218

Muncie
Posted on August 31, 2021 by David M Willis

218 thoughts on “Muncie”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Facebake, where many a relationship has gone to die, even for those not on there

    1. Clif

      Okay. You got me. I had to go back and look to see what Joyce said.

  2. Doctor_Who

    Joyce is also online friends with Sarah’s mother, cousins, and postman.

    And formally her nana, but she dropped that after she offered to send her a birthday present…

    1. powerpowerpow

      I get the joke, but didn’t Sarah imply that her grandmother was dead in that same strip?

      1. Doctor_Who

        Maybe? I mean, I guess the implication is that Joyce’s grandma is dead, but not necessarily Sarah’s.

        …Gosh, I hope that wasn’t left to Sarah in her will.

      2. Thag Simmons

        Well, Joyce could have assumed a story a story about one dead grandmother was referring to another still alive grandmother. Most people have two grandmothers

        1. egg egg

          Joyce seems like the type of person that could accidentally attract grandmothers and winds up having some additional ones.

  3. Thag Simmons

    Oh right, Joyce is aggressively friendly

    1. Chrisman

      It’s worse than that the Sarah told Liz about Joyce and Liz reached out to Joyce

  4. RassilonTDavros

    …I was expecting a competition for the “little sister” title.

    …I like this way better than what I was expecting, because I am currently laughing out loud.

    1. Thag Simmons

      It’s kinda obvious in hindsight, isn’t it.

      1. powerpowerpow

        I love it when you expect a character to do something, but then they do the exact opposite thing because that’s even more in character for them to do. It’s always obvious in hindsight, but never the first thing that you’d assume.

    2. Human Bean

      Yes!!! I did not see this coming, and I love everything about it! 😀

  5. crow

    Poor Liz 🙁

  6. y3k

    Oh, sweet betrayal.

    1. StClair

      sudden but inevitable.

      1. Enkrod

        Is it still too soon for Firefly jokes? I feel it’ll always be too soon but somehow at the same time always apropriate because of comisery.

        1. Tim

          How do Reavers clean their harpoons?

        2. woobie

          they don’t

  7. Bagge

    TWO LIL SIS!

    1. Doctor_Who

      AH! AH! AH!

  8. Wagstaff

    Congratulations, Joyce.

    By keeping Sarah from that essential information you gleamed from the internet, you have managed to defeat the entire purpose of the information age.

    1. Jamie

      Oh, so you noticed she’s a fundie. 😛

      1. Wagstaff

        Nah, I noticed that the internet was supposed to make information travel as fast as possible to the people who need it.

        But I guess there’s no reason not to suspect that fundamentalists would try both direct and indirect means of getting family members to socialize without consent.

        1. Devin

          The tradition of deciding who actually needs any given piece of information based on one’s self-interest or machinations far predates the information age.

          What the internet actually does (and really has always done) is facilitate information traveling to those the information holders want to have it. Need is a very subjective and nebulous concept.

        2. Wagstaff

          I see that you are rather fascinated with economic science, or at least one of its central tenets.

          But when I stated “need it”, it was really short for “need it to fulfill their goals” or “need it to make more informed decisions”.

        3. Devin

          And the information age hasn’t been about that for a long time. See paywalls. Your picture of the information age is over-idealized and not reflective of the actual state of information flow. Joyce hasn’t defeated anything here, she’s participating in the standard operating model of information distribution.

        4. Wagstaff

          Well regardless of how much the internet meets that ideal now, there are people all over the world constantly working to help it.

          Speaking of which, do you need access to academic papers that are apparently hidden behind paywalls thanks to Google?

        5. Devin

          Appreciate the offer, but I’m all set.

    2. Devin

      Wow, she’s powerful! She defeated the entire purpose of the information age all by herself!

      Seems like a nerve has been hit here.

      1. thejeff

        Wait. How did she keep FB from making money?

        1. Devin

          Exactly. The information age hasn’t been about distributing information without consideration of one’s own agenda/interests for a long time, if ever.

