Discussion (222) ¬
[ Comments RSS ]
Who should be the default doodle for Book 14?
Total Voters: 2,173
Loading ...
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 4d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 12d
Good call, Sarah
Not even the hate was strong enough.
Probably a good thing.
I’m happy it turned out this way. Her acting was cringeworthy. :/
The Joyceahol wore off.
confused
Sarah rebelled against her own attempt to just be happy.
Third panel = nope.png xD
She tried channeling “Shattered Glass Sarah”, but couldn’t take the power of it’s happiness…
Good job, Sarah. Now he just thinks you’re _insane_.
Oh…. Kay? What just happened?
I am clueless.
Sarah tried to present herself as someone happier and bubblier (basically what drove Jacob off in the first place), but she couldn’t stand how fake it felt.
I think Sarah got the wrong impression, Jacob didn’t want someone bubbly, he just wanted someone who wouldn’t take the fun out of everything.
I like to think that Sarah also could not go through with hooking up with Jacob just to spite a former friend.
I’d like to think that too, but I think it’s more likely that she couldn’t stand the thought of ‘winning’ by being something other than herself.
I think she was genuinely happy but her brain encountered a critical error and had to reboot to a previous backup.
OK, I thought about it and I suppose she is having second thoughts. But it seems out of character.
It’s part of her master plan to try and make Raidah miserable. However not even her hate is strong enough to make her act Joycelike.
Everyone’s got their limits. Sarah’s harder on herself than she should be. Note that while she was quick to bash on Joyce in order to have a nice conversation with Jacob as well as vent some of her frustrations, her conscience eventually got the better of her and she owned up to it.
Plus, Raidah isn’t completely insufferable. She didn’t call for assault or anything after Sarah attacked her before, and as far as the comic shows, she’s pretty much left Sarah alone since then.
I think it’s just the pressure of Sarah knowing that what she’s doing falls just on the evil side of the line here while also strongly disliking the front she’s putting up. It’s too much and now she’s disgusted with herself for even trying to pull it off.
Uh, Raidah hasn’t exactly kept her distance… http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/02-uphill-from-here/taken/
This was before Sarah punched her.
I sense abuse.
No.
No.
I think Sarah’s having trouble putting on a facade of being perfectly happy and okay with everything. She doesn’t want to change for anything.
I guess this is her emdiat response of, “what the fuck am I doing!? “
She’s fighting the effects of mind-control naturally.
Is she winning?
She’s putting up a front to make herself likable. She hates that it is working, and feels fake, not genuine.
I think that Sarah has decided that, no matter how much Raidah pisses her off just by existing, she isn’t going to let her life be defined and consumed by that anger and dislike. She isn’t going to turn into the sort of person who’s life goal is trying to ruin her rival’s life and, in the process, become a far worse person in herself. She’s realised that she’s a better person than that.
Sarah already defines herself as that person who hates everyone, and seems to have no issue letting that guide her life.
I would define it as “that person who is hated by everyone and doesn’t care”. The reason why she’s so misanthropic is because she tells herself that she doesn’t care what everyone thinks of her so she doesn’t have to be nice; this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy with her resulting abrasive nature driving people away creating a weird kind of confirmation in her own mind that she doesn’t have to try.
Maybe she’s decided that this has to change?
Sarah can do no wrong. She even sent Dina to act as the cutest agent in the history of spying.
This is true. If Sarah changed her mind, it is because the FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE just changed, and her mind changed with it, to continue to be flawlessly right.
I get that you were actually confused as a reader, but that was basically Jacob’s reaction in the last panel, too :p
Why does she look like she is upset with Jacob?
I think she’s more upset with herself, really.
It’s a problem, certainly, I think.
Wow……this is hilarious.
Damn. So close. Well, I hope this works out better, no one should change themselves like this.
“I know the real Sarah is in there, you must fight it”
Did she slap the Kawaii out of herself just now? That sucks. He should say something to her.
Awesome.
Mission failed,the cuteness was too hard for her to handle.
Rahlum: Yessssssss, YESSSSSSSS, take off the jacket for the preciousssss!!
Sarah: NOOOOOOO, we needses the jacketses!!! We needs it!
In the next strip we will see her talking to her other personality in front of the mirror.
And then we will ship them.
Thanks for the laugh!
It’s funny because you know it’s true.
We will also ship them both with the mirror.
Sarah.exe has encountered a fatal error and must shut down
SmilingSarah.exe
Regular Sarah is fully operational.
She had to do a hard reboot to uninstall the SmilingSarah patch.
