176

Soft
Posted on October 26, 2017 by David M Willis

176 thoughts on “Soft”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “I’m just saying you two should have beautiful children and I can babysit“

    1. Iforgetwhatiputhere

      Whole new meaning to “no-one loves you like he loves you”

    2. TachyonCode

      I love it. Also, congrats!

    3. weirderthanweird

      Congrats!

    4. Amias

      I was wondering where you’d gone. Congratulations!

    5. LeslieBean4Shizzle

      Congrats!

  2. Doctor_Who

    Joyce then wheels out Robin’s blackboard, already covered in notes and lines explaining the vast “People Who Love Sarah” conspiracy.

    Most of us commenters are prominently listed.

    1. Rodimiss

      I was thinking, if more than two people loving Sarah is a conspiracy, then this comment section is the Illuminati.

      1. Mr. Bulbmin

        ominous Latin chanting
        This meeting of the Saramoati is called to order . . . goddammit, who aye the last donut?

        1. Joe Covenant

          In my defence… I would never “Nay” the last doughnut.

        2. Clif

          The mobile device conspiracy has sceazed control and derailed the conversation. BEWARAAARGH….

      2. Geneseepaws

        First rule of Illuminatii is:

        1. SgtWadeyWilson

          Don’t talk about Illuminati.
          *Suddenly drops into a dark hole.*
          Act with integit-Ow!!!

          Hrm… shorter hole than I expected.

    2. RacingTurtle

      I don’t get to be part of a conspiracy very often! What a great semi-anonymous international cabal to be a member of: The Actually, We Do Love Sarah Society.

    3. SgtWadeyWilson

      I get to be part of a meta-gag? Is it Christmas already?

      1. Br44n5m

        Halloween has stepped up it’s game!

  3. AnvilPro

    Sarah’s waiting for the day she can pull out the blackboard of “People who love me” and add one more, and then no one else ever.

    1. Clif

      Only to find that it’s already covered with lines and notes about the conspiracy.

      1. Gwen

        In her handwriting

        1. MatthewTheLucky

          That’s legitimately scary. Imagime being almost totally socially isolated, to the point where you can have a list of people who like you with only one person on it; and then finding the list is full. Either someone can perfectly impersonate your handwriting and is holding sone bizarre grudge against you, or something is killing your loved ones and stealing your memories.

        2. MatthewTheLucky

          And then you think about the one person you still remember, and how either your stalker knows they were the obly one on the list, or they’re next.

  4. Romanticide

    wow she has thought all this to the last detail…

    1. Bagge

      She knows her big sis

  5. CandidCanid

    We need to keep Sarah at optimum balance. This is delicate math.

    1. laurenh

      Then, shalt the friends count to two. No more. No less. Two shalt be the number of friends, and the number of Sarah’s friendships shall be two. Three shalt there not be friends, nor shalt there one, excepting that thou then proceed to two. Four is right out!

      1. Fire_daws

        I’m seeing if I can fit a Rabbit of Caerbannog or Holy Hand Grenade pun in there but I ain’t got nothin’.

  6. Heavensrun

    She knows Sarah well.

    1. Leorale

      Yeah. It’s easy to forget, because Joyce is so extroverted and naive, but she’s watching everyone keenly, too.

      1. Charlie Spencer

        Dorothy watches everyone Keenerly.

        I’m not particularly proud of that one.

        1. Leorale

          I won’t think any Lesse of you.

  7. Yumi

    I love that she leads with “tall.”

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      As in “Sarah, Plain and Tall?”

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        You know, I did not make that connection until just now? But in the book, plain-and-tall Sarah did wind up marrying Jacob.

    2. Jay Eff

      Joyce: “Sarah is… tall. Yeah! Tall. I mean, look at her! Have you seen how tall she is, Jacob? And I gotta say– I really look up to her. I mean it! ‘Cause she’s so much taller than me. By a lot!”

      Jacob: “Wow.. the way you put it, it sounds like she should be giving orders to Invader Zim.”

      Joyce: “Oh… d-does Invader Zim have a tall boss at work, or something? Mom wouldn’t let me watch that show…”

    3. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet

      Is a “conspiracy network” a network of conspiracies, a network for conspiracies, or a network about conspiracies?

      Please speak directly into the lamp when answering.

      1. Nobody

        All three, a network of conspiracists with their own independent but tangled conspiracies that bounce ideas off one another with their main forum being a television channel called “The Conspiracy Network”

        1. Opus the Poet

          That would be the History channel.

        2. Clif

          Shhh!

        3. Roborat

          Or, as my kids call it: The Anything But History Channel.

