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Take my imaginary upvote. And you’re not the only one wanting DoA on the big or little screen. The big problem is going to be getting the right VAs for the speaking parts.
Right? Raidah comes off like Pizzazz trying to drop a lighting rig on the Holograms because that’s what the plot demands. It’s all too dumb to be realistic.
And then I remember that “too dumb to be realistic” is kind of the timeline I’m living in.
i don’t think sarah even cares that he’s the dean’s son, not like it’d be ‘useful’ now other than putting in a good word but other than ‘needing’ connections or so in teh future i’d hope she’d wanna earn her own spot in the law school world or so
This is why Sarah is a better person than Raidah even if they have both done some bad things. Raidah would have sabotaged her own relationship with her own hunk once he realized a) his family wouldn’t approve of someone who doesn’t go to their church b) his family would have instinctively recoiled from her naked social climbing and ass-kissing c) she didn’t actually know him or like him or enjoy his company.
Yeah, he probably thought he was happy with Raidah (I’m sure she was quite good at the physical side of the relationship), but as soon as Jacob’s brother complimented him on not being a carbon copy of himself (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/aslongas/), he realized that Raidah wasn’t really what he wanted.
Raidahs not the type to march right up to them and start being messy. That’d make her look unequivocally in the wrong to Tony. She’s more slick than that, she needs a plan
Telling the Dana story backfires, as Reasonable, Responsible Tony thinks that Sarah was right to call the girl’s family to get her help, and smoking (at the time at least) illegal substances on campus is bad.
Raidah knows she is the arbiter of reality. What she decides isn’t possible, isn’t possible. This is why she knew for certain that Sarah overreacted in contacting Dana’s father, because Raidah knew that Dana’s problems *couldn’t* be that bad.
Aight but, upon lack of evidence that Dana going back to her dad being bad, I will assume that it was just Raidah being a massive raging asswipe.
Like, every single thing we’ve seen of Raidah for years now has shown that she doesn’t care about “friends”, she cares about connections. One of the very first things she told Sarah back when they were “friendly” was that being at university was more about building up their connections rather than getting a degree, that without connections, she’d just be an overqualified burger flipper.
“Dana is in a better place.”
“Not according to Dana, last I checked.”
Nothing about her being unsafe at home. I’d be fuckin miserable if I had to move back home from college and would complain like all hell, but it wouldn’t mean it was worse than being at suicide risk.
We literally only have Raidah’s word that Dana’s parents aren’t safe for her. Which, I’m willing to buy it, but it’s also entirely possible Dana’s private Hell is just not having access to powerful people and that’s Raidah’s worst nightmare.
What’s funny is, I think Dana was Carl‘s friend, not Raidah’s. Carl is the one who’s confident Dana is going to just bounce back just like those other times her mom died; Raidah has no comment. Of course nobody but Sarah has any idea Dana is getting stoned around the clock, but Raidah seems especially clueless. She was never there when Dana needed help, she’s only ever been giving a shit when it comes to bothering Sarah.
I mean, here we see her actively scheming against Dean Junior. Working with Jennifer Drama Hurricane Billingsworth to sabotage his relationship. This is extremely unlikely going to hurt Sarah but it’s guaranteed to torpedo Raidah’s social standing. Her grudge is actually more important to her than her much vaunted future career.
She also, as far as I can find, didn’t say it was unsafe, just that according to Dana, wasn’t in a better place being home with her dad. That can mean a lot of different things.
I have been reading down this thread and wondering where Raidah gets her information about Dana’s home situation. Like: is it all from a girl who is constantly complaining about how her parents are always at her about the drugs? Her information may be a teeny bit biased.
Maybe, but I’m not sure there’s any reason to think Carl’s in regular contact.
It’s also interesting that Raidah didn’t bring that up again at the lunch with Walky, where anything negative she knew about Dana’s current situation would have been good ammo.
But we don’t really have any reason to think it was a bad thing. Just hints from Raidah, who’s not exactly a reliable source. Who didn’t even acknowledge that Dana was having any serious trouble in school.
If it comes to trusting Sarah or Raidah on this, I’m 100% behind Sarah.
Given the impending monorail disaster and it’s devastating consequences in the coming years, there will be no going back to “”normal”” afterwards.
I can only imagine how that’s gonna be reflected in the comic’s plot and setting given the sliding timescale. Like imagine being a first-time reader and basically watching decades worth of one of the most tumultuous periods in world history unfold within the span of a couple semesters
She looks sincerely angry but as a strategy to cool Raidah’s roll it works well. I like this new no-fucks-given Jennifer who didn’t bother combing her hair. Next, Kit Fistso T-Shirts and punching Raidah.
Also, considering how things were in earlier strips, I really don’t think this will be [or can be?] sabotaged. I mean, Raidah didn’t know how they met after all.
Take note: Raidah’s first reaction is that Sarah is with the dean’s son. He isn’t a person to Raidah, he’s nothing but a networking tool.
And looking back to her reaction to Walky back a few (YEARS??) ago, Raidah has had her eye on networking towards the Dean for some reason.
Yeah and that’s why Tony would never want to socialize with Radiah and Jennifer, he’s got enough people circling him because of his father already I’d guess.
“Need” to sabotage this, as if there’s anything at stake for anyone but this useless crybaby child. Stupid ladder-climbing creep doesn’t want other people to have floors, because you can put a ladder on a floor and that means people might use those floors to put ladders up, and then what if they climb the ladder faster than her?
Yikes, its not even jealousy or Machiavellian schemes to acquire his heart and influence for herself. Raidah just hates the idea of Sarah having good relationship (or maybe just being happy).
I guess he could be good for networking later on, depending who he knows and what Raidah wants to do. He’d be a hell of a recommendation letter for law school.
He could also be good for networking while in college– what professors could be good for her to work with, recommending her to professors considering students for their research or such.
Now, would he actually do that? Hard to say.
Are deans known to be well connected and powerful? I’m not big on academic society or culture. I imagine he’s maybe somewhat wealthy but I am really confused why Raidah has such a hard on for the dean. I guess for a letter of recommendation?
My college has a President, and he has a lot of connections with the local community because you want to make sure the community goes to the college, and that those college graduates have a place to go to work to in the community.
I don’t know if Deans are at that same level, but maybe if Raidah is planning on staying within the state, those local community connections might be useful? Then again, you never know who people know, so if she has higher aspirations (which it sounds like she does), maybe a Dean would know someone who could help her?
I would think though, aiming for the Dean of the Law Department would be a better goal, as they would have the knowledge, resources, and connections for what Raidah’s career path is? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Dean McHenry might be Dean of the Law College or the Political Science College. IU has both, and both would be good fits for hosting (and hiring) politician Roz Desanto. With Raidah blatantly aiming to get into law school, I’m guessing one of those departments for Dean McHenry.
There are 2 kinds of Dean position at a public American university: the Academic(think department or subject)-type Dean and the executive(think corporate or financial)-type Dean. Dean McHenry could be either. The Academic Dean will absolutely know the professors in the department and make recommendations and introductions. The executive Dean may or may not know the professors.
Public universities do a lot of fundraising. That means that senior administrators hobnob with a lot of people who have great influence and have or control a lot of money.
It really depends, honestly. My FIL was an academic dean for a long while and being on his good side was definitely a supercharger for one’s academic career if they were interested in his specific area of interest/fame.
In 2010 DoA, this would’ve been setup for some wild Hijinx that reveal character drama.
This is 2025, though, and as such we’re just going to get a gut punch accompanied with most people who are involved looking like assholes. I hope Sarah comes out looking like less of one.
I’m not sure it’s that well-intentioned (much as I’d like to see Billifer get some of her actual good traits back, rather than this Flanderized version of her). I think here, though, she’s mostly just, “I really don’t give a damn about the people I used to hang out with, and I don’t know why you would, either.”