SmilingSarah.exe sounds like a creepypasta
To bad, she looks good with a smile.
She looks good, but she doesn’t feel good!
She can’t stand how a fake/manipulative smile makes her feel. Go real or go home.
Sarah has about the same tolerance for cute as Ruth. But daaaaang, she makes those five sseconds count
Uhm. Sarah must be having quite the internal monologue going on right now.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Could be a dialogue.
To thine own self be true!
Excuse me
whaaaaaaaat?
he does look cute with those glasses
I’ve been binging Shortpacked! since Sunday, so to see Jacob introduced and sent off without once wearing glasses made coming back to DoA REALLY weird.
Oh god I feel so bad for her right now…
That she didn’t let the hate consume her?
Consider this: Sarah would not change who she was and how she acted when Jacob was actively trying to get close to her, even though she admitted to being wildly attracted to him.
Now she was changing who she was to get Jacob away from her enemy. It may have seemed like a good idea when she thought of it, but sitting there with the reality of how much of her self-respect she was risking she decided that the petty revenge was not worth it. Good for her.
Good summary!
… is she doing a :3 face
gah
……sooo…is that what it looks like when someone tries to put their arms in both sleeves at once? i always figured that it seemed less slick from an outside perspective
My preferred way to put a coat on awesomely is to hold it up in front of me with both hands, facing away from me (so I’m looking at its back), and then suddenly flipping it up and back over my head and sliding my arms into the sleeves at the same time, so that by the time it swings around and lands on my back I’m wearing it properly. It probably looks dumb as heck, but it’s fun as all get-out to do. (Presuming you’re outside or in a space with a high ceiling, anyway.)
So, like Martin Sheen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV2fXoYmELA
No, that’s putting a jacket on normally, which I do myself when not feeling flamboyant or when the ceiling is low (or, well, normal). My more creative approach flips it straight up so that at the top of the arc the coat is vertically upside-down over my head, pointing straight up, and so both my arms go into the sleeves at exactly the same time as it swings back down. (It’s also substantially faster than putting it on the normal way, give or take the time to straighten the collar, since I’m whipping it back fast enough that it stays fully extended.)
I do the around the shoulder swirl, while inserting my arms as it swirls. Don’t know what it looks like, but it is quick and easy to put on, assuming I don’t whack anybody else around me as I do it.
This is significantly more awesome with cloaks or capes.
From then on, Sarah only spoke in no’s.
Wow…. ummm …. that went well. Not at all awkward. Not in the slightest. Nope. No no no no
*Wanders out of the comments section muttering vague non-sequiturs to no one in particular*
That was… interesting. :/
I’m so happy we’re back to the old honest Sara.
<3
But seriously this is one of those DoA comics that makes me genuinely happy at the end of a long day.
well that was short… she looked really well without the jacket though XD
So even Sarah couldn’t withstand her own smile.
Seems that way…
No one was as weirded out by Sarah acting like that then Sarah.
Profound
Game face, Sarah!
I like to imagine that the first “no” was said with the smile, as if she was still attempting to maintain the act.
I’m really starting to dislike Sarah I like that she’s smart and the voice of reason I just grow tired of her being bitter and anti-social l. Suppose that’s just who she is. I hope she starts softening m ok really soon because so far she is a bit grating for me. I’m loving Becky/Dina and Billy/Ruth I also really want to get the Sal/Amber confrontation too.
Why wouldn’t she be bitter and anti-social? The friends she made her first year have spent the last year bullying and insulting her for saving the life of her roommate. Her goods deeds are largely punished, and she remains socially ostrisized. Of course she’s bitter and anti-social.
I disagree. They were bad friends if they think Sarah did the wrong thing when that girl was going to end up dying from an OD and literally saved her they are bad friends. There is no reason she could not find supportive and mature friends and yeah being a bitter unlikable bongo doesn’t make you mature and it means people avoid you and dont want to be around you including hit dudes your attracted to. She seems unable to be happy and by now I think it’s purposeful. I think the thing with Dina is positive and if she stops pushing Joyce who I’d genuinely loving sweet and positive away then maybe I’ll start to like her more.
Sarah was never social to start with, and the first time (that we’ve seen) when she tried to open herself up to a group of friends it ended up self-destructing with nuclear force. She has literally no reason to believe that any other group of friends could be supportive and mature; in her experience the appearance of such just results in backstabbing later. (For example, Jacob. He’s now dating her nemesis – that attempt to open up *really* went well.)