  9. Jay

    I’ll admit, I was expecting some drama over who is the real little sister to Sarah. This is way better, especially with Sarah getting her best Judge Dread frown/grimace on.

  10. Dave Van Domelen

    Frown any harder and her chin will fall off.

    1. Deanatay

      Sarah pioneers Extreme Frowning, next Olympic event

  11. Yumi

    My knowledge of Muncie just expanded dramatically. Before this, it was all about Jerry/Garry Gergich’s timeshare.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      I mostly know it as “That Place Where the Garfield Guy Lived”, thanks to Quinton Reviews.

      1. Needfuldoer

        An admirable amount of dedication went into that video.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxiwjaUSYJM

        In case you haven’t seen it, it’s an hour long documentary of a two-man fact-finding mission to Indiana to recover pre-Garfield art by Jim Davis, including a short-lived Garfield prototype that only ran in a few local papers and hadn’t seen the light of day for 40+ years. He finds what is basically a Garfield museum/shrine and visits some nearly forgotten Garfield statues along the way. Definitely worth a watch in its entirety if you have the time, but for the meat of it you can just watch the newspaper and microfilm library parts. There are also PDFs in the description.

    2. Tawnee

      Over here in UK land I only know it as the place Bob Ross’ Joy of Painting was filmed.

    3. Thag Simmons

      I have no idea what a Muncie is

      1. Delicious Taffy

        It’s like an Aype but with a tail.

      2. Needfuldoer

        It’s like a broiler/toaster oven with no door.

      3. ValdVin

        Wasn’t Tim Robbins’ protagonist in The Hudsucker Proxy from Muncie?

        I think it’s sorta like Peoria but without the big city metropolitan. glitz.

      4. Roborat

        I always thought it was a transmission.

      5. Opus the Poet

        I know it as a very rugged 4-speed transmission built by GM.

  12. Diane

    Loving Sarah’s face in that last panel.

  13. Rectilinear Propagation

    OK, two things:
    I forgot to say this yesterday but I really like Sarah’s shirt and Liz’s hair.
    Do I need to update my avatar already?! I feel like it’s too soon and the speech balloon is kind of in the way but that last panel face is so good!

    1. King Daniel

      Half-and-half?

      1. Rectilinear Propagation

        Oh, now there’s an idea. I might play around with that when I get time.

  14. StClair

    BETRAYAL!

  15. brionl

    Dang it, who was Sarah on the happiness inversion with? They must be exploding with euphoria right now.

    1. King Daniel

      That would be…Joyce.

  16. King Daniel

    Hovertext: But which is Liz? The master, or the apprentice?

    1. Bicycle Bill

      The apprentice has become the master… and the master does not approve.

  17. newlland(Henryvolt)

    I’d say Joyce has stepped up her game in the “crossing personal matters area” but then I realized she said she did this back in freshman orientation.

    1. Decidedly Orthogonal

      There is the matter that Joyce and Liz are free to associate with each other. And certainly the convention on facebook is to encourage associates of friends to connect. I don’t know that it makes this right, but it’s not exactly wrong either.

      1. Devin

        I think the only real transgression here is hiding the information that Liz was coming to visit. Everything else is just built into how social media is set up to work and it isn’t really fair to hold that against Joyce.

        1. BBCC

          That’s assuming Joyce even knew she was coming.

        2. BBCC

          WOW, me, way to read the actual strip to check that. Can you tell I just got up? XD

        3. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Oh man. Welp you’ve done it. You were wrong on the internet. Time to turn in your card and punch out man. It’s just not worth going on any further.

          (n.b. for those who may truly feel bad about themselves, this is satirical and not intended to actually encourage negative self talk. You are loved and deserve to feel loved, just for being you, even when you fail to check the strip dialogue before posting. maybe even especially then.)

