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Becky used Dinosaur Breath…
Dina is knocked out!
And it’s a very nice end to this storyline– tying it back a little to how it began, but with a little adorable twist at the very end.
It’s the end of book 5. All books end with someone falling asleep.
But not all books began with an adorable girl waking up while thinking about the names of dinosaurs– and certainly not all books end with an adorable girl falling asleep to the names of dinosaurs!
Having Becky’s name in there just makes it all the sweeter for me.
How come though – both at the end, and back at the beginning – Dina was thinking “Brontosaurus?” ? Why the “?” after brontosaurus?
Because Brontosaurus is believed to be fake, a composite of a couple of other Dinos put together by mistake, if I recall.
It’s classification has been in turmoil for some time, stemming from human pride and error (and yes, a skull made from leftovers). For a while now it’s been considered a junior synonym for Aptosaurus and the original holotype reclassified as such, but recently (this year!) it’s been resurrected as an official, distinct genus containing at least three species.
Besides, “Brontosaurus excelsus” is too cool a name to simply be discarded
No, that’s a widely believed myth. The actual history of the scientific status of Brontosaurus is more complex and has nothing really to do with “someone put the wrong head on it”. But basically Apatosaurus was discovered first, Brontosaurus second, and not long after scientists decided Brontosaurus was not really a separate species at all, so Apatosaurus was the correct designation.
As for the question mark, and why she’s thinking about Brontosaurus at all, it’s probably because recent research has led some scientists to conclude it IS a different species from Apatosaurus, and so the Brontosaurus name should be revived.
There’s a good writeup (at the moment!) on Wikipedia, and you can Google “Brontosaurus is back” at Scientific American.
Separate genus, not species. There was no thought that Apatosaurus ajax and <Insert genus here> excelsis were the same species. Just whether it should be Brontosaurus excelsis or Apatosaurus excelsis.
There’s a kind of irony, here, actually. The etymology of Apatosaurus is ‘deceptive lizard’…and excelsis certainly is deceptive, no matter which way the consensus on how many genera there are shakes out.
Better then that is WAS considered fake, but in the last year evidence mounted for it to be considered real again. So the ? is spot-on.
Bronto was not a fake. It was a possible misclassification of a headless skeleton, given the wrong head in a reconstruction. There was no deliberate fraud, just two mistakes. (Or maybe only one.)
Lately, there’s been evidence suggesting it could qualify as its own genus – ie, A. excelsis and another species that I’m blanking on at the moment, should be moved out of Apatasaurus and into Brontosaurus – but there’s still no consensus toward that, yet, so far as I know.
Not quite a fake, and right now the situation is complicated.
First an Apatosaurus skeleton was discovered and named (by Marsh). Then 5 years later a headless Brontosaurus skeleton was discovered and named (by Marsh). By 1913, however, consensus by the paleontologists of the day was that while the brontosaurus skeleton was different from the apatosaurus, it wasn’t different enough to be a different genus. Both skeletons were, at best, different species of apatosaurus (priority in naming and all).
The missing skull in the brontosaurus skeleton was replaced by a skull found a few miles from the original dig site, but all the paleontologists knew this, and didn’t use the skull to determine species/genus. Some have been trying for 100+ years to get museums to stop showing the wrong head, and to stop identifying it as a brontosaur, since it’s been established that it’s an apatosaur. Since the brontosaur specimen was the one most copied in museums, it caught the popular imagination, even if misnamed. Everyone has heard of the brontosaur, few have heard of the apatosaur, and paleontologists are tired of explaining that brontosaurs didn’t exist.
Earlier this year, a group of paleontologists published a paper reviving the whole debate. After examining all the extant apatosaur/brontosaur fossils, they note that there does appear to be two distinct (related) lineages, sufficient to divide the group into two different genuses, and that Marsh’s original two fossils did indeed exemplify the two genuses. Therefore, they said the evidence backs up both apatosaurs and brontosaurs, reversing 100 years of scientific consensus.