All that said she’s still willing to associate with other people who she feels she should be supporting, like Joyce and Dina. But expecting her to jump headfirst into friend-making would be like expecting her to leap into an actual minefield.
Raidah and co. were positive, supportive friends until Sarah did something they considered wrong. Now Sarah has it in her head that actually opening up to people is going to explode. Joyce is the only person who unequivocally loves her, and even she threw Dana in her face.
FWIW, I suspect that this strip represents the point from which she is at least going to try to move beyond that hurt. We’ll see if she can do it and who she chooses to hang out with if she wants to reboot her social life.
I strongly suspect that it won’t be Joyce or anyone in her circle. Something tells me that Sarah doesn’t have the sucrose tolerance to handle that.
I’m not so sure about that. She’s willingly hung out with Joyce’s circle of friends and enjoyed it before. And she’s said outright she likes Dorothy and Dina. She doesn’t even seem to mind Joe as long as he’s not hitting on her.
This.
Yeah her bitterness is frustrating for people to deal with, but I imagine the person hurt the most by it is Sarah herself. Going through life thinking everyone is that close to just completely despising you? It’s heavy for anyone to deal with.
Yeah it is just too mucheap for me. Like j said I think she’s moving in the right direction and true she super young and as you said her attempts to move past that and make friends and open up have backfired even with Joyce but I just find this kind of person so so so so unlikable I just want to smack them with a newspaper the reason you’re lonely and bitter is your fault.
I like where she is going I like that she’s smart and actually thinks things out and is driven. I like that but I guess it is asking a lot to move past this that fast but still can she keep progressing to not being an ass or at least become more entertaining to make up for it. I liked that she actually tried to smile and be happy for a moment even if for a crappy reason.
With Sarah it’s not that she tries to go out of her way to be miserable, it’s that her pessimistic, introvert nature is going into overdrive because of all her bad experiences in the past. She genuinely cannot conceptualize that anyone can actually like her for who she is, except possibly Joyce.
How dare she be a bit grumpy and abrasive!
I predict she’s going to wind up telling Jacob the whole story, and he’ll wind up dumping Raida, but NOT dating Sarah.
You’re assuming that he’ll just believe Sarah.
She might try to explain her side of what happened, but it’ll get screwed up and only make things worse. Like, “Wait, you didn’t report that your roommate was heavily addicted to drugs until AFTER your grades dropped? You scoundrel!”, and then he throws his monogrammed handkerchief on the floor and leaves.
great, SPOILERS
You’ve been telegraphing the handkerchief for months, you shrewd shrew you.
Or is it sly fox?
See, even Willis thinks the spoilers are great.
THANKS, poppaboo, you’ve just RUINED EVERYTHING. now he has to shut DoA down. I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY.
Who carries around monogrammed handkerchiefs?
Someone must. You can buy them by the box-full, even here.
My father was once given one by a grateful patient, with an ‘F’ on it because that was the closest she could find to ‘E’.
Many people carry around monogrammed handkerchiefs, initially.
((They get better.))
Pretend the word initially is bolded and italicized.
I thought it didn’t count as a monogram unless it was a unique symbol incorporating more than one of your initials.
If it has two initials, wouldn’t it be a duogram?
My guess is that, it will be reveled that Jacob is secretly a member of a hidden ninja tribe. Dana is also part of this tribe and the whole thing has been a hidden set up. The main characters will have to battle an army of ninjas while Sarah and Radiah team up against Jacob and Dana. During the fight Dana will perform a heel face turn (after Sarah reminds her of being dorm mates) which leads her to pulling a heel-face turn and dragging Jacob with her of the Indiana dorm buildings roof. Also while Dana is hanging of the roof, Sarah will try to save her
and reach out her hand. Dana will shake her head and let go leaving Sarah to go NOOOOOOOOOO!
I hope these are the real spoilers.
Well…shit! pack it up, folks
No fun allowed Sarah has returned.
She allows fun. She just doesn’t want to be present for it, and she certainly doesn’t want to put on an insipid act to be part of it. And frankly I agree with that.
And she was never seen again.
Has she been taking advice from Starscream?
My reaction when I saw Hotel Transylvania 2 was becoming a thing.
(Prolly spelled Transylvania wrong…)
Good news!
you didn’t!
A friend once marveled at my ability to spell crucifixion right on the first try, but not ‘having’. The weirdness of fleshling languages.
Blame diversity.
Personally, I blame the French.
It’s not actually their fault, but I enjoy blaming the French.