        4. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet

          Or the Hitler Channel

        5. TemperaryObsessor

          Just because a bunch of people happen to have something to gain by sending people on a snipe hunt does not mean they are purposely working together. And the Conspiracy Network doesn’t care if the snipe hunt distracts you from the real problems or not they just want to sell their tinfoil hats.

  8. Gln

    Always two there are – master and an apprentice

    1. Jess

      Cryptic in context but accurate. XD

    2. AGV

      So Sarah is Anakin, Jacob Padme and Joyce Palpatine?

      1. Clif

        And Radah is Yoda. Now you’ve got it.

        1. Pope William T Wodium

          I must have missed all that Yoda/Padme fanfic.

  9. Mr. Random

    What is a conspiracy but two or more people. Working together for what they consider to be a beneficial goal?

    1. Doctor_Who

      According to Col. Hunter Gathers “The minute God crapped out the third caveman, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them!”

      1. Mr. Random

        Hunter Gathers is a fool if he thinks only one conspiracy was hatched.

        1. Swissaboo

          Yeah but they weren’t hatched SIMULTANEOUSLY, they were like, two minutes apart, and “The minute God crapped out the third caveman, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them, and two minutes after that, another two or three conspiracies popped up” just sounds dumb.

  10. BBCC

    Get out of Sarah’s head.

  11. Stephen Bierce

    *plays Queen’s “Somebody To Love” on the hastily repaired but still hacked Muzak to determine if it functions*

    1. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet

      It’s on random

    2. Keulen

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVR38mm4Hzg

  12. Kernanator

    I keep seeing this name, Pepe Loveme, Pepe Loveme, over and over, but Pepe Loveme doesn’t exist!

  13. Blender

    If you ask Ryan, she doesn’t just *act* tough on the outside…

  14. JoycenJoe

    Good comeback Joyce… Okay, that got really real really fast.

  15. MM

    All things considered, it’s not a bad recovery.

  16. Passchendaele

    two is the legitimate friends constant; anyone else is a reptilian/whatever conspiracy it is that’s popular now.

    (“he’s a right good laugh once you get to know him”)

    1. The Chosen One

      Two is the least lonely number

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        From what I’ve heard on what may have been hacked Muzak, two can be the loneliest number since the number one.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Three is the magic number, though.

        2. 3-I

          Past, present, and future… Faith, hope, charity… The heart, the brain, and the body… Yeah, three. That’s a magic number.

        3. SgtWadeyWilson

          Pru, Piper, Pheobe.

        4. hof1991

          https://youtu.be/aU4pyiB-kq0
          schoolhouse rock

    2. Kamino Neko

      Hush up, onion-slave!

      1. Passchendaele

        *gives raw onion*

        1. Kamino Neko

          He IS a right good laugh once you get to know him.

      2. John Merklinghaus

        Any relation to “Onion Bubs”?

  17. StClair

    And how much of that applies to you too, Joyce?

    1. Bagge

      …not that much?

      She is not tall but she IS pretty.

      The world has not chewed her up and spit her out THAT much. It tried to take a bite once or twice, and Joyce bit back. She still carries her heart on her sleeve and has nothing of the crusty armor Sarah has. She has not been hurt for caring – she has been rewarded for it (with Becky-hugs among other things). She has made touch choices and paid the price, but she has never had to doubt those were the RIGHT choices (whereas Sarah has no such closure)

      She needs someone to love her, but Joyce thinks that is true for EVERYONE (she might be right). And she think many people who love her is just the natural state of things (she might be right).

      1. Geneseepaws

        Your comment, +1 to yous

  18. Lapin

    I kind of lowkey ship Joyce/Sarah and while I know it won’t happen, I wonder if Jacob suspects it.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Just from this comment, Becky just lost concentration for a moment, shook it off, then went back to bussing tables.

  19. Rodimiss

    I really love that this seems like Joyce has given this some thought and clearly taken the time to figure out the optimal number of friends for Sarah based on her personality.

    I also just really like the simplicity of Jacob’s statement. “Don’t you already love her?”

    1. No Name

      Is she though? Or is she projecting? Her recent life experiences have just revealed that a number of people who love her (namely, her church community) are, in fact, a vast conspiracy network.

      1. Fart Captor

        But she still has a number of people she still knows love her. There’s more than two such people just on her own floor. There were three until Becky moved in with Leslie. That love is 100% why Joyce has been able to cope with the things which threatened to chew her up as well as she has, and I think Joyce is aware of that

      2. Bagge

        True, but she does not seem to doubt the many people that still love her – including Hank, Jocelyne, Becky and her new friends (including Big Sis and Dorothy).

        She barely takes notice when people like Billie (and less recently) Sarah tries to claim that they DON’T love her.

        1. ValdVin

          Oh, I think Joyce notices when the tsundere types claim they don’t love her.