        4. BBCC

          Uh, you’ll have to take that up with the little sisters union. Pretty sure my employment is covered. 😛

  18. Jess

    SARAH’S FACE

  19. Stephen Bierce

    I wonder if I should ask Jolly Roger Blackburn to add Liz to the cast of KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE. Maybe she does Zumba at Nitro’s gym?

  20. AeromechanicalAce

    I was expecting Joyce to be all Jealous at Liz being Sarah’s actual sister.

    This is even better though.

  21. Nayann Martinelli

    Of course Joyce is friends with Liz already, she managed to befriend Sarah despite her best efforts. Joyce’s powers of Friendship know no boundaries

    1. He Who Abides

      Almost like it’s magic . . .

      1. Thag Simmons

        Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it magic.

        Joyce is charismatic, empathetic, outgoing and surprisingly adept at surveillance. Of course she makes friends easily

        1. Wagstaff

          I like your thinking!

          Ironically, she might just stop doing that if it’s suggested that she’s “dabbling in sorcery”.

        2. Devin

          Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?

        3. King Daniel

          Are you saying that “Friendship is Magic” should be “Friendship is Sufficiently Advanced Technology”? Somehow that doesn’t roll off the casual tongue quite so well. 😛

        4. Devin

          Maybe not, but it absolutely cracks me up.

        5. Roborat

          Doesn’t explain flying ponies either.

        6. Wagstaff

          Exactly!

          Hopefully, the definition and usage of “magic” will change over time to lose any connotation it has with the supernatural, and just come to mean “great things happening when we work together” and “super advanced tech”.

          But then again, how would we keep the bad connotations of “magical thinking”?

          Damn, English has got to be among the worse lingua franca in history!

        7. Devin

          Ooooooh, someone doesn’t like the fantasy genre.

          This is silly. Magic can be fun and not detrimental to anything. Hoping for a lexical change that will literally happen because there’s a major literary genre practically dedicated to it is a weird goal. People looking to science instead of magic in their day-to-day life is a much more reasonable goal.

          I don’t really want magic to lose connotation with the supernatural, it’s a useful word to describe it, and the supernatural as a concept isn’t going anywhere if for no other reason than it’s baked into most regions’ cultural history. This isn’t a good hope that you have.

        8. Wagstaff

          So I don’t like fantasy, huh?

          It’s OK to have an active fantasy life. The only problem comes when they can’t distinguish it from reality.

          But once we get sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic, what happens to “magic” as a concept?

          Honestly by the time that happens, the word “magic” may no longer exist. At that point in the far future, the English you and I are speaking right now may very well become an archaic language only to split into others, just as the Latin once spoken centuries ago split into the branches leading to modern Western languages we know today.

        9. Devin

          People’s imaginations will always outstrip the technological level of the time, that’s how we keep moving forwards, but the fantasy genre, which is distinct from personal fantasies, isn’t restricted to such petty rules as the laws of physics. This isn’t like sci-fi in which technological advancement will by necessity make it obsolete.

        10. thejeff

          Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

        11. Devin

          Now we’re cookin’ with gas!

        12. thejeff

          Not yet. Our technology is still distinguishable. Though we’re getting closer.

        13. Wagstaff

          I plan to dedicate my life to such an effort.

          To get an idea of the things I plan to work on, could you imagine something even better than a computer?

        14. Devin

          @Wagstaff not everything has to be serious commentary. Lighten up a little. We’re just playing around a little.

        15. Blatherskite

          I’m pretty sure He Who Abides was making a My Little Pony reference.

        16. Rectilinear Propagation

          I STG, I didn’t see your comment before I hit “Post Comment”.

        17. Keulen

          I was assuming that too.

        18. Devin

          MLP uses extremely advanced Friendship Technology.

        19. Rectilinear Propagation

          I thought it was a My Little Pony joke?

    2. missilentmurmur

      I’m so jealous of Joyce here

  22. ian livs

    Oh no… now there’s two adorable little sisters. However will Sarah survive?

    1. Opus the Poet

      Carefully monitored insulin injections and frequent blood sugar testing.

  23. Grimey

    Sarah: God now there’s two of them.

