582

Contribute
Posted on July 13, 2018 by David M Willis

582 thoughts on “Contribute”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    her fursona’s a lamprey, isn’t it

    1. Doctor_Who

      Maybe that’s why she and Jacob are really together, their common interest is being furries.

      1. Zach

        Is this cannon

        1. butts

          boom

        2. darkoneko

          Boom

        3. King Daniel

          …goes the cannon

        4. Ana Chronistic

          shake the room

    2. kitty

      lamprey furry would be very metal

    3. No Name

      Hmm… Bloodsucking, slimy and, unlike the leech, has a backbone. It’s perfect!

      1. LookingIN

        But unlike a leech, has no use except sucking blood and copulating…at least a leech can save a life, a lamprey? not so much.

        1. Graham

          Lampreys are edible, apparently excellent in pies. Somewhat out of fashion since Henry I died from eating a “surfeit”.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Maybe if Henry (nice name BTW) hadn’t been eating them live, covered in rattlesnake venom and rusted nail shavings, he would have survived. It’s true, look it up.

    4. King Daniel

      Lampreys don’t even have fur, though

      or scales

      1. emmavoid

        Don’t worry, there’s definitely fish furries

    5. Sigh

      You’re going to make me defend lampreys, aren’t you? I see how this is going…

  2. butts

    oh dotty you precious little dork

    please leave before this gets messy

    1. Puckish Rogue

      Dorothy is in a dilemma here, leave and be part on the looming car crash or stay and watch Joyces hubris blow up in her face (or possibly Raidahs)

      We however can all enjoy the coming drama

      1. Danni

        i doubt leaving after raidah said in the last panel would be possible. this is gonna be a car crash.

        1. Puckish Rogue

          I predict Joyce being taken down but, for dramas sake, i’d like to see both Raidah and Joyce…hell lets not leave Dorothy out it she can be part of the crash as well

        2. Proto

          Joyce is going down and Dorothy’s gonna stick up for her but also somehow get owned but ultimately Joyce will win because Raidah being mean is going to make Jacob dislike her.

        3. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

          She kind of already is. The whole Keener family really has no idea how deal with 4chan’s IRL counterparts to save their lives. Pressing toward the ‘let’s get Raidah to tell us more about herself’ conversation path is her best bet, but she may let that slip through…

        4. Sir_Naff

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush,_Texas#Crash

          I AM READY

      2. Puckish Rogue

        Damn it that doesn’t make sense at all, more fool me for trying to work and post at the same time

    2. Freemage

      Part of the issue, here, is that Raidah and Joyce are in the aisle seats–when this goes sideways and catches fire, Jacob and Dorothy are both pinned to the wall, next to the posters: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/wrong-3/

      This also makes more difficult the oft-desired ending where Jacob flees, declaring a pox on both their houses. He’s got to interrupt and ask/tell Raidah to get out of the way, first, and depending on just how long his obliviousness lasts, he may find it difficult to do that once things have built up a real head of steam.

      1. ValdVin

        Yep. And if she want to go the other way, Dorothy would have to go thru a plate glass window. Glazed with Galasso’s likeness on it.

        That’s also a no.

  3. ShinyNeen

    Sorry, Dorothy, it would take at least two of you to successfully defuse this conflict. And Jacob would first need to realize there’s a conflict at all!

    1. Keulen

      Jacob’s probably still thinking about pizza.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Maybe? It sure looked like his train of thought snapped back to the conversation yesterday…

        1. thejeff

          Well of course. His brother is great.

          Still no idea anything’s going on between Joyce and Raidah though.

  4. AnvilPro

    Dorothy can’t even get peaceful negotiations between two college girls. She’s qualified to be president.

    1. CMasta

      +1

    2. BBCC

      It’s hard to negotiate an end to a conflict when sitting in front of a party who doesn’t and isn’t supposed to (in her mind) know about a conflict.

    3. Norah

      She’s 17 years away from even being old enough to run for President!

      1. Jim

        16 years… It was established early in the webcomic that Dorothy is 19…

    4. Spriteless Girl

      Well, it’s good practice!

      1. MM

        Yeah, now she’ll know better than to try that “human cost of our actions” line on Senate leadership.

