200

Laid-back
Posted on September 17, 2023 by David M Willis

200 thoughts on “Laid-back”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    playing hardball now

    or just hard lol

    (waiting for Sarah to open her eyes and completely forget the whole plan tho)

    1. NGPZ

      Take me out to the ball game!!! XD

    2. Thag Simmons

      I do not know how you could fit Jacob into this plan. I see a lot of possibilities and they’re all terrible

      We just got him back Sarah, don’t scare him away for another three years

      1. PASchaefer

        Holy schnikies, it really has been three and a half years. The mind boggles.

      2. Samniel

        I’m pretty sure Sarah’s already thinking of several ways she can fit Jacob. Oh, into the plan? Yeah, no, not there

      3. furubatsu

        If she can’t entice girls to seduce Joe, perhaps she can entice Jacob to seduce Joyce

        1. Angel

          jacob’s def gonna turn her down considering it didn’t work the first time joyce ‘pretended to be his gf’ lol.

        2. HueSatLight

          as complicated as things were, he might care enough about Joyce to tell Sarah to think about what she’s actually doing to her.

        3. Needfuldoer

          If he and Joe still work out together, he might already know about them.

          I’m hoping this doesn’t work out the way Sarah planned in her head, and he ends up talking her down.

        4. Mark

          Did I miss a strip? What is the way Sarah planned this in her head?

          I don’t suppose her plan now is simply to get Jacob to convince Joe not to defile poor helpless Joyce.

        5. Needfuldoer

          Torpedoing a relationship by throwing a third party at it worked for her last time, why shouldn’t it work for her this time?

        6. Mark

          Ah, so we’re guessing — we don’t know her plan.

        7. Needfuldoer

          Her goal is to get Joe away from Joyce, and she’s flailing around looking for a means to that end. If that means using Jacob to tempt Joyce away, in her view so be it.

        8. Octo

          She pretty much spelled out the plan when she tried to get Dorothy, now she’s just substituting Jacob for Dorothy because the latter isn’t available at the moment.

        9. Laura

          And, Joe has already expressed and shown to Jacob how deeply he cares about Joyce.

        10. John Campbell

          Gotta admit, my first thought was that she was going to try to get Jacob to seduce Joe. Second was that she was going to try to seduce Jacob herself, to make Joyce jealous, which would… break up Joe and Joyce… somehow? It was only after that I arrived at the presumably obvious Jacob/Joyce.

          Sarah should just go back to that second plan. Maybe if she were getting laid, it’d distract her from trying to control Joyce’s relationship decisions. She could even frame it as a shot at Raidah if it made her feel better.

      4. davidbreslin101

        I was actually struggling to remember who he is!

    3. Corronchilejano

      Never let horniness get in the way of making people hate each other.

      1. clif

        Yeah, I didn’t expect this twist. Makes sense tho.

    4. Jo_cubstar

      Just wondering “Jen Aside” from like a decade ago was your old screen name, right?

      1. Jo_cubstar

        That was meant to be directed at Ana

  2. Amós Batista

    everybody in Dumbing of Age is so hot, I’m even considering Ross

    1. Doctor_Who

      Weird way to announce a foot fetish, but you do you.

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        And here I am, all out of reddit gold. Have some unigold awards instead:

        ⭐?⭐

  3. Doctor_Who

    I’ll give Sarah this, when she decides to become a disaster she doesn’t do it by halfs.

    It’s like if the “This is fine” dog was walking around with a can of gasoline to sprinkle everywhere.

    1. Ophidiophile

      On the flip side, she must place a very high value on Joyce if she is willing to stoop this low.

  4. Yumi

    Yes, finally, he returns!

    1. Koname

      I have been scared for years now that he just left the school entirely after the first semester because of the bit with Joyce.

  5. NGPZ

    Oh wow, wait is Jacob a natural blonde or no?

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      I think he has bleached his hair; it is very rare to have blonde hair when the person is black.