Yeah, she’s not using therapy jargon, but it feels very much like the mindset of someone who’s had cognitive behavioral therapy. If Sarah’s as toxic as they both believe she is, she’ll ruin the relationship herself, no need to intervene.
Sarah being happy upsets Raidah because Sarah “deserves to be sad all the time,” and the thought of Sarah happily dating someone who is “connected” makes Raidah go full psycho. We can only hope that Raidah suffers more than the people around her.
That’s the thing, her reaction here scans more like “This fucks up my future networking plans!” And not “My arch nemesis is taking a positive step. I MUST destroy her lest she vatch up to me!”
It only hurts Radiahs networking If she insists on remaining hostile to Sarah though, from what we’ve seen of the timeskip Sarah doesn’t care for Radiah but she also doesn’t go out of her way to think of her, it’s still possible for Radiah to go about her networking up to the Dean though other people unhindered but she insists on making Sarah her enemy.
Probably but that could easily be remedied with an apology and a request for a truce if not friendship. Radiah refuses to acknowledge her own flaws so she will continue to assume that Sarah will badmouth her like she’s been doing to Sarah.
Aaaaand, those who wanna hate Raidah, here’s the perfect excuse. ‘We want Billifer to get Walky, we want Walky for his mother’s connections. We don’t want Billifer any more, she hasn’t got Asher. We certainly don’t want Sarah…’
Is this the first time where Jennifer’s plan is to do nothing? Usually she’s all about action for action’s sake. Is she actually sort of kind of learning? A little bit?
Probably not, but I can hope. It’s been like 15 years and I would like to see her actually experience growth instead of going in circles forever.
Now that you mention it, yeah. Beyond being in a friend group that hates Sarah, she has no reason to hate Sarah. Actually, she has all the reason in the world to like her, since Sarah has been there for Joyce so often and Jennifer actually has a good relationship with Joyce. (Jennifer having a good relationship with anyone? That can’t be right, can it? :P)
I guess I’m just surprised because for Jennifer, fitting in with her peers is usually a good enough excuse for almost anything. Especially to hate somebody, which is her natural inclination anyway.
She does direct a little pissiness at them in the second to last panel, but that’s just because Sarah got Tony when Jennifer “should have” gotten Tony’s attention instead of Sarah in their interaction where Sarah and Tony met. It’s water under the bridge though, even if it doesn’t fit Jennifer’s worldview that Tony would prefer Sarah. I’m feeling good because Jennifer is one of my favorite characters and has been doing everything she can to lose that status for a long time. Maybe this will be a change to that trend, maybe not.
I don’t even think it’s jealousy. Jennifer and Sarah just don’t really get along in general, so I think this is more of a basic dig at someone she doesn’t get along with rather than something more complex.
No, bizarre as it may seem in context, this is actually pretty par for the course for Jennifer. She likes to be active when she thinks she sees a problem that she’s destined to fix, but she’s also wholly convinced that MOST of the world’s problems will just work themselves out without any of her interference. For instance, I seem to recall that when she first moved into the other dorm building, she immediately clocked a lot of complex romantic drama going on between her neighbors, and then dismissed it just as quickly.
I can’t help but feel that Jennifer’s last panel expression is her realizing just how petty Raidah is, and proposing to do nothing because she’s really doesn’t want to get involved with this.
It’s strange to think about but after getting a glimpse of high school era Billie…That version of Jennifer would have picked her teeth clean of Raidah’s shit behavior.
No weapons or nefarious deed forged against Sarah and Joyce may prosper. Granted yes Sarah did device a scheme of her own to break apart Raidahs last relationship so there can’t be that much complaining if Raidah tries to return the favor…but she doesn’t seem to be all that good at it so tough nuts for her.
Also Jennifer should probably consider Raidah isn’t trying to be her friend she’s trying to be her boss that has her on a unpaid internship.
Sarah barley did anything besides give Joyce and jacob a chance to talk, if Radiah tried something similar here I’m optimistic it wouldn’t work because Sarah and Tony are dating because they click with each other not because they each thought “this person is a good look for me” unfortunately, it might take a while to realize because hating Sarah is something she thinks they have in common.
What does Radiah think the metaphorical fallout and personal damage to her will be as a result of Sarah dating Tony, beyond just her outright denial of Sarah’s happiness?
That’s really just it — in Radiah’s world, “I forced my roommate to get help for severe depression and drug abuse by calling her surviving parent” is actually “I’m a vicious backstabber who’ll get rid of anyone who gets in my way”, and therefore Sarah deserves no happiness ever because she’s a vicious backstabber.
And Sarah ESPECIALLY doesn’t deserve to be in relationships that could be interpreted as “marrying up” or “gaining political influence”, because that reduces the pool of people Radiah could be getting political influence by dating/befriending, and that would be wrong because Radiah called dibs in her own head.
But she doesn’t accept the “severe depression and drug abuse” since Dana was mostly able to mask around her (And Raidah probably wasn’t very perceptive about it.)
I’m with you. Raidah is a malicious social climber and Mary is a malicious bible thumper but it’s the same flavor of disgusting nonsense either way. The world isn’t what they want and they will manipulate and lie and try to control the people around them based on what they think should be allowed to happen. Yuck.
I’m a bit late and a lot confused by the Raidah agenda. Like what exactly can you or Jen even do here? Why? Like you can still be friends with Tony platonically if connections matter that much.
Above her station how? Maybe his family has more money? Also what is Raidah’s family’s position in the social and economic hierarchy? What the eff are these rules to this game only she is playing? Her hate boner for Sarah can’t be that big.
I jotted that off too quick to fully process what you said about her “hate boner” and don’t feel like I did you justice. Raidah takes her own judgement about what is serious and grown up and such far too seriously. Also, Sarah has literally assaulted Raidah. It’s not a situation that needs to make sense rationally.
See because his father is the dean Tony is more important to Raidah. Not because of who he is, but because of the connection you could make by knowing him. Its not even actually about Tony but his father’s influence.
Same reason why she deemed Walky as having value to her because his mother knows the dean.
Jennifer, in the way she always does, has done good for someone else, by attempting to join in doing something bad. Since We know Tony and Sarah actually have a legit interest beyond romantic/sexual attraction and they’ve been interacting in conventional manner. Jennifer telling Raidah to just sit and let Sarah and Tony Cook is the best thing she’s done since the new semester started.
As well as the name of the trope relevant to Sal being oblivious to the defining history she has with Amber, as expressed by the day before Wednesday! Mostly because people just would not stop saying it.
conga. the one that’s the dance, not the country where tech corporations use human suffering to make a new phone every year and hardware for the enshittification engines.
Love the “it’s a compelling argument” face Raidah has in the last panel. I hope they leave them alone for a few days before trying to destroy Sarah’s happiness.
…sigh yeah I guess this was gonna happen. I held out hope that Raidah would turn out to be a normally bad person. I wanted her to have a grudge against Sarah and be judgmental and shortsighted from time to time, but like, if she was the main character of the story those would be framed as humanizing flaws, and the only reason we don’t like her is because Sarah is framed as the protagonist in their interactions. People can dislike or even hate each other without necessarily being bad people.
But it seems like Raidah is just gonna be evil, I can get on board with that.
Hmm, it’s not just because Sarah is a protagonist. In a fair number of Raidah’s strips without Sarah she still insults people behind their back, even those she’s trying to “befriend,” like Walky and Jennifer. She’s just plain mean and petty about people. Unfortunately, mean cliques are a normal, real thing.
she’s definitely got a toxic personality to all but Carl thougj she doesn’t appear to have a long running plan to turn everyone against others like she is Sarah though.