    1. DailyBrad

      Two of them.

      Two of them.

  24. BBCC

    OH NO

    THE LITTLE SISTERS ARE UNIONIZING!

    …Why wasn’t I invited?

    1. eh, whatever

      You did win the thread, though.

  25. Kravis

    That’s the frownest frown of them all.

    1. Devin

      Sarah is working on a full 360 degree frown. She’s making excellent progress.

      1. thejeff

        She has to do something to counter the triangle smile.

    2. Roborat

      And they say, Sarah’s frown grew three sizes that day.

  26. JessWitt

    The Secret Sister Society reveals itself at last. ??

    1. Regalli

      They have bided their time, but finally they can reveal their true purpose.

      Tormenting Big Sister, as only Little Sisters can.

      It’s great, I love this.

      1. He Who Abides

        Little brothers can do that too (he said from experience).

    2. BenRG

      I wonder if they’ll ask Roz to join (she’d make a good Shop Steward for their Read Hall chapter)?

  27. Cholma

    Panel Two Liz is giving me some strong Yvette Nicole Brown energy!

    1. zee

      …..I’m now headcanoning Yvette Nicole brown as their mom

  28. Robert

    I want to ship Joyce and liz already I swear to god lol

    1. Jeff K!

      They’ve clearly adopted each other as sisters, so that would be incest. ?

      1. Mydnyt

        And?

        1. Devin

          And it’s good to have these things labeled! And tagged when appropriate!

  29. Warcodered

    She frowns any harder and it’s going to collapse back in on itself.

  30. Rabid Rabbit

    The last time something like this happened, the random visitor turned out to be on the run after getting caught coming out of the closet. I wonder what the drama will be this time.

    1. He Who Abides

      No, Faz wasn’t outta shit.

    2. Thag Simmons

      I think Liz’s visit is probably what it appears to be. What she might do is give us a glimpse into Sarah’s backstory

  31. TemporalShrew

    Gee, Sarah, it looks a little bit like you give a fuck, now!

  32. Kavonde

    I know it’s been awhile since we’ve seen the guy, but remember how Jacob decided his ideal woman was “Joyce But Not?”

    Dude might be in luck.

    1. Amos Batista

      Mr. Destiny has made a good play to Liz. She just need to know it.

  33. Reltzik

    The Facebook-friending on orientation day feels like stalking.

    …

    I’m pretty sure it ISN’T actually stalking, but it feels a bit like stalking.

    1. Thag Simmons

      They might have met in person, and Joyce is a frighteningly effective befriending machine

    2. BBCC

      If she found her on Sarah’s Facebook, that means Sarah’s Facebook is publicly available and not behind any permissions. That’s Sarah saying it’s okay for people to see that stuff. That’s on Sarah if she didn’t want anyone to see it.

      Joyce looking up her roommate on social media and looking at publicly listed information to see if they’ll get along and check for red flags or bad signs isn’t stalking.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Joyce has called it stalking in the past

        She’s also really good at it. She’d make a good spy

        1. Devin

          That was very clearly used euphemistically. You don’t really believe Joyce thinks what she did was actual stalking, do you?

        2. Reltzik

          Given that she thought that Billie shouting FAAACE at her was hazing…

        3. Devin

          That’s a very dotted line you’ve drawn there. A stiff breeze might leave you with a bunch of ellipses.

        4. Reltzik

          Better to be well-rounded and stick with ellipses — you know, keeping things real — rather than being an eccentric and flying off into an imaginary and hyperbolic escapism.

        5. Thag Simmons

          No. It just feels like stalking

        6. Devin

          The idea of social media trawling being likened to stalking is absolutely wild to me. Anything you put up on the internet publicly is fair game for anyone to look through. You have actively put that information out for the world to see. There have been privacy settings to restrict that for as long as there’s been social media. If you don’t want it to be seen by potentially everybody, don’t post it publicly. Even better, don’t post it at all. Private/secure information doesn’t belong on the internet.

