See, this is what I mean.
If Raidah really believed she was in the right, she’d stay to try to make her case, wouldn’t she?
She doesn’t give a shit about Dana. Never did. All she’s angry about is losing that ‘connection’.
I think she genuinely does care about Dana, she just also knows that the truth, presented plainly, will not win her this argument. She’s also not self-reflective enough to realize that maybe that means she shouldn’t be having it in the first place.
Raidah seems like the kind of person who views herself as doing bad things for a good cause. She lies and manipulates because, in her mind, it still gets people closer to the truth. She wants to climb to the top because, in her mind, she’ll do some good once she’s up there. The problem with those types of people is that doing the right thing involves repeatedly asking yourself if you’re actually doing the right thing, and being open to changing course if you realize you’re not. And ironically, in this case, by continuing to vendetta her vendetta without listening to anyone or questioning herself, she may eventually succeed in hurting Sarah (although this encounter makes it seem unlikely), but she won’t do the one thing that will actually get her what she wants: Encouraging Dana to get the help she needs, and take it seriously, so she can come back to school.
Dorothy: “Did you hear? New students are arriving.”
Joyce: “I know, I can’t wait to meet those Baudelaire orphans. Can I get another pizza… Galasso? Sorry, but are you someone new?”
Count Olaf disguised as Mario Mario, the new owner of the pizza restaurant: “Ah, scuzi. But Galasso had to go back to his home land of Albany, ricotta. I’m Mario Mario, the new owner of the pizza restaurant and authentically Italian, linguini. Can’t you tell by my lush Italian mustache, lasagna?”
This was of course a ruse. Count Olaf is not from Italy and has in fact never been there. The closest he has ever come to Italy was getting served pasta puttanesca. To keep up the appearance, he ends his sentences with dishes and food, which he presumes are from Italy.
Count Olaf disguised as Mario Mario, the new owner of the pizza restaurant: “Now little miss bambina, what is it that you would like, Tteokbokki?”
kdmw
You’re making me want to reread all the books lol
Jerna
Joyce: “Mario Mario? That’s an unusual name, isn’t it?”
Count Olaf disguised as Mario Mario, the new owner of the pizza restaurant: “Oh no, yakisoba. I’m just Mario of the Mario familia, ravioli! I’m here with my brother”, upon which Count Olaf grabs a waiter with an equally lush Italian mustache, “Luigi Mario.”
Joyce: “Oh, like the movie based on the video games. I see. Isn’t that cool, Dorothy?”
But Dorothy wasn’t really all that convinced. For once, it is silly that there would be people based on those names. Unless those parents really wanted their child to be bullied, she thought.
Furthermore, the waiter Mario Mario pulled towards him and claimed to be his brother, didn’t show any family resemblance. Apart from the very lush Italian mustache. But what struck Dorothy as odd, is that the man Mario Mario claimed to be his brother, has hooks for hands. Not that she was ableist, Dorothy corrected herself immediately. But how is someone going to serve platters and drinks if nobody provides some tools and aid for the man?
Dorothy tried to not be judgmental. In fact, looking around the place, she couldn’t help but admire that Mario Mario employed disabled and what looks to be queer people. Not many bosses would do that. But something felt… off about it. She saw the other waiters and waitresses, which consisted of a bald man with a long nose, two women with white faces and someone who’s gender was indeterminate at first glance. All of them wearing a restaurant uniform… and lush Italian mustaches.
Steamweed
*Wanda Gershwitz breathes heavily
Freemage
I was so disappointed when Netflix cancelled the series three seasons in.
Tequila Mockingbird
Hold up, the replies below are saying this is an actual thing? I thought you were just meme’ing. What is this movie/show called?
Raidah is potentially one of the most layered and interesting characters in the strip and it’s sad that perfect setups to explore her and give her more depth keep getting whiffed like this.
What exactly is the point of reworking the strip to make sure your Muslim characters get more screen time if you’re not going to bother developing the most prominent one
Probably the same point of reworking the strip for any number of reasons; eventually, there will be a point where we as readers slap our foreheads and go “of course! there’s the character and plot development I was waiting on!” We’ll see it as soon as we see literally anything come out of any of the other hanging threads, which is to say, some indeterminate years (plural) from now.
