In the US, for undergrad, someone like Jacob would be considered a pre law student. He’s probably a political science major on the pre law track, which means he anticipates going to law school once he graduates.
Every house has created a dark wizard, (except Hufflepuff) and that Voldemort had followers from other houses, or do you think he was able to make an army solely from people who only got sorted Slytherin.
No, but an overwhelming number of bad characters whose House ties we know being from Slytherin and very few good examples does say something. “breeding ground for wizard Nazis” seems accurate based on what we see. Doesn’t mean every single Slytherin and doesn’t mean no one from other Houses, but there is a definite pattern.
I’m pretty sure the vast majority of Death Eaters were Slytherin, because the books said it was easiest for Tom Riddle and his friends to recruit among their former house – they had friends, siblings, cousins, etc. still there. Plus, a lot of Slytherin qualities probably did make them susceptible to Death Eater ideology (traditionalism – particularly relating to blood purity, ambition, a certain disregard for the rules in your way, etc.)
That doesn’t mean ‘no non-evil Slytherins’ (we have Slughorn, Merlin, and dammit I just woke up so I can’t remember more off the top of my head – Snape, depending on your mileage) and that doesn’t mean ‘no evil everyone else’ (Peter Pettigrew was in Gryffindor, for example).
Look, bottom line, we can’t succumb to our anti-slytherin bias. We have to give them equal consideration and access, entertain that their points might be valid, and let them speak at our wizarding schools even if they’re actively recruiting and propagandizing for the Death Eaters and publicly drawing huge targets on attending squibs and mudbloods. Otherwise, we’re just as bad as they are.
In the end, I think we have to accept the canon is flawed and the books themselves – well, the early ones – have an anti-Slytherin slant. :C They were originally written for younger kids, so there wasn’t nearly as much nuance in the first few as in the later ones. So you DO get things like Hagrid making an offhand comment about how Slytherin is The Evil House™ and Draco (who’s the wizard version of racist) and Snape (who has no even POSSIBLY redeeming qualities* revealed until way later) being the only major Slytherin representatives, period.
That makes discussions like these hard. Yeah, most of the Slytherin characters we can point out are absolute pieces of shit (Draco is the only one you’re shown any not-flashback nuance for who isn’t introduced too late in the series for it to really help – sorry Slughorn, but you’re not as influential a character as Draco and Snape LMAO), but… would that represent reality? I don’t think so. I assume in a REAL Hogwarts where it’s not being plotted out by a person there’d be many more Slytherins who were sorted there for completely benign reasons who’d cringe at their reputation and have to constantly be like “WE’RE NOT ALL LIKE THAT I SWEAR”
SO UH. Normally I’m just like WHAT DOES THE CANON SAY??? when these kind of fandom discussions come up, but I really do feel like the canon itself is biased and hhhhh man IDK this is hard. There are a ton of Death Eaters from Slytherin, yeah, but… I feel like labeling the house as the “WIZARD NAZI HOUSE” is also kinda unfair? ;~;
* Your mileage may vary on how redeeming Snape’s backstory really is, but at the very least it’s a realistic amount of nuance and it’s not a flat portrayal of an ~eeeeevil~ Slytherin. So even if you think he’s still kind of a shit person, it’s at least not as simple as HE’S A SLYTHERIN BECAUSE OF COURSE HE’S EVIL.
OH GOD I apologize for that wall of text. I didn’t realize how long it was. ;~; I guess it was just my LET’S ASSUME THE BEST OF EVERYONE Hufflepuff instinct kicking in LMAO
Well yes, but you really have to judge the fiction by what’s presented in it, not by how you think it really should be or even by what’s said about it.
There is no real Slytherin House. The only one that exists is the one we see in the books.
Think Show, Don’t Tell. We’re told the official qualifications for Slytherin and they don’t seem that bad, but we’re shown the House of Junior Death-Eaters. Slytherin being the place for the ambitious and cunning is an informed attribute. Slytherin being the place for pure blood bigots is what we see.
I guess that can be “the canon is flawed and the books themselves have an anti-Slytherin slant”, but I don’t even know what that means. Rowling is wrong about her world? You certainly can’t blame readers for seeing things as the author portrayed them.
That said, there are certainly examples of non-evil Slytherins and evil non-Slytherins, but that doesn’t contradict “breeding ground for wizard Nazis”. I’m sure there are some very fine people in both Houses.
” I don’t even know what that means. Rowling is wrong about her world?”
I think it means she’s wrong about *people*, that people in the real world who meet the criteria for Slytherin are not as bad as Slytherin was written to be. Which matters because people really like to sort real-world people (and fictional characters of other authors) into Hogwarts houses?
Or the official criteria (or the ones used to sort real world people) aren’t actually the ones that were used in the fictional world. There are hints all over the place that the Sorting Hat wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, it did seem to sort as much by family as anything – “Another Weasley. I know just what to do with you.”
It sometimes listens to the students and they’re all about the house’s reputations and, at eleven, not disappointing their parents.
Some hypothetical Slytherin, using the official criteria (and ignoring the founder’s whole blood purity thing) could be just fine. The one in the books? Training ground for junior Death Eaters.
Even if a few came out of it okay and some from other houses were just as bad.
another issue some fanfic pointed out is that it’s exceedingly unlikely that every new group of students will divide evenly over the four houses. what does the hat do if it randomly gets a batch that’s 50% hufflepuffs?
another fanfic had *nobody* getting sorted into slytherin for years after the last book, and then just one girl gets the whole slytherin house all to herself. (sadly it was in an epilogue, so there hasn’t been a chance to see that ridiculousness play out.)
Well, sure, my point was more that the official house criteria don’t HAVE to be bad, but in the context of the universe, it DOES produce people more likely to be death eaters, especially because traditionalism (especially about Blood purity) is also a Slytherin trait. I do agree with people that Slytherin doesn’t equal evil but you’re right that, as it stood, it WAS a breeding ground for Death Eaters.
something a lot of people seem to ignore, is that the books are from Harry’s pov. So naturally, the first books are going to be more childish black and white, Gryffindor, good, Slytherin, bad.
But as we get to see his perspective on the wizarding world grow, as he grows older, the same happens to his perspective on the houses. With him realizing the flaws not just in his own house, but in his own father and himself. Realizing that Draco isn’t evil, but instead just scared, and so on. The problem is that the books end, just as Harry is ready to leave school. And we only get a glimpse of him as an adult, where he’s come to accept that being a Slytherin doesn’t mean you’re evil.
I mean, it’s neat that he grows with regard to his hatecrush, but the source material is still pretty messed up about Slytherin. Y’know, with the whole “All the Slytherins left because they only cares about their own safety/got put in the dungeon for the Battle of Hogwarts” thing.
I’m really curious as to where people are getting the idea that one of the traits of Slytherins is traditionalism. Slytherin did request that blood purity be taken into account when the Hat was sorting them but that’s not traditionalism. I’d say the Malfoy family represents Slytherin pretty well and they used to host parties with influential muggles right up until doing so fell out of fashion. To retain power they began shunning muggles and muggleborns. Ambition is the opposite of tradition.