      1. Thag Simmons

        It does happen sometimes, usually if they’ve got mixed heritage. That said this is clearly bleached

        1. Leorale

          Most of the timeskip haircuts were improvements!
          I’m not a fan of the blonde top on him. But hey, it’s his head, he’ll do what he likes.

        2. Yumi

          Or he could have lost a bet. There are possibilities.

          (I actually don’t feel any particular way about his hair, but I’d find it funny if it distracted Sarah from her plan for a strip.)

        3. NGPZ

          Distracted? Probably not, given she’s so damn fixated on tearing Joe and Joyce apart enough to even consider turning to Jacob.

        4. NGPZ

          *that she considered turning to Jacob.

        5. Thag Simmons

          I like having him grow his hair out a bit and while the bleaching isn’t a great look but it’s believable that the character would go for it.

      2. Nono

        It’s also rare to pull it off but he does it well.

      3. Yumi

        Also to have black roots and natural blonde hair, but that does remind me of a scene from Fruits Basket…

        (I know the idea here would be that he’s still dying the shorter hair, but like… that’s not what’s happening, so anyway.)

        1. Dante

          [CACKLES]

          Oh, that one’s a work of art. Thank you for the flashbacks.

      4. zee

        Not gonna find them in America at least. The melanesians are a group where it’s more common. There’s a theory that it comes from mixing with Europeans years ago but it’s so far down the line that it’s negligible in all other aspects

        1. thejeff

          That theory doesn’t seem to hold up.

          The genetic mechanism for blond hair in melanesians is different from the one in Europeans

    2. Doctor_Who

      He’s trying to cheer up his roomie Ethan by pretending to be Mike.

      Jacob: “Hey Ethan, look! Grrr, I’m angry and blond! I will make sweet love to your mother for discount prices!”

      Ethan: “Weirdly enough, this helps.”

      1. NGPZ

        awe fuck, i didn’t even think of it from THAT angle 😮

      2. Nono

        Well, Jacob did have sex with a mom in the other universe…

      3. pig

        This made me chuckle, thank you!

    3. Angel

      even if he’s mixed i’d assume the darker hair color would be a more dominant gene and it’d be more of the style than color like ‘blasian’ hair being a slightly diff texture

      i have seen some black ppl having dark red hair but it’s usually a wig/extensions or dye tho.

      that said it would be nice to see joyce’s reaction idk if they’ve talked in a while but hopefully they can have a normal convo ,sarah interference aside. (who knows maybe he could be dating a random girl rn and they can have a double date lol)

      1. Freemage

        One of my cousins is mixed race; his hair has tight curls and brown-with-blond-highlights coloration. His skin is closer to ‘permanent California beach bum tan’, though. Given how dark Jacob appears, I doubt his hair has much by way of natural highlights like that in his hair, either.

  6. Sirksome

    Jacob’s still alive. I guess he’ll be relevant again now.

    1. Angel

      and probably unappreciative of sarah’s proposal considering he directly told her and joyce that he didn’t like how some ppl will never see him as more than a sexual object.

  7. Thag Simmons

    He’s back! with a timeskip new hairstyle at that

    1. Laura

      …And… is that… orange lipstick I see? Very posh! I love that look on him. So smooth.

  8. DiDi

    Oh no… Oh Sarah… Holy shit.

    The guy that she screwed up her chance with. And the guy that Joyce also screwed up her chance with. And she’s gonna try and bring him back into basically both their lives…

    Why no… no, there’s no possible way this could backfire.

    But it looks like Jacob has long since moved past that. Maybe we can be a little optimistic?

    1. Sirksome

      I feel it’s important to note Sarah never screwed up a chance with him. She just never tried because she didn’t think she deserved him, cause he’s looking for love and she just seems him as a sex object. That’s relevant cause I think her plan has a huge chance of backfiring into herself.

