it and shoot me with it’ when That Jerk is, you know, someone I neither like nor trust in the first place.
that is a huge leap, they have been in an argument for a few days and she doesn’t want to complicate her stance in said argument, that hardly qualifies as dislike/distrust or an ending to their long standing friendship.
At this point it feels less like an argument and more… a passive-aggressive stand-off? They’re not doing much to antagonize each other other than getting in snipes here and there… and mostly from Becky’s end (playing Christian music and needling Joyce about church).
I’m just saying if you’re thinking of your best friend in ‘of course she’s going to attack me the second she finds out and never stop’ terms maybe examine whether ‘best friend’ is really the right designation. It’s not about the length of time the current fight has been ongoing or even the fight’s severity, it’s about the foundation.
Joyce is the same way (didn’t tell Becky about atheism not because it’s personal and private but because she was afraid Becky would attack her immediately and not stop), and she should ALSO examine whether ‘love is a battlefield’ is really friendship goals.
are you projecting something? joyce didn’t hide her atheism from becky out of a fear of being attacked, she legitimately just wanted to spare becky’s feelings.
Becky doesn’t expect Joyce to lord her lack of virginity over her for the rest of their lives, she just realizes that in the current situation the way she might loose ground in her argument and Joyce might make a zinger…
if you think real friends never fight, I really worry about your interpersonal relationships. I have anxiety too, so I get worrying about extreme consequences, but it’s not that bad. If you let your anxiety get to the point that you worry the other person will never stop attacking you, than it probably doesn’t say as much about the other person as it does you.
now don’t get me wrong, their are abusive relationships where people DO harp on things for years to come and not accept you for the decisions that were rightfully yours to make, but does that sound at all like Joyce, OR Becky?
I doubt Becky thinks Joyce will attack her over it, I think Becky thinks Joyce will go “if you join me in Atheist fun land you can do all that without the immense shame”
There’s no way for me to say this without it being a hot take, but I mean yeah I don’t think they should be friends right now.
Like not just because of frenzied emotions from the Faith-Off, but that their existing dynamic was, well, messed up. Joyce loves Becky so thoroughly that she seems to think she should be Becky’s buffer and have to consider how being an atheist makes Becky sad when that’s, well that’s nonsense, and Becky honest to god thinks that Joyce can’t love her unless Joyce exists in a specific little box where she always makes Joyce faces and got over her trauma the proper way and doesn’t need to wear glasses Dorothy you’re overreacting.
Becky’s been running on one huge panic response since she joined the cast and Joyce kept having to take more responsibility as her guardian/emotional support teddy bear/dad-punching attack dog, and yeah she’d do it over and over because she loves Becky more than anyone in the world, but there’s no more dads to punch and Ruths to sneak past so Becky doesn’t get thrown onto the streets, but they’re still running with that same “Joyce has to do all the emotional labour because Becky needs to be protected” script even when it’s actively harming Joyce, and Becky’s sure not coming out of it any better either since she doesn’t even seem to be cognizant of, like, the importance of everyone else in her life who loves her. Is she just gonna follow Joyce forever and make sure Joyce has no wrongthink in her Joyce noggin she has to get out?
It feels as if they both have a mutual agreement that Becky’s feelings need to be placed on a pedestal, and everything has to be justified to her and properly accommodated for how she might take it, let alone how badly she does when the truth comes out as she expresses that wild over-possessiveness. They don’t feel like friends, they feel like they have the emotional dynamic of a parent and a child. Other than the time where Becky found out about Ryan, does Joyce confide in her anything?
That Ryan bit’s a good thing to bring up again too because yeah Joyce didn’t tell her herself, but when Becky found out she immediately leapt to emotional support, recognized she could have triggered Joyce by kissing her, talked it through with her and concocted a plan to give Joyce a fun college party within the safety of her dorm room. That’s the one time Becky had to do something normal (read: not sacrifice yourself to your evil dad) for Joyce and she aced it, she even starts with “you don’t have to tell me but can you give me some signs so I don’t accidentally trip over this again?” and like goddamn that’s just actually amazing friending there.
“ Other than the time where Becky found out about Ryan, does Joyce confide in her anything?”
There was the time at Dina and Sarah’s party where she started expressing doubts, and was immediately called a bummer and told to get back in her cubbyhole. I think that helped discourage her from going off-script around Becky.
Those two need a break from each other, then they need a good long talk about how they really feel. They’re both dancing around the fact that they each can’t be who the other wants them to be.
>It feels as if they both have a mutual agreement that Becky’s feelings need to be placed on a pedestal, and everything has to be justified to her and properly accommodated for how she might take it, let alone how badly she does when the truth comes out as she expresses that wild over-possessiveness.
This summarizes as well as anything why I really don’t think these two have EVER really been “best friends”–all the evidence we see suggests that what’s actually happening is something much less mutually beneficial.
We’ve never really known Becky in a healthy state of mind so presumably things were more normal and mutual when they were kids, but yeah, since Becky joined the cast she’s never really meaningfully given back to Joyce since Joyce won’t air her problems to her, and when she did, Becky called her a dumb idiot baby whose rebellion doesn’t count because Becky rebelled more.
Like even when Becky went back home with her to support her, what ended up happening is that Joyce and Hank had to protect her from Carol and their congregation, and Joyce and Jocelyne had to break into Becky’s home to help her. The most amount of time Joyce got to herself was when she screamed bloody murder at John…
… and Joe when he was texting her, wow. I didn’t think I’d end this with another entry to my trash shipper list.
Oh yeah! Of all people, Joyce has opened up to Joe the most.
Maybe it’s because their deep conversations are kept hidden, and they keep up their “I’m not friends or interested in you at all nope nuh-uh” schtick in public?
My read on them is that it starts with Joyce relying on Joe in a pinch since his folks are divorced. Joe at this point is still a jerky horndog to Joyce, and so helping her the way he did is proof that actually he’s good while Joe isn’t really cognizant of it being a big deal since Joyce is a zero-minus and so he doesn’t have to consider how he acts around her.
Then the Do List comes out and Joe’s forced to confront that his way to avoid ever hurting anyone actually caused Joyce a tremendous amount of pain. but crucially, Joyce is saying that out of an earnest belief that doing so is beneath him. Joe doesn’t have to be this person, he shouldn’t be expected to remain as such, and that’s the first time Joe got held to any standard of decency in the entire series.
I think that’s why they vibe so well together. They’ve escaped those expectations around each other, and that’s more meaningful because they used to lord them over the other and still do when in a bad mood (Joyce calling him an indomitable sex monster right before confessing being an atheist, Joe ribbing her for not swearing and then when she does launches into an impassioned statement that Joyce’s foibles are still real even if God isn’t), but they’re willing to accept that the other doesn’t need to exist as what they think they should.
Joyce doesn’t have to be the churchy weirdo who will eventually blow dudes all over the place, she can be Joyce. Joe does not have to be the scuzzy sex machine who can’t emote the slightest compassion, he can be Joe, and part of being Joyce and Joe is that the parts they’ll call resentment over are still real and still matter.