I also find it interesting that people think that discrimination against Slytherins is the same as discrimination against Nazis. The argument that a lot of Death Eaters are Slytherins so Slytherins are dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed to share their opinions sounds quite a bit like the argument I hear from racists about how a lot of criminals are black so we shouldn’t treat them the same as white people.
Finally, a reminder that Hogwarts students are children. They will continue to grow and change post-Hogwarts. Deciding that someone’s House determines how they will act for their remaining lives is rather narrow-minded.
Were they specifically Ethan, though? Given the notable lack of head I felt like it was more just… shirtless dude torso in general (which feels like it would be more “sinful” in Joyce’s world).
Ooh…I thought it was an interpanel Ethan, but upon further review, the vision was while hugging Ethan, and powerful enough to obscure whatever Ethan was saying. So, could be either.
I enjoy being weird in some ways, but there are different kinds of weirdness and different ways I feel about them. For me, there’s like, “I got to class early and made a fort out of the tables and chairs,” which is a kind of weird which I am very much about. But then there’s “I’m having a lot of emotions right now and need to rub the corner of this brick building while trying to breathe in order to calm myself with the texture” kind of weird, and that one…like if no one’s around, I can feel okay about it. But say there’s someone sitting in their car in the parking lot right in front of that building corner, casually eating a salad– then that weird feels less okay.
And then there’s the “mentally comes up with a list of every possible pun in every given situation, including several that are racist, sexist, and/or Spanish” kind of weird, which I should really look into
What if he COULD hear what she said, & is simply doing 1 of those Earth “double-take” things? That might be a bit much for our young lady here, maybe prepare for the next panic face…
So she’s supposed to be getting Jacob with Sarah, but is getting interested herself. Would Sarah approve? Eh, probably, if it gets him away from Raidah I think it was. And maybe if Joyce “shares”… 😛
Mmm. On one hand the intent is good, on the other it kinda rubs me the wrong way? I’ve got a lot of ‘ooh special snowflakes think they’re so unique’ internalized when I was a teenager, which only made me feel worse, because if I’m not different in some fundamental way then the only option is that I’m just straight up worse than everyone else at being a human being. Lazy, entitled, spoiled, unempathetic and dismissive of others, etc etc etc.
Then I found out it was called ‘autistic’ and just the fact that yes, I’m legitimately weird in a way most people aren’t gave me a loooot of peace of mind.
And given that Joyce is referecing specifically autistic struggles here – trouble with change (there’s unfamiliarity with the ritual, there’s freaking out because satanic rites, and then there’s WHERE ARE THE ELECTRIC GUITARS), food pickiness…
Yeah, she’s weird. It’s okay to be weird, and it’s also okay to acknowledge that you are weird and it’s a fact.
Right now, Sarah is all “thank God I finally have a chance to study uninterrupted!” Not so much hiding from the world as taking advantage of a rare occasion when the world isn’t being thrust upon her.
This is one of the two things that puts the “quantum” in this quantum ship.
1) Has Joyce yet realized that she has a crush on Jacob? If not, will she ever come to realize it?
2) I’m much less sure about this, but I think Jacob has a crush on Joyce and doesn’t realize it? In his conscious mind, the fact that he’s dating Raidah means that other women, including Joyce, are at most friends. But his unconscious mind?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jacob realizes that Joyce checks of all the boxes on his girlfriend list just as well as Raidah does, and that he actually *likes* her more than he does Raidah.
Sometimes I wonder if his relationship with Raidah is as much about keeping the fangirls away as it is about affection. If it is, I’m sure it’s subconscious on his part, as I cannot see Jacob using anyone like that. But is the good feeling he gets when he’s around her affection, or safety?
Is it, though? Whether people feel they have to force themselves for Teddae (or anyone really) is beyond Teddae’s control. So I don’t think it’s bragging (humble or otherwise) if someone states they dislike it when that happens.
Aw, Joyce, no. Don’t feel that way about yourself. Jacob is great, but being normal and gorgeous is overrated and only exists when you’re outside looking in; never feel bad beside it.
And panel 3 Joyce is the most relatable she’s ever been. At least, she is too me. I constantly have fears like that because of my social anxiety, so panel 3 is my subconscious every single time I’ve ever gone on a date.
Yep, Danny’s more my type, but a dash of unexpected manliness would do him good. Like my boyfriend, he’s all sensitive, playful, intelligent, slim, tall, nerdy, and in unexpected moments on the dancefloor he moves in like woah or tips the waiter so smoothly or… why am I telling you this?
Let’s see. We’ve got Sarah, Joyce, Raidah, and Jacob in there. BUT we’ve also got Ethan salivating over Jacob and trying not to be noticed, and Ethan/Joyce was a thing at one point, so…. I think this is at least a love pentagram.
I don’t think Ethan counts? I think his attraction to Jacob was way, way more about him not wanting to be gay and nothing about Jacob being Jacob, beyond the fact that he was an attractive half-naked dude very much in Ethan’s personal space.
Unless I’ve forgotten something Ethan’s had no notable Jacob droolings that weren’t about his own issues with his sexuality.
What I got from the Alt Text is that Jacob is one of those guys admired from afar by many a woman and is blissfully unaware of it for some reason. Mostly because he doesn’t see what the big deal about himself is!
What -I- got from the alt-text is that Jacob is a fuckin’ PRO at suddenly getting selective deafness when it comes to awkward comments and obvious crushes that have not however been explicitly brought up yet.
He just… lets himself live in a world where all of those are Not A Thing and He Heard Nothing and Sure Let’s Talk About Something Else Sounds About Right.
I wish Joyce didn’t feel so embarrassed about her eating habits that she feels such a small thing makes her ‘unworthy’ of even being friends with Jacob. It makes me really hate her brother John, I’ve gotten the impression he’s the main culprit. Sure, her friends and parents have teased her about it, which wasn’t particularly nice of them, but they generally meant it in a light hearted fashion. But John actually seems to use it as an example of why she is immature whenever they get into arguments, telling himself he doesn’t need to listen to her lecture him when she is the one eating off the children’s menu. He even goes as far as to voice these opinions to others, such as Jocelyne, attempting to get others to join in on demeaning her.
This seems to be another example of how even though Joyce is overall a very confident character, she does seem to have some securities festering in the back of her mind, mostly due to her gender. The expression on her face when Dorothy told her she could pretend to be anything she wanted, and Joyce had said she wanted to be a fighter pilot makes me so sad. It was like she was being told she was magic or something, and with how quickly Joyce answered, she had definitely thought about this before. This despite the fact that in her world view, it would be an impossible dream. Add this up with the existence of thought crime in evangelical Christianity and she probably felt she was being rebellious for even having such dreams, making her feel guilty.
I have eating habits very similar to Joyce, so this attitude of his really peeves me off, and it really annoys me when people in this very comment section join in on teasing her for this. I’ve seen conversations where people go beyond making light hearted jokes and actually start analysing why people like Joyce are being silly for acting the way they do.