Alternatively he could focus on Muslim characters that are good people. There aren’t many Muslim characters I know of, but Raidah has been written as a toxic individual, and I don’t see any value in her as anything more.
feel free to ignore this because hey what do I know, but raidah strikes me as the sort that’s only religious when it is convenient, for example when it gives her a precedent to gripe about the two blonde white chicks she has a personal vendetta against and not, say, when her boyfriend is a different religion or her “friend” who did enough drugs to get pulled out of school
Me: *states my opinion*
You: well that’s just your opinion
Riveting stuff, really
Cameron Stone
I guess I’m just perplexed you thought there was so much depth from a character that was really just a few steps above Mary in terms of complexity, existing mostly just as an antagonist for Sarah. Also, these strips are inserted long after a year’s worth of comic was planned out so their limited in how much complexity they can have.
Asma is not the strip’s most prominent Muslim character. Don’t be ridiculous. She was hardly a character at all until Willis’ big oopsie-daisie.
Thag Simmons
Raidah was probably more developed, but Asma’s also a recurring character who’s been around since the third strip.
Also, you could flip the script and say giving that development focus to Asma is more deserved because she’s been around forever and hasn’t really gotten any attention despite that.
Dedlok
I am going to be honest with you: I didn’t even know or remember Raidah was a character in this strip until this whole protest arc started and even then she didn’t ping on my radar until she started acting enraged about the front page of the newspaper and then saw comments saying there were Raidah strips being added in that weren’t originally in The Buffer™.
Asma on the other hand I can remember as far back as her appearance in strip 3. And that is more because of her more memorable moments at the front desk and grousing about how some people don’t even try to remember or learn her name.
So to me, Asma is much much more prominent than Raidah has ever been to me.
Polaris
Which oopsie-daisy ?
thejeff
Raidah’s been more prominent, but she’s been more prominent in this antagonist role. I’m not sure that it would make sense for that to change drastically, especially since a lot of this was already in motion before the Kiss scene.
Honestly, I’d kind of rather see her be more of a threat, more successful in her manipulations, rather than have her vindicated and move into less of an antagonist role – though I’m not sure that’s quite what you’re suggesting.
eh, whatever
Which oopsie-daisy ?
Noticing, while the Gaza Strip was being flattened, that everyone was interpreting Bulmeria as Gaza, so he couldn’t just use a protest about Bulmeria (on the same site as a real protest about Gaza a few IRL months earlier) as an inconsequential background for the kiss scene without seeming rather insensitive.
Thag Simmons
@eh, whatever I do think it’s worth noting that the Bulmeria protest was always a Gaza allegory
Given where the comic takes place, it kind of had to be addressed. It’s a difficult situation and I don’t envy Willis’s position. I think they made unforced errors in tackling it, but there was no clean way to handle the situation.
embe13
the oopsie daisy was bringing joyce and dotty together at the protest wanst supposed to happen that way tillhe realised he’d subconsiously set it up to happen then, and hd to rewrite a bunch to make it fit, and took adantage at that time to add more asma
I think you may be mistaking layered with “good person.”
Raidah is a shit person for the most part. “She has good ideals-” yet here she is trying to throw someone under the bus for *check’s notes* trying to get an education. Instead of questioning the underlying issues that led to Sarah getting Dana pulled out of college.
There’s no deep backstory that’s going to redeem Raidah. She wants social power and treats people as toys to play with or use at her will, and gets upset and discards them when they’re no longer useful to her.
Or hear me out here. Forming social connections isn’t inherently a bad thing. It’s actually called friendship which is really what Raidah wants, but she keeps people at arms length and within her framework of manipulation because the few times she actually trusted people it failed. Jacob and Dana respectively. Regardless of the circumstances around them she lost two close friends in a fairly quick timeframe, less than a year. From Raidah’s perspective mostly Sarah’s fault even if you don’t sympathize with Raidah. It makes sense to me why she acts like this now. How could she not?