I hope Raidah fully utilizes this opportunity to make herself look bad, sabotage all her own relationships with non-flunkies, and I hope Billie ends up crawling back to the main friendgroup like “I would literally rather hang out with Walky than with THAT”
Anyone still saying Raidah was legitimate in her hate for Sarah, can you see that her hatred is self-perpetuating?
Also hope Tony tells them off when he notices, it’s the kind of game he hates.
If Brunch is anything to go by it will be pretty obvious to anyone if Radiah tries to directly interfere because she can’t go one meeting without bringing Sarah and a very editited version of the Dana story up.
Raidah has a legitimate grudge with Sarah and Joyce for breaking up her relationship with Jacob. Everything else is her projecting herself onto Sarah (“getting rid of” Dana for being inconvenient and getting with a dean’s son for social climbing reasons).
Hopefully her so-called “friends” can see that. Maybe Jennifer will, and she’ll have to choose between her old friends and Raidah’s clique. (Maybe that’s where we’re going? This chapter started with a flashback of her airing dirty laundry and calling someone out.)
by that train of logic Sarah had a legitimate reason to retaliate from the year of harassment and sabatoge to her own social life. not that it was much of a retaliation. yep she projects hard. think Jennifer’s is subconsciously seeking out her old friend group, even Sarah since there was no reason to pick her out of a whole room of people to ask about amazi girl.
Yeah. It absolutely is. And it’s heavily implied to be a continuation of a long term campaign. Note that Sarah isn’t at all surprised by it.
Just walking up out of nowhere to insult and hassle someone, repeatedly? That’s harassment.
it was definatly a continuation in another strip Sarah leaves the cafeteria because they curse at her also. that’s literally every instance where they see Sarah alone or worse with someone they saw as an easy target like Dina as an opportunity to act like high-school bullies and it was affecting Sarah’s mental state. aside from the punch which she apologized for she almost scared off Dorothy thinking she was another bully when they first met.
My feeling is the mall encounter with Dina (and then Joyce and Jennifer) was aimed at cutting Sarah off from new people she might be making friends with. Not just random drive-by harassment.
Raidah’s first appearances are very much bullying, and it’s an easy inference that it’s a continuation from freshman year. Sarah even makes a sad, wry comment that she’s going to gain a, “sophomore fifteen,” pounds because of the bullying.
The bullying gives context to Sarah later punching her for trying to take her first new friends. This also gives context to Sarah wanting to break up Raidah and Jacob, as I think Sarah became friends with Jacob before he started dating Raidah. Might’ve felt too much like a repeat.
I think Raidah is actively choosing to be miserable, in general, but she has legit reasons to hate Sarah.
The easiest way to sabotage Sarah’s relationship to Tony is to bring up the cheating arc regarding Jacob and Joyce and claim that Sarah has a connection to it, which is true, and also delegitimizes any of the praise that Joyce or Jacob could share with Tony with regards to Sarah, since they cheated. Sarah doesn’t have that many people outside of those two who even like her besides Tony.
If the strategy I just detailed doesn’t work, I can’t think of anything.
Every strip about both Sarah and Tony, and the people around them, is making me more and more want this ship to just work with no hitches or bumps and for everyone to get salty about it.
Ok, if there is anything done to hinder this relationship between Sarah and Tony, I’m honestly going to be upset. Just for the sake of watching Billie and Raidah lose their shit.
Tony telling them both to go fuck themselves would be a nice bonus too btw.
echoing this. I want them to work out so bad. I don’t need tony to become a main character. I just want to see her being in a nice relationship with a nice, athletic, studious man who likes her for who she is and for raidah to be pissed
Telling choice of wording “who let this happen?” like she thinks the whole campus is as invested in keeping Sarah single as her, Radiah trielu has no outside perspective.
Yanno I really like Tony out and out going no lets get you to your class, this is important. We know a lot of what motivates Sarah is she has incredibly thin margins to be able to go to college on. It’s keep her scholarship or bust. I like seeing immediately that Tony would be nothing but supportive about that priority.
Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention, but someone wanna explain why Raidah gives a shit about all this? Like, does she have her own head-canon about who’s supposed to be with who, or does she just hate joy?
Doe Radiah actuallly know Sarah was involved in Jacob breaking up with her? I remember her associating it much more with Joyce, what with Joyce being the one who directly (if mostly inadvertantly) talked Jacob into breaking up with her. And if she knew she had a reason to blame Sarah, she would. She’s hated Sarah since before the strip started.
It’s not really inadvertent if Joyce was actually trying, even if things didn’t play out the way she wanted.
But anyway, Sarah gets the blame by the transitive property of blame. She’s associated with Joyce, so it’s at least partly her fault. Which is kind of true.
Radiah blames Sarah for Sarah’s first-year roommate Dana (part of Radiah’s crowd) dropping out of school, because Sarah called Dana’s father after (in her opinion) Dana had gotten too deep into trying to combat depression with drugs, and it was interfering with Sarah’s ability to sleep/study/maintain her scholarship.
This. Raidah held such a grudge that her very first strips are her bullying Sarah in the lunchroom. In those strips (that predate the fight at the mall) both Sarah and Raidah are alone. There’s no one there to perform for. Raidah just held onto that grudge all summer and into sophomore year and wants Sarah to be miserable.
Honestly I feel like Tony would respect Sarah for getting Dana help and not wanting to risk her scholarship. He isn’t going to be turned off by that revelation.
At this point she has like two separate legitimate reasons to actively hate Sarah as a person. I don’t think it’s healthy for her, and if she cared about Tony Jr she’d try to let him be happy… But I understand where she’s coming from.
That said this does feel like an extension of her overall mindset of bullying and manipulation.
They could just not meddle in other people’s relationships. But I guess that’s too much to ask from Raidah and Jennifer. Nice to see Tony encouraging Sarah to go to her classes, hopefully that’s a good sign for the future of their relationship.
Listen to Jennifer, Fake Lost Cause Sarah. What she’s saying is true…….But no. You NEED Sarah as an excuse. When’s the last time you spoke to Dana, by the way?
Now Raidah I want you listen carefullly. Fuck right off, keep fucking right off until you think you can’t fuck off any further, and then fuck off some more.
Here’s hoping Raidah’s obsession with Sarah causes her to self-destruct here. She is unhealthily fixated on making sure Sarah is miserable, and unfortunately for her, her usual tactics are going to have the opposite effect on Tony. His no-bullshit attitude is kryptonite to her manipulative nature so I can totally see her efforts resulting in exposing herself and burning a bunch of bridges.
If it happens, I’ll bring the marshmallows, there’s a lot of us though so I’m gonna need the rest of you to pitch in to get the crackers and chocolate. We’ll have a good ol burning bridge party
I really dont understand the Raidah Jennifer relationship like, at all. Can someone explain to me how it even works. They seem really incompatible personalities.
Billie thinks Raidah is a cool, connected Big Girl Friend who likes her, and Raidah is only associating with Billie because of her rich dad and actively shit-talks her behind her back. That’s the dynamic.
They’re both the same kind of immature social climbers. Also Raidah acts fake nice to Jennifer and Jennifer hasn’t realized that yet. Plus they’re both Asian if I’m not mistaken, which means that Jennifer has an easier time connecting to Raidah.
Billie respects the totem pole, and *to her* Raidah is higher then her in the rank chart. She would eventually try to topple raidah once she’s strong enough.
My favorite part of this is that they both have legitimate reasons to dislike Sarah. Sarah’s been a total dick to Jennifer in every single panel they’ve shared and she made the executive decision to fuck over Dana, who’s apparently still in contact with Raidah but not Sarah. I still like Sarah a lot it’s just funny to me.