Joyce is how you say… relatable. I was either picked on or subtly emotionally abused by my family growing up about my various autistic/add traits, including poor time management and food selectiveness.
you can say it’s just teasing, but even seemingly harmless remarks build up over a lifetime and may make eventually hurt the person being teased so much that they instinctively feel guilty anytime they do anything.
Definitely relatable for me too not due to actual abuse or bullying but because I am autistic as well, and it is something that is just really noticeable when someone is very selective about food like I am.
But yeah, it isn’t cool to genuinely look down on people with food sensitivities/selectiveness for ordering off the kid’s menu, especially when that usually best appeals to people with such problems with food. Whether those are just personal quirks or due to an underlying condition.
(my personal Eden is Japanese restaurants. Rice, Definitely Boneless Fish, some seaweed, and definitely-not-boiled-oh-god vegetables? No boiled potatoes, no fried onions which people where I live seem weirdly obligated to put into -every single fucking dish ever invented-? I can actually order -anything I want- from the menu and pick based on curiosity or… like… actual taste… as opposed to ‘WILL I BE ABLE TO EAT THIS WITHOUT FIGHTING MY ENTIRE BRAIN FOR EACH BITE AND EITHER LEAVING MOST OF THE DISH UNTOUCHED OR UTILIZING MY PRO PICKING SKILLS AND LEAVING EXACTLY HALF AFTER AN HOUR OF SORTING IT OUT AND THE REST STILL NOT BEING TASTY BECAUSE IT WAS CONTIMINATED’)
(basically what I’m saying is that if you have witty remarks about why an anime lover would choose to eat in a Japanese restaurant and how weaboo it makes me, you’re up for an earful of ‘here is what autism is and here is how my personal food pickiness has fucked up my life and now please shut up kindly and realize just how far from anything to do with anime my motivation is’)
(I want to see Joyce do that)
They don’t need to spark a conversation, it IS called the “Comment” section, not the “Spark a intense dialog” section, so ease up, no need to be a jerk.
Second that. People in these comments need to realize that not every single comment requires a response. Sometimes people just want to say their piece and go. I’ve noticed most comments turn into some debate only slightly related to the OP’s original statement which always confused me. Healthy discourse is good but it doesn’t need to happen on every single comment thread (or determine whether a comment is good or not).
Both Sarah and Joyce are flawed. Joyce, however, is trying very hard to change, and is open to pushing her boundaries and growing as a person. Sarah seems too terrified to even consider doing that.
I’m wondering if Joyce and Jacob actually end up together (which I think would be adorable, honestly), they might get some well-meaning Christian racism from her family… or if that will be overwhelmed by the fact that he perfectly fits the J-name theme they have going.
Can someone help me out here? Was there a point previously where Joyce was crushing on Jacob? Now that we’re back to her acting as hypeman for Sarah, the conflict here seems a little out-of-the-blue…
the past… week? two weeks? idk time have been buildup of this via a bunch of little and not-so-little hints that Joyce likes him, if that’s what you mean?
She’s been crushing on Jacob for quite a while, but she’s officially on the job of getting Jacob for Sarah, because hitting on the guy your roommate and friend is crushing on is bad form.
Sarah of course has given up on getting him for herself and is deliberately working to set him up with Joyce.
While Joyce and Jacob have interacted multiple times in the past, she doesn’t appear to be crushing on him until she and Sarah run into him and Joe at Galsso’s in Bk7Ch2.
He validates her chastity, and then they have a friendly conversation about their religious beliefs after lunch. At this point, she is visibly very excited to have hung out with him that day.
But she’s repressing it, insistent on keeping to the previous plan of getting him and Sarah together.
I’m so uncomfortable because Jacob has a girlfriend and this whole subplot seems to be from the ‘a guy’s current girlfriend is evil/antagonist/not worthy’ trope that I hate in pop culture. Like I get Raidah is not all that likeable but still…
I also don’t think the story is gonna follow through on the trope. I’m just uncomfortable about where it’s at at the moment. All I was saying. And the whole ‘Sarah and Jacob or Joyce and Jacob’ which I fell into a bit too. I dunno. just PIDGEY HAS AMBIGUOUS AND CONFLICTING FEELS ya know?
So, we are going to have weeks of comedy shenanigans, drama and angst as Jacob slowly starts to develop feels for Joyce, despite her increasingly desperate (and amusingly cute) attempts to point him at Sarah. Then he gets blindsided when Raidah suddenly dumps him because she has fallen in love with Malaya, but it is all a ruse because she is just trying to get to spend more time with fuckface?
It ends with a high-speed chase involving the twins, a three-acre field, an actually-functioning Transformer, six Atrociraptor theropods, and the fulfillment of every shipping fic ever penned in this comments section before they are all ruthlessly dashed against the rocks, causing an utterance of DYW such as has never been heard before in human history.
Also, Dina and Riley meet and cause the cutepocalypse.
As someone who completely despises Raidah… I agree with you. I get the feeling the narrative’s gonna call out Joyce and Sarah for their behavior though.
I expect the narrative is going to call out Joyce and Sarah and Billie and Becky for trying to interfere and that if they do fall apart it will be for more genuine human reasons such as Raidah purposely portraying Sarah more negatively for her own agenda (which we did see, and it was about something she accepted as resolved to Sarah’s face too which makes it underhanded and reprehensible on a moral level).
I don’t see Raidah as inherently unlikable, personally? I mean, we’ve mostly seen her through the lens of Sarah, and Raidah really doesn’t like Sarah. But for good reason- remember that the situation with Dana was shown to us from Sarah’s perspective, but Raidah only has it from her own, which is that someone she cares about was screwed over because Sarah couldn’t be bothered to give Dana time to grieve. That’s not the whole picture- but it’s the picture Raidah has.
Beyond that, we haven’t seen enough of her to actually know who she is. She was clumsy with Dina; she accepted Sarah’s apology with grace; and she has a lot of self confidence in her relationship. But I don’t feel like that gives us a strong picture of her, outside of her relationships with other people.
Except instead of just avoiding Sarah and minding her own disliking-Sarah business, Raidah has set out to actively ruin her life.
That… was not exactly called for.
What Liliet said. Like Raidah isn’t by any means the worst person in the comic but she repeatedly refuses to see Sarah’s side of the story on that, even though Sarah by all means did what she thought was best (and probably saved Dana’s life). And like, goes up to people near Sarah, UNPROMPTED, and tells them to stop hanging out with her, like something a middle schooler does.
No, she used to do that. It still reflects pretty badly on her, but she did come to realize it was shitty and come to a truce.
And while the way she treated Sarah was just nasty, I understand how Raidah got that angry at her in the first place. Not only did the two of them enter the situation having very relevant information the other did not, but as things progressed, each of them was seeing a different side of Dana as she deteriorated.
Raidah seems to have known about Dana’s unsafe home from the start, from the start, but nothing about Sarah’s scholarship, much less how Sarah’s ability to stay in college completely hinged on maintaining her grades so she she wouldn’t lose it.
And while Sarah was seeing how bad Dana was getting while she was holed up in her room, and how much her attempts to accommodate her was beginning to impact her grades, Raidah only saw Dana while she had it in her to actually leave her room, when she might have seemed somewhat functional.