I would expect Dina to be fully conversant on the history and controversy. If this comic had come out 3 years ago, it would have made sense (well, it still does to some degree) for her to have used “torosaurus?” given Jack Horner’s claim that the torosaurus is the mature/adult form of the triceratops, and thus the same genus.
Dina goes asleep – Becky there
Dina wakes up – Becky not there
Whats Dina think?
About dinosaurs ; isn’t that obvious?
“All books end with someone falling asleep.”
…HOW HAVE I NOT NOTICED THIS BEFORE?
If you look at the original, though, you can see that the twist was hinted at from the beginning. Is there a dinosaur name that starts with “Beck”?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/walkingwithdina/
ooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooh !!
…whoa…you just blew my noodle!
but becky has now topped brachiosaurus and *-ropus (whatever that is). soon, she will be all numbers 1-10
Becklespinax…?
(though maybe not since the others are all sauropody)
I bet they’re all listed in that comic comment section, anyway. Sorta recall finding one, too tired to go check.
But the hovertext from that… “maggie read this and remarked, ‘so her happy morning thoughts are about all these things that are dead'” Foreshadowing Becky’s death? Gods I hope not
*banishes you to the Shadow Realm*
Beckylosaurus
Yes there is, actually- Becklespinax
I liked the repeat of “Brontosaurus?” Complete with question mark and everything.
Beckysaurous.
Tyrannobecky Rex
Tyrannosaurus Beck?
aaaaaaaaand now I have “Loser” stuck in my head
I’m just going to focus on how adorable Dina is and try really hard not to remember the lyrics to IN THE TIME OF CHIMPANZEES I WAS A MONKEY
Tyrannosaurus-Bex!
Beckysaurus. Saurus. Saurus.
S a u r u s…….
Maybe it’s a Canadian dinaosaur?
I was going to add Ms. Becky Saurus, but then I remembered that Dina’s surname changed for Dumbing of Age. That’s alright since this chapter was cute enough as it is.
Becky should change her name to throw off Toedad. To, like… Rebecca… Reba, maybe! Reba MacIntyre…
wait
No no no, that works! Reba McEntire is in her early 70s now isn’t she? (Let me check Wikipedia) nope according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reba_McEntire , she’s just 60. But way older than Becky who is just 18.
Pff, beaten by a litteral second.
Velocobecktor.
Beckysaurus ?
Wait…Becky is a dinosaur?
THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY MUST KNOW!
do not worry. she shall be investigated…deeply
But where are her feathers?
Does a feathered hairstyle count?
On Star Trek maybe…
On Sunday, August 30th, 2015, scientists and the Willis Institute of Science announced the discovery of a new dinosaur species, dubbed Farrahsaurus fawcettensis.
There are feathers in many theropods, but it’s still very likely most other dinosaurs didn’t have them. So you could instead ask where are her scales – my guess is in the bathroom.
Becky indeed.
Say it with me, now:
D’awwwwwwwwwww
it’s official: becky is a top 10 dinosaur
Good think she didn’t go extinct.
Hopefully there will be no Toedad meteorite heading Becky’s way.
Toerannosaurus wrecks
Hey,I think I now why the T-Rex is always depicted looking angry. Here’s a clue:small arms.
Not being able to masturbate would make one rather cranky.
Since Toedad has large arms,but still looks angry(and ugly) ,then that means…
… we need arms controll.
Hey, there are ways around such things. Even T-Rexs need their dinosaur porn…
Top ten sauropods at LEAST
Awww.
THE ADORABLE LEVELS ARE OFF THE CHARTS!
SOMEONE GET ME SOME BIGGER CHARTS!
switching to log scale stat!
WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH INK!!! PANIC! PANIC!!!
Man is it ever gonna suck when we get to a depressing storyline after this one.
We can expect anything.
Guys I hate to say it… but we made need Faz for this one. Only he can handle that many charts.
As long as he doesn’t talk about or show his….FAZness.
In situations such as these, you must take the good with the bad, no matter how painful . . .