      1. DailyBrad

        To be honest, I don’t know if it’s even the sex object thing, like she obviously thinks he is hot, but I think her general misanthropy is the issue. She’s ludicrously cynical and bitter, and to want to date Jacob would mean letting someone in and being supremely vulnerable. Sarah does not do vulnerable, at least as of yet.

  9. Angel

    Jacob gets to exist again!

    1. HueSatLight

      Imagine a Westworld-like campus, thousands of students and faculty just sitting in their dorms staring into the middle distance until they’re needed as a side or background character.

  10. Just an Armadillo

    Good to see Jacob again. Bad to see Sarah showing up to fuck with his life again.

    1. Alongcameaspider

      Is he even aware of her part in that whole debacle?

    2. Sirksome

      That’s not actually on Sarah at all. She’s only guilty of having bad intentions. Joyce and Jacob fucked up their situation by themselves. Technically Joe is more responsible for that cause he’s actually the one that introduced them, or even Joyce for ironically trying to help Sarah. Sarah just moved herself out the way and enjoyed that it hurt Raidah.

      1. Lumino

        Bullshit.

        Sarah 100% pointed Joyce at Jacob and Raidah as a seeker missile solely to hurt Raidah. Sure, this doesn’t absolve Joyce and Jacob of their decisions, but it sure as shit doesn’t let Sarah off the hook either.

        1. thejeff

          It doesn’t, but Sarah did think better of it and tell Joyce to stop. Or at least not to do it for her.
          It was too late though. Joyce was already doing it for herself.

        2. Sirksome

          She didn’t. I feel like people are misremembering the whole thing. Yes, Sarah did have a plot to break up Jacob and Raidah, but she didn’t point Joyce at him. Randomly running into Joe and Jacob having lunch at Galasso’s is not weaponing Joyce or fucking with Jacob’s life. They made plans to hangout before Sarah even hatched a break up plot.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/corner/

          Jacob liked Joyce. He heard about her and admired her for saving Becky from Ross kidnapping attempt 1.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/boyspizzaretreat/

          Like the most proactive thing I can find Sarah doing was encouraging Joyce to wear a pretty dress to church. I think she may have through Becky somehow gotten Jacob to deliver Joyce grape juice once. This is enough that Sarah felt she needed to apologize by the way. Mostly because Joyce initiating her own plans to try and hook Sarah and Jacob up were only getting her closer to him instead. But Sarah didn’t do anything. She didn’t tell Joyce to break her toe trying to workout so Jacob could carry her like a princess.

          If there are examples I’ll take it all back by the way. Not trying to be confrontational. I just can’t find or think of anything Sarah actually did. She’s only guilty of hating Raidah but their relationship was sinking as soon as Joyce and Jacob met. You can criticize Sarah for enjoying that, but just having plans doesn’t actually mean anything.

        3. thejeff

          How about this?

        4. Sirksome

          This is what I’m talking about. This happened after Jacob and Joyce already met and made the church date. He even asked Raidah if it was okay and she didn’t see Joyce as a threat. Sarah told Joyce to wear a nice dress once for plans Joyce and Jacob already made. Her big scheme was basically just sitting back and letting their natural chemistry do the work.

          Sarah’s definitely an asshole for wanting a relationship to break over a personal rivalry, but blaming her for that feels misplaced.

        5. Schpoonman

          I think that’s obfuscating how Sarah initially leaned into it. She noticed Joyce and Jacob’s chemistry and then pushed Joyce more into getting into Jacob’s good graces. Neither Joyce nor Jacob are absolved of their responsibility, but when someone’s teetering on an edge and they’re pushed off, it’s absolutely right to say “Well, the shove didn’t help at all.”

      2. HueSatLight

        This isn’t a court of law, this is interpersonal relationships and emotional reactions. If he knew Sarah’s intent was to break him and Raidah up, using Joyce if needed, but Sarah didn’t plan the details of having Joyce pretend to be his girlfriend to his brother, I’m pretty sure that would still register as her trying to fuck with his life. Maybe there’s enough time passed that if he knew, he wouldn’t hold a grudge, but “It’s your life, man. Have some respect for your own life,” feels like it would have bothered him at the time.