She couldn’t see what Sarah was seeing, OR how patient and understanding Sarah was being, even as her grades were slipping. On top of that, since Sarah and Raidah only really knew each other through Dana, (and because Sarah tends to be pretty guarded about her feelings) Raidah didn’t really see the toll it was taking on Sarah at all, or that Sarah did actually care about Dana’s well-being.
All Raidah really saw was that this crabby girl she TRIED to be friends with narced on her best friend and got her sent back to her shitty unsafe home, because apparently her grieving over the death of her mom was too much of an imposition.
Obviously, that’s not what happened at all, but given what she knew, I can’t really blame her for thinking it was. She didn’t get a chance to hear pretty much any of Sarah’s side of the story until after Dana was sent home, and after she was already angry, and it’s really hard to real your anger back and really listen to reason in a situation like that.
Even now that she seems to have accepted that maybe Sarah didn’t have it in for Dana after all, I completely understand how she just can’t be around her or think of her without getting a little mad.
Obviously, the right thing to do would’ve been to just cut ties and part ways from the start, instead of going on vindictive and petty crusade to sling verbal abuse at her at every opportunity (that I absolutely blame her for), but even while I think they could’ve been friends in other circumstances, I can’t blame Raidah for blaming or hating Sarah.
Aaaand there comes the autistic self-consciousness of “I THINK I AM DIFFERENT THAN OTHER PEOPLE IN A WEIRD WAY”
No, Joyce, I promise it’s okay, you belong anywhere you want to be <3
That thought there from Joyce, that’s not autism, that’s “teen”. And probably “human”.
That’s me, certainly through college. That’s everybody I know well enough to ask.
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Jacob would be Ravenclaw
Hufflepuff
He’s a lawyer, so Slytherin.
Well, law school student, you know what I mean
May he not study labour law? I don’t really know how it is in the USA.
In the US, for undergrad, someone like Jacob would be considered a pre law student. He’s probably a political science major on the pre law track, which means he anticipates going to law school once he graduates.
Meaning that he’s only pre-evil. 🙂
There’s not a house that wouldn’t want him. But would he want to be in Slytherin?
We’re ambitious, we’re cunning, we look out for one another, hecking MERLIN is one of us… Why wouldn’t he want to be in our house?
Well there is the whole “breeding ground for wizard Nazis” thing
Every house has created a dark wizard, (except Hufflepuff) and that Voldemort had followers from other houses, or do you think he was able to make an army solely from people who only got sorted Slytherin.
You mean an offhand remark from Hagrid about how “No wizard that ever went bad wasn’t a Slytherin,” might not be Completely accurate?
Woah.
No, but an overwhelming number of bad characters whose House ties we know being from Slytherin and very few good examples does say something. “breeding ground for wizard Nazis” seems accurate based on what we see. Doesn’t mean every single Slytherin and doesn’t mean no one from other Houses, but there is a definite pattern.
I’m pretty sure the vast majority of Death Eaters were Slytherin, because the books said it was easiest for Tom Riddle and his friends to recruit among their former house – they had friends, siblings, cousins, etc. still there. Plus, a lot of Slytherin qualities probably did make them susceptible to Death Eater ideology (traditionalism – particularly relating to blood purity, ambition, a certain disregard for the rules in your way, etc.)
That doesn’t mean ‘no non-evil Slytherins’ (we have Slughorn, Merlin, and dammit I just woke up so I can’t remember more off the top of my head – Snape, depending on your mileage) and that doesn’t mean ‘no evil everyone else’ (Peter Pettigrew was in Gryffindor, for example).
Look, bottom line, we can’t succumb to our anti-slytherin bias. We have to give them equal consideration and access, entertain that their points might be valid, and let them speak at our wizarding schools even if they’re actively recruiting and propagandizing for the Death Eaters and publicly drawing huge targets on attending squibs and mudbloods. Otherwise, we’re just as bad as they are.
[/sarcasm]
In the end, I think we have to accept the canon is flawed and the books themselves – well, the early ones – have an anti-Slytherin slant. :C They were originally written for younger kids, so there wasn’t nearly as much nuance in the first few as in the later ones. So you DO get things like Hagrid making an offhand comment about how Slytherin is The Evil House™ and Draco (who’s the wizard version of racist) and Snape (who has no even POSSIBLY redeeming qualities* revealed until way later) being the only major Slytherin representatives, period.
That makes discussions like these hard. Yeah, most of the Slytherin characters we can point out are absolute pieces of shit (Draco is the only one you’re shown any not-flashback nuance for who isn’t introduced too late in the series for it to really help – sorry Slughorn, but you’re not as influential a character as Draco and Snape LMAO), but… would that represent reality? I don’t think so. I assume in a REAL Hogwarts where it’s not being plotted out by a person there’d be many more Slytherins who were sorted there for completely benign reasons who’d cringe at their reputation and have to constantly be like “WE’RE NOT ALL LIKE THAT I SWEAR”
SO UH. Normally I’m just like WHAT DOES THE CANON SAY??? when these kind of fandom discussions come up, but I really do feel like the canon itself is biased and hhhhh man IDK this is hard. There are a ton of Death Eaters from Slytherin, yeah, but… I feel like labeling the house as the “WIZARD NAZI HOUSE” is also kinda unfair? ;~;
* Your mileage may vary on how redeeming Snape’s backstory really is, but at the very least it’s a realistic amount of nuance and it’s not a flat portrayal of an ~eeeeevil~ Slytherin. So even if you think he’s still kind of a shit person, it’s at least not as simple as HE’S A SLYTHERIN BECAUSE OF COURSE HE’S EVIL.
OH GOD I apologize for that wall of text. I didn’t realize how long it was. ;~; I guess it was just my LET’S ASSUME THE BEST OF EVERYONE Hufflepuff instinct kicking in LMAO
No apology necessary, it was an interesting read!
Technically Defense against the Dark Arts Teachers have a worse track record than Slytherins.
Well yes, but you really have to judge the fiction by what’s presented in it, not by how you think it really should be or even by what’s said about it.
There is no real Slytherin House. The only one that exists is the one we see in the books.
Think Show, Don’t Tell. We’re told the official qualifications for Slytherin and they don’t seem that bad, but we’re shown the House of Junior Death-Eaters. Slytherin being the place for the ambitious and cunning is an informed attribute. Slytherin being the place for pure blood bigots is what we see.
I guess that can be “the canon is flawed and the books themselves have an anti-Slytherin slant”, but I don’t even know what that means. Rowling is wrong about her world? You certainly can’t blame readers for seeing things as the author portrayed them.
That said, there are certainly examples of non-evil Slytherins and evil non-Slytherins, but that doesn’t contradict “breeding ground for wizard Nazis”. I’m sure there are some very fine people in both Houses.
” I don’t even know what that means. Rowling is wrong about her world?”
I think it means she’s wrong about *people*, that people in the real world who meet the criteria for Slytherin are not as bad as Slytherin was written to be. Which matters because people really like to sort real-world people (and fictional characters of other authors) into Hogwarts houses?