          She seems to have extra hugs stored up for them.

    2. Swissaboo

      I dunno I feel like her brain spent a split second going “wait if two beats one wouldn’t three bea *examines how sarah would react to three people loving her* no. No it would not beat two.”

  20. Black

    Joyce is probably right in the last panel; if three or more people cared about Sarah, she’d think something was horribly wrong.

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      And if four people cared about Sarah, a class one-nine-nine-seven anomaly might be breached, and Soggies might rule!

      1. Stephen Bierce

        There would need to be Flashbacking(TM) first.

        1. Jess

          God, the last thing anyone needs is more flashbacks. XD

      2. Reltzik

        And if those four people each convinced one person to care for Sarah, and if those eight people each convinced one more person to care for Sarah, then before long she’d be a paranoid wreck!

      3. Joe Covenant

        And if four, whole people,
        why not more?
        And more?
        And MORE!

  21. Kyle

    jacob, gently: joyce you are…not straight

    1. Fart Captor

      It is entirely possible to love someone and care deeply about them without being sexually or romantically attracted to them.

      Her desire to brush Sal’s hair, curl up in Billie’s cleavage, and basically all her interactions with Dorothy are far stronger indicators

      1. Leorale

        She learned everything she knows about female pal interactions from Becky. But still.

      2. thejeff

        But her sex dreams and blush provoking momentary fantasies are all tied to men. As far as we’ve seen.

        Heterosexual and biromantic?

        1. Leorale

          Very plausible. Which, for Joyce’s purposes, translates to wanting a boyfriend or husband, plus awesome gal pals whom she’ll defend and adore — Joyce would definitely refer to this as straight.

        2. Fart Captor

          I’m don’t mean to say that those indicators are definitive. Just that they’re far better reasons to suspect Joyce isn’t 100% straight than her being comfortable saying how deeply she cares about someone of the same sex.

          I personally think Joyce is probably 1 or less on the Kinsey scale, and just naturally happens to give off a lot of false positives, exacerbated the skewed idea of how platonic lady friendship is supposed to look that she picked up from Becky.

          Tbh, I think the world would be a better place if more people were as comfortable as Joyce at openly expressing platonic, non-sexual love, whether with words like she is now, or with more literal, physical closeness as she often does with Becky.

          Though I’d be lying if I claimed to have a solid enough grasp on where the line between romance and deep friendship to be in any position to guess if Joyce is biromantic or not

    2. Briny

      I think coupling all love to romantic-sexual feelings is the source of a lot of our problems. So, while she might not be 100% straight, still: no.

      1. Arianod

        Agree.

      2. StClair

        Also agreed.

      3. Indoor Cat

        Right. I have mixed feelings on this, because on the one hand, a lot of people aren’t exactly Kinsey-1’s, but have denial around any possible non-straight attractions they might have due to biphobia in society. Which means people miss out on experiencing parts of themselves. And, that’s also why a lot of LGBT people headcanon presumably straight characters as bisexual, to fight biphobia and a lack of representation, if only in their own minds.

        The flip side of this, though, is that projecting sexual or romantic connotations onto asexual and aromantic love is harmful to, well, asexual and aromantic people (and also to demisexual / demiromantic people, and to allosexual people who are unlucky romantically). To those people, it can be very invalidating. It can feel like the person is saying non-romantic love isn’t “good enough.” And just like biphobic messaging is all over the place, so is ace-phobic messaging that people who aren’t in romantic relationships aren’t fulfilled or are failures in some way.

        So I’m sympathetic to Kyle’s desire to headcanon Joyce as bisexual (or some other wlw orientation), especially if they’re an LGBT person; believe me, I feel it. But, I also get Briny’s point. I don’t think either person is wrong here.

  22. Brute

    never underestimate the power of Imposter Syndrome.

    1. 3-I

      Aaaahahahaha… haaa… haaa…

      Seriously why do so many good people suffer from this. =<

      1. Leorale

        My theory is that it’s because baby boomers gave us trophies. Gotta blame those trophies for everything!

      2. StClair

        It’s the flip-side/top half of Dunning-Kruger. You have those who are too dumb to know how incompetent they are; and then you have those who are smart enough to understand just how much they don’t know, and judge themselves entirely by that and how many others in the field are (or “must be”) better, more knowledgeable and competent than themselves.

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          Honestly, I think that’s a really large part of why I am so angry and bitter about so many world leaders and CEOs and other super rich people right now. Like, the 1%. We’ve been trained for centuries if not longer that people who are richer, more important, more powerful than us peons are so because they actually are better than us. Because somehow, in some way, they are just stronger, smarter, more cunning, more attractive, more whatever than the rest of us. That they deserve their success because of it.