Bill Erak
It’s heavily implied Tony knows her from before and even he reacted like “Oh god it’s Raidah god why”
And I’m fairly certain her manipulation habits didn’t stem from Sarah like some villain origin story. “You got my friend out of school, now I will gaslight gatekeep girlboss my way to the top as REVENGE”
Nono
But losing Jacob wasn’t Sarah’s fault, it’s Joyce’s (and Jacob’s). At least from Raidah’s perspective, she would have no connection of her breakup with Jacob to Sarah (outside of Sarah being Joyce’s roommate).
thejeff
I don’t see any indication Raidah wasn’t like this before losing Jacob. We don’t see enough of her in flashbacks before the Dana affair to really know about then – though that group mostly having parents who run law firms is a clue.
There’s a lot in the Jacob sequence that shows her as manipulative and deceitful already. With some justification, given what Joyce is up to, but still not a good look.
Freemage
Raidah came onto campus with the intention to form a clique, and to be the one in charge of it. Every flashback and current-time panel has pretty much featured behavior relating to this.
She brings people into her circle, not on the basis of shared interests or views, but rather on her perception of their connections. And once she decides a particular individual is of no use to her, she ditches them and fills the gap with someone more useful.
And I’d enjoy her appearances more if she was any good at any of this petty bullshit she constantly tries. Her one successful ‘hit’ was against Dorothy, and that one backfired magnificently. Mary at least has short-term successes that make her eventual comeuppances feel deserved and satisfying. Raidah in a strip mostly signals to my brain to wager whether she’s going to fall on her ass or on her face, this time.
Her progress as a character here definitely feels a bit… stunted? Is that the word?
though that’s probably in part because we’re clearly still in the retrofitted-into-storylines-that-were-already-written phase. Dunno exactly when that ends
I dunno, in many ways I feel like we’re watching her do what everyone else does: fail in the same ways repeatedly, likely building to some kind of growth when she gets tired of clearly doing stuff in a way that leads to failure and makes her unhappy. At least I can hope.
I mean.
.
Of course it’s possible that said whiffing will occur, but isn’t it… fairly obvious that this is a setup for more Raidah development? Why does it need to happen before she walks out of frame here for there to ever be payoff?
Like. We don’t even know the camera isn’t going to follow Raidah in the very next strip rather than staying on Sarah and Tony. Why are you so sure anything is being whiffed here?
Needfuldoer
Everyone can see the blurry freebie preview on Patreon. Dialogue is illegible, but you can absolutely tell which characters appear.
Li
I’ve checked now. And we don’t stay with Tony and Sarah, so, my point very much stands! We cut away to other characters, but that doesn’t at all mean we won’t come back to Raidah the day after, or the day after that. It doesn’t mean we won’t see more Raidah before this storyline ends.
.
So, my question stands: why so confident that this opportunity for Raidah character development has been “whiffed”?
.
We don’t even know if this scene is fully over, much less what Raidah is going to do next, having faced this firm rebuffing of her attempted overture with Tony.
.
Like. It just seems to me that the time to be declaring missed character growth potential is at LEAST at whatever our web comic equivalent of a season finale is? But Dot isn’t even waiting for the end of the current episode.
embe13
accept this is the season premiere not the finale,i do not say this to counter your actual post which mostly agree with as we need to give willis time to cook, just to point out we are in the season premiere, but i realize your point may have been that we are more likely to gt the actual character growth closer to the season finale?
Li
@embe13: not quite?
.
My point is that it feels premature to declare that a Raidah character development opportunity has been squandered right now. Because this ISN’T a season finale.
.
It just seems to me like an arbitrary moment to give up on Raidah having a character arc — even one specifically launched by this interaction.
.
Does that make sense?
embe13
@Li, as i closed my comment i wondered if that is what you had meant
Can’t be sure of course, but is this really more of setup for more character development than any of Raidah’s previous appearances over the years that didn’t lead much of anywhere?
Li
Two points:
.
1. Which other moments specifically? I’d argue that several of them did in fact lead to character growth, albeit not in the colloquial sense. For such a minor character, she was directly responsible for one of the biggest status-quo changes in the comic post-timeskip: Billie ditching the rest of the cast and becoming Jennifer.