Addendum: Becky did try a couple times while they were back home. The first time she said they could complain about her parents (since Joyce went “I can’t complain about my family because they never tried to shoot me) before Jocelyne came back, and then before they went back home she was talking her up some too.
Like she tried, but still never got the opportunity to really do it, since Joyce chronically undermines her own issues, while Becky can’t be supportive when it comes to issues that take Joyce out of that perfect pedestal Becky has her on.
What makes it all worse, for me, is that exactly zero people in their social circle deviate from the ‘Becky’s feelings on a pedestal, Becky’s feelings and preferences are the ones that matter’ party line. It’s only people outside their social circle (Joe, and to some extent Walky) who are actually concerned with Joyce’s feelings.
Well, it’s important to note who’s in that circle.
You’ve got Dorothy, an endlessly capitulating people pleaser who thinks she just needs to explain to Joyce that she’s making a silly whoopsie, and Sarah, who doesn’t think she’s capable of doing right by Joyce and can only contribute by solving the problem through badgering Joyce until the last few strips where she threw her hands up and declared she wasn’t someone Joyce could rely on.
That Joe and Walky are outside of Joyce’s circle and don’t rely on Joyce existing in a specific state for their convenience is why they’re capable of meaningfully doing right by her, because the endpoint to Walky talking with Joyce was “hey, go veg out on Sunday morning” and Joe thinks that every mistake Joyce makes is something she’ll overcome until one day’s she perfect and also that she’s gone through so much bullshit lately that she needs someone who “was there for her every time,” and not that Joyce needs to be a silly fundie moron with triangle smiles who’s only allowed to be angry when she’s punching Becky’s dad.
Or: Dorothy and Sarah want this to end because they want to restore their Joyce (because, broadly speaking, they want her to be happy) while the others don’t have a Joyce status quo to uphold.
Until we heal, we’ll seek intimacy in relationships that remind us of our parents. One of those wacky counterintuitive behaviors.
I wonder what stage Becky is at. She could be happy with Dina either because Dina’s dom tendencies in the bedroom scratches that itch, or because she’s past it – unlikely, but possible: she has been vehemently rejecting everything daddy stood for for most of her life, it’s possible she could just be whole and free to pursue this relationship just because it’s good for her – or, what’s most likely, she wants it because she knows it’s good for her but it’ll ultimately not satisfy her on that basic parent-emulating level and she’ll leave Dina for someone who tries to destroy her like daddy tried. Even though she knows it’s unhealthy. Damned counterintuitive behaviors.
And to be fair, I should try armchair-therapizing Dina too. But the simple version is, she’s very hard to understand.
I can only guess she’s neurodivergent* and that she shares some experiences shaped by my own diagnosis. But my relationship with my parents was really just “absent”, and, emulating that, I have never had an intimate relationship. Makes it hard to know what I want or need from one, or in what way the two might contradict each other.
On the surface, of course, Dina (and I) just needs someone to “be there”, someone who listens to and respects and supports her and tries to understand her. The simple fact that Becky loves her and makes all effort to express that love in powerful and consistent and kind ways probably would stir a reciprocal attraction.
And maybe that’s enough. Maybe there doesn’t have to be any counterintuitive desires that leave her unfulfilled with this relationship. It can be this surface level of psychology is all the psychology there is to Dina; it can be she is what this philosopher I don’t remember the name of thought of when he described autistics as “pure human”, free from contradiction and deception.
I’m not saying she is. I mean I thought I was until I was 36 and figured out I was transgender and started realizing I have all kinds of things going on in my mind that I’ve just learned to not acknowledge because I don’t understand what they are. More likely, Dina has problems that she doesn’t have any language for, no way to define, let alone find effective solutions for. As much as she works to put her thoughts and feelings into words.
*That sort of diagnosis is not for psychology amateurs.
It’s possible the abstract concept of science gives her lady boners, but she’s still a human person seeking human relationships. Those aren’t usually dependent on sex feelings.
Other than the “usually” part, definite agreement here.
It had been acknowledged for thousands of years by cultures all around the world that it’s possible to love someone without having sexual feelings towards them, and that it’s possible to have satisfying sexual relations with someone without loving them.
Well, I’m being facetious just using the reductive term “sex feelings”. I hope you, Clif, don’t take me for rude.
As you note, Wellerman, there’s the whole spectrum of loving and sexual relationships. You’ve got your basic platonic, erotic, familial and universal loves and a library’s worth of subtle stuff in between.
And yet (she said, with her hair dramatically flying in the wind), nowhere in all of this mysterious manifold maze of human relationships we all try to navigate does it say a person’s passions, no matter how strong those passions are, decide all that they want and need from other people.
As much as I want to believe in these two, Becky has some deep issues with her childhood that she so badly needs to deal with and she is not communicating that to Dina well cause honestly I don’t think she even fully comprehends it.
It would be fine honestly if it was just belief because so far Dina has been pretty cool about it, but Becky is holding on to sex being a sin and her parents hitting her as okay. She’s literally asking Dina to just let it go and I think that’s a bit too much to expect of anyone, especially your girlfriend who is kind of going above and beyond to make you feel better about your shame.
This doesn’t mean Dina is justified if she goes beyond Becky’s boundaries, but this feels like a lot to expect someone to be cool with, especially as it’s clear there’s something special about their first time, it might bug Dina for her girlfriend to keep viewing it as a sin.
All good points, except for one thing. If Dina has never read the bible, I suspect she wouldn’t be familiar with “sin” as a concept either.
“Sin” in fact has no accurate secular equivalent — it can be used ubiquitously to stigmatize and condemn any action or even thought due to alleged conflict with “God’s will” regardless of whether or not said action or thought really harms anyone.
As for when this dynamic dinosaur duo dives into deeper discussion on their respective views of morality, we do not know.
I don’t see proof of Becky expecting Dina to just let it go
Today’s comic is about Becky verbalizing that the way she was raised did a lot of damage, and that’s the first communication step that leads to a long relationship filled with deep discussions. I think they’ll be fine. They seem willing to work on it.
Joyce is the one trying to normalize corporal punishment. All I get from Becky is an acknowledgement that her upbringing hurt her and she’s not ready for a serious talk about it yet.
It feels like the comments have been going “Annnnd NOW they’ll have a big fight and break up. Any minute now” for this whole storyline. Becky and Dina have been pretty good at communicating so far though. But let’s see!
I’m kinda wondering what the pastor/rector/whatever at Becky’s new church is like and if that might be someone worth talking to?
I mean, it’s not 100%, but churches that are LGBT affirming tend to be a bit more loosey-goosey about guilt and eternal damnation and such. It seems doubtful that Becky’s take on things is something she’s currently getting from the pulpit.
She for sure needs actual therapy, but maybe that might be something to start with.
So I’m drinking a Ghost Energy Drink in WarHeads Sour Watermelon flavor, and it’s tasty, but it gets less tasty with each sip, which makes me sad because I know a few years ago I would have adored the taste of this from start of can to end….