          And, good lord, looking at some of the stumblebums out there right now who are meaner, dumber, uglier, weaker–just poorer human beings than any of the rest of us except financially–has really, really driven home how little anything other than money actually counts. How all you need to succeed, apparently, is a rich daddy, and if you have that, you’re set for life no matter how much or how often you screw up; and if you don’t, unless you’re extraordinarily lucky, not a goddamned thing you do is going to make any difference. 🙁

          TL;DR: How dare these assholes not be better than us?!

    2. davidbreslin101

      Sadly, Imposter Syndrome itself doesn’t think it’s that great. “Everyone talks about me like I’m a big deal, but it’s not like I’m a degenerative bowel disorder or in DSM-V or something.”

  23. Reltzik

    Honesty is the best policy for manipulation!

    1. Bagge

      Ye-e-e-es… but I’m not sure that’s the moral I want to take

      1. Reltzik

        Look at it this way. I’m not saying you SHOULD manipulate people. But IF you don, honesty is the best policy for doing that.

        1. Reltzik

          Wild N appears!

          Reltzik uses EDIT MY POST!

          It’s SUPER-INEFFECTIVE!

        2. MatthewTheLucky

          I don’t care what Ghetsis says, N is clearly not a Pokémon.

  24. Briny

    This is oddly familiar. (In that I tend to distrust compliments, praise, and until fairly recently people trying to care about me have faced an unfairly uphill battle to do so.)

  25. Bagge

    No, no, Joyce. Tell us more about Sarah’s sturdiness.

    Awwww, wonderful parallelism. Sarah only opened up by talking about Joyce – now Joyce opens up by talking about Sarah. No wonder Jacob can tell they love each other.

    I’m also pretty sure he can tell that Joyce is trying to set him up with Sarah, and that his deflection in the fourth panel is him trying to steer her away from that notion.

    1. Nobody

      Jacob is not that socially aware

      1. Bagge

        Bet you a package of Arbys sauce…

        I ALSO think he is developing a crush on Joyce, so fun times all around.

  26. Carms

    Fuzzy warrrms

  27. Nobody

    I love those vast conspiracies of three

    1. Reltzik

      aka, conspirathrees.

  28. Gesc

    But.

    Can’t they just be friends?

    I yearn for a story where no romance whatsoever happens. I mean, not DoA but any, really. Doesn’t seem to be these times’ trend.

    1. Inahc

      I think you might like some of Brandon Sanderson’s books. 🙂 There’s some romance but there’s also characters who just don’t have the feelings that you’d expect from their place in the narrative 🙂 Terry Pratchett occasionally subverts such things too. I can’t remember which of them wrote the story about an island just after a tidal wave…

      Speaking of islands, I don’t remember exactly who here recommended Moana, but I feel like I almost grok that movie now 🙂 something about it that I didn’t understand at the time has been bouncing around my subconscious for a few months now… and the call isn’t out there at all it’s inside me indeed 😉 my mind is trying to tell me something with that song, and I almost had it a few minutes ago.

      And hey, she’s a Disney princess who hasn’t expressed any attraction at all 🙂

      1. Ellegos

        The tidal wave book you’re thinking of is “Nation”.
        Good book.

    2. Bagge

      It’s not like we DON’T have them.
      Danny and Sal
      Sal and Marcie
      Dina and Sarah
      Joyce and Sarah
      Dorothy and Joyce
      Ethan and Amber (you know… after they tried and failed romance)
      Becky and Joyce (you know… with a onesided attempt at romance)
      Joyce and Ethan (you know… OK, I start to see a trend here)

    3. Indoor Cat

      I feel you.

      It’s actually one of the reasons I first got into the Discworld series. It’s not that there aren’t characters who pursue romantic relationships in the series, but they’re often tertiary characters, or the romance is sort of an abrupt decisions rather than a typical romantic story-arc (in which people fall slowly in love by increasingly revealing themselves to the other, and at some points pull back because they feel too vulnerable or the other person seems newly untrustworthy [this is pretty much the gist of most famous romance novels, and it can be a good storyline, but it doesn’t have to be everywhere]). Most of the protagonists are largely solo actors; despite being in an ensemble cast, the stories are largely propelled by a single protagonist’s actions (trying to defeat a villain, solve a crime, etc), which means most relationships are of secondary importance. Although, there are friendships and rivalries that are fun to read as the dynamics shift over the series’ course.

      Also, as a teen who hadn’t read, er, pretty much any series with a transgender character in it ever, the transgender* dwarf forensic detective character (Cheery) was pretty exciting and liberating to read about. And she wasn’t a one-off; after she joined the Watch she was in the cast.