Or the official criteria (or the ones used to sort real world people) aren’t actually the ones that were used in the fictional world. There are hints all over the place that the Sorting Hat wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, it did seem to sort as much by family as anything – “Another Weasley. I know just what to do with you.”
It sometimes listens to the students and they’re all about the house’s reputations and, at eleven, not disappointing their parents.
Some hypothetical Slytherin, using the official criteria (and ignoring the founder’s whole blood purity thing) could be just fine. The one in the books? Training ground for junior Death Eaters.
Even if a few came out of it okay and some from other houses were just as bad.
another issue some fanfic pointed out is that it’s exceedingly unlikely that every new group of students will divide evenly over the four houses. what does the hat do if it randomly gets a batch that’s 50% hufflepuffs?
another fanfic had *nobody* getting sorted into slytherin for years after the last book, and then just one girl gets the whole slytherin house all to herself. (sadly it was in an epilogue, so there hasn’t been a chance to see that ridiculousness play out.)
Hufflepuff hasn’t produced any evil witchs or wizards that we “know” about…
Well, sure, my point was more that the official house criteria don’t HAVE to be bad, but in the context of the universe, it DOES produce people more likely to be death eaters, especially because traditionalism (especially about Blood purity) is also a Slytherin trait. I do agree with people that Slytherin doesn’t equal evil but you’re right that, as it stood, it WAS a breeding ground for Death Eaters.
something a lot of people seem to ignore, is that the books are from Harry’s pov. So naturally, the first books are going to be more childish black and white, Gryffindor, good, Slytherin, bad.
But as we get to see his perspective on the wizarding world grow, as he grows older, the same happens to his perspective on the houses. With him realizing the flaws not just in his own house, but in his own father and himself. Realizing that Draco isn’t evil, but instead just scared, and so on. The problem is that the books end, just as Harry is ready to leave school. And we only get a glimpse of him as an adult, where he’s come to accept that being a Slytherin doesn’t mean you’re evil.
I mean, it’s neat that he grows with regard to his hatecrush, but the source material is still pretty messed up about Slytherin. Y’know, with the whole “All the Slytherins left because they only cares about their own safety/got put in the dungeon for the Battle of Hogwarts” thing.
I’m really curious as to where people are getting the idea that one of the traits of Slytherins is traditionalism. Slytherin did request that blood purity be taken into account when the Hat was sorting them but that’s not traditionalism. I’d say the Malfoy family represents Slytherin pretty well and they used to host parties with influential muggles right up until doing so fell out of fashion. To retain power they began shunning muggles and muggleborns. Ambition is the opposite of tradition.
I also find it interesting that people think that discrimination against Slytherins is the same as discrimination against Nazis. The argument that a lot of Death Eaters are Slytherins so Slytherins are dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed to share their opinions sounds quite a bit like the argument I hear from racists about how a lot of criminals are black so we shouldn’t treat them the same as white people.
Finally, a reminder that Hogwarts students are children. They will continue to grow and change post-Hogwarts. Deciding that someone’s House determines how they will act for their remaining lives is rather narrow-minded.
Jacob’d be Thunderbird.
ILVERMORNY, REPRESENT!
awww Jacob is nice and Joyce is nice
They’re both nice.
Too nice.
Cue disaster.
Perfect avatar for this comment!
“Sarah is go great! I bet you could lift like five of her with your huge rippling biceps!”
“Though technically you’d probably be doing most of the lifting with your firm, chiseled pecs or your well-sinewed deltoids.”
“When you lift Sarah’s do you flex your very firm bum?”
“Make sure to pick her up using your tight, lean legs and not your rippling back!”
PreviousJoyce: “I can’t tell anyone that I get interpanel visions of naked Ethan torso.”
NowJoyce: “I can’t tell anyone that I’ve added Jacob to my visions.”
Were they specifically Ethan, though? Given the notable lack of head I felt like it was more just… shirtless dude torso in general (which feels like it would be more “sinful” in Joyce’s world).
Ooh…I thought it was an interpanel Ethan, but upon further review, the vision was while hugging Ethan, and powerful enough to obscure whatever Ethan was saying. So, could be either.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/belong-here/
The interpanel one, from the shower, is unidentified.
Panel 3 Joyce is the most I have ever related to Joyce.
I don’t usually relate to Joyce, but I kinda do with panel 3 too.
Literally me on my first date with my now-husband. And like Joyce I had no idea I was even really interested in him at first either.
Basically in my experience: Find someone else who finds your weirdness cute and also is kinda weird in their own charming way.
Embrace your weirdness. Let it flow through you. Together, we can rule the world.
– Sincerely, the local campus weirdo.
I enjoy being weird in some ways, but there are different kinds of weirdness and different ways I feel about them. For me, there’s like, “I got to class early and made a fort out of the tables and chairs,” which is a kind of weird which I am very much about. But then there’s “I’m having a lot of emotions right now and need to rub the corner of this brick building while trying to breathe in order to calm myself with the texture” kind of weird, and that one…like if no one’s around, I can feel okay about it. But say there’s someone sitting in their car in the parking lot right in front of that building corner, casually eating a salad– then that weird feels less okay.
And then there’s the “mentally comes up with a list of every possible pun in every given situation, including several that are racist, sexist, and/or Spanish” kind of weird, which I should really look into
Arson, murder, and cruzar la calle*?
*Is that proper? I never can tell if I’m bungling foreign languages.
Technically there is no word for jaywalking in Spanish because jaywalking is a uniquely American crime.
‘cruzar la calle’ seems to translate to ‘streetwalking’, which is an ENTIRELY different crime.
same.
It’s a good thing Jacob can’t hear the tiny type she’s using,in panel three.
What if he COULD hear what she said, & is simply doing 1 of those Earth “double-take” things? That might be a bit much for our young lady here, maybe prepare for the next panic face…
Alt-text says otherwise.
He’d probably miss the crush aspect and start gushing about no, how completely awesome she is and how he’s in awe of her and stuff.
Today is the day that your appropriate avatar is appropriate for everything you post.
I don’t know that the last panel is the saving throw Joyce thinks it is.
That’s the thing about the Sarah avatar. It doesn’t MATTER what I post. She’ll ALWAYS be the perfect avatar.
Counterpoint.
Not if you read all positivity as sarcasm!
Having reached Perfect Avatar status would make me happy* in one little phase of my life.
*Well, if I were using any other avatar.
Does the alt text say, he always misses the crush-aspect?
Maybe he hoped with Joyce, he could be friends with a women without her crushing out on him?
“Dangit, you too? I thought you were gay!”
“Wait, what!?”
catch me crying over joyce’s panel 3 comment like damn
That is a great “I will rule the world” face from Joyce in the last panel.
Nope, I have no idea what this feels like, moving on
So she’s supposed to be getting Jacob with Sarah, but is getting interested herself. Would Sarah approve? Eh, probably, if it gets him away from Raidah I think it was. And maybe if Joyce “shares”… 😛
Well…yes, Sarah would. That’s kinda become Sarah’s intent.
Hooking Joyce up with Jacob is now pretty much Sarah’s main plot.
Becky knows it, too.
Joyce is the one who hasn’t figured it out, yet.
Like. That was on-panel, man.
