Your icon is in today’s comic. As you have been using it (or a variant) for a while now, I’m trying to figure out if:
A. It’s an updated variant of an image somewhere else in the comic.
B. Willis is reusing his artwork.
C. Willis is intentionally referencing and/or trolling you.
D. You are in fact a time traveler as your name might suggest.
Check out the rest of the tree, all of the twigs are somewhat larger and clearly colored brown. The line is black, and also not connected to the tree. It’s a bit too small to *definitively* say it’s a smile, but it seems pretty likely given context. :>
“All right,” said the Joyce; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
Is this symbiotic? Or mutually parasitic? If it is a closed system and the entropy is low, it might be good for very long time! What are the energy needs of a psyche?
Possibly not. The two people who kidnapped her got killed. The guy who tried to rape her got hella stabbed. She’s most likely been in some therapy along with everyone else.
I hope she’s doing better
Kidnappers aside, it did seem like she was doing better with it as last semester progressed. Combined with the time skip, it’s possible that she’s either healed, or has developed some (hopefully healthy) coping mechanisms.
But you know, *time skip*, so who knows what’s going on now.
I lost honestly all interest at this point; Joyce had a gun pointed at her, roofied and she still sees good in Sarah. She still cares about her friends. And after everything; Joyce still has the time of day and care to say goodbye to Sarah when leaving. Even with a smile. At least fake a smile back.
Sarah’s shown Joyce open kindness and support pretty frequently. She’s snarky and sour and closed off, but she does what she can, and Joyce for her part has shown that she’s aware of how Sarah works and doesn’t mind. Some people just can’t manage certain types of expression easily, and that tends to be fine with some understanding.
Just because she doesn’t smile doesn’t mean it’s not obvious that she cares. Could she afford to say it out loud now and again? Sure. But Sarah knows (or should know) that Joyce cares and Joyce knows that Sarah cares.
Traumatic events are not equivocal, and no two people should be expected to respond to them the same.
Comparing someone else’s response to stressors or tragedies to another person’s is not cool. Because you are telling someone, “You aren’t good enough because you can’t deal with your problems like this other person.”
Sarah has shown amazing emotional growth in the last sixish months. She never would have even admitted to feeling left out before.
Joyce is aware of how Sarah operates, and even saying, “Get inside, you’ll be late” is a show of her caring about another person, instead of just ignoring them.
No, it’s not the fastest progress, but just because Joyce is all sunshine and rainbows through trauma doesn’t mean Sarah has to be.
If Sarah were making no progress, you would have a point. But she is, albeit slowly (and without professional help that all the characters in this damn strip need).
I think that the biggest shock that Sarah has ever experienced in her life is the realisation that Joyce’s kind and loving nature isn’t performance: It’s who she really is.
I’m so done with Sarah’s attitude. You have people who love and give a fuck about you and would worry tremendously. Stop acting as if you must be the stereotypical rigid person who doesn’t have any care for you. You literally knew these people for a long period of time. Even in comic book serialization; that’s a long time.
I said this elsewhere, but just to reiterate, it seems less like attitude and more like inability to express in the same bright, open ways Joyce does. Sarah still shows kindness and support in her own ways, and Joyce seems pretty well-aware of how she works, not seeming to mind.
Agreed. Sarah has a hard time expressing her positive emotions. Joyce can annoy her but I suspect that there are some times when Sarah is basically running away so Joyce doesn’t see her cry.
As someone who relates to Sarah a lot I just want to say that part of the issue is we can see Sarah’s thoughts and they tend to be negative but are almost certainly not directed at anyone or malicious. I’ve often been referred to by strangers or acquaintances as “cold” or “insensitive” because I don’t often show emotion or accidentally let a strange expression cross my face while in thought. Most of my close friends, on the other hand, consider me a “rock” because of apparent control of my emotions and know something is particularly wrong when I do get emotional. Suffice to say, most if not all of Sarah’s “attitude” is likely meant as defensive than offensive and certainly not as offensive as some other attitudes in this comic.