Like omg!!! Sarah! You’re one of my favorite characters and no I don’t take your side in either conflict and setting Joyce up with Jacob was also a dick move. I love you girlypop <3
She don’t know yet if Dana is actually worse that’s she was before going back home, we only have Raidah word for it and she has show that she is pretty damn biased. Sarah did the best she could given the circumstances.
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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so Raidah basically thinks she’s the ship gatekeeper, got it 9-9
Raidah still thinks she’s in some kind of Disney Channel version of high school
I think Raidah thinks she’s one of the Heathers.
She’s right in everything except scale, honestly.
Next thing you know she’ll be stocking up on igloo-ger bullets!
How many musical numbers are we gonna get before the basketball finals?
Not enough. Dumbing of Age – the Musical is the theatrical tour de force needed to bring joy to a darkening world.
Pitch it now, Mr. Willis. Make Winnie Holzman cry tears of envy.
Take my imaginary upvote. And you’re not the only one wanting DoA on the big or little screen. The big problem is going to be getting the right VAs for the speaking parts.
The only correct answer is Jeffrey Combs
And/or Frank Welker.
Next step : Dumbing on Ice.
your… OMG… your grav, saying this… with that face! ~<3
Right? Raidah comes off like Pizzazz trying to drop a lighting rig on the Holograms because that’s what the plot demands. It’s all too dumb to be realistic.
And then I remember that “too dumb to be realistic” is kind of the timeline I’m living in.
I would compare this more to a Feudal Baroness trying to play the game of marriage alliances.
When you play the game of thrones you win or you die
That or a regular old stalker, Radiahs obsession with Sarah’s friends and now love life gets more creepy by the day.
A port lock.
i don’t think sarah even cares that he’s the dean’s son, not like it’d be ‘useful’ now other than putting in a good word but other than ‘needing’ connections or so in teh future i’d hope she’d wanna earn her own spot in the law school world or so
Exactly. Sarah is enjoying his company for who Tony is as a person, not who he’s from. And likewise Tony with her.
This is why Sarah is a better person than Raidah even if they have both done some bad things. Raidah would have sabotaged her own relationship with her own hunk once he realized a) his family wouldn’t approve of someone who doesn’t go to their church b) his family would have instinctively recoiled from her naked social climbing and ass-kissing c) she didn’t actually know him or like him or enjoy his company.
Why are we assuming Jacob’s family would care she’s Muslim?
Because “their church”, and in this comments section that’s what churches do: disapprove people.
Churches disapproving of people is hardly limited to this comment section. In fact they tend to be very VERY vocal about it.
Some do, but not all. I mean, Jacob himself is Christian and didn’t disapprove of Raidah because she was Muslim. Why do we assume his family would?
I remember people defending Raidah, and thinking she’s not a bad person ”just ambitious”. I wonder if this is enough villainy for them finally.
Just looking at how happy her ex is with Lucy should have been a clue, Radiah didn’t make him happy at all.
Yeah, he probably thought he was happy with Raidah (I’m sure she was quite good at the physical side of the relationship), but as soon as Jacob’s brother complimented him on not being a carbon copy of himself (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/aslongas/), he realized that Raidah wasn’t really what he wanted.
I think there wasn’t much of a ”physical side” since Jacob wanted to take things much slower than Raidah.
I think Raidah is more immature than evil?
Jennifer: “Did somebody tell me I was supposed to stop Sarah from getting with Tony?”
petition for Raidah in panel 1 as a Gravatar
This is far more reserved than I expected for her, so I’m assuming there’s gonna be even more mess before this is over.
Yeah, Radiah doesn’t listen to Jennifer so I assume she’s going to try something stupid.
Raidahs not the type to march right up to them and start being messy. That’d make her look unequivocally in the wrong to Tony. She’s more slick than that, she needs a plan
not march up but I could see her wasting time spying on them or trying to throw another girl at Tony or talking about the old Dana story again.
Telling the Dana story backfires, as Reasonable, Responsible Tony thinks that Sarah was right to call the girl’s family to get her help, and smoking (at the time at least) illegal substances on campus is bad.
Go on Raidah, tell the audience why this can’t happen.
Raidah knows she is the arbiter of reality. What she decides isn’t possible, isn’t possible. This is why she knew for certain that Sarah overreacted in contacting Dana’s father, because Raidah knew that Dana’s problems *couldn’t* be that bad.
We still don’t know that Dana going back to her dad wasn’t a bad thing.
Maybe it was, but there weren’t really any great options there that anyone’s been able to suggest.
Aight but, upon lack of evidence that Dana going back to her dad being bad, I will assume that it was just Raidah being a massive raging asswipe.
Like, every single thing we’ve seen of Raidah for years now has shown that she doesn’t care about “friends”, she cares about connections. One of the very first things she told Sarah back when they were “friendly” was that being at university was more about building up their connections rather than getting a degree, that without connections, she’d just be an overqualified burger flipper.
Also all Sarah and Raidah exchanged was
“Dana is in a better place.”
“Not according to Dana, last I checked.”
Nothing about her being unsafe at home. I’d be fuckin miserable if I had to move back home from college and would complain like all hell, but it wouldn’t mean it was worse than being at suicide risk.
Just double checked that the ‘her home is not safe!’ line is about Ruth, not Dana
They’re both kind of right if we bend Radiah’s response to the metaphorical.
It’s just that if Dana was “in a better place” (dead, in this metaphor) she wouldn’t be able to communicate this to Radiah.
Are you running an MLP ttrpg? Because if so I wanna hear about it
We literally only have Raidah’s word that Dana’s parents aren’t safe for her. Which, I’m willing to buy it, but it’s also entirely possible Dana’s private Hell is just not having access to powerful people and that’s Raidah’s worst nightmare.
What’s funny is, I think Dana was Carl‘s friend, not Raidah’s. Carl is the one who’s confident Dana is going to just bounce back just like those other times her mom died; Raidah has no comment. Of course nobody but Sarah has any idea Dana is getting stoned around the clock, but Raidah seems especially clueless. She was never there when Dana needed help, she’s only ever been giving a shit when it comes to bothering Sarah.
I mean, here we see her actively scheming against Dean Junior. Working with Jennifer Drama Hurricane Billingsworth to sabotage his relationship. This is extremely unlikely going to hurt Sarah but it’s guaranteed to torpedo Raidah’s social standing. Her grudge is actually more important to her than her much vaunted future career.
She also, as far as I can find, didn’t say it was unsafe, just that according to Dana, wasn’t in a better place being home with her dad. That can mean a lot of different things.
I have been reading down this thread and wondering where Raidah gets her information about Dana’s home situation. Like: is it all from a girl who is constantly complaining about how her parents are always at her about the drugs? Her information may be a teeny bit biased.
And it was phrased as “last I heard”, which doesn’t suggest regular contact
Probably second-hand from Carl who misses his friend.
Maybe, but I’m not sure there’s any reason to think Carl’s in regular contact.
It’s also interesting that Raidah didn’t bring that up again at the lunch with Walky, where anything negative she knew about Dana’s current situation would have been good ammo.
Raidah doesn’t have friends. She has assets and connections. Sarah cost her a connection- I’m sure Dana had some advantage Raidah wanted to exploit.
But we don’t really have any reason to think it was a bad thing. Just hints from Raidah, who’s not exactly a reliable source. Who didn’t even acknowledge that Dana was having any serious trouble in school.
If it comes to trusting Sarah or Raidah on this, I’m 100% behind Sarah.
Because it messes up her shipping chart.
…is that the same episode from three days ago?
Maybe because Sarah intentionally sabotaged Raidah’s last relationship, and she wants payback?
I don’t think Raidah has any confirmation Sarah was involved. Raidah just (rightfully) assumed Sarah was because Joyce is her roommate.