        1. Betty Anne

          *smashing the +1 button*

    5. Chris B

      The problem with Dorothy is that she assumes everyone is an optimist, and that being selfish is bad. There’s nothing wrong with selfishness, as Dorothy herself broke things off with Dan just to push for her overachiever future. As long as selfishness doesn’t interfere with the rights of others to make their own decisions (selfish or selfless), there’s no reason to defuse the situation.

      The first thing she needs to realize is that keeping your mouth shut in a negotiation is the best strategy. The first person who talks is in a position of weakness, because they’re trying to bait the other person to give them something to counter, like the first person to move in chess. At this point, Raidah’s comments don’t have to mean anything or follow any logical pattern, because she continuously has the last word, and Dorothy is always on the defensive.

      The better solution is to shut up, and let Raidah fill the void with something so hateful that Jacob will start to see what she’s like. Or better yet, ask her point blank “How do you know Sarah?”

      Or, better yet, realize that in another 20 years, even if Raidah is successful, her success will be based trying to constantly one-up her peers and driven by jealousy. She will never know a moment’s peace or happiness just doing the things that would truly make her happy, while Joyce, choosing something that provides a modest future, a family, and the lifestyle she wants will still win in the long run.

      This is classic asymmetrical warfare applied to a quality of life question. Do you consider quality of life as a measure against others’ changing standards for what is measurable success, like Raidah, or do you measure against your own internal goals, where external factors have little drive, like Joyce?

  5. Doctor_Who

    So now they become best friends and braid each other’s hair over pints of Ben & Jerry’s, right?

    Who am I kidding. Dorothy, the phrase “minimum safe distance” should be arriving in your head right now, along with the word “kilometers”.

    1. Fogel

      Perhaps Dorothy needs a safe word to get out of this?

      1. Schpoonman

        Like Dorothy thinks “What’s the ONE thing that could tip off JOYCE without giving it away to Raidah?” and she asks to say a prayer. Joyce immediately gets the idea and calls a break.

        1. cbwroses

          You know Joyce would be ecstatic if Dorothy wanted to pray, believing she’d finally convinced her to come to God.

        2. Doctor_Who

          She invites Dorothy to lead the table in prayer, but all Dorothy can think of is the Litany Against Fear from Dune.

        3. Agemegos

          Or the Possibly Proper Death Litany from Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness.

        4. Freemage

          Agemegos, that was literally my first thought to Doctor_Who’s post.

        5. Needfuldoer

          They say there are no atheists in foxholes…

        6. Emily

          That saying has always struck me as weird because it implies religion is just an irrational fear response in the face of your own mortality which seems counter to its intent.

        7. thejeff

          That’s what it seems like to me too, but then I’m an atheist.
          I suspect those using it think of atheism differently: In the face of death you’ll abandon this faddish pretense and accept what you really know to be true.

        8. Killer Klown

          I’ve always seen it as desperation causing people to grasp at whatever straws are available. The idea of ‘god’ is unquantifiable by nature – there’s a good deal of unknown variable in what god can or cannot do, so as such there exists a slightly greater chance that ‘god’ will come and bail you out instead of ‘mommy’.

        9. thejeff

          But that’s because you’re not Christian (I assume from your comment, or at least not that kind of Christian).
          In a proper fundy Christian mindset, we are all called to Christianity and it’s only because of our rebellious sinful nature that some turn away. In the face of death we realize that and return to our true selves.

          It’s bullshit of course, at least from my perspective, but it’s not the same kind of bullshit because the axioms are different.

        10. Roborat

          I remember reading an essay arguing that it would be more accurate to say that they are all atheists in foxholes, as the experience of combat causes more people to loose their faith than gain it. Did a quick google search but couldn’t find it.

        11. Sigh

          In the face of death, you grasp desperately for any hope that things will get better. If not in this life, then in another one.

          I’m an atheist, but if one of my kids died, would I hold onto hope that somewhere, somehow, they were still alive in some other way? Of coursse. I love my kids. Most humans don’t like this idea of death being permanent.

        12. Needfuldoer

          That’s how I’ve always interpreted it.

          Dorothy needs a lot more practice at conflict resolution. (Remember when she tried to straddle the fence in the Ultra Car vs D&MM argument?) She doesn’t have the skills to defuse Joyce v. Raidah, and may have just thrown some gasoline on the fire.