.
2. I mean, this is really more of a question for Dot than for me. I just accepted her premise that this scene held potential for Raidah character growth and asked why she’s so sure that potential has been squandered when, like, the scene isn’t even necessarily over.
She’s not really all that layered with how she’s actually written, she just has the potential to be. In fact id say she’s pretty one dimensional as she is now. I should post that Potential Man meme I made of her one day…
THEY’RE SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love sarah being so playful and coy and tony being amused/endeared by it… its good to see them both have something nice that makes them happy and it’s each other yayyyy <3
166 thoughts on “Social Climber”
Bill Erak
See, this is what I mean.
If Raidah really believed she was in the right, she’d stay to try to make her case, wouldn’t she?
She doesn’t give a shit about Dana. Never did. All she’s angry about is losing that ‘connection’.
nadamás
I mean, you gotta understand how is she supposed badmouth her when she is there to defend herself?! It completely ruins the point of shit talking.
Jerna
“That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spot light, losing my connetion!”
Steamweed
Raidah’s got naked ambition. But Sarah just wants to be naked with Tony. The two are not the same. :D
Steamweed
“Raidah’s got naked ambition. Sarah’s got an ambition to be naked!”
— Djaevlenselv
Ian Clark
I think she genuinely does care about Dana, she just also knows that the truth, presented plainly, will not win her this argument. She’s also not self-reflective enough to realize that maybe that means she shouldn’t be having it in the first place.
Raidah seems like the kind of person who views herself as doing bad things for a good cause. She lies and manipulates because, in her mind, it still gets people closer to the truth. She wants to climb to the top because, in her mind, she’ll do some good once she’s up there. The problem with those types of people is that doing the right thing involves repeatedly asking yourself if you’re actually doing the right thing, and being open to changing course if you realize you’re not. And ironically, in this case, by continuing to vendetta her vendetta without listening to anyone or questioning herself, she may eventually succeed in hurting Sarah (although this encounter makes it seem unlikely), but she won’t do the one thing that will actually get her what she wants: Encouraging Dana to get the help she needs, and take it seriously, so she can come back to school.
NGPZ
Raidah try her shit and Tony do be like
“ya can’t possibly think you’re the ONLY person whose thought of this” (-_-)
jam
Yeah – I also wonder if Raidah had any real contact with Dana after she left, and if she didn’t whose decision that was.
Astariel
Nice to see a happy ending. (At least for now.)
Coatl
That’s right, since September a series of unfortunate events have occurred; it was about time to lighten things up.
Jerna
Dorothy: “Did you hear? New students are arriving.”
Joyce: “I know, I can’t wait to meet those Baudelaire orphans. Can I get another pizza… Galasso? Sorry, but are you someone new?”
Count Olaf disguised as Mario Mario, the new owner of the pizza restaurant: “Ah, scuzi. But Galasso had to go back to his home land of Albany, ricotta. I’m Mario Mario, the new owner of the pizza restaurant and authentically Italian, linguini. Can’t you tell by my lush Italian mustache, lasagna?”
This was of course a ruse. Count Olaf is not from Italy and has in fact never been there. The closest he has ever come to Italy was getting served pasta puttanesca. To keep up the appearance, he ends his sentences with dishes and food, which he presumes are from Italy.
Count Olaf disguised as Mario Mario, the new owner of the pizza restaurant: “Now little miss bambina, what is it that you would like, Tteokbokki?”
kdmw
You’re making me want to reread all the books lol
Jerna
Joyce: “Mario Mario? That’s an unusual name, isn’t it?”
Count Olaf disguised as Mario Mario, the new owner of the pizza restaurant: “Oh no, yakisoba. I’m just Mario of the Mario familia, ravioli! I’m here with my brother”, upon which Count Olaf grabs a waiter with an equally lush Italian mustache, “Luigi Mario.”
Joyce: “Oh, like the movie based on the video games. I see. Isn’t that cool, Dorothy?”
But Dorothy wasn’t really all that convinced. For once, it is silly that there would be people based on those names. Unless those parents really wanted their child to be bullied, she thought.