Jacob you should be able to read Joyce’s speech bubble in panel 3, you’re even wearing your glasses.
+1
Jacob continues to be too good and pure for this cast
I’m sure we’ll get to whatever his damage is soon!
And I’m sure you didn’t intend to be insensitive to victims of brain damage yet here we are
It’s a common turn of phrase!
*notices in dismay that the hacked Muzak has blown out speakers*
I have duct tape, tussin, some old chewing gum, and my leatherman. Let’s mcguyver this thing!
Surely you can hack the ringtone on one of the cell phones in the restaurant.
No, Joyce, NO! Any perfect person would AUTOMATICALLY need a weird person with them! It’s a trope! Odd couples! The straight man and the comic!
….
YesIknowthat’snotwhatshe’ssayingjustgivememyskitokay?
I got words for you Joyce: Nobody thinks they’re “normal”. That makes you just like everybody else.
I’ve met some people who thought they were normal. That’s about the best thing I can say about them.
Same here…
Mmm. On one hand the intent is good, on the other it kinda rubs me the wrong way? I’ve got a lot of ‘ooh special snowflakes think they’re so unique’ internalized when I was a teenager, which only made me feel worse, because if I’m not different in some fundamental way then the only option is that I’m just straight up worse than everyone else at being a human being. Lazy, entitled, spoiled, unempathetic and dismissive of others, etc etc etc.
Then I found out it was called ‘autistic’ and just the fact that yes, I’m legitimately weird in a way most people aren’t gave me a loooot of peace of mind.
And given that Joyce is referecing specifically autistic struggles here – trouble with change (there’s unfamiliarity with the ritual, there’s freaking out because satanic rites, and then there’s WHERE ARE THE ELECTRIC GUITARS), food pickiness…
Yeah, she’s weird. It’s okay to be weird, and it’s also okay to acknowledge that you are weird and it’s a fact.
Fffft, where even is sarah? Most likely hiding from the world in her room (the world sucks anyway). :p
Right now, Sarah is all “thank God I finally have a chance to study uninterrupted!” Not so much hiding from the world as taking advantage of a rare occasion when the world isn’t being thrust upon her.
I think the last we saw of Sarah was either brushing off Joe or helping Billie hose Dotty & Walky (I don’t remember which was more recent).
Panel 3 is making me ship these two even more.
This is one of the two things that puts the “quantum” in this quantum ship.
1) Has Joyce yet realized that she has a crush on Jacob? If not, will she ever come to realize it?
2) I’m much less sure about this, but I think Jacob has a crush on Joyce and doesn’t realize it? In his conscious mind, the fact that he’s dating Raidah means that other women, including Joyce, are at most friends. But his unconscious mind?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jacob realizes that Joyce checks of all the boxes on his girlfriend list just as well as Raidah does, and that he actually *likes* her more than he does Raidah.
Sometimes I wonder if his relationship with Raidah is as much about keeping the fangirls away as it is about affection. If it is, I’m sure it’s subconscious on his part, as I cannot see Jacob using anyone like that. But is the good feeling he gets when he’s around her affection, or safety?
Well, this just 100% confirms Joyce is down with the swirl–
JOYCE: “You mean Sarah! Sarah is down with the swirl!!”
…it’s not exactly a “swirl” here with Sarah involved instead of…
JOYCE: “SarahHeckingLovesSwirls!!!”
A swirly? Someone get Gary….
Gary is a worthless sack of shit, and his comic of origin is run by perverse scumbags whose other comiccs sexualise children.
As someone who has no idea what this reference is to, this sounds like a heck of a story?
Jacob’s good. I feel bad that this storyline’s happening to him
Are you a frictionless surface, Joyce, because you’re hella smooth.
Wow Joyce, are you infinitely differentiable, because you’re smooth
If you were any smoother, you’d be a power of 2
You’re so smooth your last name is Cooling
Math jokes are the best jokes.
Smooth as hell, like shark skin.
Joyce, is your µ approaching zero? Because you are smoooooth.
“Ha ha ha ha ha …. it’s funny because she’s like human sandpaper.”
-Raidah (about Sarah)
I am declaring my hatred for Panel 3 Joyce.
She’s too much like parts of myself that I hate, so collateral damage.
DAMMIT JOYCE! QUIT BEING MY FAULTS!
As I’ve said before, IMO, many readers’ reaction to their own past selves/behavior is what drives most of the Danny-hate. :p
Solidarity high five for people who don’t hate Danny!
yES! *fives go high!*
(I love Danny so much)
She’s too damned adorable to hate in that panel, though…
i can relate to Jacob so much in this strip. making people feel like they have to force themselves for me is a no-no.
Honestly that’s a borderline #humblebrag. (This isn’t a criticism, just an observation.)
Is it, though? Whether people feel they have to force themselves for Teddae (or anyone really) is beyond Teddae’s control. So I don’t think it’s bragging (humble or otherwise) if someone states they dislike it when that happens.
HAHA YES I WORRY ABOUT THIS.
Aw, Joyce, no. Don’t feel that way about yourself. Jacob is great, but being normal and gorgeous is overrated and only exists when you’re outside looking in; never feel bad beside it.
Yeah. Take Sal’s advice and to thine own self be true.
Face it Joyce, you wanna ride his balloon-pony.
I believe the canonical phrase is “you want him to give your tummy all of his thing.”
Pre-marital hanky-panky?
And panel 3 Joyce is the most relatable she’s ever been. At least, she is too me. I constantly have fears like that because of my social anxiety, so panel 3 is my subconscious every single time I’ve ever gone on a date.
Incoming love rhombus.
But really who wouldn’t fall for Jacob, apart from straight males?
Lesbians.
Dang, knew I forgot a group.
Aromantic asexuals
Right, right. The A’s.
Besides the examples listed, maybe people who are into more femme guys?
Yep, Danny’s more my type, but a dash of unexpected manliness would do him good. Like my boyfriend, he’s all sensitive, playful, intelligent, slim, tall, nerdy, and in unexpected moments on the dancefloor he moves in like woah or tips the waiter so smoothly or… why am I telling you this?
*raises hand* He’s okay, I guess, never seen the big deal.
Me lol.
He’d be good as a friend though.
Wait, only a rhombus?
Let’s see. We’ve got Sarah, Joyce, Raidah, and Jacob in there. BUT we’ve also got Ethan salivating over Jacob and trying not to be noticed, and Ethan/Joyce was a thing at one point, so…. I think this is at least a love pentagram.
I don’t think Ethan counts? I think his attraction to Jacob was way, way more about him not wanting to be gay and nothing about Jacob being Jacob, beyond the fact that he was an attractive half-naked dude very much in Ethan’s personal space.
Unless I’ve forgotten something Ethan’s had no notable Jacob droolings that weren’t about his own issues with his sexuality.
This isn’t a love pentagram. Gamers! is a love pentagram.
Ain’t nothin’ wrong with being weird. Weird people are beautiful and totally deserve somebody awesome like Jakes. Maybe even multiple somebodys.
*shouting angrily* Did’ja just call me fucking beautiful?
Yes <3
*continues shouting angrily* Thank ye kindly! You’re beautiful too!