      I mean, I can see why she wouldn’t be everyone’s favorite transgender representation (she’s not human, for one thing, which can make the analogy a bit muddy, sort of like any of LeGuin or Butler’s stories with alien characters that had points to make about gender and race and racism). And that kinda stems from the fact that there just generally wasn’t a lot of trans / genderqueer representation in fantasy literature at the time.

      But, as a teen I found her to be strangely empowering, more-so than some irl memoirs I read, because there was this balance where the story acknowledged the hostility and rejection she faced coming out in a (fictional) conservative culture, but also, she clearly was able to come out and start a great new life with a found family and friends and a job she’s really friggin’ good at. She wasn’t a TragicTrans(tm) character, even though transitioning wasn’t depicted as easy; it demanded incredible courage. But, also, she’s a whole person with a whole life. And she wasn’t totally disowned by her whole original family either. And I guess at that point in my life, I needed a trans story with a happy ending that was longer than a “teachable moment” episode.

      And the books were really, really funny.

      DoA, of course, has a transgender ace character who, so far, has not been involved in any romantic subplots, and I heartily endorse more Carla-centric storylines. Maybe where she befriends Amber and then they fight evil again, but in a more psychologically constructive way. Maybe a storyline where Amber joins the roller derby team and there are some sports-related Carla/Marcie/Malaya/Amber hijinks.

      Gah, sorry, long tangent, I’ll stop.

      *arguably more of a genderqueer analogue; she takes on a gender that doesn’t originally exist in her culture, which is entirely mono-gendered as masculine

      1. MatthewTheLucky

        Tangents about Discworld are never too long!

  29. poofdepoof

    I love this strip. I think it’s just really really well-balanced and genuine. It has a joke that I feel like will last me all day. Everything feels natural and in character. And the art is so gentle and kind to these characters.
    I know there have been more “exciting” strips in this vast archive but something about this one just hits the spot for me, I’m not quite sure how to place it. Anyone else feeling like this?

  30. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Panel 1: I love the running gag of Joyce describing all her friendships in the most homoerotic way possible. Like, Joyce, honey, no, most straight women don’t lead into describing their friends as tall and pretty.

    Also, I love the realness here, of her diving deep into what actually makes her feel so loyal to Sarah. The love and protection Sarah has provided, caring for her in her darkest moments even though she’s had such nasty experiences from helping people.

    It’s a nice character moment.

    Panel 2: This moment feels big and a key part of Sarah’s characterization. Like, we already know some of the ways she’s been hurt for trying to help in the flashbacks about freshman year, but there’s also the coming back to the idea that her home environment wasn’t exactly the most stable and that she’s been hurt from even before that.

    Like, with her stating at Freshman Weekend about how she envied Dina’s quiet family and how faking loving parents was a part of being a child, it hints that she’s not grown up in an environment where it was safe to show weakness or be openly empathetic.

    And that likely adds another element to her desperation not to lose her scholarship as that might mean not only losing her dream, but having to go back to live with people that were openly toxic for her.

    Panel 3: Ah Joyce and her belief in the healing power of love.

    1. ischemgeek

      Yeah. I think Sarah’s desperation to succeed has a lot to do with that.

      I pissed my roommate right the hell off in my first year at uni because I would in fact report her to the RAs if she kept me up past quiet hours (before you ask – yes, I did try asking nicely first and explaining I had classes starting at 8:30 every day. When she responded with a snort, eyeroll and middle finger, I called in the folks who have the power to charge her money for being an asshole) because I was determined not to fuck up for pretty much the same reason. Getting into school and becoming a professional was my ticket to escape a bad situation. I relate a lot to Sarah’s desperate over-achieving here.

    2. thejeff

      It is a running gag, but here it seems more plausible. She is trying to set her up with Jacob after all, so emphasizing the pretty is less strange than in other contexts.

  31. Cerberus

    Panel 4: This was very smoothly done by Jacob, deflecting the hint of setting him up, while also centering the value Joyce has brought to Sarah’s life. And the love, whether it be sublimated romantic or platonic Joyce has for her “big sister”.

    I think he’s going to be an incredible lawyer when he grows up if he can retain these social skills.

    Panels 5-6: Mm, yeah, I know those feels. Self-hatred can often sabotage truly believing people’s positive feelings towards you. Like, one person who likes you is clearly just deluded and doesn’t know what they are talking about and any more than that is clearly a sign of a larger pool of people you have somehow deceived into believing a falsehood.

    And for someone like Sarah, Sal, or Carla who is used to folks taking advantage of vulnerability to attack, it can be really hard to take people at their word that positive feelings are wholly earnest or meaningful rather than something to be dismissed.

    1. butting

      I keep wondering if Jacob’s first impulse is identifying and validating Joyce’s emotions, without even considering himself. (don’t tell Joyce that though, she’ll just crush on him harder.)