        7. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

          I’ve heard “Facebook stalking” used to describe studying the social media of a person you’ve never met. It’s not actually stalking, and the phrase is used without the same negative connotation as stalking, but it’s still trying to get to know a person by monitoring their activity without their knowledge. As Thag linked, Joyce uses this in her first interaction with Malaya.

          That said, that’s not what this is. For two people to become friends on Facebook, one person needs to send a request and the other person needs to accept. Both people know this is happening and explicitly consent.

        8. Reltzik

          There’s this sense — not really a rule or a social convention, but more like an inaccurate but unquestioned assumption — that the online world is separate from the real world. (Hence how IRL, “in real life”, excludes the online.) In that mindset, someone you know from meatspace checking your friends list and making contacts there can feel like someone from one part of your life invading the other parts.

        9. thejeff

          I mean, to be honest, I’d be just as freaked out, if not more, if a friend in real life sought out my other real life friends and started hanging out with them without letting me know.

      2. Segnosaur

        Its possible that sarah doesn’t have facebook, and Joyce connected with Liz if they met each other during move-in.

  34. Romanticide

    Sorry Sarah… they are working in tandem… there is no escape now

  35. Yotomoe

    Ok yeah yeah yeah I’ll have to draw her in the non to distant future.

  36. Cmasta1992

    Liz…got me feeling a certain way. She must be drawn.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Do it, you won’t.

  37. BenRG

    Okay, I do wish that this had been hinted in some way before. Liz’s relationship with Sarah didn’t need to be mentioned but at least mention her as an online friend of Joyce’s a few times so she seems less of a sudden plot contrivance.

    1. Sporky

      https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RememberTheNewGuy

      1. Needfuldoer

        So, the anti-Chuck Cunningham?

    2. Thag Simmons

      This doesn’t feel contrived to me.

      Unexpected and unforeshadowed, sure, but it feels fairly natural to me

    3. King Daniel

      We did just have a months-long timeskip that just on its own lasted longer than the entire rest of the comic up to that point, I can easily imagine this sort of thing being something that happened during that time.

      1. BenRG

        No, unless I misread, this strip confirms that Joyce and Liz have been in some kind of correspondence since the start of DoA. Yet not even a mention to Becky or Joe about ‘oh one of my Facebook contacts mentioned…” or something like that?

        1. thejeff

          It does seem a bit odd it hadn’t come up talking to Sarah before. She was hiding not just the visit, but that she was talking to Liz at all.

        2. Regalli

          I can see it being a case of ‘we comment back and forth to each other publicly on Facebook all the time, how didn’t you know?’/‘bold of you to assume I use Facebook’ and only the visit was really kept private. We’ll have to see Sarah’s reaction.

        3. King Daniel

          Like when Amber and Walky were messaging each other on Twitter and it was later revealed that they were actually tweeting, publicly, at each other for an entire afternoon and so everyone already knew about their budding relationship – but on Facebook instead of Twitter? I could see that.

        4. thejeff

          But that was an afternoon, while this has been 4 months with neither Liz nor Joyce ever mentioning anything about it. Not necessarily an announcement, but some comment to Sarah about something Liz had told her. Or the other way around, especially when Sarah was home over Christmas.

    4. Spencer

      The joke is that it’s a plot contrivance that’s in-character to Joyce, who would on her first day search up her roommate’s sister and make friends.

      It didn’t need foreshadowing because it ain’t that deep.

      1. Keulen

        Yeah, that sounds like something Joyce would’ve done early on after first meeting Sarah.

      2. Regalli

        Yep. Liz is unlikely to be TOO major a character – none of the siblings who aren’t currently at IU are, with Jocelyne appearing the most consistently at approximately once every three years. (Faz went five years between first and second appearances, then two years between Faz Is Great and the kidnapping/aftermath storylines. Howard appears in 2013 and 2017.) It’s a fairly similar timeline for parents. So she’s here for one storyline and will then be back to not showing up, except on Patreon where I already anticipate she’ll be a regular voting presence (especially since Jocelyne’s off-limits until she reappears in the strip proper.) We could do this story with the predictable Joyce is Jealous storyline… or we could sidestep that with the slightly-less-predictable, but perfectly in-character, Joyce and Liz have been friends for months and go straight to Joyce and Liz tormenting Sarah with Dual Little Sister Action.