You get numb to or burned out on extremely sweet hyper-flavor over time.
I recently found out I can’t stomach Trix or Reeses Puffs past a few bites anymore, they’re just too overwhelmingly sweet. Peanut butter knockoff Cheerios and Froot Loops are enough. Wheaties don’t taste like cardboard anymore, either.
Dina in the last panel is super relatable to me. As an autistic person, there are a lot of things I’ve come to understand about neurologically typical people that feel very counterintuitive.
It’s also very much possible this is a scientific research thing.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in my prior years studying science, it’s that between Gyroscopic Precession, Strong Nuclear Force, Bell’s Theorem, and light’s nature as both a particle AND a wave, some of the most important scientific principles are often the most counter-intuitive.
When it comes to understanding the universe with the Power of Science, these are the kind of things that deserve their own dedicated attention, hence the list.
I mean it’s also not normal to barge into someone’s room you are at odds with 90% of the time and demand to talk about their spanking trauma, so like normal doesn’t really register with this lot.
I just…my heart hurts for Dina right now. She’s a caring and emotional person who’s just been so vulnerable with her girlfriend and she’s trying to understand and she’s having to wrestle with the myriad ways her girlfriend’s family and community hurt her, where Diana’s family and community supported and nurtured her. Those big sad eyes speak volumes to me. Becky has absolutely been wronged and hurt, but man, I think Dina is getting into that too.
how do you spell the sound of all the oxygen leaving your idiotic, closeted, 30-something body because panel 4 of a webcomic about college queer babies described your upbringing so perfectly that you went into a state of astral projected ultrapanic?
WOULDN’T IT BE NICE TO LEARN ABOUT AND INTEGRATE THESE LESSONS AS THEY WERE HAPPENING!?
You know, we never had that moment where Joyce actually straight up tells Dina, “Hey, by the way, you were right about evolution all along” which should go over well. But then again it seems bizarrely as though Joyce in fact does not yet believe evolution is real even though that aspect of her worldview was ingrained by the theism she now resents and reviles… Maybe no one has helped her to cross that rhetorical bridge yet?
Me if I ever see Tony Hawk: Hey you’re Tony Hawk the famous skateboarder. That’s right I recognise you. Won’t be able to get any content out of this will you, you piece of shit
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
Hot Toys Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 1/6 Scale Darth Vader Deluxe ($495) & Standard ($315) is up for preorder at Sideshow - shrsl.com/4wcx6 #ad
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 3d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 3d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 12d
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Dina: *compiles Becky wiki to keep everything
straightrecorded*Think Willis and Ethan will have an edit war over it like they did on the TFWiki?
Beckypedia
Every page has a 144-point “LESBIAN” headline, per her request.
Wait, is Becky a LESBIAN??? I have somehow missed this information prior to your sudden revelation!
Ha! The only reason why she’d ever have a Becky wiki would be to strategically spread false information to deliberately mislead her foes in 5D chess with time travel!!!
“BecKryptonite is not real. Do not believe everything you read on a wiki, dumbass!!!”
I could totally see Dina sharing that with Becky’s next partner if for any reason they separated, too. “Here, it’s everything I’ve learned about her. Study it well, I will be watching.”
Dina, I couldn’t have said it better myself. 🥹
🧠 Good journey in freeing Becky’s brain, and destroying the living remains of those shit-head indoctrinators!!!
🥲
*plays “Crossing Field” by LiSA on Hacked Muzak*
I didn’t much care for the song, but the singing was fabulous.
Oops. That was supposed to be a reply to a different post.
I don’t have anything to add to this strip. So instead, here is something that made me smile today: https://youtu.be/9go5jzWvJsI
thank you very much for that, im gonna go watch it on repeat for the next hour lol.
Shouldn’t it be *direct* proportion? She’s more scandalized because she’s more happy? Or am I being a dummy and misunderstanding?
I think you’re technically correct, but Becky’s a PoliSci major and works off of feelings. “Scandalized is bad, Happy is good, Scandalized and happy have the same value, that’s clearly inverse proportion.”
…there we go, that explanation works for me. My math brain was equally confuzzled
I, too, am confused as to why this is counterintuitive to Dina.
From a strictly logical standpoint, Good things should make you Happy and Happiness should make you feel Good. Becky saying that something good is making her happy and feeling good is making her feel and act distressed is counter to the definition of happiness.
In this case, religion and it’s taboos are creating a cognitive dissonance that wouldn’t exist from a purely scientific and secular point of view.
No, that isn’t what she said. She said that Dina making her very happy would lead to her projecting little scandal, whereas Dina making her not particularly happy would lead to her projecting a great deal of scandal, and that Dina making her unhappy would lead to her projecting a negative amount of scandal. More happiness —> less (projected) scandal. That seems intuitive, not counterintuitive.
Yeah I’m confused too… the happier Dina makes her, the more scandalized she projects herself. Isn’t that directly proportional?
Yeah, I actually thought about the mathematics of that for a bit…
The further Becky is away from Dina physically and mentally, the harder it will be for her to make her happy, the more scandalized she feels.
Therefore, the scandalized feeling acts as a kind of restorative force that aids the relationship while at the same time not depending on it.
Actually, this is much like strong nuclear force, in both the sense that the strength is inversely proportionate to distance, and that these two brains working together have a power like no other ever conceived!!! 🤯 🤩
The basic rule of understanding the math that other people say is to realize that most people don’t actually understand the math they’re saying.
Like, if I had a dollar for every time someone said something was growing exponentially when it was actually something like quadratic growth….
Eh, I just compel myself to turn what they’re saying into a mental picture of the scenario. And if the picture doesn’t check out, they’re probably wrong.
Even if it turns out to be garbage in the end, it’s still fun to think about this stuff. In fact I miss being able to do it for fun as much as I used to.
I imagine it’s hard for mathematicians, but really you just have to turn off thinking about maths to listen to people. What they mean is often clear enough in context even if the actual words are grammatical and mathematical nonsense, as they often are.
What would work out even better is one dollar the first time someone used exponential growth incorrectly, then two dollars the second time, four dollars the third time, …
Maybe, but I would expect Dina to understand the maths that Becky was saying.
I think she just used the opposite word by accident. Nice bit of dialogue writing, if so.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure it should be direct proportion.
Get Joyce, she’s good at math!
This two kooky kids are gonna be just fine.
I dunno. I have to wonder how much of this Dina will put up with.
I very much doubt it is in her nature to be afraid of a challenge.
Especially given what’s in it for her. The two working together, none shackled by indoctrination, can wield a BRAIN POWER like no other. 🧠
Dina’s reassessing what it means to actually beat God here.
She’s gonna need both hands and probably some butter.
For a Food Wars style food battle?
Yes please!!! 🤩
I think this could very well be a stresser point in their relationship. Dina was indifferent to religion before but will assume it is an active evil now. Becky has grown stronger in her faith because it was a comfort against the persecution of religious hypocrities and fundamentalists that was a major part of Jesus’ ministry (and helped get HIM killed).