      Good point too about the potential of social skills mixing with practicing law. Am I stereotyping a field if I suspect he’d be awesome at family law in particular?

      1. ischemgeek

        W.r.t. lawyers: Most of the socially-savvy ones I’ve met lean toward trial law in some capacity or other (criminal law yes, but also family law, some aspects of contract law and civil torts) or towards fields where negotiation is as much of the skill set as actual legal knowledge (which is most legal fields to be fair). There’s also a place for bookish perfectionists who aren’t great at social skills – they tend to be the behind-the-scenes types who tend to focus on things like patent and contract law.

        Regardless of what field he goes into, I think Jacob is more likely to be a good lawyer than Sarah – Jacob is averse to conflict, has good active listening skills, and understands instinctively the give-and-take of relationships and negotiation. Sarah is judgmental, short tempered and more than a bit superior – yes, all of that is a persona she wears to keep the world at an arm’s length, but it’s a personal that is very likely to alienate and piss off any client she has, and you can be giving the best advice in the world, but it’ll mean nothing if your client doesn’t listen to you. As her personality currently is, I can see Sarah being very good at preparing briefs and other behind-the-scenes work, but I don’t see her being very good at gaining the trust of, attracting new, and retaining existing clients. So I see her as being a bit more limited as to what fields she could be very successful in.

        I am a contract scientist, and a lot of the skillset is similar to being a lawyer because in both fields your job is to be the hired expert. So you need to be an expert, yes, but more important than being an expert is conveying your expertise to your client in a way that doesn’t make the client feel condescended to or belittled. It doesn’t matter how good your advice is if you’ve pissed off the client so much they’ll do the opposite of what you’re recommending on principle because that’s how much they don’t like you. “Given your problem, here are the options and here are the pros and cons of each, which do you think is best?” vs “I am the Expert and I know best. You will do as I say, peon.”

        I have fewer qualifications than most of our other contract scientists where I work – but they all have the same problem Sarah does. I manage the lab and do the client-facing stuff solely because I know how to give advice without sounding like I’m calling the client an idiot. Qualification-wise, all my subordinates have me beat.

        Social skills matter, especially when your job is to give the expert opinion to someone who’s not an expert. It really pisses me off that our culture treats them as inherent personality traits rather than skills that can be learned – cuz I’m friggin’ autistic. Social skills do not come naturally to me. If anyone has an excuse to be shitty at social skills, it’s me. But I studied the crap out of how to Do Social back when I was undiagnosed and everyone kept telling me I was just an asshole because I didn’t want people thinking I was an asshole. Years later, my way of doing social is very much not neurotypical but it’s functional and doesn’t piss people off, which is all I really care about (and people expect scientists to be a bit weird anyway, so I think if I was too normal people wouldn’t believe I was actually a scientist – seriously, the stereotypical scientist is autistic-coded as hell but anyway). But my point is I’m proof that you can learn social skills and get better at them – that being “good with people” isn’t a personality, it’s a skill. Unfortunately, too many people tend to assume it’s a personality.

        1. missilentmurmur

          I’m not well-versed in this career path’s but I can imagine Sarah as someone who enforces norms, for example anti-pollution. I can so see her battling with all her might to get corruption out in the open, too.

  32. BenRG

    I’ve got a real feeling that, later on, Jacob is going to tell Raidah that he has met possibly one of the single sweetest girls that he’s ever met and it’s made him sorry that he doesn’t have a younger sister. He’s honestly enjoying Joyce being Joyce.

    1. Chris Phoenix

      I first read this as “…he has met possibly one of the sweetest single girls…”

      and the ship started to sail…

  33. miados

    i’m still waiting for a fluke. not that i deserve one.

    1. Fart Captor

      You deserve far more than just one <3

    2. laladoria

      Everyone deserves to be loved.

    3. Indoor Cat

      <3 Hang in there. It's hard, for sure. Sometimes finding your people means going somewhere really far away. Trying again, starting from scratch. It's so, so hard.

      But don't give up before you've given yourself a chance. Take your time. Protect your heart. And when you're ready to, go and find them. All the conspirators waiting to love you. They are out there. <3

    4. Deanatay

      I’ll give you TWO! *throws a whale at Miados*

  34. Darkoneko

    The Sarah-loving conspiracy.

  35. ValdVin

    The layout really is neat in this one.

    Great subtle expressions on Joyce.

    The one unbordered Jacob sort of “spills out”, as if his question underlines everything Joyce says today.

    1. Bagge

      Agreed. Willis is good with layouts.

  36. Reltzik

    Not just a fluke. A big lie. A whopper. A whale of a tail.