. . . or stupidly, self-destructively annoying.
*smiles creepily*
“Here is a diagram showing the levels of adorableness and sexiness during this scene. As you can see, the adorableness rises steadily until the point where I make my entrance, when it suddenly drops. Instead, the sexiness starts rising rapidly. This is because I am removing my pants. Here is a diagram of me without pants. It is very high in sexiness but very low in adorableness. This is because big things are not as adorable as small things. The big thing is my penis.”
Does this conclude this Dina chapter?
LOL your avatar XD
^_^ Thankies
You’d think someone like Dina who is into biology would know how all of that works.
On the other hand: “Mammals are weird”
Especially the platypus, which is sort of mammalish.
I’m going to take a guess and say yes. It certainly feels like the end of the chapter.
I just checked the hovertext and it turns out it is the end of this chapter.
bookended, in fact =B
Holy crap, I have never laughed so hard at someone else’s avatar!
Nice to know I tickled the odd funny bone. ^_^
Hovertext says ‘End of book five’
So I’d say yes
I still love how “Brontosaurus” gets a question mark.
Maybe it has something to do with This Article.
The mirror scheme compared with how she woke up, is really powerful
A THOUGHT 65 MILLION YEARS IN THE MAKING
aged perfectly for optimal adorableness
Nothing better than dreaming about those you like.
And it’s always just been dinosaurs she likes and now she’s dreaming of someone who is not a dinosaur for the first time, maybe ever, and it’s so GOSHDANG CUTE I CAN’T STAND IT.
Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how Willis manages to send this ship crashing into Feels Island’s largest port, Sadness Bay.
Noooooo, don’t even say this! They will live happily ever after, ok!? Ok. Good. Yes. I can’t even remember what your comment was about now
Maybe. But still a passage in shipwreck bay.
And now we move onto Chapter Six.
This should be interesting from the title.
Billie gave Becky the room, but not the key to the room? Is the door just left unlocked?
It probably slipped her mind.
Or she tought that Becky can climb through the window just like Sal.
The room key also gets you in the building at night, and Billie needs to keep that.
Ah, okay. Thanks for the explanation. At the college I went the student ID card had a proximity chip got you into the building.
All the dinosaurs Dina digs for.
that lady bone: dig it
If we remember correctly there somebody else having that shirt too,only that he doesn’t dig bones.
This is why I rarely ask questions.
That is one gravatar that I never saw coming. Nice!
Thank you!
Oh! This was a shorter chapter than I expected.
Well you know how the phrase goes.
“Short and sweet.”
Yeah, at 52 strips it’s about half as short as the last one. (Which was a whopping 105 strips. Which makes it the second longest chapter of DoA so far. Or at least out of the stuff that’s on site. I remember a tumblr post saying the next chapter was also long, but I don’t remember how long it exactly was)
Becky, the greatest dinosaur in the world.
Also, did we get any confirmation on Danny and Ethan’s situation?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/glad/
Last we saw them, Danny found out Ethan is gay, Ethan found out Danny is bi, and Danny is still dating Amazi Girl/wanting to date Amber.
This storyline has made me the absolute happiest. Thank you for writing it and drawing it and thinking it up in the first place <3
100 per cent agree with Caesaria82.
Nice grav
every time i think that this comic can’t get cuter, i am proved wrong
I still think that having Dina wander around campus, with excerpts of other characters’ storylines happening in the background, would have been pretty great.
But this is good, too.
Chapter’s end? I’d assume so.
Hovertext says YES!
Roflmao Plasma, love the gravatar.
TY TY =^_^=
Poignant endpoints on point. Claps all around for Willis. *clap clap*
…her new obsession maybe?
the cuteness level goes up with every strip
Sweet dreams, Dina.
We have now reached the end of this chapter. This has been a good one.
This is the end of a book, and it seems to lack a certain angst. I suspect the next chapter will more than make up for that lack of angst. Will this ending eventually be rendered heartbreaking in hindsight? I suppose we are not to know just yet. For now, this is a sweet moment.