They may talk past themselves to a temporary breakup.
Dina’s take on religion has always been negative, and when she deems it harmful she has been openly hostile to it.
Yes, there’s a difference between, “Religion is stupid because it’s worshiping invisible sky fairies” [i.e. same was Walky’s take] and “I believe that my loved one is in a cult mentality.”
Which is something I’ve experienced and I got VERY worried/angry/hostile.
Literally one of the first things Dina and Becky did together was try and correct the lies that Becky was told by the cult she was raised in
Right but this might prompt Dina to try to actively push Becky away from religion
Yeah, I think Dina’s almost there.
I figure it’ll only get worse when Dina finally learns Joyce is Athiest and Dina thinks “if Joyce can stop believing this stuff Becky can too”
Well, but Becky threw out the destructive stuff and kept the supportive stuff, while having a realistic, humorous, and progressive idea of the emotional work involved, while Joyce threw out the whole structure while not addressing the emotional backwash, thus driving herself into depression.
I think the above strip shows that Becky hasn’t thrown out the destructive stuff. Dina’s speech in the 4th frame makes my point.
It’s one thing For Becky to say “I’m throwing out the bad parts and keeping the good” and another entirely to be able to ignore the shame and fear that’s been ingrained in her from the very beginning. I haven’t been a practicing Catholic for almost 20 years, and I still feel dirty and sinful sometimes when I have sex *within the confines of marriage.* It’s going to take a lot of time and work for Becky to get to a point where she doesn’t immediately feel and think the way she was taught to.
It’s a process. It’s not like Joyce has gotten rid of all the destructive stuff either, despite losing her belief.
The programming can be put into place using religion, but it isn’t the religion itself. It doesn’t go away in a flash if you stop believing and you can work on getting rid of it without losing the belief.
Not sure Becky threw out *all* the destructive stuff. Exhibit A: today’s strip.
Even if that were the case, it’s overwhelmingly likely that she’d be very smart, strategic, subtle and above all else scientific about it.
🧠
As confirmed by the Slipshine, she did in fact spend MONTHS calculating every step of her scientific expedition with Becky, much to success!!! 🤩
When it comes to battle strategy against indoctrinators, Dina’s a FUCKING GENIUS!!!
*plays “A Moment For Shuddering” by Christopher Bullock on Hacked Muzak*
That would be so much worse.
Because it’s one thing to be upfront. It’s another attempt to MANIPULATE your partner.
You can be completely upfront about trying to manipulate someone.
Is indoctrination not a form of manipulation?
Dina wants Becky more than anything to have a free mind that is not bound by such chains, and Becky SAID HERSELF that she wants to have a brain that’s free of “cobwebs” as she calls them so that she can pursue science, so all would still be consensual.
Let us not draw a false equivalence between objecting to manipulation and being manipulative.
Becky can be both desperate to rid herself of brain worms and terrified of what that actually means.
Very good point Needful. I know that terror all too well.
Becky’s naturally afraid of the unknown, afraid of change, of what’s to become of her in this endeavor. But at the same time, she’s even MORE terrified of what would happen if she doesn’t do something about her brain worms — having to live with the constant AGONY of knowing that her life, her mind, is not her own, of being trapped in certain unhappiness as opposed to the being free to pursue uncertain happiness in personal and intellectual freedom.
The work of brain worms like hers is not easily undone, and careful, methodical yet still scary measures are often necessary for the sake of those bound by them.
And this is coming from an alien parasite that lives by possessing a human brain.While I respect your right to your opinion on this storyline, I can’t help but vehemently disagree.
Dina’s “Dina: 1, god: 0” shtick at the end of the sexing struck me as very sad. And I’m as anti-Christian as anybody!
I just don’t think Dina and Becky have the same end goal, and that conflict is going to hurt. They have similar MIDDLE goals – clearing out the creationist cobwebs, as you point out – but Dina seems to want Becky completely unbelieving, and Becky emphatically does not want that.
I foresee pain no matter the intentions.
According to Dina herself, Becky “wishes to feel like she is being seduced, but also craves the security of knowing the seduction will not succeed”.
It might be tempting (no pun intended) to think that this desire of Becky’s would simply cease to exist once they crossed into borderline sexual territory. But this is likely not the case.
Becky is fully aware of what Dina is doing, and actually wants it for the sake of proving herself to her personal God. If she at all fails to believe in general or hold on to her principles, she would not blame Dina, for to her that would be equivalent to blaming God and rejecting what he had gifted her, which to her is unthinkable. It would follow naturally that she must blame herself, for “not being strong enough”.
” It would follow naturally that she must blame herself, for “not being strong enough”.”
I reiterate my initial premise: “I foresee pain.”
Yes, it is true as it is ATROCIOUS that Becky is left with a burden of shame that rightfully belongs with her long-dead indoctrinators.
This severe toxicity instilled in her brain through years of conditioning and abuse would be more than enough to compel Dina to take whatever action is necessary to free her beloved girlfriend from her wretched chains.
I doubt it. Becky seems to have some idea about the difference between religion and church teachings (contrast Joyce) and she seems willing to fight both to keep her faith and to get rid of her indoctrination. Dina I imagine understands that difference much better, and I can’t imagine she wouldn’t want to support Becky with both those separate but related struggles.
Even if she doesn’t completely understand why Becky needs to believe in God, I imagine she (Dina) respects that she (Becky) needs to. Trying to take that away from her and leave her with nothing would be an asshole thing to do, yes I’m looking at you Joyce.
That’s very clearly not what Joyce did. Joyce was, in fact, minding her own business. If there’s one member of that pairing that’s trying to take somethng away from the other, it’s Becky and her attempts to manipulate Joyce back into religion.
Becky doesn’t understand why Joyce would throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Joyce thought they were escaping together.
Up until their fight, they both assumed they were on the same page. They were barely in the same book.
There’s no baby.
Not unless Joe uses super-science on a Super Soaker like he did in Shortpacked!.
There clearly is a baby in the bathwater for Becky though. While she definitely has religious trauma, she also got some good out of it and she’s unwilling to give that up.
Maybe Becky should spend less time trying to keep hallucinatory babies into bath tubs, and spend more time fucking her hot girlfriend.
I don’t know when Joyce would have not been doing something to the effect. I know that she “wants” to make Becky see the light of atheism.
An atheism which is a new and exciting and completely unexamined way for Joyce to rebel against the beliefs she has been brought up with, that she also hasn’t examined. Compared to Becky who we have seen carefully studies both the Bible and her own neuroses to figure out all the things that are wrong with her beliefs and herself to try to fix them.
It’s true both Becky and Joyce are trying to push each other to revert back to a more familiar form for their own emotional comfort, and they’re both wrong. In that respect I’m going to forgive both of them for being two particularly emotionally ill equipped, codependent children left to their own devices in an uncaring world and struggling to hold on to anything familiar.