It’s always our fault. If not, it’s still our fault. It gives us a purpose.
English’s wacky orthography is actually largely the fault of the French.
Initially, yeah. But they didn’t make us retain the bad parts and invent new ones. All they were doing was trying to do was pick up native girls.
That last sentence mutated somewhere along the way. I think if you eliminate the “doing was” it works.
I blame the French for a lack of edit capability.
Oh, because that’s not going to make things worse. That being said, this was basically my reaction to her change in the last strip, so I’m not really sure where I’m going with this.
Aww. I was hoping she’d actually try and have a conversation like that, since, she actually struggles with that. I wonder how much of this she’s noping, the attitude, or her plan altogether?
“Must smile, must be nice, must be pleasant, must be … ARRRGHH!”
Congratulation Sarah.
Glad she couldn’t make herself go through with the phony bullshit. I do hope she realized how hot she can be when she wants to – just for herselfs own sake, not for some vengeance scheme.
Jacob however, seems to be taking it calmly…he may not know what ‘it’ is, but he’s still sitting there.
Jacob seems like a man who accepts what he sees because he’s expecting to wake up.
Why shouldn’t he stay there? She left. He’s in the one place where he knows she isn’t.
Plus he’s waiting for class to start.
Wow! That was… close. Talk about a last-minute save.
That’s relative, the rest of the room must be watching the scene with weirded eyes.
Or maybe Sarah arrived pretty early and there aren’t many people in yet. We’ll see.
Establishing shot yesterday made it look like they were the only two there that early.
Phew.
I’m curious. It seems like Sarah has a crapton of super curly hair. Any chance we ever get to see her do anything with it? It probably would have lasted this long if she just threw it in a ponytail every day.
Sarah, stop making me feel second-hand embarrassed at you.
There’s that stubborn conscience and moral center asserting itself and getting in the way of a perfectly good Revenge Plan.
Yup. It’s why she’s awesome. She sets herself up to be the bad guy to give in to spite or indifference and then a comic or two later she’s bailing on the half-cocked vengeance plan or beating a rapist with a baseball bat. She just doesn’t have it in her to sustain anything intentionally terrible for long.
Pesky morals
+1 Ditto
I figured she just couldn’t keep up the charade.
lmao I’m getting whiplash from you, Sarah.
No one else attends this class.
They all saw Sarah smiling and went, “Nope!” and bailed.
Can’t blame them.
Actually, they were all huddled against the far wall of the classroom. IN FEAR.
Now that Sarah’s not smiling anymore, they’ll return to their seats.
Wait she’s got a escape plan for that kind of situation? Damn she’s good. I could’ve used that in high school during home economics. “Something seems different about your stitching pattern…” “NO. *safely and sanely ejects instead of being that asshole who ignores to continue work*”
…Wait, is Sarah an actual crazy person? Because this is a thing actual crazy people do.
I understand that breathing is also a thing actual crazy people do. Do you suppose Sarah is breathing?
So’s existing.
Well, there it breaks down. She is a comic strip character and doesn’t actually exist. Except in Willis’s mind. And Willis is far too implausible and unlikely to be real.
And who would go by the name Tacos?
Way to commit, Sarah.
Wait. Are you saying Sarah committed herself?
An attack of conscience, or are you going for the old “Fake a major mental illness” gambit? I hear some guys are into that.
Horrible horrible guys.
The best kind.
So long as she doesn’t start butchering people to protect her crush from their potential ogles she should be fine.
Aww, Sarah. At least Jacob (probably?) won’t believe she’s evil after that….right?
He probably thinks she just visualized an unburned orphanage, and that she just cannot stand the possibility.
I figure he probably figured out that she had problems she’s working through
It was not sustainable…
Never try to run before you’ve learned to walk, Sarah.
It’s good that she has bailed on the fake persona, but running out of a classroom shouting, “No No!” is not going to help her score points with Jacob. Unless he’s the kind of guy who likes sticking it in the crazy.
Delicately put!
Out of sheer curiosity, how would you put it indelicately?
“Never fuck anyone crazier than yourself.”
Should we perhaps not refer to relations with literally anyone in the world as “sticking it in the crazy” though becuase that’s horribly mean and unnecessary?
There is a great deal in what you say.
(Jacob) “Yep. Even in college, they’re all crazy.”
They being future lawyers? That’s what you meant?
Well, if this does not get him thinking about her, nothing will.
Fake smile are a DEALBREAKER. Shut it down.
Sarah smiling lasted literally three panels. Amazing.
It’s a new record!