That is a satisfying ending.
-never reads DoA again despite all the other story threads there are-
I kid, I kid.
This was a great strip. Cuteness beyond belief.
And…
Becky walks smack into Toedad in the hallway.
But unfortunately for him Amber happens to be returning to the room.
Abusive father + low center of gravity = asskicking.
It is likely way past visiting hours.
awww it’s over already? i could read another year of Walking with Dina.
Be careful what you wish for.
That last thought balloon… [sigh]
PERFECT
<333
DAMN YOU WILLIS but for giving me the happy feels this time :3
……Oh no. OH NO. OH NO THE ADORBS.
AWWW so cute.
Well. I just didn’t expect this comic to be so dusty, is all. Got in my eyes and everything.
Things are going so well right now. Don’t ruin this for me Willis!
You do realize that saying that to Sir Willis is like waving a red flag at a bull, don’t you?
willis should do this more often with like a character a story arc.
NO!!! MY FEELINGS!!! D:
Thank you so much for Becky.
Europastasaurus!
And now, no matter what anyone else claims for the second panel, it’s a Flying-Spaghetti-Monster reference.
I caught up with this comic 10 days ago, and I’m glad it got to be so close to a book boundary. Especially when this book ended with things being so freakin’ adorable!
Having already broken the scale for AWESOME, Dina goes on to brake the scale for ADORABLE (and cute is dangerously close to).
Seriously, they are SO FRIGGIN’ WONDERFUL together. That last flickering thought of Becky… before it’s off into dinosaur slumberland is wonderful. Good on you Dina, and good on you, Becky. You both found yourself a keeper.
Becky: Poo. The door’s locked. I’ll just have to climb the window instead.
Sal: …Fine, I’ll continue to tolerate your existence for now.
Sleepy Dina is so cute.
Is this the most drama-free chapter yet? Outside of Toedad which was resolved in like four strips.
It’s pretty clearly not resolved yet, though.
Yeah happy ending. End of storyline!
“But willis didn’t-”
END.OF.STORYLINE.
“That won’t actually stop the story from going on tho-”
END.
The perfect little adorable ending.
You have something against non-sauropods, Willis?
Also, I’m fairly certain you broke all limits for how much adorable is allowed in one webcomic. I have enjoyed it.
This has been an awesome arc, properly bookended. And so sweet. I loved it!
Dina doesn’t do it for me, but it’s pretty clear I need to find me a girl who mumbles dinosaur names when she nods off.
This will end so badly…
After so much cute fluff there’s simply no other way.
Aww crap I hadn’t thought of that and now I feel dumb. You’re totally right, though.
We have been burned before.
*Mr Willis doesn’t do anything to Beckysaurus, deliberately making things look like they’re about to go bad before going right. He then feeds off the frustration generated by said actions…*
The delicious tears of readers.
It’s such a rare, precious thing when a DoA chapter ends putting a big, warm smile in your face
Now to wait for the inevitable feels bomb.
This strip comes close, but I think Willis set the bar pretty high when he finished up book one with this one.
Things she really, really likes.
Heart melted.
For the longest time, Dina was barely even a prop to me. She showed up, said some funny lines and disappeared while the rest of the comment section exploded in adoration, and I never got it. So when we got an entire arc focused on her, I was ready to just kind of tune out for the next few months until we got back to the more interesting characters.
And I am so glad I was proven wrong.
By framing nearly every strip from Dina’s perspective we finally got to understand her a lot better and how she ticks. Her entire relationship with Becky should be the lamest thing ever; an upcoming character hooks up with the most popular character and they’re instantly perfect, and instead in ends up being one of the most compelling, adorable, and interesting relationships in the entire series just by virtue of the two approaching it rationally. Each strip between the two was loaded with subtle character moments. Even just in the last month the romance between the two felt as real and compelling as all the others in the comic.
So, yeah, altogether, this story was pretty rad.
That super paragraph was weird to read coming from a Dina gravatar.
First paragraph. Did I write that post while sleepy?