And even then, Jacob wasn’t blameless in all that.
And Radiahs been wanting payback since before she got with Jacob.
Raidah saved the world from the Keener Presidency.
She deserves the benefit of the doubt,
Honestly, it was weirdly prescient of Willis to predict 2024 like this.
Given the impending monorail disaster and it’s devastating consequences in the coming years, there will be no going back to “”normal”” afterwards.
I can only imagine how that’s gonna be reflected in the comic’s plot and setting given the sliding timescale. Like imagine being a first-time reader and basically watching decades worth of one of the most tumultuous periods in world history unfold within the span of a couple semesters
Monorail?
I heard those things are awfully loud.
It glides as softly as a cloud!
Yeah, we’re so much better off with old dudes who WANT to commit war crimes….
We need Justice Dorothy to oppose everything Presidential.
Or as a Fallout-esque protagonist out to blow up the Enclave.
Several Justices Dorothy. We’re way behind on having moderate judges in SCOTUS. (let alone anyone progressive.)
Jennifer’s not wrong…
Indeed. This relationship is either a dud or a timebomb. She make like Elitzur and Vaidman not directly interact.
Huh.
…. Jennifer actually came up with the right solution for the problem.
And she’s apparently still an asshole for it.
She looks sincerely angry but as a strategy to cool Raidah’s roll it works well. I like this new no-fucks-given Jennifer who didn’t bother combing her hair. Next, Kit Fistso T-Shirts and punching Raidah.
Im getting the feeling that Radiah is going to now to watching Sarah even more from a distance.
Love how Tony is all gentlemanly.
Also, considering how things were in earlier strips, I really don’t think this will be [or can be?] sabotaged. I mean, Raidah didn’t know how they met after all.
Wow, you sure both are arseholes
This strip proves it 100%
Take note: Raidah’s first reaction is that Sarah is with the dean’s son. He isn’t a person to Raidah, he’s nothing but a networking tool.
And looking back to her reaction to Walky back a few (YEARS??) ago, Raidah has had her eye on networking towards the Dean for some reason.
Yeah and that’s why Tony would never want to socialize with Radiah and Jennifer, he’s got enough people circling him because of his father already I’d guess.
Yep. And Sarah doesn’t care who his dad is, she just likes him for who he is. Which is why I ship them hard.
“Need” to sabotage this, as if there’s anything at stake for anyone but this useless crybaby child. Stupid ladder-climbing creep doesn’t want other people to have floors, because you can put a ladder on a floor and that means people might use those floors to put ladders up, and then what if they climb the ladder faster than her?
some people just cant feel powerful if their not tearing someone else down.
Cursed lovecraftian gravatar is cursed. :O
This is going to backfire on Raidah isn’t it?
Not if she takes jennefier’s advice and does nothing.
Which practically guarantees she won’t, and that it subsequently will.
Why should she listen to the lowest-ranking member of her clique?
Sorry, reported this by accident while scrolling
Hopefully!
God Raidah you are just awful
Yikes, its not even jealousy or Machiavellian schemes to acquire his heart and influence for herself. Raidah just hates the idea of Sarah having good relationship (or maybe just being happy).
Both, I think. The emotional need to make Sarah lose, and the power need to get the Dean’s son in her group.
Raidah is every bit as immature as Jennifer about high school versus college.
The Dean isn’t going to be important in 3-4 years.
I guess he could be good for networking later on, depending who he knows and what Raidah wants to do. He’d be a hell of a recommendation letter for law school.
He could also be good for networking while in college– what professors could be good for her to work with, recommending her to professors considering students for their research or such.
Now, would he actually do that? Hard to say.
Are deans known to be well connected and powerful? I’m not big on academic society or culture. I imagine he’s maybe somewhat wealthy but I am really confused why Raidah has such a hard on for the dean. I guess for a letter of recommendation?
Yeah, I was kind of wondering this too.
My college has a President, and he has a lot of connections with the local community because you want to make sure the community goes to the college, and that those college graduates have a place to go to work to in the community.
I don’t know if Deans are at that same level, but maybe if Raidah is planning on staying within the state, those local community connections might be useful? Then again, you never know who people know, so if she has higher aspirations (which it sounds like she does), maybe a Dean would know someone who could help her?
I would think though, aiming for the Dean of the Law Department would be a better goal, as they would have the knowledge, resources, and connections for what Raidah’s career path is? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Dean McHenry might be Dean of the Law College or the Political Science College. IU has both, and both would be good fits for hosting (and hiring) politician Roz Desanto. With Raidah blatantly aiming to get into law school, I’m guessing one of those departments for Dean McHenry.
There are 2 kinds of Dean position at a public American university: the Academic(think department or subject)-type Dean and the executive(think corporate or financial)-type Dean. Dean McHenry could be either. The Academic Dean will absolutely know the professors in the department and make recommendations and introductions. The executive Dean may or may not know the professors.
Plus the guy named Dean who works for the engineering school’s computing center, and has in his sig “not an academic dean”
Public universities do a lot of fundraising. That means that senior administrators hobnob with a lot of people who have great influence and have or control a lot of money.
It really depends, honestly. My FIL was an academic dean for a long while and being on his good side was definitely a supercharger for one’s academic career if they were interested in his specific area of interest/fame.
In 2010 DoA, this would’ve been setup for some wild Hijinx that reveal character drama.
This is 2025, though, and as such we’re just going to get a gut punch accompanied with most people who are involved looking like assholes. I hope Sarah comes out looking like less of one.
Oh, right. I forgot that part. Him being the Dean’s son.
Yeah, that *would* upset Raidah with her elitist ass.
…are we pooositively certain that Jennifer isn’t Mike?
To the contrary, we have word of Willis that Jennifer is Mike.
“Wanna make out while we do?”
“Shure,why not.”
Alice walks by.
“Nope, nope, no, no, nope.”
If there was cosmic balance, Raidah would be standing in panel 1 pose for an hour or so, having the first part of a realization.
Jesus, Raidah, there’s more to life than connections!
“Sounds fake but okay”
What kind of self-sabotage? Telegraphing the height difference? Her past? Joyce?
“Who let this happen” Who didn’t? Paul, Walky, Amazi-Girl, Joyce… Paul.
(In the same tone that Doom screams about Richards:) PAAAAAULLLLLL!!!
Why, you let this happen, Raidah.
its cute that theyre on the same page at least
I don’t think they are. That felt to me like Jennifer blowing off Raidah’s ploy without making it obvious to Raidah.
I’m not sure it’s that well-intentioned (much as I’d like to see Billifer get some of her actual good traits back, rather than this Flanderized version of her). I think here, though, she’s mostly just, “I really don’t give a damn about the people I used to hang out with, and I don’t know why you would, either.”
Yeah, she’s not using therapy jargon, but it feels very much like the mindset of someone who’s had cognitive behavioral therapy. If Sarah’s as toxic as they both believe she is, she’ll ruin the relationship herself, no need to intervene.
… but like…
Why?
I know Raidah’s a social climber and hates Sarah, but it was not a full on grudge match.
Sarah being happy upsets Raidah because Sarah “deserves to be sad all the time,” and the thought of Sarah happily dating someone who is “connected” makes Raidah go full psycho. We can only hope that Raidah suffers more than the people around her.
If things improve for Sarah, Raidah will most likely become an ultimate monster, the true final villain of the story.
That’s the thing, her reaction here scans more like “This fucks up my future networking plans!” And not “My arch nemesis is taking a positive step. I MUST destroy her lest she vatch up to me!”
It only hurts Radiahs networking If she insists on remaining hostile to Sarah though, from what we’ve seen of the timeskip Sarah doesn’t care for Radiah but she also doesn’t go out of her way to think of her, it’s still possible for Radiah to go about her networking up to the Dean though other people unhindered but she insists on making Sarah her enemy.
