...so...
These two get together not because they like each other, not because they matured enough to face their issues, not because they both deserve it. They do so because she's a liar and he's afraid of telling his brother the truth.
They do it because Joyce decided to be selfish and stupid and acted on her own horniness, and Jacob took a look at that and thought "Yeah, I like that", and because he was afraid that his brother would judge him, first for Raidah, then for lying about Raidah.
And their reward is that they finally get together.
...if the intention was making the nicest couple in the comic the least likable one, then good job, Willis. Can we have Sarah show up and blow this thing all to hell?
If anything, Sarah would approve. She likes Jacob yes, but it was her who got Joyce to start going after Jacob so they could get him to dump Raidah. The plan specifically called for Jacob breaking up with Raidah and even falling for Joyce herself or Joyce directing him towards Sarah. It would be bittersweet for Sarah obviously since she likes Jacob, but seeing Raidah suffer would probably counterbalance it for her.
If anything, Joyce just got Sarah an amazing birthday present.
Ya gotta remember Lovecraft, not only are most of the main cast just barely adults, more accurately still teenagers transitioning to adults, they're all kinda selfish and/or warped in their own ways. I think the only ones that aren't are Sal, Dina, Lucy, and Ethan.
- Amber has her issues and has been discussed at length.
- Becky is The Fool in the narrative and very impulsive.
- Carla is purposefully loud and obnoxious a lot of time.
- Dorothy is focused on her future career to the detriment of any relationships she has that she ends up ignoring not only others feelings but her own health in the process.
- Billie is a recovering alcoholic and acted a lot like an Alpha Bitch still with an Inferiority Superiority Complex.
- Joyce I went into an entire post analyzing her.
- Malaya is.... Malaya.
- Ruth is a recovering alcoholic with a metric fuckton of issues from her home life leading to her being abusive to her floor mates earning her the nickname Ruthless.
- Sarah is The Cynic thanks to her freshman year and gladly got Joyce to help her with hurting Raidah after what Raidah did to her.
- Danny is.... in simplest terms a complete doofus.
- Walky is a manchild unable to even act on the "man" part yet.
- Jacob is so obsessed with meeting Harrison's standards as well as his own severe standards he not only keeps a checklist in what his girlfriend should be like, he went along with this entire thing just to impress Harrison.
- Joe is an Ethical Slut in the loosest definition of the term.
- Mike is.... Mike.
Yeah, most of the cast tends to be either stupid, selfish, bogged down by their issues, or just plain horrible. Granted, the last one only really applies to Malaya and Mike.
Edited by RebelFalcon on Oct 19th 2019 at 9:38:38 AM
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
Yeah, but then you'd imagine the narrative would lead them to grow from that, not reward screwed-up behaviour by giving both parties exactly what they want.
This whole story just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I think that an angle of this that hasn’t been discussed yet is that this could very well be him not latching onto Joyce as “my brother likes you so therefore you’re a better option than Raidah”, and it could be closer to him acting on his own impulsive attraction to Joyce...
Which should be even more worrying, if some of his traits from Shortpacked still apply to this version of Jacob. Jacob acting on attraction based impulse could be a very bad thing for him.
C-E-O-3, H-N-I-C
As has been remarked several times, the comic ain't called Smartening of Age.
I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117
Well, no matter where you stand on this issue, at least we can all appreciate that Sarah just got the best birthday gift ever.
Edited by Kayeka on Oct 19th 2019 at 4:22:17 PM
Fanatical Dabbler
I suspect that Sarah may end up conflicted about this. Yes, she (justifiably) hates Raidah, and she's planned towards something like this in the past; however, she's also consistently been shown to have the strongest actual moral sense in the cast, and to have backed down from taking easy shots when she realised that this involved doing something wrong. If she learns that Joyce won this by lying like a rug and manipulating other people, I can imagine the taste of victory turning to ashes for her.
= Spindriver =
Fanatical Dabbler
(Also, the Flying Spaghetti Monster alone knows where the Joyce/Jacob thing may go. Apart from anything else, Jacob's morality seems to tend towards sexual abstinence, whereas, as Becky has observed, Joyce's biggest problem of the moment is that she's horny.)
= Spindriver =
This whole story just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Also, because I've yet to Archive Binge, what did Raidah do to Sarah? I know from what past comics I have read that Sarah was setting up Joyce to steal Jacob away, whether Joyce knew it or not, but I don't recall ever seeing why she was trying to.
Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 19th 2019 at 8:42:49 AM
C-E-O-3, H-N-I-C
The short version: Sarah had a dealer roommate that everyone liked, including Raidah. A relative of hers died, she wasn't handling it well, so Sarah called her dad and said as much, and he pulled her out of school.
The problem is, she was putting on a brave face for roughly everyone else, so Raidah was all "you got her kicked out of school cause you're an antisocial bitch" to Sarah.
So here we are.
I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117Don't forget that after that she became openly hostile with Sarah and seems determined to make sure Sarah is constantly reminded of Dana and refuses to let her be happy.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
To clarify, between ![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
and the character sheet I'm looking at, Sarah got her roommate pulled from school? Because from the description it's hard to pick out what's referring to Sarah and what's referring to the roommate.
Yes. Sarah told her roommate’s family that the roommate wasn’t doing well, the family pulled the roommate from school, and now Raidah hates Sarah for, in her eyes, manipulating events to kick the roommate out of school.
In basic terms, Raidah thinks Dana did nothing wrong and that Sarah is entirely at fault.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
C-E-O-3, H-N-I-C
DANA was the roomie's name. I just remembered it.
I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117
Yeah, this is important to emphasize. Early in the comic Raidah was openly nasty to Sarah when the later mostly kept to herself (as she does). Sarah only started match the hostilities latter.
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
It occurs to me that Danny is in perfect position to Danny up this storyline without even knowing it by revealing the truth about Jacob/Raidah/Joyce to Harrison.
The Wanderer
Professional Forum Ninja
Also, I knew Carla was that tall, but to see her compared to another tall character is still kinda mind boggling.
Edited by tclittle on Oct 19th 2019 at 11:40:37 AM
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
Carla is tol. This is true. But she also wears roller blades most of the time which makes her even extra tol.
Carla's about to tell Harrison the truth by accident, isn't she? I mean, it's what she does now.
For free. Or cookies. Preferably cookies.
Hell yeah, more Carla!
If that's the case, her new job description should be Spanner in the Works.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
Fucking hell, that was a brutal speech.
And with that alone, my opinion of this arc has suddenly done a complete 180.
One might think that makes past me a fool, but I find that with a comic like this, immediate, day-to-day reactions matter as well, so I'm still counting myself as slightly dissatisfied with how the arc progressed, even if this is an absolutely superb conclusion to what's been happening.
That seems a wise move just in general where comments sections are concerned.
Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 19th 2019 at 1:24:20 PM