One of us! One of us!
This storyline felt like it was short.
We demand more! Dina is to be tagged in every strip wearing a different outfit. It’ll be like a paleo-“Where’s Waldo”!
It’s safe to assume we’re all in agreement then? If anything bad happens to Dina we riot?
I have this nervous feeling that these two are about to be separated quite soon. Toedad cometh. Screwing with his car didn’t erase the problem. They just delayed the inevitable. Now Dina may be roped into the impending conflagration.
I love all the cute respecting boundaries stuff that Becky is doing here. Going back to reading when Dina hit her giggle attack so that Dina had space to come back down. Noting when she was nodding off, grabbing her a pillow, shutting off the lights for her, and heading back so that Dina can wake up with some space. It’s so seemingly minor, but it does so much to show respect and care. It’s really amazing how much Becky has improved on consent and being forthright since her surprise kiss and playing to Joyce’s jealousies.
Shows not just how good of a girlfriend she’s being and probably will be to Dina, but also just how much Joyce’s experiences have really hit home for her.
And Dina trailing off to sleep still blushing, smiling, and thinking of Becky. It’s all so healthy above and beyond what we usually see in fiction or society, which will make it hard to sit through when the rest of the world starts dumping on them (having a “you and me against the world” relationship seems romantic, until you live one and you realize that all that extra stress puts a strain on everything you try to build together).
It’s just so incredibly beautiful! It’s not only Dina “Saving this one” or Becky “helping Dina interact more” or whatever – it’s both of them genuinely liking each other and being good for each other.
Now they are both faaaaar out of their depth and high on hormones, but they still take time to communicate their needs and make sure to check with the other one. Just imagine how adorable they will be when they have started to get used to each other’s quirks and habits.
This is a great relationship, and it will only be better.
Something that occurred to me when this ship started out of harbor is that, it’s something where the conflict is likely going to come from the outside. Billie and Ruth, there are all kinds of wrong things about that relationship, Amber has a psychotic break that keeps her from even considering Danny properly her boyfriend, and Dotty and Walky have the wall of Walky’s fear of commitment and the understanding that the relationship has a real and solid expiration date.
Becky and Dina, on the other hand, are just cute and healthy together. I do expect drama to fall on them, don’t get me wrong, but I expect it more from the outside. From the rampaging of toedads or the threat of Becky’s discovery or even just the outer friction of having what is (so far) a very public queer relationship. I think, of all the relationships we’ve seen so far, there’s none more equipped to surviving the fallout of that than Beckasaur.
Am I’m completely unbiased, too.
and*
Re Walky’s fear of commitment — rather Walky’s immaturity combined with Dorothy’s fear of a commitment interfering with her ambition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becklespinax
So to balance all this cute and nice and sweet we need some heavy-duty drama!
okay
Never has the phrase be careful what you wish for taken on more meaning then it has now
You fool! What have you done!?
The Willis is a fickle, wrathful god.
How bad can it be?
Notice that the character models for the storyline after the next have a conspicuous lack of Becky and a very sad looking Joyce…
Naah I think that this storyline shows that Mr Willis is mellowing with age which is not a criticism as it happens to everyone
I think it’s pacing. He had a big post on his tumble about how you have to put positive experiences into your comic to keep people from caring about all the drama that happens to them because you’re locked into a forever plot freefall. Which he posted after this story was written.
sorry i didn’t put that at all well i guess, I’m really just teasing him:)
But now we have someone new to blame. Damn you chris73!
FOOOOOOOOOOL
I hear the ululations of the Harlot’s screaming flutes in the distance. Things that are unseen become vaguely seen.
R’lyeh rises. Nyarlathotep howls forever in the darkness. Shub-Niggurath spawns her thousand young.
The Willis has spoken.
The drama is upon us.
*applause*
Did this book seem to pass by really quickly to everyone, or just me?
Note to admin: the “next” link isn’t linking to the new episode, even though it’s already up.
gah dina why do you have to be so adorable!
I WANT ONE TOO!