  11. RassilonTDavros

    …I suppose I should have expected a new ‘do for his first post-timeskip appearance, but I definitely wasn’t expecting this particular one.

    1. Thag Simmons

      I was expecting something like a Killmonger cut, which this sort of resembles but the exact details are pretty surprising

  12. quark

    :O!!! jacob!!!!!

    1. quark

      i read every new strip with one eye closed and holding my fist in front of the other eye obscuring everything but the first panel, then slowly move my hand as i continue reading. SPECIFICALLY for strips like this one

  13. Nono

    I just realised both residents of that room have “dated” Joyce before. Wonder if that led to any awkward conversations.

  14. BBCC

    Hi Jacob! Loving the new look.

  15. Nono

    Trivia: the last time we saw Jacob was January 2020.

    1. Bryy

      ….. fuck. This comic, man.

    2. Masumi

      Dude skipped covid.

      1. zee

        He was quarantining like the responsible young man he is

  16. Jamie

    I … did not expect Sarah to plumb these depths.

    1. Nono

      She’d certainly like Jacob to plumb some depths alright.

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Dammit, beat me to it.

  17. Taffy

    “I need you to come have sex with Joe.”

    1. Yumi

      “Slipshine stock is down.”

      1. Opus the Poet

        OK I definitely LOL’ed at the stock joke.

    2. Jay

      Look, everytime someone changes their hairstyle I *do* have to re-assess their sexual orientation.

      …and I *also* change my hair colour every three months, so this is universal.

  18. Cattleprod

    Damn, who else haven’t we seen since the time skip? I should start checking character tags.

    1. Nono

      Well, Mike…

      1. Needfuldoer

        He’s appeared in spirit.

    2. Cattleprod

      Okay, I’ve come up with Hank and Faz out of characters actually important enough for their tags to be on the main page. And Jocelyne, kind of, she appeared once as a text message but I think she had Patreon appearances?

      1. Thag Simmons

        Joss to my knowledge is specifically banned from the Patreon polls in order to not spoil where’s she at right now.

      2. Nono

        Alice?

        1. Cattleprod

          Her only appearance in the past 9 years was in a flashback montage. At this point I need to try to remember minor characters unless there’s a master list of every character tag.

        2. Thag Simmons

          Depends on how you define “post timeskip”

        3. Thag Simmons

          botched the link on this one. if you flagged it for removal I wouldn’t complain.

        4. Thag Simmons

          Depends on how you define “post timeskip”

      3. DailyBrad

        She has popped up in Patreon strips I think even post-time skip, but like right now I think she’s MIA.

      4. Jerach

        I really really want to see what a conversation between Joyce and Jocelyn would be like with Joyce’s new perspective.

        1. StClair

          Many of us do.

    3. thejeff

      Here’s one.

  19. not someone else

    Oh my god, now he’s even hotter. Fuck.

    1. StClair

      That’s exactly what Sarah is trying very hard to not think about.

      1. StClair

        (ha HA, ‘hard’)

  20. JessWitt

    I like Jacob’s new haircut.

    1. Angel

      i kinda prefer it dark red but it is interesting to change it while ur still young (not that you can’t when ur older but sometimes things can be a pain to change back/stay healthy/not dry out etc), be interesting if he went with a non natural color like blue or dark green but other than it being popular in the area, it’s a little bit uncommon and prolly pricey for a college student unless they do it themselves

  21. Qube

    oh lord he’s got fuckboy hair

    1. NGPZ

      fuckboy hair? pika pika?

      this like another earthling meme thing?

      1. Heather

        Honestly I kind of see people claiming almost every new-ish male popular hairstyle as a ‘fuckboy haircut’ sometimes and I think it’s honestly just because really any lad out there is capable of being a fuckboy regardless of hairstyle. It’s just if more regular blokes in general have it then so too will fuck boys when they make an ass of themselves. It’s just a morally neutral trend and both assholes and nonassholes are probably just as capable as following it.