Sorry I can’t find them right now, but several studies have shown that in a couple, it takes ten or more positive contributions to emotionally rebuild trust for *each* negative emotional contribution.
I would posit that a similar situation exist for life in general, so for aomeone like Sarah (or myself) it’s not about just how these people are being consistently nice (for now) but that she’s lived a life of betrayal and hurt leading up to that time. Frankly, that Sarah is even voicing to herself an awareness that she felt a bit hurt by the lack of a goodbye implies that she is openning up. I don’t think she would even have noticed the lack of a goodbye in September.
Ah, it wasn’t too hard to find. This article cites a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative contributions, but it still shows that it’s harder to build trust than to throw it away. So if a person is living with a large debt (or worse a persistent deficit), it’s going to take a lot of work to help them find trust in people.
Speaking as a curly-haired person: could be neither! The bandana smoothed Sarah’s curls out a little, so that her hair seemed longer. Without the bandana, her curls can tighten up, making them appear shorter. It’s called shrinkage.
Or Willis could be artistically representing a twist-out look – again same length, just a different style.
Whatever it is, I like it.
“Also, this isn’t a smile! It’s a Grimace! A pained grimace, that I was suppressing while I was around you idiots, to be polite! And I’m NOT giggling! Those are bubbles of spite emerging from my chest! SPITE!!”
I was messing with you. If you google “tear-drinking monster”, Google sees ‘drink’ and ‘monster’ and sends you a million links about monster energy drinks.
I know of no such folktale. But there could easy be one. The monster inflicts misery on people to enjoy their tears, but is defeated when tricked into drinking the wrong sort of tears.
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Best sisters ever.
Goodbye. And Sarah was never seen again.
She has class with Prof. “Chuck” Cunningham.
“I’m not from ‘America’; I’m from VIRGINIA.”
Unfortunately I’ve met people who unironically say that.
Sarah: “DAMN IT I JINXED IT”
It’d a weird day when you aren’t first.
Ana is always first. Even when she isn’t.
Your icon is in today’s comic. As you have been using it (or a variant) for a while now, I’m trying to figure out if:
A. It’s an updated variant of an image somewhere else in the comic.
B. Willis is reusing his artwork.
C. Willis is intentionally referencing and/or trolling you.
D. You are in fact a time traveler as your name might suggest.
Willis does preview images frequently, so whenever Ana updates her gravatar it’s almost always something from the future. 😛
…. *two-hour internal debate about whether or not doing that counts as anachronistic*
gotta admit that changing it sucks, for reasons
Oooh are we gonna see Jacob next?
Good to see Joyce being her Joycey self.
Why do I get the feeling she’s smiling behind that tree branch?
I know she is.
She knows that if no one can see it, no one can prove she was smiling.
Im on my phone, i zoomed in, you can most definitely see it and she most definitely is.
I’m pretty sure that’s a twig on the underside of the branch.
Check out the rest of the tree, all of the twigs are somewhat larger and clearly colored brown. The line is black, and also not connected to the tree. It’s a bit too small to *definitively* say it’s a smile, but it seems pretty likely given context. :>
Smile confirmed.
“All right,” said the Joyce; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
Good catch, everyone!
that was cute
Glad for the last panel and note, otherwise it’d look like there’s just no winning with her.
Oh ♥️ she’s a happy big sis
It used to be your town
It used to be my town too
You never know till it all falls down
That somebody loves you…
This is so cute.
Joyce is growing on Sarah (and vice-versa). Love to see that.
Is this symbiotic? Or mutually parasitic? If it is a closed system and the entropy is low, it might be good for very long time! What are the energy needs of a psyche?
Digressing, does Joyce still issues with being outside alone?
Possibly not. The two people who kidnapped her got killed. The guy who tried to rape her got hella stabbed. She’s most likely been in some therapy along with everyone else.