  38. Megan Rivera

    Sarah’s family got some good genetics! They’re both super pretty ♥

  39. Axel

    the amount of frown

  40. MrSmith

    Wouldn’t be surprised if Sarah gets, justifiably, angry about this

    1. Devin

      The justifiability seriously hinges on exactly what she’s angry about. Not being told by either Liz or Joyce that Liz was coming? Yeah, pretty justifiable. Liz coming at all? Shakier ground, but maybe, depends on what we learn going forward. Anything else is a tough sell.

      1. MrSmith

        You don’t think Joyce should have let Sarah know that she was friends with Sarahs sister?

        1. Sam

          Not inherently, no. Joyce is in fact, entitled to privacy, and that does include not having to share every friend you have, even if it is the person’s sibling. Which is a bit of an obtuse thing to hide or not mention, but it isn’t wrong. I’d say that’s more confusing than infuriating, but it makes sense if Sarah isn’t known to get along with Liz in particular that Joyce wouldn’t bring it up to her.

        2. MrSmith

          No.

          Its bad manners to not disclose to someone that you’re friends (Facebook or otherwise) with their relatives

          Imagine if Sarah vented about Liz to Joyce or Sarah inadvertently shared something with Joyce about Liz

          So privacy yes in regards to friends but family members no

          How about if Sarah was Facebook friends with Joyce’s mom (unlikely as that maybe) or Jocelyn and didn’t tell Joyce, how would Joyce feel

        3. egg egg

          Your social rules seem strange to me.

        4. thejeff

          But why would you hide it? For months.

        5. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

          I think it is a stretch to say Joyce hid this information. Sarah doesn’t like talking about her family, and this introduction feels like it is the first time Sarah is mentioning Liz to Joyce. In response, Joyce is freely volunteering that they are Facebook friends. Also, Facebook friendship is publicly-available information, and Joyce most likely found Liz’s Facebook through Sarah’s Facebook, with Sarah being friends with both Joyce and Liz.

          It’s also worth noting that you do not need to be close friends or talk regularly to be friends on Facebook.

          Heck, I doubt this visit involved Joyce and Liz colluding behind Sarah’s back. Liz probably posted a publicly-visible post, Joyce probably saw it and posted a publicly-visible response, and Sarah happened to not see it. (In this case, “publicly” could also mean “visible to all Facebook friends,” which would still include Sarah.)

        6. thejeff

          That’s true. “Facebook friends” could be a fairly low level of contact.
          That’s not how I read the strip, but it could be.

          Though, asking if Joyce told Sarah implies Liz at least expected Joyce to know she was coming and Sarah to not know. If it was just a public message, she was relying on Sarah not checking Facebook.

        7. Devin

          It’s…probably pretty public knowledge. Facebook actively attempts to make connections through people who are connected via other people. These characters are of an age where they should be savvy enough with social media to know and expect that.

          This rule of yours is archaic.

        8. zee

          No it’s not, actually

        9. Sam

          I strongly disagree. I don’t think you are obligated to reveal friendship with someone’s relatives or really anybody on the basis that someone ‘might’ want to vent to you about them or know about it; don’t say stuff you would never want repeated about someone then, especially when it is about someone that could plausibly turn up!

          There’s no etiquette that requires you to inform someone that you know their family members. A lot of people can and do without thinking when they know relatives, but that doesn’t mean it is inherently wrong or rude to not mention it. Sarah is not in fact entitled to know if you are mutual friends with her sister. That’s not a thing or a rule.