But that is not why I’m calling Joyce an asshole. It’s because she’s an evangelical atheist who doesn’t understand what atheism or religion or God is for, who barely understands any difference between any of those things, who still feels the need to convince everyone the impossibility of proving or disproving God’s existence has been solved because it turns out God is fake. It’s so entitled and judgmental and thoughtless it makes me angry, and I expect if she and Becky can talk through their conflicting wishes for each other, unless Joyce can grow up some more, her inability to tolerate people with different beliefs is going to be the thing that drives her and Becky apart.
“I don’t know when Joyce would have not been doing something to the effect. I know that she “wants” to make Becky see the light of atheism.”
No, she does not. She wants Becky to do so, but she doesn’t want to MAKE Becky do so, which is a super-important distinction. Only of those two actually actively tried to change the other’s stance, and that was Becky’s little song manouevre.
“who still feels the need to convince everyone the impossibility of proving or disproving God’s existence has been solved because it turns out God is fake.”
Again, this is not a thing that Joyce has initiated.
I mean yeah, I think that’s an important distinction to made.
Joyce is not trying to make Becky change. She will mock Becky to her face about it when they’re fighting, but the way she framed it at the end of the Faith-Off was “she’s smart, she’ll get it,” ie: Becky just has to figure out like Joyce did.
This is still mean, also it’s not “you’ve been lying to me FOREVER and I have to trick you into being Christian again.”
Like, Joyce’s actual response to the whole thing is the two-parter of:
i) meh’ing the whole situation and go focus on her comic, and
ii) repeatedly subsuming her own feelings, thoughts, and emotions to appease Becky, under blackmail by Dorothy, which Becky immediately used to try to “yank at the ol’ god-strings”.
They are keeping… the distance
(see my comparison of the inverse proportionality mathematics to the strong nuclear force above)
“Just please understand that the exact magnitude of how scandalized I project myself is in inverse proportion to how happy you make me.”
…wait, so does that mean that if Becky projects as a lot scandalized, then Dina has only made her a little happy? Or has the math part of my brain finally quit working like everything else?
(Basically what I’m trying to figure out is if this is a “y=-x” thing or a “y=1/x” thing).
What she said is Y=1/X, what she meant is Y=-X. Becky’s a PoliSci major who was homeschooled, math is not her forte.
Yes, the correct meaning of “inversely proportional” is definitely Y=1/X.
Dina must somehow be guessing Becky’s actual intended meaning here, or she wouldn’t describe it as “counterintuitive”. Instead, it would probably seem counterfactual to her. Further observation is likely to confirm that Becky’s more scandalized behavior does NOT imply that Dina is making her less happy.
Y=-X doesn’t work as you can’t have a negative magnitude and Becky specified magnitude. The magnitude of X and -X is the same as |X|=|-X|.
Now it’s true that what Becky said was Happyness = 1/(constant projection(|Scandalization|)), but what she meant and Dina correctly understood was Happyness/projection(|Scandalization|)=constant.
Joyce is homeschooled and she’s good at math. And Becky’s only in PoliSci because she has to, she wanted to be a scientist (probably more specifically biologist).
I don’t think homeschooling has anything to do with it.
Yeah but Beckys mum died early, and can you really picture toe dad being good at teaching math?
Becky’s mom died about a year or two ago. Becky pretty much had an uninterrupted high school education.
Yeah, what Becky’s saying is: “don’t worry, Dina. I feel I have to project myself as scandalized, but you made me so happy that I am projecting just a little bit.”
I wonder what book Becky’s reading. Looks blue.
It’s some Bob the Builder slashfic that Joyce wrote. We saw her print it out a few chapters ago.
It was really unfair that we skipped over the part where Captain Julia Gray was picked up by Image Comics and published in TPB and hardcover format.
I love these two and their communication. They’re good at it. I think they really do have potential to go all the way.
dang becky cant believe youre keeping secrets from joyce
i hope youre properly contrite when she finds out while she was hiding inside the sink drain or whatevs
( •ิ_•ิ )
Joyce will find out when Becky vents to Dorothy’s as of yet unrevealed siblings about it and Joyce tracks them down with Dina and walks in on it, it will be a whole thing, the comments section will hit 1000 comments
I mean this is a secret she can keep until she’s ready. Who you fuck and when is pretty personal. Joyce doesn’t need to know every detail of Becky’s life. I would feel a little weird if my friend came and told me they just banged someone. It would be an awkward high five at best.
Pretty sure Spencer’s post is more about people who came down on Joyce for not telling Becky about her atheism right away.
And also that Becky in-universe considers herself entitled to everything that goes on in Joyce’s personal life, including hearing what she’s thinking and whether she’s allowed to wear glasses.
Being atheist is also a secret you can keep until you’re ready but Joyce wasn’t really allowed that luxury.
Look, Joyce made her decision when she busted down Becky’s door, pinned her to the wall by the throat, and screamed “GOD IS DEAD” down Becky’s throat like in that scene from Godzilla (2014). It’s her own fault.
Yes, very true. I marvel that so many of us find that controversial.
I had no idea Joyce and Becky were in Godzilla (2004). Why doesn’t someone tell me these things?
That’s the thing with these long-running serials: miss one day, and you can never catch up. Eighteen years later a brick joke lands on your foot.
It was very rude of Joyce to throw Becky into the Sydney Opera House that one time
Dina was too busy reeling over the scientific impossibilities of the Godzilla franchise to notice what Joyce was saying.
Freaking thank you, so many people acted like Joyce owed Becky her coming out as athiest RIGHT AWAY, and she better confess or she’s a bad friend, but now that Becky’s the one with the secret, well Joyce doesn’t need to find out as it’s her secret to keep!
People’s ability to decide what is fair and okay based on who they like will always baffle me.
Also Bees.
My favourite take was “well if Joyce just told her then there would be no problem.”
Like just straight up “why did you make me hit you,” it rules.
It’s almost like atheists. Who have been a minority from before the middle ages, aren’t the powerful party picking on the religious.
There just disbelieving but disbelief in the majorities favourite spiderman fiction gets you killed on this planet.
And almost like most media still shows atheists as needing to apologize for there being or be considered villains. Really shit double standard to stand for a minority group that is still treated like it needs to apologize for the abuse we take.
But hey religious people I apologize and lemant in dust and ashes for hurting your feelings for finding your fiction unconvincing. Should I wear sackcloth to so you don’t kill me?
If only all brain shit could be solved in an afternoon or just going “but that’s incorrect”.
Okay see that has actually really worked for me though.
Like I dunno if that’s weird or just how cognitive behavioural therapy works, but it made me real good at labeling my intrusive thoughts.
Oh yeah, a little CBT can do wonders for the mind.
They’re right you know!
But do save up your tolerance in time for 4/20!!!
OOOPS. I misread that as CBD
But yeah it’s good to try both and see what works!
It is really good when what your problem is is intrusive nonsense thoughts, yeah. CBT is great for people with certain kinds of depression.