Furthermore, the waiter Mario Mario pulled towards him and claimed to be his brother, didn’t show any family resemblance. Apart from the very lush Italian mustache. But what struck Dorothy as odd, is that the man Mario Mario claimed to be his brother, has hooks for hands. Not that she was ableist, Dorothy corrected herself immediately. But how is someone going to serve platters and drinks if nobody provides some tools and aid for the man?
Dorothy tried to not be judgmental. In fact, looking around the place, she couldn’t help but admire that Mario Mario employed disabled and what looks to be queer people. Not many bosses would do that. But something felt… off about it. She saw the other waiters and waitresses, which consisted of a bald man with a long nose, two women with white faces and someone who’s gender was indeterminate at first glance. All of them wearing a restaurant uniform… and lush Italian mustaches.
Steamweed
*Wanda Gershwitz breathes heavily
Freemage
I was so disappointed when Netflix cancelled the series three seasons in.
Tequila Mockingbird
Hold up, the replies below are saying this is an actual thing? I thought you were just meme’ing. What is this movie/show called?
Sirksome
It’s funny to me how badly Raidah has repeatedly failed to make Sarah’s life worse.
Dot
Raidah is potentially one of the most layered and interesting characters in the strip and it’s sad that perfect setups to explore her and give her more depth keep getting whiffed like this.
GreyICE
But because she walks away is part of the character she is.
Dot
What exactly is the point of reworking the strip to make sure your Muslim characters get more screen time if you’re not going to bother developing the most prominent one
apocryphascribe
Probably the same point of reworking the strip for any number of reasons; eventually, there will be a point where we as readers slap our foreheads and go “of course! there’s the character and plot development I was waiting on!” We’ll see it as soon as we see literally anything come out of any of the other hanging threads, which is to say, some indeterminate years (plural) from now.
ZombieKyrik
Alternatively he could focus on Muslim characters that are good people. There aren’t many Muslim characters I know of, but Raidah has been written as a toxic individual, and I don’t see any value in her as anything more.
Pocky
Asma is right there; all I’m sayin. Let Raidah be terrible, its been her thing long before the Bulmeria stuff.
Fnord
Are we sure Raidah is actually Muslim?
embe13
yes she states she attends the mosque in one of her early appearences
Qube
feel free to ignore this because hey what do I know, but raidah strikes me as the sort that’s only religious when it is convenient, for example when it gives her a precedent to gripe about the two blonde white chicks she has a personal vendetta against and not, say, when her boyfriend is a different religion or her “friend” who did enough drugs to get pulled out of school
Cameron Stone
I’m going to say that might be your interpretation rather than any intent on Willis’ part.
Dot
Cool
Dot
Me: *states my opinion*
You: well that’s just your opinion
Riveting stuff, really
Cameron Stone
I guess I’m just perplexed you thought there was so much depth from a character that was really just a few steps above Mary in terms of complexity, existing mostly just as an antagonist for Sarah. Also, these strips are inserted long after a year’s worth of comic was planned out so their limited in how much complexity they can have.
Rosicrucian
Dot is right and you should feel bad.
Cameron Stone
No we’ve had strips with Asma.
Dot
Asma is not the strip’s most prominent Muslim character. Don’t be ridiculous. She was hardly a character at all until Willis’ big oopsie-daisie.
Thag Simmons
Raidah was probably more developed, but Asma’s also a recurring character who’s been around since the third strip.
Also, you could flip the script and say giving that development focus to Asma is more deserved because she’s been around forever and hasn’t really gotten any attention despite that.
Dedlok
I am going to be honest with you: I didn’t even know or remember Raidah was a character in this strip until this whole protest arc started and even then she didn’t ping on my radar until she started acting enraged about the front page of the newspaper and then saw comments saying there were Raidah strips being added in that weren’t originally in The Buffer™.
Asma on the other hand I can remember as far back as her appearance in strip 3. And that is more because of her more memorable moments at the front desk and grousing about how some people don’t even try to remember or learn her name.
So to me, Asma is much much more prominent than Raidah has ever been to me.