I hope she’s doing better
Kidnappers aside, it did seem like she was doing better with it as last semester progressed. Combined with the time skip, it’s possible that she’s either healed, or has developed some (hopefully healthy) coping mechanisms.
But you know, *time skip*, so who knows what’s going on now.
“It was rhetorical. Put your hand down Booster!”
This is super cute
So what fucked up thing are we headed for that we needed a quick breather
Math class.
Dear god
I’m sure we can integrate a breather into math class.
I beg to differ, sir or madam.
I’m not wrong, but I approve of your differential tone.
Besides, I’m sure we can limit ourselves and converge smoothly to a set of calm and stable states.
I’m sure we can squeeze ourselves into that, yes. But if we jump in too eagerly, we might end up in the l’hospital.
Not as a rule.
This comment thread sure went off on a tangent.
Okay, but just a little one…
Meth class?
Mike comes back as a zombie to attempt to eat everyone’s brains? And remind them that he banged their moms when he was alive?
I’ll take one of your universe, please.
Why would he have needed to be alive for that?
Don’t be bigoted towards the metabolically challenged.
Sarah’s my favorite.
Stupid Joyce caring and supporting makes it really hard for Sarah to be grumpy about not being cared for or supported.
You’ve got to wonder just how little love Sarah has had in her life that Joyce is just so continually surprising to her.
I lost honestly all interest at this point; Joyce had a gun pointed at her, roofied and she still sees good in Sarah. She still cares about her friends. And after everything; Joyce still has the time of day and care to say goodbye to Sarah when leaving. Even with a smile. At least fake a smile back.
Sarah’s shown Joyce open kindness and support pretty frequently. She’s snarky and sour and closed off, but she does what she can, and Joyce for her part has shown that she’s aware of how Sarah works and doesn’t mind. Some people just can’t manage certain types of expression easily, and that tends to be fine with some understanding.
this
Just because she doesn’t smile doesn’t mean it’s not obvious that she cares. Could she afford to say it out loud now and again? Sure. But Sarah knows (or should know) that Joyce cares and Joyce knows that Sarah cares.
Traumatic events are not equivocal, and no two people should be expected to respond to them the same.
Comparing someone else’s response to stressors or tragedies to another person’s is not cool. Because you are telling someone, “You aren’t good enough because you can’t deal with your problems like this other person.”
Sarah has shown amazing emotional growth in the last sixish months. She never would have even admitted to feeling left out before.
Joyce is aware of how Sarah operates, and even saying, “Get inside, you’ll be late” is a show of her caring about another person, instead of just ignoring them.
No, it’s not the fastest progress, but just because Joyce is all sunshine and rainbows through trauma doesn’t mean Sarah has to be.
If Sarah were making no progress, you would have a point. But she is, albeit slowly (and without professional help that all the characters in this damn strip need).
I hate people. I also hate the I love people.
We thought you were dead!
It’s not like I wanted a goodbye or anything, baka!
Tsundarah.
Aw, what a cute strip to come out on my birthday! Thanks David, Sarah, and Joyce!
Happy Birthday random DoA reader!
Happy birthday! I agree that this is wonderfully cute!
Her heart grew three sizes that day. Then immediately shrank six, imploding into a black hole from which no love could escape. The End. -SAO Abridged
Gotta love SAO Abridged
That’s what happens when you exceed the Chandrasekhar limit. *nods sadly*
You’re confusing density with size. If you don’t exceed the Chandrasekhar limit, you are destined to become a white dwarf.
So, a short, white Sarah? Would Joyce call her ‘little sister’, then?
Cuteness overload!
I think that the biggest shock that Sarah has ever experienced in her life is the realisation that Joyce’s kind and loving nature isn’t performance: It’s who she really is.
I’m so done with Sarah’s attitude. You have people who love and give a fuck about you and would worry tremendously. Stop acting as if you must be the stereotypical rigid person who doesn’t have any care for you. You literally knew these people for a long period of time. Even in comic book serialization; that’s a long time.