To quote a friend, though, CBT seems to assume you’re just dealing with your own inner voice, and not your inner voice acting as a casual redelivery mechanism for a big list of pre-existing trauma, and that is not the case for some people.
Ah, that tracks.
Intrusive thoughts from my own inner voice feels like a good summary of what’s been going on for me. Every single action I took I had to justify while hating myself for not doing something else, or not doing it right, anything I could do I would inevitably find a reason for why it’s bad. Being properly medicated to the point where I was able to successfully study for the first time in my life for my college assessment probably did a lot for my ego too, let alone that I was able to focus enough to read books again and start writing my own.
I like to describe it that my problems are imaginary, and so I killed them with an imaginary gun. They are “all in my head” and that’s the worst place they can be, because I couldn’t tangibly deal with them.
oh. cognitive behavioral therapy.
right.
*cough*
My husband is always really bad with intrusive thoughts. I’ll be sitting here like “Well, the intrusive thoughts are saying that the world is better off without me, but I know that’s a lie my brain is telling me.”
And meanwhile, my husband is like “But… Who am I if not the thoughts I have? How can my brain tell me things that it doesn’t believe?”
I ate a bag of Skittles earlier today, but I didn’t feel good about it.
I especially like the grape ones, which I’ve come to regret.
I knew a guy who was convinced that:
A) Grape Skittles are BROWN
B) He was NOT colourblind
In his defense, they’re a little brownish.
Also, the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate wrappers are maroon, not brown, from the Hershey website.
No he would not agree to any amount of purple.
Give ’em a couple days.
sunday confession : I initially assumed “Dintcha” was an affective nickname for Dina /o\
Glad Becky is recognizing how messed up her mind is from all that
A few more reveals and Dina will run out of responses short of “What the actual fuck.”
Hmmm, Becky. I mean, keep whatever things private that you want, that’s 100% your right and prerogative. Buuuuut I think you should also seriously and frankly consider whether you even like Joyce or count her as a friend. I’ll keep private things private, but the sense is only one of ‘gotta hide this ammunition so that jerk doesn’t find it and shoot me with it’ when That Jerk is, you know, someone I neither like nor trust in the first place.
that is a huge leap, they have been in an argument for a few days and she doesn’t want to complicate her stance in said argument, that hardly qualifies as dislike/distrust or an ending to their long standing friendship.
At this point it feels less like an argument and more… a passive-aggressive stand-off? They’re not doing much to antagonize each other other than getting in snipes here and there… and mostly from Becky’s end (playing Christian music and needling Joyce about church).
These two need couples’ therapy.
I’m just saying if you’re thinking of your best friend in ‘of course she’s going to attack me the second she finds out and never stop’ terms maybe examine whether ‘best friend’ is really the right designation. It’s not about the length of time the current fight has been ongoing or even the fight’s severity, it’s about the foundation.
Joyce is the same way (didn’t tell Becky about atheism not because it’s personal and private but because she was afraid Becky would attack her immediately and not stop), and she should ALSO examine whether ‘love is a battlefield’ is really friendship goals.
“attack and not stop”?????
are you projecting something? joyce didn’t hide her atheism from becky out of a fear of being attacked, she legitimately just wanted to spare becky’s feelings.
Becky doesn’t expect Joyce to lord her lack of virginity over her for the rest of their lives, she just realizes that in the current situation the way she might loose ground in her argument and Joyce might make a zinger…
if you think real friends never fight, I really worry about your interpersonal relationships. I have anxiety too, so I get worrying about extreme consequences, but it’s not that bad. If you let your anxiety get to the point that you worry the other person will never stop attacking you, than it probably doesn’t say as much about the other person as it does you.
now don’t get me wrong, their are abusive relationships where people DO harp on things for years to come and not accept you for the decisions that were rightfully yours to make, but does that sound at all like Joyce, OR Becky?
I doubt Becky thinks Joyce will attack her over it, I think Becky thinks Joyce will go “if you join me in Atheist fun land you can do all that without the immense shame”
There’s no way for me to say this without it being a hot take, but I mean yeah I don’t think they should be friends right now.
Like not just because of frenzied emotions from the Faith-Off, but that their existing dynamic was, well, messed up. Joyce loves Becky so thoroughly that she seems to think she should be Becky’s buffer and have to consider how being an atheist makes Becky sad when that’s, well that’s nonsense, and Becky honest to god thinks that Joyce can’t love her unless Joyce exists in a specific little box where she always makes Joyce faces and got over her trauma the proper way and doesn’t need to wear glasses Dorothy you’re overreacting.
Becky’s been running on one huge panic response since she joined the cast and Joyce kept having to take more responsibility as her guardian/emotional support teddy bear/dad-punching attack dog, and yeah she’d do it over and over because she loves Becky more than anyone in the world, but there’s no more dads to punch and Ruths to sneak past so Becky doesn’t get thrown onto the streets, but they’re still running with that same “Joyce has to do all the emotional labour because Becky needs to be protected” script even when it’s actively harming Joyce, and Becky’s sure not coming out of it any better either since she doesn’t even seem to be cognizant of, like, the importance of everyone else in her life who loves her. Is she just gonna follow Joyce forever and make sure Joyce has no wrongthink in her Joyce noggin she has to get out?
It feels as if they both have a mutual agreement that Becky’s feelings need to be placed on a pedestal, and everything has to be justified to her and properly accommodated for how she might take it, let alone how badly she does when the truth comes out as she expresses that wild over-possessiveness. They don’t feel like friends, they feel like they have the emotional dynamic of a parent and a child. Other than the time where Becky found out about Ryan, does Joyce confide in her anything?
That Ryan bit’s a good thing to bring up again too because yeah Joyce didn’t tell her herself, but when Becky found out she immediately leapt to emotional support, recognized she could have triggered Joyce by kissing her, talked it through with her and concocted a plan to give Joyce a fun college party within the safety of her dorm room. That’s the one time Becky had to do something normal (read: not sacrifice yourself to your evil dad) for Joyce and she aced it, she even starts with “you don’t have to tell me but can you give me some signs so I don’t accidentally trip over this again?” and like goddamn that’s just actually amazing friending there.
Agreed 100%.
“ Other than the time where Becky found out about Ryan, does Joyce confide in her anything?”
There was the time at Dina and Sarah’s party where she started expressing doubts, and was immediately called a bummer and told to get back in her cubbyhole. I think that helped discourage her from going off-script around Becky.
Those two need a break from each other, then they need a good long talk about how they really feel. They’re both dancing around the fact that they each can’t be who the other wants them to be.
>It feels as if they both have a mutual agreement that Becky’s feelings need to be placed on a pedestal, and everything has to be justified to her and properly accommodated for how she might take it, let alone how badly she does when the truth comes out as she expresses that wild over-possessiveness.
This summarizes as well as anything why I really don’t think these two have EVER really been “best friends”–all the evidence we see suggests that what’s actually happening is something much less mutually beneficial.