Polaris
Which oopsie-daisy ?
thejeff
Raidah’s been more prominent, but she’s been more prominent in this antagonist role. I’m not sure that it would make sense for that to change drastically, especially since a lot of this was already in motion before the Kiss scene.
Honestly, I’d kind of rather see her be more of a threat, more successful in her manipulations, rather than have her vindicated and move into less of an antagonist role – though I’m not sure that’s quite what you’re suggesting.
eh, whatever
Which oopsie-daisy ?
Noticing, while the Gaza Strip was being flattened, that everyone was interpreting Bulmeria as Gaza, so he couldn’t just use a protest about Bulmeria (on the same site as a real protest about Gaza a few IRL months earlier) as an inconsequential background for the kiss scene without seeming rather insensitive.
Thag Simmons
@eh, whatever I do think it’s worth noting that the Bulmeria protest was always a Gaza allegory
Given where the comic takes place, it kind of had to be addressed. It’s a difficult situation and I don’t envy Willis’s position. I think they made unforced errors in tackling it, but there was no clean way to handle the situation.
embe13
the oopsie daisy was bringing joyce and dotty together at the protest wanst supposed to happen that way tillhe realised he’d subconsiously set it up to happen then, and hd to rewrite a bunch to make it fit, and took adantage at that time to add more asma
Thag Simmons
I mean, I’d argue a lot of the characters who do live up to their potential for depth and complexity still get scenes like this.
Sometimes they’re gonna get dunked on for the sake of a joke.
Thag Simmons
Would like to figure out the tags for putting a break in
hoping that worked.
BarerMender
Oops. What I want is a way to cancel a reply.
embe13
before you post on the top line with “reply to xxxxx” in red text it says cancel reply.
then if you do post you have 10mins to edit your reply, there is an option to delete reply at that time
Bill Erak
I think you may be mistaking layered with “good person.”
Raidah is a shit person for the most part. “She has good ideals-” yet here she is trying to throw someone under the bus for *check’s notes* trying to get an education. Instead of questioning the underlying issues that led to Sarah getting Dana pulled out of college.
There’s no deep backstory that’s going to redeem Raidah. She wants social power and treats people as toys to play with or use at her will, and gets upset and discards them when they’re no longer useful to her.
Sirksome
Or hear me out here. Forming social connections isn’t inherently a bad thing. It’s actually called friendship which is really what Raidah wants, but she keeps people at arms length and within her framework of manipulation because the few times she actually trusted people it failed. Jacob and Dana respectively. Regardless of the circumstances around them she lost two close friends in a fairly quick timeframe, less than a year. From Raidah’s perspective mostly Sarah’s fault even if you don’t sympathize with Raidah. It makes sense to me why she acts like this now. How could she not?
Bill Erak
It’s heavily implied Tony knows her from before and even he reacted like “Oh god it’s Raidah god why”
And I’m fairly certain her manipulation habits didn’t stem from Sarah like some villain origin story. “You got my friend out of school, now I will gaslight gatekeep girlboss my way to the top as REVENGE”
Nono
But losing Jacob wasn’t Sarah’s fault, it’s Joyce’s (and Jacob’s). At least from Raidah’s perspective, she would have no connection of her breakup with Jacob to Sarah (outside of Sarah being Joyce’s roommate).
thejeff
I don’t see any indication Raidah wasn’t like this before losing Jacob. We don’t see enough of her in flashbacks before the Dana affair to really know about then – though that group mostly having parents who run law firms is a clue.
There’s a lot in the Jacob sequence that shows her as manipulative and deceitful already. With some justification, given what Joyce is up to, but still not a good look.
Freemage
Raidah came onto campus with the intention to form a clique, and to be the one in charge of it. Every flashback and current-time panel has pretty much featured behavior relating to this.
She brings people into her circle, not on the basis of shared interests or views, but rather on her perception of their connections. And once she decides a particular individual is of no use to her, she ditches them and fills the gap with someone more useful.
And I’d enjoy her appearances more if she was any good at any of this petty bullshit she constantly tries. Her one successful ‘hit’ was against Dorothy, and that one backfired magnificently. Mary at least has short-term successes that make her eventual comeuppances feel deserved and satisfying. Raidah in a strip mostly signals to my brain to wager whether she’s going to fall on her ass or on her face, this time.