        It’s just when something (like a hair style) stands out people notice and try to make note of it. We try to form pattern recognition in our minds and thus think the hairstyle must be a red flag: even when it’s a flawed premise. It’s just a popular hairstyle in general. It means nothing.

        Weren’t manbuns considered the same thing once? I remember they were considered the fuck boy hairstyle once).

        1. Qube

          they use’ta be. they still are, but they use’ta too

    2. lily

      i’m pretty sure i’ve seen some black guy selfies where they had a similar hairstyle color/shape before that term was rly out there but it’s more of an attitude/overall look

      might vary from race to race too since the ‘fuckboy’ asian guys i know would have their bangs spiked up/with hair gel (but granted there’s not a lot of variety of hairstyles either hair gel or looking like a kpop boy out there unless you go all out on it)

      1. Qube

        in fairness I’m a millennial, I wasn’t cool back when it was cool to be a millennial, and all undercuts look like fuckboy hair to me

        it’s probably safe to ignore me, I’ll just be over here shaking my fist at a cloud or something

  22. Dante

    Yeaaaah, this won’t backfire at all. I’m usually more invested in the queer storylines because I’m me but this is going to be a garbage fire and I’m #intrigued.

    Plus Jacob and Joe and gym buddies and it’s like, why do you pump so much iron? To better lift other men? Throw Dorothy in and to think a polycule would solve so much…

  23. Dday

    Ohhhhh, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. You went from Clark Kent to Guy Fieri. What a shame

  24. IniquitousKing

    Yes, get Jacob to seduce Joe. It’s a perfect plan.

    He’s lookin’ good.

  25. Rabbit

    This plot just took a turn I was not expecting. This is so funny. He’s going to clock immediately that Sarah initially pushed Joyce into doing what she did, isn’t he.

    1. Dr. T

      Joe did so already but did not interfere at the time. I wonder if at any point he spilled those beans.

  26. Imogen

    sighhh

    Anyways, jacob is presumably going to clock that Sarah uses this strategy a lot. but also. sighhh.

    1. Imogen

      I like Sarah. Like a lot of the “controversial” characters, I don’t love how she’s written lately.

      1. Freemage

        Yeah… it’s pretty out-of-character, too. Not the motivation, mind you–wanting to protect Joyce, assuming the worst of Joe, and so forth–that’s all right on brand for her. But she generally doesn’t actively engage in shenanigans; if anything, she calls them out.

        1. Felgraf

          … she literally used Joyce to break up Raidah and Jacob, though.

          This is absolutely, 100% on-brand based on things she has done in the past?

        2. Falathar

          For reasons I cannot understand, people desperately want to like Sarah despite the fact that she’s always been horrible.

        3. eskimolos

          Just another reminder that telling your friend you want her to get close to a boy so he’ll leave his girlfriend is not actually breaking two people up. Sarah isn’t a puppet master, a master manipulator, she isn’t Machiavelli, Joyce and Jacob had already connected and shown mutual interest in one another, Joyce was fully capable at that point of noting it was a bad idea, if Jacob had been invested in and happy with Raidah he wouldn’t have been derailed by Joyce. Sarah’s involvement in that was completely irrelevant, it would have absolutely played out the same without Joyce being given her petty tangent about how Joyce is nice and could get Jacob to leave Raidah. She was, at worst, right – Joyce was a nice and genuine person, if extremely awkward and immature, particularly when it comes to these matters.

          People really have got to stop sympathising with Raidah, there is not going to be a point in this comic where she tips the scales towards being an authentically nice person who considers others for more than the ammo they can provide at her enemies or the stones they can provide for her to step on to better career prospects.

        4. Felgraf

          She doesn’t have to be a puppet master literally controlling Joyce for it to be a shitty thing to do.