We’ve never really known Becky in a healthy state of mind so presumably things were more normal and mutual when they were kids, but yeah, since Becky joined the cast she’s never really meaningfully given back to Joyce since Joyce won’t air her problems to her, and when she did, Becky called her a dumb idiot baby whose rebellion doesn’t count because Becky rebelled more.
Like even when Becky went back home with her to support her, what ended up happening is that Joyce and Hank had to protect her from Carol and their congregation, and Joyce and Jocelyne had to break into Becky’s home to help her. The most amount of time Joyce got to herself was when she screamed bloody murder at John…
… and Joe when he was texting her, wow. I didn’t think I’d end this with another entry to my trash shipper list.
Oh yeah! Of all people, Joyce has opened up to Joe the most.
Maybe it’s because their deep conversations are kept hidden, and they keep up their “I’m not friends or interested in you at all nope nuh-uh” schtick in public?
My read on them is that it starts with Joyce relying on Joe in a pinch since his folks are divorced. Joe at this point is still a jerky horndog to Joyce, and so helping her the way he did is proof that actually he’s good while Joe isn’t really cognizant of it being a big deal since Joyce is a zero-minus and so he doesn’t have to consider how he acts around her.
Then the Do List comes out and Joe’s forced to confront that his way to avoid ever hurting anyone actually caused Joyce a tremendous amount of pain. but crucially, Joyce is saying that out of an earnest belief that doing so is beneath him. Joe doesn’t have to be this person, he shouldn’t be expected to remain as such, and that’s the first time Joe got held to any standard of decency in the entire series.
I think that’s why they vibe so well together. They’ve escaped those expectations around each other, and that’s more meaningful because they used to lord them over the other and still do when in a bad mood (Joyce calling him an indomitable sex monster right before confessing being an atheist, Joe ribbing her for not swearing and then when she does launches into an impassioned statement that Joyce’s foibles are still real even if God isn’t), but they’re willing to accept that the other doesn’t need to exist as what they think they should.
Joyce doesn’t have to be the churchy weirdo who will eventually blow dudes all over the place, she can be Joyce. Joe does not have to be the scuzzy sex machine who can’t emote the slightest compassion, he can be Joe, and part of being Joyce and Joe is that the parts they’ll call resentment over are still real and still matter.
Addendum: Becky did try a couple times while they were back home. The first time she said they could complain about her parents (since Joyce went “I can’t complain about my family because they never tried to shoot me) before Jocelyne came back, and then before they went back home she was talking her up some too.
Like she tried, but still never got the opportunity to really do it, since Joyce chronically undermines her own issues, while Becky can’t be supportive when it comes to issues that take Joyce out of that perfect pedestal Becky has her on.
What makes it all worse, for me, is that exactly zero people in their social circle deviate from the ‘Becky’s feelings on a pedestal, Becky’s feelings and preferences are the ones that matter’ party line. It’s only people outside their social circle (Joe, and to some extent Walky) who are actually concerned with Joyce’s feelings.
Well, it’s important to note who’s in that circle.
You’ve got Dorothy, an endlessly capitulating people pleaser who thinks she just needs to explain to Joyce that she’s making a silly whoopsie, and Sarah, who doesn’t think she’s capable of doing right by Joyce and can only contribute by solving the problem through badgering Joyce until the last few strips where she threw her hands up and declared she wasn’t someone Joyce could rely on.
That Joe and Walky are outside of Joyce’s circle and don’t rely on Joyce existing in a specific state for their convenience is why they’re capable of meaningfully doing right by her, because the endpoint to Walky talking with Joyce was “hey, go veg out on Sunday morning” and Joe thinks that every mistake Joyce makes is something she’ll overcome until one day’s she perfect and also that she’s gone through so much bullshit lately that she needs someone who “was there for her every time,” and not that Joyce needs to be a silly fundie moron with triangle smiles who’s only allowed to be angry when she’s punching Becky’s dad.
Or: Dorothy and Sarah want this to end because they want to restore their Joyce (because, broadly speaking, they want her to be happy) while the others don’t have a Joyce status quo to uphold.
Cmon Dina, you have to be patient, You can’t just fuck away 18 years of abuse and brainwashing in one session.
Not with that attitude, ya can’t.
In this economy?
If there’s anything Dina DEFINITELY has, it’s patience.
It’s her most important instrument as a scientist, AND her most effective tactic as a predatory dinosaur!
Right. You’ve just got to keep fucking until it all goes away.
Alas, as important as fucking is, that which is gonna break the chains is a whole gestalt cereal in which fucking is but a single ingredient.
Care to guess what the rest are?
Until we heal, we’ll seek intimacy in relationships that remind us of our parents. One of those wacky counterintuitive behaviors.
I wonder what stage Becky is at. She could be happy with Dina either because Dina’s dom tendencies in the bedroom scratches that itch, or because she’s past it – unlikely, but possible: she has been vehemently rejecting everything daddy stood for for most of her life, it’s possible she could just be whole and free to pursue this relationship just because it’s good for her – or, what’s most likely, she wants it because she knows it’s good for her but it’ll ultimately not satisfy her on that basic parent-emulating level and she’ll leave Dina for someone who tries to destroy her like daddy tried. Even though she knows it’s unhealthy. Damned counterintuitive behaviors.
That someone might be Joyce, actually.
I had never considered that and wow does it makes sense
And to be fair, I should try armchair-therapizing Dina too. But the simple version is, she’s very hard to understand.
I can only guess she’s neurodivergent* and that she shares some experiences shaped by my own diagnosis. But my relationship with my parents was really just “absent”, and, emulating that, I have never had an intimate relationship. Makes it hard to know what I want or need from one, or in what way the two might contradict each other.
On the surface, of course, Dina (and I) just needs someone to “be there”, someone who listens to and respects and supports her and tries to understand her. The simple fact that Becky loves her and makes all effort to express that love in powerful and consistent and kind ways probably would stir a reciprocal attraction.
And maybe that’s enough. Maybe there doesn’t have to be any counterintuitive desires that leave her unfulfilled with this relationship. It can be this surface level of psychology is all the psychology there is to Dina; it can be she is what this philosopher I don’t remember the name of thought of when he described autistics as “pure human”, free from contradiction and deception.
I’m not saying she is. I mean I thought I was until I was 36 and figured out I was transgender and started realizing I have all kinds of things going on in my mind that I’ve just learned to not acknowledge because I don’t understand what they are. More likely, Dina has problems that she doesn’t have any language for, no way to define, let alone find effective solutions for. As much as she works to put her thoughts and feelings into words.
*That sort of diagnosis is not for psychology amateurs.
Dina’s true love is science. Everything else follows from that.
It’s possible the abstract concept of science gives her lady boners, but she’s still a human person seeking human relationships. Those aren’t usually dependent on sex feelings.
Other than the “usually” part, definite agreement here.
It had been acknowledged for thousands of years by cultures all around the world that it’s possible to love someone without having sexual feelings towards them, and that it’s possible to have satisfying sexual relations with someone without loving them.
Well, I’m being facetious just using the reductive term “sex feelings”. I hope you, Clif, don’t take me for rude.