It occurs to me that Raidah is a networking wannabee — she’s picked up the easy connections and her “network” is as big as it’s going to get.
Maybe that’s it though.
Maybe she thinks that Sarah is going to bad-mouth her to the Dean if she remains attached to Tony.
Probably but that could easily be remedied with an apology and a request for a truce if not friendship. Radiah refuses to acknowledge her own flaws so she will continue to assume that Sarah will badmouth her like she’s been doing to Sarah.
You know how it is, she’s gotten carried away with her hobby. In this case, her hobby is a shitlist.
Just thinking about how that would explode for her.
This is sort of the intersection of Raidah’s hate for Sarah and her social climbing aspirations, which haven’t really collided like this before.
Raidah can’t control the narrative about the conflict between her and Sarah if Sarah can whisper things jn the Dean’s ear, is what I gather.
As in, any chance of getting a good connection with the Dean and his network is gonna be shot if Sarah ever voices her opinion on Raidah’s character.
Point.
I kinda feel like they’re right, but I don’t like that
In what way is Raidah right here?
Aaaaand, those who wanna hate Raidah, here’s the perfect excuse. ‘We want Billifer to get Walky, we want Walky for his mother’s connections. We don’t want Billifer any more, she hasn’t got Asher. We certainly don’t want Sarah…’
Raidah might now be thinking that she needs Billifer again, to help sink the SarahTonyn ship. Raidah thinks of people in terms of their usefulness.
SarahTonyn is an amazing pun, kudos
Is this the first time where Jennifer’s plan is to do nothing? Usually she’s all about action for action’s sake. Is she actually sort of kind of learning? A little bit?
Probably not, but I can hope. It’s been like 15 years and I would like to see her actually experience growth instead of going in circles forever.
I don’t think she sees Sarah and Tony as her or Raidah’s business. She’s just savvy enough not to tell Raidah to leave them alone.
Now that you mention it, yeah. Beyond being in a friend group that hates Sarah, she has no reason to hate Sarah. Actually, she has all the reason in the world to like her, since Sarah has been there for Joyce so often and Jennifer actually has a good relationship with Joyce. (Jennifer having a good relationship with anyone? That can’t be right, can it? :P)
I guess I’m just surprised because for Jennifer, fitting in with her peers is usually a good enough excuse for almost anything. Especially to hate somebody, which is her natural inclination anyway.
She does direct a little pissiness at them in the second to last panel, but that’s just because Sarah got Tony when Jennifer “should have” gotten Tony’s attention instead of Sarah in their interaction where Sarah and Tony met. It’s water under the bridge though, even if it doesn’t fit Jennifer’s worldview that Tony would prefer Sarah. I’m feeling good because Jennifer is one of my favorite characters and has been doing everything she can to lose that status for a long time. Maybe this will be a change to that trend, maybe not.
I don’t even think it’s jealousy. Jennifer and Sarah just don’t really get along in general, so I think this is more of a basic dig at someone she doesn’t get along with rather than something more complex.
No, bizarre as it may seem in context, this is actually pretty par for the course for Jennifer. She likes to be active when she thinks she sees a problem that she’s destined to fix, but she’s also wholly convinced that MOST of the world’s problems will just work themselves out without any of her interference. For instance, I seem to recall that when she first moved into the other dorm building, she immediately clocked a lot of complex romantic drama going on between her neighbors, and then dismissed it just as quickly.
I can’t help but feel that Jennifer’s last panel expression is her realizing just how petty Raidah is, and proposing to do nothing because she’s really doesn’t want to get involved with this.
Yup. And she doesn’t want to piss off Raidah by telling her to chill directly.
It’s strange to think about but after getting a glimpse of high school era Billie…That version of Jennifer would have picked her teeth clean of Raidah’s shit behavior.
Only because when we see her Jennifer was on top of the heap.
Past performance may not be a guarantee of future results its often indicative and in that context? Jennifer is not wrong.
No weapons or nefarious deed forged against Sarah and Joyce may prosper. Granted yes Sarah did device a scheme of her own to break apart Raidahs last relationship so there can’t be that much complaining if Raidah tries to return the favor…but she doesn’t seem to be all that good at it so tough nuts for her.
Also Jennifer should probably consider Raidah isn’t trying to be her friend she’s trying to be her boss that has her on a unpaid internship.
Sarah barley did anything besides give Joyce and jacob a chance to talk, if Radiah tried something similar here I’m optimistic it wouldn’t work because Sarah and Tony are dating because they click with each other not because they each thought “this person is a good look for me” unfortunately, it might take a while to realize because hating Sarah is something she thinks they have in common.
What does Radiah think the metaphorical fallout and personal damage to her will be as a result of Sarah dating Tony, beyond just her outright denial of Sarah’s happiness?
The only thing that is certain is that no matter what kind of consequence it is, Raidah won’t like it.
That’s really just it — in Radiah’s world, “I forced my roommate to get help for severe depression and drug abuse by calling her surviving parent” is actually “I’m a vicious backstabber who’ll get rid of anyone who gets in my way”, and therefore Sarah deserves no happiness ever because she’s a vicious backstabber.
And Sarah ESPECIALLY doesn’t deserve to be in relationships that could be interpreted as “marrying up” or “gaining political influence”, because that reduces the pool of people Radiah could be getting political influence by dating/befriending, and that would be wrong because Radiah called dibs in her own head.
When one is a vicious backstabber, it’s dangerous to allow “another vicious backstabber” to get too close.
But she doesn’t accept the “severe depression and drug abuse” since Dana was mostly able to mask around her (And Raidah probably wasn’t very perceptive about it.)
Raidah proving yet again that she is a total shitwad. Between her and Mary I’m not sure who I would throw into a fire first.
I can help you with that. It’s Mary.
Mary. Definitely Mary.
Yeah… Mary. Imagine Mary condescending to Dina. When Raidah did it at least she was trying to be decent even if she was missing the mark.
You have some people telling you to torch Mary first. But allow me to clarify:
It’s Mary.
I’m with you. Raidah is a malicious social climber and Mary is a malicious bible thumper but it’s the same flavor of disgusting nonsense either way. The world isn’t what they want and they will manipulate and lie and try to control the people around them based on what they think should be allowed to happen. Yuck.
I’m a bit late and a lot confused by the Raidah agenda. Like what exactly can you or Jen even do here? Why? Like you can still be friends with Tony platonically if connections matter that much.
I think Raidah is mostly upset to see Sarah happy. Tony being above Sarah’s station or whatever is just twisting the knife, not the main issue.
Above her station how? Maybe his family has more money? Also what is Raidah’s family’s position in the social and economic hierarchy? What the eff are these rules to this game only she is playing? Her hate boner for Sarah can’t be that big.
Above her station because Raidah doesn’t like her. It’s not that complicated.
I jotted that off too quick to fully process what you said about her “hate boner” and don’t feel like I did you justice. Raidah takes her own judgement about what is serious and grown up and such far too seriously. Also, Sarah has literally assaulted Raidah. It’s not a situation that needs to make sense rationally.
And Sarah also tried to sabotage Raidah’s relationship with Jacob.
I do not think that Raidah knows about that through.
The knives are certainly out between these two.
Wouldn’t surprise me if she did. Jennifer knew about it.
She might also just have assumed, knowing Joyce was Sarah’s roommate.
It can be and it is. It doesn’t make sense but it is in character for her.
See because his father is the dean Tony is more important to Raidah. Not because of who he is, but because of the connection you could make by knowing him. Its not even actually about Tony but his father’s influence.
Same reason why she deemed Walky as having value to her because his mother knows the dean.