  37. Kamino Neko

    Is Jacob asking if Joyce is in lesbians with Sarah, or did he miss that Joyce is trying to romance the two of them up? (Or! Did he catch it, and try to deflect it?)

    1. Jason

      I think Jacob is comfortable enough with feeeelings to talk about non-romantic love. As for whether or not he picked up on Joyce trying to convince him Sarah is perfect for him… unknown at this point? Her first attempt at it was as subtle as a whale hi-fiving your face so he may think she’s not capable of more subtlety than that.

      1. Kamino Neko

        That first sentence is all one question. Either or, not independent clauses.

  38. Just for kix

    Alright, so how long do I have to wait to see Jacob and Joyce make out?

  39. Pablo360

    *plays If I Needed Someone by the Beatles on the hacked muzak*

  40. ischemgeek

    This is huge for Joyce.

    She’s having food. With a guy. Alone. No chaperone.

    That’s the first this happened in the series. And she’s ok. She’s not panicking. She’s comfortable.

    And I think that’s a great sign of exactly how careful and respectful Jacob is of boundaries. I mean, let’s face it: Jacob is a big black guy. Thanks to North American racism, if a typical sheltered good Christian white girl thinks of someone who is likely to attack her when she’s alone, the stereotypical picture in her head is going to be someone who looks a lot like Jacob. Joyce has been conditioned her entire life to see a guy like Jacob and think “threat”. But she’s comfortable.

    And that’s really because Jacob, like most genuinely nice big dudes I’ve met, is very aware of his physical bulk and how that can color interactions with people, and he’s very mindful not to use his size in a coercive or implicitly threatening way.

    Contrast to Joe, who’s about as big as Jacob and has none of the self-awareness and a lot more predatory tendencies: Joe corners and manhandles people. He invades their personal space. He looms over or at them. He lurks. He does any number of things to intentionally create a sense of his own dominance in the social situation. He doesn’t mean a threat by it, but when he’s looming over a complete stranger, invading her personal space and propositioning her sexually, there is an unspoken, implied threat by his size and the fact that he physically cuts off as many of her avenues of escape from the situation as possible.

    By contrast, Jacob goes out of his way not to corner people. He never stands in the doorway. If he’s in a room with another person, he subtly lets them be between him and the door. If he’s walking down a hallway, he moves as far to the side as he can, to make sure others have as much space as he can give them. Where possible, he walks side-by-side with people, rather than looming behind them. He checks in with people. He never looms, not even accidentally. When dealing with people who are anxious or vulnerable, he brings his body down to their height, by sitting or kneeling. In all these ways and others I’ve forgotten, Jacob is constantly mindful of his size and goes out of his way to make sure his body language and nonverbal cues are always sending out the message of, “I am not a threat to you.”

    And it’s because Jacob works so hard at not using his size to intimidate or coerce that Joyce is comfortable enough to be alone with him – a man – despite her upbringing and recent trauma. And I think it’s really important to note all the emotional labour Jacob puts in to being respectful of boundaries and aware of his size, because I’m fairly sure at least some of it is informed by his own experiences of racism as a large black guy. Because most big white dudes I know behave like Joe, and most big black dudes I know are a lot more like Jacob.

    1. Bagge

      Oooooh! Good point. And again, it underscores just how bad Joe dealt with Joyce. Having a good dinner date with her WAS his professed goal. He blew it badly, just BECAUSE of his playah bullshit.

      Jacob succeeded where Joe failed just because he DOESN’T do any of the PickUpArtist-sleaziness that is SUPPOSED to help him with this exact thing.

      There is probably a moral there somewhere.

      Anyway, this is huge for Joyce. Well described.

    2. Jason

      Thank you so much for this well-thought-out comment. Racial experiences are something I’m not that great with (being white from Whiteville surrounded by more diverse towns and cities) and there’s still so many experiences that I just don’t know exist for people of colour. I value the times like this where I learn from someone like you.
      So, just… thank you. <3

      1. ischemgeek

        I too am Pasty McWhiterson but a third of the tech company I work at is staffed my POC, my partner is Native, and I have a number of black and POC friends and acquaintances in particular.

        I also had the utterly surreal experience of traveling my country on a business trip with the VP of Sales for one of my group’s suppliers and having everyone assume the 20-something white kid was the VP and the middle aged black guy was the entry level technical specialist. Racism is real.

    3. davidbreslin101

      Nicely observed on Jacob’s body language. I’d kind of picked up that he sits back rather than leans into a conversation, but I hadn’t thought of this as deliberate before.

      1. ischemgeek

        I definitely think it is – cuz it’s so very consistent all the way through.

    4. hof1991

      Jacob is just drawn that way.