          Also:
          It is possible to not sympathize with Raidah (I don’t. She’s awful.) while still feeling Sarah was in the wrong then, and in the wrong here.

          It is possible for *multiple people to do shitty things*. In fact, it’s pretty human!

        5. Freemage

          Yes, but that was an indirect attack, at worst–she just encouraged Joyce in an already obvious (to everyone but Joyce) infatuation. In some ways, it’s what I’d expect of a future lawyer, leading someone down a path they don’t even realize they’re on, but which plays into their nature.

          This, on the other hand, is absurdly clumsy and obviously unlikely to work, not to mention the entire prior bit of trying to get the triad to line up to be boned by Joe.

          What I’m objecting to is the idea that Sarah would think any of this would actually work. The only way this is really in-character is if she’s deliberately picking the worst way to break up Joe and Joyce, so that she can say she tried, and is thus technically not responsible for what she believes will inevitably be a disaster.

  27. Kim

    Yaay! ’Cob!

    1. Bruno

      Consider that if he bangs her maybe she’ll calm down.

      1. Bruno

        That wasn’t meant to be a reply to this. I did appreciate ‘Cob though.

  28. jeffepp

    “So, for sex?”

    “That’s what I said.”

    …

    “Oh! Oh, Joe!”

    “Say what?”

  29. sdrainbow

    oh FUCK I am in danger, bleached tips are my greatest weakness

  30. clif

    Normal reasons.

    Not to be confused with abnormal reasons.

  31. Ray

    That time Sarah accidentally got Joyce into a throuple, failing extra-hard to the original goal. /jokes

    1. Steelbright

      That would be the best ironic ending, I’d get on that ship

      1. Miri

        Migraine and background people here mean I read that as you getting off on that ship

  32. Taffy

    In all seriousness, I hope he’s mature enough to join Sarah’s cult.

    1. Yumi

      Wait, Sarah’s starting an improv troupe?

  33. zims

    Oh no, he’s not hot anymore. There goes that plan.

    1. pig

      This among all the “oh dang, jacob is even hotter now” is ironic ?

  34. Thomas

    Jacob went bald in the interlude and now wears a toupee in a colour that doesn’t match.

  35. DashWallkick

    Him and Joe are workout buddies, and Joe was the one who told him “Joyce is improving and you’re going to wish you were there for it,” there’s no way he goes for this right?

    1. Bash

      Even without that, there’s no way Jacob goes for something like this. He has an actual moral compass.

      1. zee

        I mean he’s been on the other side of this

        1. DashWallkick

          Sarah is going to blow herself up as a bitter controlling person and it’s not going to go well!

  36. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    I’m waiting for Jacob to react like, “Joe and Joyce are together? That’s great! It’s about time! Joe is totally smitten with her, but he seemed afraid to be emotionally vulnerable for the longest time.”

    1. Bobbi

      I really hope this happens!

      1. Mark

        Seconded!

    2. pig

      For real! I think someone who appreciates Joyce is the best person to tell Sarah off for what she’s trying to do.

  37. Reltzik

    … absolutely nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan, and I unreservedly endorse it.

  38. DarkoNeko

    Hey nice hair, Jacob.

    if you are about to push Jacob into Joyce against I swear I will slap you.

    1. Bash

      What other possible reason would have her knocking on Jacob’s door at this time? The good news is that Jacob absolutely will not go for it, and will probably tell her to chill.

  39. Steelbright

    Aah! Jacob time skip new hair! It looks great. Also something something terrible idea plot

    1. Nicoleandmaggie

      This.

  40. zip

    Mad levels of haters in the comments the new hair is good

    1. MegaBee

      Yep.

  41. Bash

    So I’m not saying Sarah was in the right, when she was trying to get a girl to seduce Joe. But this? This is seriously fucked up. She knows that things ended badly with Joyce and Jacob and she’s going to stir all that up again and try to make things complicated for Joyce.