          It is still WEIRD that Joyce didn’t mention it all. But they’re also friends on FACEBOOK which is generally public, so if Sarah ever bothered to look at Facebook, it was probably perfectly accessible information the whole time. It’s not some deeply guarded secret. And even if it was. That would be more bizarre than anything considering how open Joyce tends to be about stuff. Not mentioning it isn’t some kind of social crime, it’s just odd.

        10. thejeff

          I would say it’s sufficiently weird that it would seem like she was deliberately hiding it. You’d think a “Liz said …” (or a “Joyce said …” while Sarah was home over break) would have just naturally come up in the months since the start of school.

        11. anonymsly

          I don’t know, my partner of 10 years and my brother are Facebook friends and have been for several years, both are WAY more social-media active than me (which is a low bar because my social media presence is basically nil) and neither one has ever mentioned their Facebook interactions even in passing. I don’t find it weird.

        12. thejeff

          Do they ever mention each other at all?

          It doesn’t matter whether they specifically mention “on Facebook” or even that they’re Facebook friends. It’s that Sarah isn’t aware they have any connection at all.

      2. JBento

        Eh, it’s only shakier ground if Liz is there to visit Joyce and not Sarah.

  41. Adam Black

    Who does liz look like?

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Liz, mostly. Possibly Brun from Questionable Content in some superficial ways (hair floof and clothing, primarily). Goku, if you’re extremely high.

      1. Wagstaff

        Brun, definitely.

        Though if you’re THAT high, wouldn’t ANYONE look like Goku?

  42. Rabisch

    Sarah don’t looks happy at all. This alliance is against her!!!!

    1. BenRG

      It’s more of a case of: “Oh no! Now there’s two of them!!!”

    2. Deanatay

      IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO FROWN ANY HARDER

      1. Rabisch

        Don’t challenge her!

  43. GUIGUI

    Sarah got the 3rd place in last year’s International Frown showdown. she oly lost to the War For Cybertron Megatron game render and a Math function.

  44. Needfuldoer

    Sarah’s face in that last panel.

    That is all.

  45. Opus the Poet

    Yay! Twenty years ago at 0119 CDT I was murdered by a drunk driver and as they were scraping me off the road I regained enough consciousness to tell the guy next to my head to be careful of my broken femur, which caused a jostle as the “dead guy” told him off.

    Thus began my career as an unkillable badass.

    1. milu

      I’m sure congratulations are in order? Congratulations!

    2. Needfuldoer

      Happy twentieth birthday!

    3. Regalli

      Happy Undeathday!

    4. JBento

      YOU ARE RISEN!

      1. Needfuldoer

        OPUS IS RISEN INDEED

    5. BBCC

      Cheers to not being dead!

    6. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

      Wow, twenty years? Happy Rebirthday, Opus!

  46. Eldritchy

    Oh No, they know each other and are in cahoots XD

    1. Roborat

      No, they are in their dorm room. And what is a cahoot anyway?

  47. Lone Duck

    Gotta say, Joyce has become a lot more wily since that Fall orientation

  48. Dara

    I delivered a paper at Ball State once.

    I don’t remember how I got into the city but I sure do remember that it looked like it had been bombed.

    Streetview clearly indicates the situation has improved.

  49. BenRG

    I’m sort of looking forward to Sarah’s realisation that the reason she reacts so strongly to Joyce is because she’s basically Liz but more sweetly naive.

  50. Needfuldoer

    Ooh, timeline details!

    Ball State’s Spring 2021 semester begins on a Tuesday, but their Spring 2022 semester starts on Monday, January 10th.

    https://www.bsu.edu/-/media/www/files/events/pdf/2021-22%20academic%20calendar%20umc.pdf

    Problem is, it looks like IU Bloomington followed the same start dates?

    https://registrar.indiana.edu/doc/beg-end-sem-dates.pdf

    Right now I’m still not sure where we are on DoA’s calendar, or which year it’s following. Maybe it isn’t even pegged to reality aside from “uses the Gregorian calendar”, who knows? The time skip was long and vague enough to completely detach the two ‘seasons’ from each other.