One day in her 40s about 15 years into a passionless marriage, Raidah is gonna realize she was extremely gay for Sarah.
oh, that’s what Jennifer’s thinking.
OH
MY GOD
RAIDAH
MIND YA OWN DAMN BUSINESS
Jennifer, in the way she always does, has done good for someone else, by attempting to join in doing something bad. Since We know Tony and Sarah actually have a legit interest beyond romantic/sexual attraction and they’ve been interacting in conventional manner. Jennifer telling Raidah to just sit and let Sarah and Tony Cook is the best thing she’s done since the new semester started.
I don’t think she’s attempting to join in as much as she’s just firing a couple zingers about Sarah. Not like Jennifer and Sarah get along well.
This is fair. They mostly (barely) tolerated each other because of Joyce and shared half bath.
Your regular reminder that Raidah is awful.
“Why didn’t you stop it?”
To be fair, she tried.
Though she succeeded in making Sarah look better in comparison.
Whoa, those turquoise “?!?” balloons are even better than yesterday’s fire speech bubble!
She was holding them in panel 1. But we don’t see them anymore. I guess she let them go, and they’re now floating up to the atrium ceiling.
No, Jennifer. Let that vile witch try to sabotage the Sarah/Tony ship. It’ll run her over.
I don’t give two tin shits how hot Billifer is. If she’s still Team Raidah, then I’m Team Fuck That bongo.
I very definitely did not type ‘bongo’. Nice one, Willis.
Yeah that’s one of the autochanged words. Mostly just shit with sexist or bigoted connotations. Swearing in general is fine.
As well as the name of the trope relevant to Sal being oblivious to the defining history she has with Amber, as expressed by the day before Wednesday! Mostly because people just would not stop saying it.
Wait what? You mean Tuesday?
Maybe they mean congo replacing “See You Next Tuesday”.
conga. the one that’s the dance, not the country where tech corporations use human suffering to make a new phone every year and hardware for the enshittification engines.
“But for me, it was a Tuesday.”
Nope, that phrase seems to work fine. You mean something else?
It was filtered at one point, I forget exactly what led to it.
Did you mean “beach”?
Or “birch”?
Or “beech”?
How about the voiced bilabial plosive version of “pitch”?
Hey! Don’t be evil!
Crushing on Tony more and more by the strip. Where were all those rule-follower boys in *my* student years?
(Okay, okay, I married one)
Flair… checks out?
Going un-noticed, if my experience means anything.
I like Sarah and Tony together, it’s cute. I really hope they don’t manage to sabotage them.
This is great, I’m having fun
Love the “it’s a compelling argument” face Raidah has in the last panel. I hope they leave them alone for a few days before trying to destroy Sarah’s happiness.
Can hope but Radiah seems so obsessed with Sarah still I cam see her using binoculars stalker style .
…sigh yeah I guess this was gonna happen. I held out hope that Raidah would turn out to be a normally bad person. I wanted her to have a grudge against Sarah and be judgmental and shortsighted from time to time, but like, if she was the main character of the story those would be framed as humanizing flaws, and the only reason we don’t like her is because Sarah is framed as the protagonist in their interactions. People can dislike or even hate each other without necessarily being bad people.
But it seems like Raidah is just gonna be evil, I can get on board with that.
Glad to see you are not jumping to “ahh this character isn’t what I thought it was this is bad writing!”.
everything radiah does ultimately seems yp revolve around Sarah, this is an obsessive degree.
Hmm, it’s not just because Sarah is a protagonist. In a fair number of Raidah’s strips without Sarah she still insults people behind their back, even those she’s trying to “befriend,” like Walky and Jennifer. She’s just plain mean and petty about people. Unfortunately, mean cliques are a normal, real thing.
Raidah was introduced to us
she’s definitely got a toxic personality to all but Carl thougj she doesn’t appear to have a long running plan to turn everyone against others like she is Sarah though.
These two losers.
Okay I have spent three hours on this post and that’s all I’ve got.
Your effort will be remembered. (For like a few minutes).
I hope Raidah fully utilizes this opportunity to make herself look bad, sabotage all her own relationships with non-flunkies, and I hope Billie ends up crawling back to the main friendgroup like “I would literally rather hang out with Walky than with THAT”
Oh, Jenny, Raidah…
You both need anvils to the face, STAT.
In this economy?!
Anyone still saying Raidah was legitimate in her hate for Sarah, can you see that her hatred is self-perpetuating?
Also hope Tony tells them off when he notices, it’s the kind of game he hates.
[she isn’t] legitimate in her reasoning, you mean, right? because I do think this is even more evidence that she legit hates her
I think “legitimate” in this case is meant as “(partly) justified”
yes, this is what I was struggling to ask
If Brunch is anything to go by it will be pretty obvious to anyone if Radiah tries to directly interfere because she can’t go one meeting without bringing Sarah and a very editited version of the Dana story up.
Raidah has a legitimate grudge with Sarah and Joyce for breaking up her relationship with Jacob. Everything else is her projecting herself onto Sarah (“getting rid of” Dana for being inconvenient and getting with a dean’s son for social climbing reasons).
Hopefully her so-called “friends” can see that. Maybe Jennifer will, and she’ll have to choose between her old friends and Raidah’s clique. (Maybe that’s where we’re going? This chapter started with a flashback of her airing dirty laundry and calling someone out.)
by that train of logic Sarah had a legitimate reason to retaliate from the year of harassment and sabatoge to her own social life. not that it was much of a retaliation. yep she projects hard. think Jennifer’s is subconsciously seeking out her old friend group, even Sarah since there was no reason to pick her out of a whole room of people to ask about amazi girl.
Did Raidah even speak with Sarah inbetween the time they ended their friendship?
In between the time they ended their friendship and what? The time she walked up to Sarah unprompted in the dining hall and told her to choke?
Yes. That’s not harassment.
Yeah. It absolutely is. And it’s heavily implied to be a continuation of a long term campaign. Note that Sarah isn’t at all surprised by it.
Just walking up out of nowhere to insult and hassle someone, repeatedly? That’s harassment.
it was definatly a continuation in another strip Sarah leaves the cafeteria because they curse at her also. that’s literally every instance where they see Sarah alone or worse with someone they saw as an easy target like Dina as an opportunity to act like high-school bullies and it was affecting Sarah’s mental state. aside from the punch which she apologized for she almost scared off Dorothy thinking she was another bully when they first met.
My feeling is the mall encounter with Dina (and then Joyce and Jennifer) was aimed at cutting Sarah off from new people she might be making friends with. Not just random drive-by harassment.
Raidah’s first appearances are very much bullying, and it’s an easy inference that it’s a continuation from freshman year. Sarah even makes a sad, wry comment that she’s going to gain a, “sophomore fifteen,” pounds because of the bullying.
The bullying gives context to Sarah later punching her for trying to take her first new friends. This also gives context to Sarah wanting to break up Raidah and Jacob, as I think Sarah became friends with Jacob before he started dating Raidah. Might’ve felt too much like a repeat.
I mean Willis has made it as clear as possible this harassment has been ongoing short of showing us flashbacks.
I think Raidah is actively choosing to be miserable, in general, but she has legit reasons to hate Sarah.
The easiest way to sabotage Sarah’s relationship to Tony is to bring up the cheating arc regarding Jacob and Joyce and claim that Sarah has a connection to it, which is true, and also delegitimizes any of the praise that Joyce or Jacob could share with Tony with regards to Sarah, since they cheated. Sarah doesn’t have that many people outside of those two who even like her besides Tony.
If the strategy I just detailed doesn’t work, I can’t think of anything.
Every strip about both Sarah and Tony, and the people around them, is making me more and more want this ship to just work with no hitches or bumps and for everyone to get salty about it.