Goddamnit Joyce.
well, I ship it.
also by Jacob’s face he knows what she said but just isn’t totally sure he heard right.
He did hear right.
Alt text seems to say otherwise?
What I got from the Alt Text is that Jacob is one of those guys admired from afar by many a woman and is blissfully unaware of it for some reason. Mostly because he doesn’t see what the big deal about himself is!
What -I- got from the alt-text is that Jacob is a fuckin’ PRO at suddenly getting selective deafness when it comes to awkward comments and obvious crushes that have not however been explicitly brought up yet.
He just… lets himself live in a world where all of those are Not A Thing and He Heard Nothing and Sure Let’s Talk About Something Else Sounds About Right.
No, that looks like the face of genuwine confusion. Although his eyebrows are conspicuously MIA…
He looks unexpectedly taken aback to me, which implies that he did hear it and just wasn’t expecting it.
If this were on a newpaper page his eyebrows would be two comics up.
And I could be persuaded that he did hear it, then gave Joyce the perfect opportunity to back out. He’s just that well-mannered.
Which only makes him more desirable.
“Nah, I couldn’t have heard what I thought I just heard. Joyce is WAAAY too amazing to be attracted to me.”
I wish Joyce didn’t feel so embarrassed about her eating habits that she feels such a small thing makes her ‘unworthy’ of even being friends with Jacob. It makes me really hate her brother John, I’ve gotten the impression he’s the main culprit. Sure, her friends and parents have teased her about it, which wasn’t particularly nice of them, but they generally meant it in a light hearted fashion. But John actually seems to use it as an example of why she is immature whenever they get into arguments, telling himself he doesn’t need to listen to her lecture him when she is the one eating off the children’s menu. He even goes as far as to voice these opinions to others, such as Jocelyne, attempting to get others to join in on demeaning her.
This seems to be another example of how even though Joyce is overall a very confident character, she does seem to have some securities festering in the back of her mind, mostly due to her gender. The expression on her face when Dorothy told her she could pretend to be anything she wanted, and Joyce had said she wanted to be a fighter pilot makes me so sad. It was like she was being told she was magic or something, and with how quickly Joyce answered, she had definitely thought about this before. This despite the fact that in her world view, it would be an impossible dream. Add this up with the existence of thought crime in evangelical Christianity and she probably felt she was being rebellious for even having such dreams, making her feel guilty.
I have eating habits very similar to Joyce, so this attitude of his really peeves me off, and it really annoys me when people in this very comment section join in on teasing her for this. I’ve seen conversations where people go beyond making light hearted jokes and actually start analysing why people like Joyce are being silly for acting the way they do.
<3
Hannah I love all your comments. I loved your comments about Hogwarts houses, and I love this comment too.
Agreed, I love this comment.
Also, too.
Joyce is how you say… relatable. I was either picked on or subtly emotionally abused by my family growing up about my various autistic/add traits, including poor time management and food selectiveness.
you can say it’s just teasing, but even seemingly harmless remarks build up over a lifetime and may make eventually hurt the person being teased so much that they instinctively feel guilty anytime they do anything.
Definitely relatable for me too not due to actual abuse or bullying but because I am autistic as well, and it is something that is just really noticeable when someone is very selective about food like I am.
But yeah, it isn’t cool to genuinely look down on people with food sensitivities/selectiveness for ordering off the kid’s menu, especially when that usually best appeals to people with such problems with food. Whether those are just personal quirks or due to an underlying condition.
(my personal Eden is Japanese restaurants. Rice, Definitely Boneless Fish, some seaweed, and definitely-not-boiled-oh-god vegetables? No boiled potatoes, no fried onions which people where I live seem weirdly obligated to put into -every single fucking dish ever invented-? I can actually order -anything I want- from the menu and pick based on curiosity or… like… actual taste… as opposed to ‘WILL I BE ABLE TO EAT THIS WITHOUT FIGHTING MY ENTIRE BRAIN FOR EACH BITE AND EITHER LEAVING MOST OF THE DISH UNTOUCHED OR UTILIZING MY PRO PICKING SKILLS AND LEAVING EXACTLY HALF AFTER AN HOUR OF SORTING IT OUT AND THE REST STILL NOT BEING TASTY BECAUSE IT WAS CONTIMINATED’)
(basically what I’m saying is that if you have witty remarks about why an anime lover would choose to eat in a Japanese restaurant and how weaboo it makes me, you’re up for an earful of ‘here is what autism is and here is how my personal food pickiness has fucked up my life and now please shut up kindly and realize just how far from anything to do with anime my motivation is’)
(I want to see Joyce do that)
Just don’t like these two together.
Wow, what insight. You’re really sparking a conversation there.
They don’t need to spark a conversation, it IS called the “Comment” section, not the “Spark a intense dialog” section, so ease up, no need to be a jerk.
Second that. People in these comments need to realize that not every single comment requires a response. Sometimes people just want to say their piece and go. I’ve noticed most comments turn into some debate only slightly related to the OP’s original statement which always confused me. Healthy discourse is good but it doesn’t need to happen on every single comment thread (or determine whether a comment is good or not).
No. No. We can’t have someone being wrong on the Internet.
Sides, you got the conversation that you wanted, just not about what you wanted >V
Joyce, the secret is, we’re all weird.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world that there was such a thing as “normal.”
You’re weird! And you’re weird! And you’re weird! EVERYBODY’S WEIRD!
After all, we’re All In Together.
Uh oooooh
spaghettios
Aw Jacob… you’re so sweet.
On an unrelated note I think the annoying video ads that kept messing with the scrolling are gone now (at least for me). Thanks!
I’m a hetero romantic male but, dang!, it is tough not falling for Jacob right now.
Joyce, I think that he heard you fine the first time. 😀
Now we are talking. Or not.
SARAH eats food that touches other food.
WITHOUT gagging, even.
Both Sarah and Joyce are flawed. Joyce, however, is trying very hard to change, and is open to pushing her boundaries and growing as a person. Sarah seems too terrified to even consider doing that.
She allows herself to try, sometimes. In itself a huge step forward.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/better-4/
Panel 5 Joyce is Anime!Joyce?! … B-b-baka!
And now I can’t unsee panel 4 Jacob as silently asking for a kiss … o.O
I’m wondering if Joyce and Jacob actually end up together (which I think would be adorable, honestly), they might get some well-meaning Christian racism from her family… or if that will be overwhelmed by the fact that he perfectly fits the J-name theme they have going.
[whispers] But so does Joe.
To be fair I wonder what would shock them more. A jew or a black catholic-like christian.
Yesss, yesss, eeeexcellent. I express ship this. I ship it via next-day air mail.
cue creep by radiohead
It’s ironic we’ ve Gone from Sarah and Jacob talking about how goofy Joyce is to Joyce and Jacob talking about how great Sarah is.
I thought the same
Oh Joyce, you’re good enough to sit at any table with anyone!
(Also, i’m shipping it so hard)
With steely determination, Joyce returns to the mission. She is pretty tough. And adorable.
“….and Sarah’s a Hufflepuff !!”
I almost spat water all over my screen because of you!