    5. missilentmurmur

      Actually, I wanted to point out yesterday how strange it seems to me that Joyce is here, with Jacob, and not pulling any “husband-catching” moves. Now that you mention it, the fact that she is without a chaperone is also strange. This caracter development is a bit too fast for me.

      1. CJ

        She doesn’t need a chaperone. it’s not a date, she’s trying to get Jacob and Sarah together – at least that’s what she thinks.
        She never needed a chaperone around Walky, because she never had any sexual interest in him.

        1. Leorale

          Becky has the same upbringing and knows what situations require a chaperone, so perhaps it was part of her master plan ™, she set them up for a situation that didn’t need a chaperone.

        2. ischemgeek

          Good point – I was getting Joyce crossed with some other religious conservatives I’ve known in real life who want chaperones always

    6. Leorale

      +10 points to ischemgeek, well spotted and well put.

    7. Ryek Hvek

      +10 more – I never really learned about looming until I saw apprehension in strangers, and had to figure out how to dial things back

      1. ischemgeek

        I only noticed cuz one of my close friends is almost 7 feet tall (no, that is not an exaggeration – he literally has to duck to go in most doorways) and somehow one day we wound up in a conversation about how frigging hard it is to not be intimidating when you’re that tall. I left that conversation with the impression that beyond a certain size, not being perceived as intimidating is very much the product of intentional effort and emotional labour.

  41. SlothfulCobra

    Come to think of it, Sarah’s reaction to Joe just talking to her was wildly different from her original incarnation where she was fine with having a little meaningless sex.

    Because sometimes women want sex too, a strange concept I know.

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      Let’s be fair, from her point of view a total asshole was trying to pick her up. Put another way, she has Standards.

    2. thejeff

      Sarah does want a little meaningless sex. She just doesn’t want it with Joe. That’s what she wanted with Jacob. She was disheartened when he talked about wanting a relationship, not casual sex.

    3. Fart Captor

      Being interested in meaningless sex (which this incarnation of Sarah still is) does not mean you’re gonna be interested in getting it from any random creep who offers, especially not a pushy one who doesn’t back off when he’s asked to

    4. Sam

      No it wasn’t. Sarah is allowed to still have standards for her meaningless sex including no Joes.

  42. John Merklinghaus

    I have to honor Willis’ dedication to his art here. It would be really easy to just Copy+Paste most of these panels, but he doesn’t at all.

  43. segnosaur

    Here’s a question… Does Sarah actually have a sexual interest in Jacob anymore? Could Joyce somehow succeed in getting Sarah interested in Jacob but find that it was all for nothing?

    Ok, we know she’s physically attracted to him, and that she does want to sabotage his current relationship. But, she also knows that he wants a relationship, and during the Joe/Jacob/Joyce/Sarah meeting, Jacob went into great detail about how its not appropriate to be treated as a “sex object” (something that Sarah is sort of doing). For that reason, she may voluntarily back off of a potential relationship with him.

    1. Leorale

      Sarah thinks Jacob is hot, but has realized that their desires are incompatible, and that Joyce is a better match for him. And Joyce/Jacob would still satisfy Sarah’s spite towards Raidah. Win-win!

      1. segnosaur

        Which is what I was arguing.

        Sarah realizes that Jacob has different interests, but neither Joyce nor Jacob are in on the plot. What happens if Joyce is successful and gets Jacob to think “Maybe Sarah may be worth dating after all”?

      2. Deanatay

        I prefer to see it as “Sarah wants Jacob desperately, but has acted like an idiot in front of him enough times that she’s convinced Jacob has no real interest in her, and has given up any hope of scoring with him herself”.

        1. nightsbridge

          I mean, it’d be wrong. She wants something pretty shallow with Jacob. She didn’t really give up hope of that until that had a conversation about how what Roz wanted was not anything close to what HE wanted, because he wanted a relationship.

          And that deflated Sarah like a balloon. You can see it right here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/sniffing/

        2. ValdVin

          Oof, I forgot this particular one. Yep. Probably the most whipsawed we’ve seen her get, and it’s extra painful for how seldom she just lights up like the next to last panel.

        3. CJ

          Isn’t it more like she hoped to be able to snag him for a bit of sex but is sure she’d never be good enough to be his long-term interest?

  44. Roborat

    I am really hoping Joyce gets flustered and accidently blurts out what Sarah named her sex toy.

  45. Deanatay

    BTW, I am definitely a part of the vast Sarah Love Conspiracy.

    1. Reltzik

      It’s a love collusion!

      … oh, wait, Madonna’s song was Love Profusion. NM.

  46. kilgaen

    The least naive Joyce has ever been.

  47. Tealjoy

    Joyce, never let anyone tell you that you’re not a good friend. I’m glad she understands why Sara is the way she is.

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