As you note, Wellerman, there’s the whole spectrum of loving and sexual relationships. You’ve got your basic platonic, erotic, familial and universal loves and a library’s worth of subtle stuff in between.
And yet (she said, with her hair dramatically flying in the wind), nowhere in all of this mysterious manifold maze of human relationships we all try to navigate does it say a person’s passions, no matter how strong those passions are, decide all that they want and need from other people.
But romantic and erotic get conflated and they’re not really the same thing – although they do tend to run together for many people.
As much as I want to believe in these two, Becky has some deep issues with her childhood that she so badly needs to deal with and she is not communicating that to Dina well cause honestly I don’t think she even fully comprehends it.
It would be fine honestly if it was just belief because so far Dina has been pretty cool about it, but Becky is holding on to sex being a sin and her parents hitting her as okay. She’s literally asking Dina to just let it go and I think that’s a bit too much to expect of anyone, especially your girlfriend who is kind of going above and beyond to make you feel better about your shame.
This doesn’t mean Dina is justified if she goes beyond Becky’s boundaries, but this feels like a lot to expect someone to be cool with, especially as it’s clear there’s something special about their first time, it might bug Dina for her girlfriend to keep viewing it as a sin.
All good points, except for one thing. If Dina has never read the bible, I suspect she wouldn’t be familiar with “sin” as a concept either.
“Sin” in fact has no accurate secular equivalent — it can be used ubiquitously to stigmatize and condemn any action or even thought due to alleged conflict with “God’s will” regardless of whether or not said action or thought really harms anyone.
As for when this dynamic dinosaur duo dives into deeper discussion on their respective views of morality, we do not know.
I don’t see proof of Becky expecting Dina to just let it go
Today’s comic is about Becky verbalizing that the way she was raised did a lot of damage, and that’s the first communication step that leads to a long relationship filled with deep discussions. I think they’ll be fine. They seem willing to work on it.
Joyce is the one trying to normalize corporal punishment. All I get from Becky is an acknowledgement that her upbringing hurt her and she’s not ready for a serious talk about it yet.
It feels like the comments have been going “Annnnd NOW they’ll have a big fight and break up. Any minute now” for this whole storyline. Becky and Dina have been pretty good at communicating so far though. But let’s see!
I’m kinda wondering what the pastor/rector/whatever at Becky’s new church is like and if that might be someone worth talking to?
I mean, it’s not 100%, but churches that are LGBT affirming tend to be a bit more loosey-goosey about guilt and eternal damnation and such. It seems doubtful that Becky’s take on things is something she’s currently getting from the pulpit.
She for sure needs actual therapy, but maybe that might be something to start with.
That’s an excellent suggestion actually. I think she might need to hear from a less abusive spiritual authority.
It’s a great thing that Becky is aware. She can work and be able to go beyond that concept. Dina Will surely be there for help her.
So I’m drinking a Ghost Energy Drink in WarHeads Sour Watermelon flavor, and it’s tasty, but it gets less tasty with each sip, which makes me sad because I know a few years ago I would have adored the taste of this from start of can to end….
You get numb to or burned out on extremely sweet hyper-flavor over time.
I recently found out I can’t stomach Trix or Reeses Puffs past a few bites anymore, they’re just too overwhelmingly sweet. Peanut butter knockoff Cheerios and Froot Loops are enough. Wheaties don’t taste like cardboard anymore, either.
Is this part of getting old and jaded?
Reading the can it seems it has a buttton of citric acid in it, but it’s not sour? Just ridiculously astringent in flavor :I
But yes, alas we are getting old :C
Eh, it may not actually be due to the astringent flavor.
I mean, mustard is astringent, but do you not enjoy that when you have it?
Mustard is supposed to be astringent, my energy drink is not….
It might be getting old… Can you still tell why kids love cinnamon toast crunch?
Why cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite ofcourse!
Dina in the last panel is super relatable to me. As an autistic person, there are a lot of things I’ve come to understand about neurologically typical people that feel very counterintuitive.
I’m not sure that’s really an autistic/nt thing there, so much as a recovering from religious abuse/everybody else thing.
Not to say that you don’t get a similar reaction from other nt things, but I don’t think this is really an example of it.
I got the impression that Dina’s list of counterintuitive understandings is a long-standing thing that predates the relationship.
Fair point. I was just thinking about this particular case.
It’s also very much possible this is a scientific research thing.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in my prior years studying science, it’s that between Gyroscopic Precession, Strong Nuclear Force, Bell’s Theorem, and light’s nature as both a particle AND a wave, some of the most important scientific principles are often the most counter-intuitive.
When it comes to understanding the universe with the Power of Science, these are the kind of things that deserve their own dedicated attention, hence the list.
Your comment works exactly the same if you substitute “atheist” for “autistic” and “religious” for “neurologically typical”.
Yeah, or like “swimmer” and “people who don’t swim”.
Special edition of 30th collection: Dumbing Of Age volume XXX: Violence is Love and Pleasure Is Evil
Dina set out to save this one.
She’s slowly understanding just how much there is for Becky to be saved from.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/radiometric/
am i crazy? it feels normal to not tell your friends about your sexual escapades. maybe im just a prude.
I mean, you’re “a prude” if you hold everyone to that standard, but, no, it’s totally cool to not want to share that or have it shared with you.
I mean it’s also not normal to barge into someone’s room you are at odds with 90% of the time and demand to talk about their spanking trauma, so like normal doesn’t really register with this lot.
Dina’s a bit of a wildcard. It’s hard to say what she will do.
What, you mean this wasn’t what happened?
https://imgur.com/a/g5NggwF
I like these two. I think they’ll be alright.
This is really messed-up.
I just…my heart hurts for Dina right now. She’s a caring and emotional person who’s just been so vulnerable with her girlfriend and she’s trying to understand and she’s having to wrestle with the myriad ways her girlfriend’s family and community hurt her, where Diana’s family and community supported and nurtured her. Those big sad eyes speak volumes to me. Becky has absolutely been wronged and hurt, but man, I think Dina is getting into that too.
how do you spell the sound of all the oxygen leaving your idiotic, closeted, 30-something body because panel 4 of a webcomic about college queer babies described your upbringing so perfectly that you went into a state of astral projected ultrapanic?
WOULDN’T IT BE NICE TO LEARN ABOUT AND INTEGRATE THESE LESSONS AS THEY WERE HAPPENING!?
Panel four of this strip sums up Christianity in a nutshell, at least the Catholic part of it.
You know, we never had that moment where Joyce actually straight up tells Dina, “Hey, by the way, you were right about evolution all along” which should go over well. But then again it seems bizarrely as though Joyce in fact does not yet believe evolution is real even though that aspect of her worldview was ingrained by the theism she now resents and reviles… Maybe no one has helped her to cross that rhetorical bridge yet?
I feel so bad for Becky here. She can’t even enjoy the fact that her girlfriend made love to her.
The pity is that the parents causing all this pain think they are doing the right thing.