  51. Spencer

    This is the Sarah version of Joyce’s terror at Becky meeting Walky for the first time.

  52. Brighter Side

    This explains so much in so few panels. Good work, Willis.

  53. BenRG

    Reader-Generated Poll
    Please put your response by putting the number of the option in a reply

    You want Liz to be:
    (1) Just Joyce’s new behavioural duplicate best friend/co-conspirator
    (2) Joyce’s girlfriend (but they don’t know it yet)
    (3) Just another in a long list of people who annoy Sarah by being happy and tactile with her
    (4) Someone Becky and Dorothy can bond over by not liking at all
    (5) Someone who somehow knows everyone in Read Hall without Sarah knowing that this was the case
    (6) Other (specify in comments)

    1. Alex

      I choose 4 because I’m very tired of the frenemies bit.

    2. Brighter Side

      6) The character has barely appeared so far, so I’m going to sit back and read the comic before preforming any head canon.

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        Seconded on six, but Alex has a good point about four, so I’d like to third four after someone else seconds it. 1,2,3 are already done enough, so I’ll pass on them, and 5 seems to already be in play to some extent.

    3. Regalli

      I’m torn between 1 and 5. Maybe 5 through mildly nefarious little sister plotting for this exaxt day, but that seems a bit elaborate for someone we don’t actually know.

      1. Jenn

        5 would be positively hilarious. That’s my vote. Second vote would be 3.

    4. egg egg

      2 would be hilarious, but I’m betting its going to be a mix of 1 and 3.

    5. JBento

      3

    6. Deanatay

      Definitely 5. Liz even knows about Other Jacob.

    7. Hoboturtle

      2! 2!

    8. Opus the Poet

      I pick 2 because scandal in 2 dimensions, same sex relationship, and mixed race relationship.

  54. Amos Batista

    Joyce and Liz. I’m sure they form a power couple.

    1. Amos Batista

      *form a power team.
      damn willis, enable the comment edition, pls.

      1. Alex

        No no, your first interpretation was great.

  55. Jenn

    Joyce, where did all of your comics go?

    1. Makkabee

      Long time cryin’….

    2. Vukodlak

      She set them down before answering the door….

      1. Yumi

        She’s not the one who answered the door. Therefore, she ate the binders full of comic material.

        1. Kitsune

          They went the same place that Optimus Prime’s Trailer goes.

  56. Smooti

    This is actually infinitely better than anything I predicted yesterday.

    Now I have to wonder how jealous Becky will get that Joyce has yet another friend

  57. Valkeiper2020

    I found this comic (as a reference from another web-comic) last Saturday.
    Took me three days, but I have read all of it up to this point.
    Now, I’m going to go back and read it again with the comments.
    I suspect the comments will take much, MUCH longer then the featured comic did/does.

    1. Roborat

      Then you can go back and read the comics that preceded this one.

    2. Tan

      See you in 2022

  58. Kitsune

    My sister was in Greencastle and I was in Richmond

  59. Valkeiper2020

    I have to admit, I like this comic better than some of the others I read.
    My favorite character (and it is hard to actually decide on JUST one) is Joyce.
    All the characters (well, most) are well-fleshed out and the story-line flows quite smoothly.
    A very well thought-out feature.

    1. Alex

      It’s a favorite of mine too. I confess sometimes when I’m bored I hit random so I’ve probably reread the whole thing several times, if not exactly in order.

  60. Seregiel

    There’s never been a character I’ve liked instantaneously until now. Hello, Liz!

    1. Seregiel

      … well played grav, well played.

  61. Joya

    Why am I not surprised Joyce haha The look on Sarah’s face is undefeated.

  62. TParadox

    I had to look up where Sarah’s family lives, and if they still live in Fort Wayne, yikes. That’s an even bigger day trip than when I was going from Indianapolis to Ball State to see my friend who hadn’t graduated yet. She probably drove through Muncie to get to Bloomington.

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