I thought she was a Ravenclaw?
Joyce pulls a “lord of Thingley” and desperately changes the subject.
Can someone help me out here? Was there a point previously where Joyce was crushing on Jacob? Now that we’re back to her acting as hypeman for Sarah, the conflict here seems a little out-of-the-blue…
the past… week? two weeks? idk time have been buildup of this via a bunch of little and not-so-little hints that Joyce likes him, if that’s what you mean?
She’s been crushing on Jacob for quite a while, but she’s officially on the job of getting Jacob for Sarah, because hitting on the guy your roommate and friend is crushing on is bad form.
Sarah of course has given up on getting him for herself and is deliberately working to set him up with Joyce.
While Joyce and Jacob have interacted multiple times in the past, she doesn’t appear to be crushing on him until she and Sarah run into him and Joe at Galsso’s in Bk7Ch2.
He validates her chastity, and then they have a friendly conversation about their religious beliefs after lunch. At this point, she is visibly very excited to have hung out with him that day.
But she’s repressing it, insistent on keeping to the previous plan of getting him and Sarah together.
Unlike then, we haven’t seen her hair-twirl today.
Yet.
Link!
Romans
We get the hair-twirl in the next strip. And Jacob’s admiration in the strip after that.
I’m so uncomfortable because Jacob has a girlfriend and this whole subplot seems to be from the ‘a guy’s current girlfriend is evil/antagonist/not worthy’ trope that I hate in pop culture. Like I get Raidah is not all that likeable but still…
When have you ever known Willis to do things so conventionally? Will is is better than that.
I also don’t think the story is gonna follow through on the trope. I’m just uncomfortable about where it’s at at the moment. All I was saying. And the whole ‘Sarah and Jacob or Joyce and Jacob’ which I fell into a bit too. I dunno. just PIDGEY HAS AMBIGUOUS AND CONFLICTING FEELS ya know?
So, we are going to have weeks of comedy shenanigans, drama and angst as Jacob slowly starts to develop feels for Joyce, despite her increasingly desperate (and amusingly cute) attempts to point him at Sarah. Then he gets blindsided when Raidah suddenly dumps him because she has fallen in love with Malaya, but it is all a ruse because she is just trying to get to spend more time with fuckface?
This is the best anti-conventionality. Let’s go with this.
It ends with a high-speed chase involving the twins, a three-acre field, an actually-functioning Transformer, six Atrociraptor theropods, and the fulfillment of every shipping fic ever penned in this comments section before they are all ruthlessly dashed against the rocks, causing an utterance of DYW such as has never been heard before in human history.
Also, Dina and Riley meet and cause the cutepocalypse.
As someone who completely despises Raidah… I agree with you. I get the feeling the narrative’s gonna call out Joyce and Sarah for their behavior though.
What they said, in every detail.
I expect the narrative is going to call out Joyce and Sarah and Billie and Becky for trying to interfere and that if they do fall apart it will be for more genuine human reasons such as Raidah purposely portraying Sarah more negatively for her own agenda (which we did see, and it was about something she accepted as resolved to Sarah’s face too which makes it underhanded and reprehensible on a moral level).
I don’t see Raidah as inherently unlikable, personally? I mean, we’ve mostly seen her through the lens of Sarah, and Raidah really doesn’t like Sarah. But for good reason- remember that the situation with Dana was shown to us from Sarah’s perspective, but Raidah only has it from her own, which is that someone she cares about was screwed over because Sarah couldn’t be bothered to give Dana time to grieve. That’s not the whole picture- but it’s the picture Raidah has.
Beyond that, we haven’t seen enough of her to actually know who she is. She was clumsy with Dina; she accepted Sarah’s apology with grace; and she has a lot of self confidence in her relationship. But I don’t feel like that gives us a strong picture of her, outside of her relationships with other people.
Except instead of just avoiding Sarah and minding her own disliking-Sarah business, Raidah has set out to actively ruin her life.
That… was not exactly called for.
What Liliet said. Like Raidah isn’t by any means the worst person in the comic but she repeatedly refuses to see Sarah’s side of the story on that, even though Sarah by all means did what she thought was best (and probably saved Dana’s life). And like, goes up to people near Sarah, UNPROMPTED, and tells them to stop hanging out with her, like something a middle schooler does.
No, she used to do that. It still reflects pretty badly on her, but she did come to realize it was shitty and come to a truce.
And while the way she treated Sarah was just nasty, I understand how Raidah got that angry at her in the first place. Not only did the two of them enter the situation having very relevant information the other did not, but as things progressed, each of them was seeing a different side of Dana as she deteriorated.
Raidah seems to have known about Dana’s unsafe home from the start, from the start, but nothing about Sarah’s scholarship, much less how Sarah’s ability to stay in college completely hinged on maintaining her grades so she she wouldn’t lose it.
And while Sarah was seeing how bad Dana was getting while she was holed up in her room, and how much her attempts to accommodate her was beginning to impact her grades, Raidah only saw Dana while she had it in her to actually leave her room, when she might have seemed somewhat functional.
She couldn’t see what Sarah was seeing, OR how patient and understanding Sarah was being, even as her grades were slipping. On top of that, since Sarah and Raidah only really knew each other through Dana, (and because Sarah tends to be pretty guarded about her feelings) Raidah didn’t really see the toll it was taking on Sarah at all, or that Sarah did actually care about Dana’s well-being.
All Raidah really saw was that this crabby girl she TRIED to be friends with narced on her best friend and got her sent back to her shitty unsafe home, because apparently her grieving over the death of her mom was too much of an imposition.
Obviously, that’s not what happened at all, but given what she knew, I can’t really blame her for thinking it was. She didn’t get a chance to hear pretty much any of Sarah’s side of the story until after Dana was sent home, and after she was already angry, and it’s really hard to real your anger back and really listen to reason in a situation like that.
Even now that she seems to have accepted that maybe Sarah didn’t have it in for Dana after all, I completely understand how she just can’t be around her or think of her without getting a little mad.
Obviously, the right thing to do would’ve been to just cut ties and part ways from the start, instead of going on vindictive and petty crusade to sling verbal abuse at her at every opportunity (that I absolutely blame her for), but even while I think they could’ve been friends in other circumstances, I can’t blame Raidah for blaming or hating Sarah.
Becky: “DINA, DINA, THERE IS AN ARTICLE HERE YOU JUST HAVE TO READ!!!!”
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/new-fossil-may-be-first-evidence-that-some-dinosaurs-roosted-like-modern-birds/
Damn, now you have me picturing T. Rex trying to sit on a tree branch.
“can I have your babies?”
“Hmm?”
“I SAID I HAVE RABIES.”
Aaaand there comes the autistic self-consciousness of “I THINK I AM DIFFERENT THAN OTHER PEOPLE IN A WEIRD WAY”
No, Joyce, I promise it’s okay, you belong anywhere you want to be <3
That thought there from Joyce, that’s not autism, that’s “teen”. And probably “human”.
That’s me, certainly through college. That’s everybody I know well enough to ask.
Am I muted for downing on Giz? Fine, I’ll keep it to myself in future.
What?