        13. Sigh

          It doesn’t have to be irrational. Belief in the afterlife is a completely reasonable desire to impending death of yourself or others.

        14. the Nerdytimes

          I read about it from somewhere that suggested that the real meaning is that if you see someone in danger, you *don’t* ask whether or not they are an atheist before you help them. And conversely, if you’re in danger yourself and someone offers you help, you *don’t* ask about their beliefs before you’re safe.

        15. Freemage

          That’s… a nice interpretation, and it would be lovely if that how it were to be used in regular parlance, but no, that’s not the original context at all–it appears, ultimately, to trace back to a line from a WWI soldier’s memorial service, that explicitly made clear that it’s the idea that extreme danger promotes piety in unbelievers: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/11/02/foxhole/

        16. Amazi-Stool

          Let us remember what Dorothy already has pointed out:
          “This atheist is the foxhole!”

  6. Shiro

    Hmm. I know it’s a long shot, but what if in addition to wanting to make Joyce look bad in front of Jacob, Raidah is just generally Like This? Some people are just naturally argumentative and make friends through being adversarial and challenging them

    1. C.T Phipps

      I don’t think Raidah came to this table to make friends. Even before she was gunning for her man, Joyce was Sarah’s friend.

      1. BBCC

        Agreed. Raidah’s here to win.

        1. Arianod

          And yet she could be digging her own grave here. From Jacob’s perspective, she’s just gonna start being mean to Joyce for no reason.

    2. kitty

      true or at least this is what i tell myself when looking at the replys on twitter.com

    3. ScarvesandCelery

      Doesn’t seem consistent with the way we saw her making friends with Sarah in Sarah’s flashback story, though.

      1. Z

        Sarah’s a future lawyer. She wasn’t making friends, she’s networking.

        I don’t know if she knows about Dorothy’s political aspirations- but she knows that *Joyce* is not going to help her career goals. So, not networking.

      2. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

        She’s learned to mask her true colors a little better. Lawyers only make it into the well-off places in society *if* they’re successful.
        Shooting for a fake but flashy life in places almost exclusively dominated by non-minorities raised by families of snobs about as used to diversity as Joyce was before going to college is enough adversity as it is.
        Having both Jersey Shore-level character and socially-related control issues bad enough to warrant seeing a therapist makes her order that much taller.
        Figuring growing as a person isn’t an acceptable option….?

    4. Needfuldoer

      No we’re not.

  7. King Daniel

    Ah yeah, the Picture Bible, with its Caucasian red-haired white-robes-and-blue-sash Jesus

    Always kind of weirds me out when Willis tweets pictures from it, since I actually used to have it as a kid

    1. Doctor_Who

      Jesus had red hair in Joyce’s bible?

      Okay, I just had a hilarious mental image of Joyce meeting him, only to find that he’s gotten an undercut identical to Becky’s.

      1. King Daniel

        Depended on the exact page in question, but as I recall his hair was generally depicted as some sort of auburn-to-dark-red color. So not exactly the same hair color as Becky…but still, that’s a pretty funny mental image all the same. 😛

      2. ShinyNeen

        Love that idea! Jesus Intensifies.

    2. Crusading Barista

      I’ve heard of white Jesuss, and black Jesus, but not once have I ever heard of Jesus being a redhead….

      Was he secretly Irish?

      1. King Daniel

        The H in Jesus H. Christ stands for Hibernia.

      2. No Name

        When he came to Ireland. Irish (and Celtic in general) illuminated manuscripts often showed Jesus as a redhead, in an effort to sell Christianity to the heathen locals, who often had red hair and usually considered it “good”. Meanwhile, on the continent, Judas Iscariot got the red hair as a mark of the devil, precisely because of the heathen Celts.

        1. Sigh

          I would like to add a side note about people in the past not having a very good idea about what people in other parts of the world looked like befoe the advent of photography or cheap travel. Artists just tried to make people look like the people they’d met because they didn’t know any other people.

          Some people in major crossroads should have known better, of course.

        2. thejeff

          OTOH, often they had at least stereotypes of Jews and used those for the villains – Judas, Herod and Pharisees and the like. But not for Jesus and the Apostles.

          They also often had little understanding of different cultures or changes in technology and thus tended to depict Biblical scenes as if they were contemporary and local – except possibly for things strongly emphasized in the Bible story.