  42. Lamppost

    Aren’t Jacob and Joe like… bros? I feel like Jacob is too much of an honorable guy to agree to this.

    1. anonymsly

      Plus Jacob has an earlier knowledge-point of Joe’s feelings than anyone else in the cast and thus a solid basis to know that Sarah’s waaaaay off kilter here.

    2. Needfuldoer

      Bros! Bros! Bros! Bros!

  43. Acher4

    It’s been 84 years!

    Oh wait, just three…. but they do feel like decades. 😛

  44. HueSatLight

    That door looks like the knob’s on the left, hinges on the right, reversed of this. I think, perhaps, floor / room layout is whatever’s convenient at the time of drawing, outside of the central cast. Time to take all the red string off the corkboard.

    1. Icalasari

      Wasn’t that pre skip and thus could be that Jacob ended up in a different room this semester?

    2. DumbingOfAlice

      doorknobs to the left of me,
      hinges to the right,
      here I am
      stuck looking at the layout of rooms ??

      😀

  45. LIGHTWEIGHT BAYBEE

    YO
    poor jacob got that vash the stampede cut

    1. Da Boy

      Let’s hope, for his sake, that’s the only part of Vash’s look he’s got.

  46. Blibdoolpoolp

    Damn you Willis, this is gonna be too good.

  47. AGV

    He’s aliiiiiiiive!

  48. DumbingOfAlice

    I always pegged Sarah as a “KNOCK KNOCK KNOCKITY KNOCKKNOCK” kinda gal, personally – truly this comic strip is full of surprising twists and turns!

  49. Da Boy

    [checks the tags to make sure] Damn! Jacob went (a little bit) wild! Honestly this look makes him feel like a really sweet and relaxed guy.

  50. Allie_KO

    Oh NO

  51. Rabisch

    I don’t remember if Jacob knows that Sarah was behind Joyce trying to make him leave Raidah. But if that’s the case, given the similarity between the situations, he’ll understand it now. I wonder if Jacob will get mad at Sarah or if maybe this will be the beginning of the great, overwhelming, romantic and eternal love story between the two of them.

    1. Da Boy

      Please no, Jacob deserves so much better.

      1. Rabisch

        He was with Raidah and was happy with her. Sarah is surely a difficult person, but she’s still way better than Raidah. For Jacob she would be a huge improvement.

        1. Da Boy

          She might be an improvement but Jacob doesn’t deserve to have all this drama in his life.

        2. StClair

          This comic is not about what people deserve.

        3. Da Boy

          True

        4. Reaver

          I dunno, Radiah has yet to punch someone in the face.

    2. Mark

      There’d be much more juice in a story wherein he doesn’t know yet. Lots of room for outrage, bafflement, and sullen gratitude for what he learned about his relationship with Raidah.

      I’m trying to recall whether Jacob really knows Sarah at all. She’s going to be flustered and find it hard to come to the point. He may miss her whole message, take this visit as an expression of shy interest, and ask her out, completely derailing her mission. The date will be spoiled for Sarah, worrying that at any moment he’ll figure out her role in the Joyce business and blow up. He’ll take it as more shy interest — you know how guys “think”.

      There’s still room for that love story, if they sort things out amicably after the revelation(s).

      1. thejeff

        They were friends – to the extent Sarah has friends. Mostly way back at the start of the first semester.
        She crushed on him, told him Joyce stories, talked to him in class.
        Then the Raidah thing happened.

        Interestingly and I never really thought about it before, but since they shared a class, she kept seeing him at least in class, after the Joyce/Raidah debacle.

  52. Disastroid

    Gonna be awkward when it turns out Jacob is already banging the polycule.

  53. Acebender

    this is getting painful

  54. Inlaa

    I actually really like Jacob’s new haircut. He’s super cute / hot still!

  55. Inlaa

    Also, can I just say that I love the sincere happiness Jacob shows to seeing Sarah? This is a pleasant surprise to him. He enjoys her company!