I said this elsewhere, but just to reiterate, it seems less like attitude and more like inability to express in the same bright, open ways Joyce does. Sarah still shows kindness and support in her own ways, and Joyce seems pretty well-aware of how she works, not seeming to mind.
thank you, this is what i wanted to say, but worded better than i could have.
Agreed. Sarah has a hard time expressing her positive emotions. Joyce can annoy her but I suspect that there are some times when Sarah is basically running away so Joyce doesn’t see her cry.
You should love people as they are, not as you think they should be.
Warts and all. Particularly if you have a wart fetish.
As someone who relates to Sarah a lot I just want to say that part of the issue is we can see Sarah’s thoughts and they tend to be negative but are almost certainly not directed at anyone or malicious. I’ve often been referred to by strangers or acquaintances as “cold” or “insensitive” because I don’t often show emotion or accidentally let a strange expression cross my face while in thought. Most of my close friends, on the other hand, consider me a “rock” because of apparent control of my emotions and know something is particularly wrong when I do get emotional. Suffice to say, most if not all of Sarah’s “attitude” is likely meant as defensive than offensive and certainly not as offensive as some other attitudes in this comic.
Sorry I can’t find them right now, but several studies have shown that in a couple, it takes ten or more positive contributions to emotionally rebuild trust for *each* negative emotional contribution.
I would posit that a similar situation exist for life in general, so for aomeone like Sarah (or myself) it’s not about just how these people are being consistently nice (for now) but that she’s lived a life of betrayal and hurt leading up to that time. Frankly, that Sarah is even voicing to herself an awareness that she felt a bit hurt by the lack of a goodbye implies that she is openning up. I don’t think she would even have noticed the lack of a goodbye in September.
Ah, it wasn’t too hard to find. This article cites a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative contributions, but it still shows that it’s harder to build trust than to throw it away. So if a person is living with a large debt (or worse a persistent deficit), it’s going to take a lot of work to help them find trust in people.
https://nobaproject.com/modules/positive-relationships
Tsundere Sarah.
As I said above: Tsundarah.
Is that a tiny little smile in the last panel?
Did Sarah get dreads or did she just cut her hair?
Speaking as a curly-haired person: could be neither! The bandana smoothed Sarah’s curls out a little, so that her hair seemed longer. Without the bandana, her curls can tighten up, making them appear shorter. It’s called shrinkage.
Or Willis could be artistically representing a twist-out look – again same length, just a different style.
Whatever it is, I like it.
What if Billie is an undercover investigator journalist pretending to be Asher’s girlfriend due to Sal’s tip?
I honestly don’t think that Billie is that good an actress.
She’ll come to the conclusion that Asher is Amazi-Girl.
I suggested this days ago, so I’m in.
Doooh Joyce that was sweet.
And Sarah that was sweet in return.
I love these moments.
“Also, this isn’t a smile! It’s a Grimace! A pained grimace, that I was suppressing while I was around you idiots, to be polite! And I’m NOT giggling! Those are bubbles of spite emerging from my chest! SPITE!!”
“…They sound very similar.”
I thought Grimace was purple?
Don’t you hate it when someone ruins your cynical internal monolouge by being genuinely nice?
In order to keep its source of nourishment from drying up completely, the tear-drinking monster must occasionally surrender a drop of joy.
> the tear-drinking monster
You mean Willis?
A folktale.
Google is my friend.
“Willis is just a folktale”? Well I don’t believe that!
I was messing with you. If you google “tear-drinking monster”, Google sees ‘drink’ and ‘monster’ and sends you a million links about monster energy drinks.
I know of no such folktale. But there could easy be one. The monster inflicts misery on people to enjoy their tears, but is defeated when tricked into drinking the wrong sort of tears.
Awwww♡
Joyce, you’re a wonderful person regardless of what universe you are depicted in.
a pleasant surprise
me, chanting: joyce/sarah joyce/sarah joyce/sarah
same
Sarah is actually touched! Her permanent scowl is gone…. she actually looks soft!!
not to be controversial but they should kiss