Well, Sarah. The downside is that Jacob probably now thinks that Raidah is right and that you are quite insane. The upside is that, by deciding that you are better than this, you have very likely saved your own soul. So, overall, today’s a win. Congratulations on that.
Panel 2 Jacob — Master of Understatement.
So. She will never turn to the Dark Side; she is a Jedi, like her parent(s) before her.
So be it… Jedi.
Zap! Sizzle! Acid Magne- no, hang on.
awwwkwwarrrd
Well that deflated quickly.
So is all the hover-text going to be 30 Rock quotes from now on?
Because that is something I am very okay with.
No wonder I didn’t get it.
Well that lasted exactly as long as I thought it would.
So, what next for Sara? I’m hoping that she will mentally flip of Raidah and just move on. That’s difficult for a young person but, as she’s unlike to ever meet Dana again, it’s kind of unhealthy to try to live her life in penance for what happened between them.
That escalated randomly!
Feel requiered by interwebs law to post this now http://www.is.gd/noooope
so close
She forgot her book! Now Jacob has a reason to go after her.
You sly dog, Sarah you.
Sarah, you magnificent b—h*, I read your book!
*Substituted another ‘b-word’ because the original seemed too out-of-place.
I believe the proper pronunciation is b—o.
okay. yeah thisll probably go fine actually
Sarah depleted her ‘happy face’ reserves.
Hey, Willis! Pardon the somewhat off topic comment.
I don’t know how tight your schedule will be this weekend, but if you have any extra time of signifigance and you’re looking for something to do while you’re in the area, then you should check out the Eastern States Exposition (a.k.a. “The Big E”). It is like a state fair, except it covers all of New England rather than just one state.
http://www.thebige.com/
Lots to see and do there. It can be a pretty fun time.
The alt-text.
I’m sorry. It’s been nearly 20 years and still reminds me of the movie Dark City…
God I love that movie.
It’s like the Matrix but not terrible.
Crisis averted, back to your stations.
Soooooo….that’s a no, then?
Attagirl. Back from the brink.
Glad she changed her mind about it. Jacob’s doesn’t deserve being used like that. Of course, not many people do.
She came to her senses! Yaaay! Now if she can get the hell out of there without running into Raidah, she’ll have avoided disaster….So she’s not out of the Forest of Doom yet…
Looks like Sarah couldn’t keep the bait on the hook.
Or, could she? Maybe this is all part of her plan.
Honestly, Jacob seems more aware of her, now, than before. Way to get his interest by acting crazy!
If he were any more aware, he’d do Forth-Wall breaks.
I thought this is their previous interaction:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/effort-2/
which was just a couple days ago. He’s probably completely aware of her motivation and all he has to do is let her go.
Don’t do it, Jacob. Let. Her. Go.
That was supposed to be a reply to someone else.
Not sure what went wrong.
Love the Jacob side-eye. You can see that this seeming Stepford Sarah is weirding him out. Like some pod person has replaced Sarah. I bet he’s not into pod people. Maybe if she tried the Cool Girl, she could pull it off, but not the Joyce look.
She left her book behind, thus causing Jacob to have to be the nice guy and bring it to her. Clever plan or?
“Cap’n! I can’t maintain the shields!!”
then the last two panels segue into a musical number
Cue Jacob following her out to make sure she’s ok (because he’s a stand-up kinda guy). Sarah spills the beans about wanting to get him to dump Raidah, which leads to an explanation of why and Jacob hears her version of the story. Over the next date or two with Raidah, he notices little things about her that seem to indicate that Sarah’s story is true, and eventually stops seeing Raidah. Then begins the slow process of actually getting to know Sarah.
Phew, mission aborded
Sempai noticed ME once. I hated it.
-Grumpy Neko
Somehow senpai never fails to notice me too much. I have a hard time telling him off just right.
“I tried being nice once. It was awful.”
I know, right?
Those last three panels are comedy gold. Just add them to the end of anything.
…………………………………….how short are those shorts?
It`s still nice to see her rejecting the facade didn`t expect it this soon.
girl has issues like heinz got pickles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZAxO-za3KU
More like this, I think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXCK1EyP4s
This is the most awkward moment in the entire comic, thus far. And we just got through a chapter about Dina.
Why hello there elephant, I think Sarah is feeling something with her vocal cords. And possibly something else, did he smell wrong? The eight ball I think would say “Not in the Least. He was too right. She was utterly distraught.”
Was that Sarah looking all happy there for a second?
Nope! Chuck Testa.