  56. Aslan

    Nothing but good things can happen here

  57. Nicoleandmaggie

    I literally just watched a the speech prof stitch on YouTube shorts about frosted tips being back in. I approve. (Of the hair. Sarah should leave Jacob out of this.)

    1. Nicoleandmaggie

      *approve of the trend—Jacob himself doesn’t need my approval to look great

  58. RF

    A wild Jacob appears!

  59. Yeet

    can’t wait to see how sarah fucks up her remaining goodwill with jacob and potentially causes joyce to point out that sarah was throwing her at raidah because of raidah being kind of a dick about a friend getting kicked out of school
    like yeah raidah continued it into bullying but that’s not necessarily going to come across well in the moment

  60. Felgraf

    Oh.
    Wow.
    No, seriously, fuck you, Sarah, *fuck you*. I absolutely see what you are doing here.

    This is fucking TERRIBLE.

    1. Da Boy

      Sarah should hook up with Raidah and then they should keep their awfulness away from Jacob.

      1. Mym

        Fave idea. It’d be nuclear

  61. Anon A Mouse

    This plan seems obvioiusly doomed to failure and Jacob seems like the last person who would agree to anything like this. Are these last few comics solely here to show Sarah being absolutely terrible? Its working but it seems excessive.

  62. Robert

    Sarah…the last time you made Jacob storm off was because you casually brushed off his sex addiction. Now you want to have this argument again?

    1. thejeff

      This is the only case I can find that’s close to Sarah making Jacob storm off and it’s got nothing to do with his sex addiction – which hasn’t been more than slightly hinted at in DoA. At most.

  63. Amós Batista

    Sarah moving the plot, bringing old characters, only by force of hate and spite…

  64. poyo

    *squidward voice* OH NO HE’S HOT[TER]

  65. Dot

    Took three years but the bus came back

  66. Mr. Random

    She aimed Joyce at Jacob to torpedo his and Raidah’s relationship.
    Now she’s aiming Jacob at Joyce to torpedo her and Joe’s relationship.

    … this will end… poorly.

  67. eskimolos

    Just also gotta point out that a lot of people in the comments seem to be taking this a lot more seriously than it’s actually being presented? This may lead to a train wreck sure, but this isn’t exactly any arc involving a controlling father, for instance. Indeed, the point so far seems to be that Sarah doesn’t have Machiavellian planning/logic/patience, she’s just bad with people and wants the status quo to remain benign where she’s concerned, so making sure Joyce doesn’t get deeply invested in Joe then cheated on is leading her to comically fail to enlist anybody’s help.

    I do expect Jacob to chew her out though. Either that or stick up for Joe, in a way that may actually at least cause Sarah some pause.

    1. Anon A Mouse

      Sometimes its hard to figure where its meant to be silly and when its meant to show a character or plot developing. Joe jumping at Sarahs proposition was likely a joke but many took it seriously. Likewise, some thought her comment about breaking them up was just a humorous aside but she has spent the last few comics propositioning everyone she can think of, which is less humorous the longer it goes on. If it had been a single comic with a bunch people telling Sarah “No” i would agree but we are spending a lot of time watching Sarah be kinda nasty here.

      1. milu

        Re: Joe’s reaction to Sarah’s proposal, word of god came down in the comments a couple strips ago: it wasn’t a joke

        1. Anon A Mouse

          I meant it was meant to be taken humorously, as a comic joke. Joe was obviously serious. Likewise, people took Sarahs comment as comic humor whixh ended up being serious and it has gone on considerably longer than Joes faux pas.

  68. ProjectXa3

    Holy hell it’s been since January 2020 since we saw him
    …
    Jacob’s been in Lockdown this whole time.

  69. HueSatLight

    Is this punchline a callback? it feels like something Joyce blurted out

  70. Roborat

    Holy crap it’s Jacob. It has been so long I didn’t recognize him at first.

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