Ok, if there is anything done to hinder this relationship between Sarah and Tony, I’m honestly going to be upset. Just for the sake of watching Billie and Raidah lose their shit.
Tony telling them both to go fuck themselves would be a nice bonus too btw.
Another reason I’m sad the Sarah/Jacob ship hasn’t sailed. That would absolutely make Raidah lose it.
echoing this. I want them to work out so bad. I don’t need tony to become a main character. I just want to see her being in a nice relationship with a nice, athletic, studious man who likes her for who she is and for raidah to be pissed
Telling choice of wording “who let this happen?” like she thinks the whole campus is as invested in keeping Sarah single as her, Radiah trielu has no outside perspective.
Raidah can/should go sit on a cactus.
Okay so now we need Sarah to twist her ankle and Tony to carry her to class bridal style and I think Raidah’s head may explode.
Yanno I really like Tony out and out going no lets get you to your class, this is important. We know a lot of what motivates Sarah is she has incredibly thin margins to be able to go to college on. It’s keep her scholarship or bust. I like seeing immediately that Tony would be nothing but supportive about that priority.
Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention, but someone wanna explain why Raidah gives a shit about all this? Like, does she have her own head-canon about who’s supposed to be with who, or does she just hate joy?
Because Sarah broke up her relationship with Jacob.
She genuinely hates Sarah.
She hated Sarah long before Jacob.
Doe Radiah actuallly know Sarah was involved in Jacob breaking up with her? I remember her associating it much more with Joyce, what with Joyce being the one who directly (if mostly inadvertantly) talked Jacob into breaking up with her. And if she knew she had a reason to blame Sarah, she would. She’s hated Sarah since before the strip started.
It’s not really inadvertent if Joyce was actually trying, even if things didn’t play out the way she wanted.
But anyway, Sarah gets the blame by the transitive property of blame. She’s associated with Joyce, so it’s at least partly her fault. Which is kind of true.
You say that like she wouldn’t blame Sarah anyway.
You keep saying that despite multiple people telling you it’s not very accurate.
She just hates Sarah. And to be fair to Raidah, Sarah also plotted to have Jacob get together with Joyce while he was with Raidah.
Raidah doesn’t know that though.
Tony is the Dean’s son, therefore a resource in Raidah’s world. She wants him going out with someone in her clique, not ‘wasted’ on Sarah.
Radiah blames Sarah for Sarah’s first-year roommate Dana (part of Radiah’s crowd) dropping out of school, because Sarah called Dana’s father after (in her opinion) Dana had gotten too deep into trying to combat depression with drugs, and it was interfering with Sarah’s ability to sleep/study/maintain her scholarship.
This. Raidah held such a grudge that her very first strips are her bullying Sarah in the lunchroom. In those strips (that predate the fight at the mall) both Sarah and Raidah are alone. There’s no one there to perform for. Raidah just held onto that grudge all summer and into sophomore year and wants Sarah to be miserable.
Honestly I feel like Tony would respect Sarah for getting Dana help and not wanting to risk her scholarship. He isn’t going to be turned off by that revelation.
Yeah I said something similar in a previous comic’s comments.
Probably something like “So you’re mad that Sarah did something to help when you wouldn’t?”
At this point she has like two separate legitimate reasons to actively hate Sarah as a person. I don’t think it’s healthy for her, and if she cared about Tony Jr she’d try to let him be happy… But I understand where she’s coming from.
That said this does feel like an extension of her overall mindset of bullying and manipulation.
Sarah must really like him, if she’s willing to skip a class to spend more time with him, given her scholarship and all.
Love Tony for not taking her up on it.
They could just not meddle in other people’s relationships. But I guess that’s too much to ask from Raidah and Jennifer. Nice to see Tony encouraging Sarah to go to her classes, hopefully that’s a good sign for the future of their relationship.
To be fair, Jennifer is explicitly advocating *not* meddling.
Yeah, she’s doing it in a way that doesn’t explicitly call out how egotistical Raidah is being, but still.
Listen to Jennifer, Fake Lost Cause Sarah. What she’s saying is true…….But no. You NEED Sarah as an excuse. When’s the last time you spoke to Dana, by the way?
Why would she speak to Dana? Dana’s not useful anymore.
Maybe because it’s not her fuckin’ business, Raidah? Nor is it yours.
Now Raidah I want you listen carefullly. Fuck right off, keep fucking right off until you think you can’t fuck off any further, and then fuck off some more.
Raidah meddling will only drive Sarah and Tony closer together as they bond over hating drama and Raidah’s bullshit.
I look forward to seeing her attempts explode in her face.
Yesss perfect gravitation for this!
*gravatar
Shut up Billie, you and Raidah leave other people alone
That’s what Jennifer’s saying.
Raidah. Just stop. Other peoples lives are not your puppets. Those weird little power plays are awful.
Raidiah, you are a real bongo.
I actually wrote bongo. This was not the swear bot coreccting me.
I think I actually actively hate Raidah!
I like Raidah’s face in panel 2 so much, she looks like a Flipline character somehow
Here’s hoping Raidah’s obsession with Sarah causes her to self-destruct here. She is unhealthily fixated on making sure Sarah is miserable, and unfortunately for her, her usual tactics are going to have the opposite effect on Tony. His no-bullshit attitude is kryptonite to her manipulative nature so I can totally see her efforts resulting in exposing herself and burning a bunch of bridges.
If it happens, I’ll bring the marshmallows, there’s a lot of us though so I’m gonna need the rest of you to pitch in to get the crackers and chocolate. We’ll have a good ol burning bridge party
This is going to lead to comeuppance flavoured schadenfreude. Prepare the popcorn!
Doing nothing and expecting full credit is a reoccurring theme for Jennifer.
Raidah really needs to stop… Sarah is allowed to be happy. She earned it.
I really dont understand the Raidah Jennifer relationship like, at all. Can someone explain to me how it even works. They seem really incompatible personalities.
Billie thinks Raidah is a cool, connected Big Girl Friend who likes her, and Raidah is only associating with Billie because of her rich dad and actively shit-talks her behind her back. That’s the dynamic.
They’re both the same kind of immature social climbers. Also Raidah acts fake nice to Jennifer and Jennifer hasn’t realized that yet. Plus they’re both Asian if I’m not mistaken, which means that Jennifer has an easier time connecting to Raidah.
That is kind of a weird thing to say, by that logic she should has gotten along great with Dina.
Raidah or Dina?
Billie respects the totem pole, and *to her* Raidah is higher then her in the rank chart. She would eventually try to topple raidah once she’s strong enough.
Raidah is Megatron, Jennifer is Starscream.
My favorite part of this is that they both have legitimate reasons to dislike Sarah. Sarah’s been a total dick to Jennifer in every single panel they’ve shared and she made the executive decision to fuck over Dana, who’s apparently still in contact with Raidah but not Sarah. I still like Sarah a lot it’s just funny to me.
Like omg!!! Sarah! You’re one of my favorite characters and no I don’t take your side in either conflict and setting Joyce up with Jacob was also a dick move. I love you girlypop <3
She don’t know yet if Dana is actually worse that’s she was before going back home, we only have Raidah word for it and she has show that she is pretty damn biased. Sarah did the best she could given the circumstances.
I don’t disagree. The whole situation seems like a big hot mess with no easy way to resolve it.
If Sarah knew how much dating Tony was driving Raidah crazy, she’d rub it in her face constantly, which by all means please do Sarah.
Dana fucked herself over. Raidah enabled her so of course Dana would still talk to her.
Ah Raidah, my least favorite character.
Just, Tony… HOW IS THIS SO ROMANTIC??
Don’t let the haters win, Sarah!