RassilonTDavros
Her progress as a character here definitely feels a bit… stunted? Is that the word?
though that’s probably in part because we’re clearly still in the retrofitted-into-storylines-that-were-already-written phase. Dunno exactly when that ends
AK
I dunno, in many ways I feel like we’re watching her do what everyone else does: fail in the same ways repeatedly, likely building to some kind of growth when she gets tired of clearly doing stuff in a way that leads to failure and makes her unhappy. At least I can hope.
AMagicalDuck
is she? seems like a glass onion to me
Li
I mean.
.
Of course it’s possible that said whiffing will occur, but isn’t it… fairly obvious that this is a setup for more Raidah development? Why does it need to happen before she walks out of frame here for there to ever be payoff?
Li
Like. We don’t even know the camera isn’t going to follow Raidah in the very next strip rather than staying on Sarah and Tony. Why are you so sure anything is being whiffed here?
Needfuldoer
Everyone can see the blurry freebie preview on Patreon. Dialogue is illegible, but you can absolutely tell which characters appear.
Li
I’ve checked now. And we don’t stay with Tony and Sarah, so, my point very much stands! We cut away to other characters, but that doesn’t at all mean we won’t come back to Raidah the day after, or the day after that. It doesn’t mean we won’t see more Raidah before this storyline ends.
.
So, my question stands: why so confident that this opportunity for Raidah character development has been “whiffed”?
.
We don’t even know if this scene is fully over, much less what Raidah is going to do next, having faced this firm rebuffing of her attempted overture with Tony.
.
Like. It just seems to me that the time to be declaring missed character growth potential is at LEAST at whatever our web comic equivalent of a season finale is? But Dot isn’t even waiting for the end of the current episode.
embe13
accept this is the season premiere not the finale,i do not say this to counter your actual post which mostly agree with as we need to give willis time to cook, just to point out we are in the season premiere, but i realize your point may have been that we are more likely to gt the actual character growth closer to the season finale?
Li
@embe13: not quite?
.
My point is that it feels premature to declare that a Raidah character development opportunity has been squandered right now. Because this ISN’T a season finale.
.
It just seems to me like an arbitrary moment to give up on Raidah having a character arc — even one specifically launched by this interaction.
.
Does that make sense?
embe13
@Li, as i closed my comment i wondered if that is what you had meant
thejeff
Can’t be sure of course, but is this really more of setup for more character development than any of Raidah’s previous appearances over the years that didn’t lead much of anywhere?
Li
Two points:
.
1. Which other moments specifically? I’d argue that several of them did in fact lead to character growth, albeit not in the colloquial sense. For such a minor character, she was directly responsible for one of the biggest status-quo changes in the comic post-timeskip: Billie ditching the rest of the cast and becoming Jennifer.
.
2. I mean, this is really more of a question for Dot than for me. I just accepted her premise that this scene held potential for Raidah character growth and asked why she’s so sure that potential has been squandered when, like, the scene isn’t even necessarily over.
Bryy
I’m confused as to what depths you thought her shit talkig Sarah via a heavily exaggerated version of events looks like.
zee
She’s not really all that layered with how she’s actually written, she just has the potential to be. In fact id say she’s pretty one dimensional as she is now. I should post that Potential Man meme I made of her one day…
Hell Yeah
even odds we’ll see raidah dealing this blow to the ego soon, if we see sarah first ill send ya a dollar tho
Joy
I basically agree, yeah
JD
THEY’RE SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love sarah being so playful and coy and tony being amused/endeared by it… its good to see them both have something nice that makes them happy and it’s each other yayyyy <3
IntangibleMatter
Are we gonna get a Slipshine called “Brainstorm Session” out of this one?
I don’t think anyone’d complain
ZombieKyrik
Raidah would complain :P
Brian K. Pittman
When doesn’t she complain?
ZombieKyrik
You make an excellent point.
Steamweed
Either a complete standalone Slipshine or a series of Other Patreons. I’m happy, either way.
Elf grrl