        3. Roborat

          So that is why Jesus looks like a blonde, blue eyed Viking in many depictions?

        4. Sigh

          Believe me, any depiction of Biblical characters that doesn’t look Jewish or Palestinian weirds me out. But the trend to depict Jesus as some kind of idealized version of the locals seems to be universal that wherever he goes. Koreans, for example, are apparently super buff: https://imgur.com/gallery/wVCgyhh
          Black Jesus: https://churchpop.com/2015/07/02/jesus-black-man-depictions/
          (the website claims these are rare, but one of these is hanging over the voting booths in our local polling spot, so… not that rare if you live in a black neighborhood.)
          Ethiopian Jesus: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/virgin-mary-and-jesus-ethiopia-royalty-free-image/164192007
          (If you are not familiar with the Ethiopian artistic tradition, it is very interesting, eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Tewahedo_biblical_canon#/media/File:Aethiopisch_orthodoxer_Moench.jpg
          Chinese Jesus: http://picchore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/chinese-jesus-11.jpg
          Indian Jesus: https://sathyasaibaba.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/indian-jesus.jpg

          Tangent, but I do enjoy this picture of Jesus in a baby walker: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jesus_in_a_baby_walker_from_the_Hours_of_Catherine_of_Cleves.jpg

          So the Irish putting red hair on Jesus seems pretty normal on a global scale.

        5. Freemage

          This was taken to an extreme in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, when a preacher, having encountered the local energy beings, tried to say that the Martian Jesus must also be a glowing ball of blue light.

          Eventually, the energy beings show up and tell him to stop being a prat. Bradbury had a devilish sense of humor, at times.

        6. Crusading Barista

          This was supposed to be a joke, not a culture lesson!

        7. Arian

          Why not both?

    3. Jaime

      My paternal grandparents bought me a picture bible when I was a kid (this was the side of the famliy that was wacko-religious and honestly believed my mom and my sisters and I were all heathens). In it, Jesus had white skin, blue eyes, and kind of sandy-brown hair.

      I don’t remember ever reading it (there were *actual* bibles in the house and they were much more interesting and gory) but I remember looking through it a lot because, even though the depictions of the biblical characters were terribly whitewashed and racist, the art was really pretty. Whoever illustrated it had some decent artistic skill.

    4. LordHaw

      I’ve still got two copies kicking around. Had the one from when I was a kid and my aunt gave me another one for my kids…they are in a box somewhere.

  8. Passchendaele

    Dorothy that’s the number one principle of lawyering, don’t you know that

    1. hof1991

      My grandfathers, mother, father, brother, sister and son are all lawyers. Yes, that is the #1 principle of lawyering. It infected the entire family.

  9. Parzival

    Is Raidah even capable of not being a horrible person?

    1. Stu

      Well, she DOES at least cop to it.

      1. Stu

        Oh yeah – and it’s kind of an obligatory “Evil/Amoral attorney” joke.

    2. C.T Phipps

      I think she’s probably an awesome girlfriend and friend too but if you get on your bad side, she’s a Mean Girl x 1000.

      1. Nono

        So… like Joyce?

        1. SUGauthor

          It takes a hell of a lot more to get on Joyce’s bad side. Roz hurled insults at Joyce over and over until Joyce literally ran from the classroom mid period, and she still invited her to her party an arc later.

        2. BBCC

          That was because, in Joyce’s words, she needed someone to be mean to her in that instant.

        3. SUGauthor

          Sure, but could you honestly ever imagine Raidah doing the same?

        4. Nono

          Raidah’s a lawyer.

          Keep your enemies closer and all that.

        5. BBCC

          I can definitely imagine Raidah hurling insults at Joyce until she cried, although she’s gonna have to look harder for weak spots.

        6. SUGauthor

          I meant could you imagine Raidah ever forgiving someone that easily.

        7. BBCC

          Maybe? She took Sarah apologizing for hitting her pretty well.

        8. Wraithy2773

          I think I’d expect Raidah to respect Joyce more if she stood up to her strong and talked a good game. Part of it is that whole lawyer mentality about how right and wrong aren’t as important as the actual legality of the arguments, and part of it is just that she seems to be enjoying this verbal sparring.

          Her beef with Sarah isn’t because Sarah’s rude, it’s because Sarah hurt Raidah’s friend (at least, from Raidah’s PoV). Maybe she’s just the sort that enjoys a good verbal brawl.

        9. Emily

          Literally all Joe had to do to get her to hire a man to assault him was be his standard level of like mid-range gross straight dude.

        10. thejeff

          Joyce however has gotten better.

        11. Clif

          Even at the time, she eventually cut out the middleman.

        12. Stu

          In fairness, her INTENT was to have Mike act as a chaperone, because she didn’t want anything “untoward” to happen. She, at that point, legitimately didn’t know Joe’s personality that well.

      2. Lokitsu

        I don’t know. The way she cut Jacob off, then brought up his brother’s accomplishments instead makes me wonder how she really feels about Jacob. Does Raidah care for him or is he just a potential trophy husband?

        1. bryy

          Did you miss the strip where she said she was the only one that knew what was good for Jacob?

        2. BigDogLittleCat

          I don’t recall that. Do you recall where it was? That would be a red flag.

        3. Myth

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/proud/

          bryy was paraphrasing, but they have the sentiment right, in my opinion at least.

        4. Vi

          Yeaaah, that is HELLA ugly. I don’t have a particular person I want Jacob to get with; I just want him to NOT be with Raidah, who doesn’t seem to care about him as a person as much as the possible joint status. She’s looking REAL in the future for a college relationship.

        5. Z

          At the time, it could have just been legit fact- “I’m not threatened because I know Jacob isn’t interested in that”, mixed in with some antipathy which frankly Joyce inspires in a lot of people.

          These strips, however, Jacob isn’t really showing any anxiety or caring about living up to his family’s alleged expectations. That’s increasingly looking like a story Raidah spun because it’s her own life experience. Plus Raidah’s fangirling over his brother…

          So, yes, it becomes damn ugly.

        6. thejeff

          I still think Raidah’s “fangirling over his brother” because Jacob does. In the strip before that one she uses his brother to motivate him to go study – and he replies with “eyes on the prize.”
          Seems to me that Jacob is ambitious and wants to live up to that standard. He and Raidah might have some different opinions about what that standard and those ambitions really are.

        7. BigDogLittleCat

          I think she brought up Jacob’s brother, or more specifically, his work on behalf of transgender people to try to trip up Joyce into revealing herself to be a homophobic bigot. Too bad for Raidah that Joyce already learned that lesson.

        8. thejeff

          1) It’s likely Joyce would still have issues with transgender people – at least enough for another couple dramatic revelations. She doesn’t tend to come around until she’s confronted directly with real people, rather than the concept in the abstract.
          2) While that makes sense, Raidah didn’t really give Joyce time to react badly, but just swept on directly with how great Harrison was and then on to Joyce’s family.

      3. TerribleName

        People who are assholes conditionally are probably just assholes in general, except to people they want things from

        1. BigDogLittleCat

          This.

    3. Retromash

      Looks like no. And I’m generally forgiving.

    4. SUGauthor

      When she was first introduced she came off as a decent person who had a legitimate grievance with Sarah, who just happened to be the more important character, which made her look like the villain. Nowadays however she seems to have actually regressed into the villain role, which is honestly kind of a bummer.

      1. C.T Phipps

        I think Raidah is a mixture of being sympathetic as well as absolutely hating our heroes.

      2. Inahc

        nah, she was ableist and condescending from the start. then the classism was introduced a while ago, and now it’s all becoming really obvious.

        1. Norah

          But Sarah and even Amber were mildly ableist with Doan. Not as bad as Raidah, but they both implied that she shouldn’t havenromantice or sexual partners, or that they wouldn’t be ok with knowing about it if she did. She even got mad at Sarah about it, then she kissed Becky.

        2. Norah

          “have romantic”

        3. Inahc

          I’m not sure what your point is here. another person being a little bigoted does not make the first person’s much larger bigotry okay.

        4. Norah

          No it doesn’t. I was just pointing out that two of the characters that most people seem to agree are basically good have also shown ableism towards Dina. So Raidah being ableist was bad, but it didn’t mean that she was a bad person in other ways, necessarily. Now, of course, she’s showing other bad parts of herself.

        5. Clif

          ms Dina can use.

        6. Clif

          What the heck? — Amber has been enabling Dina, teaching her social skills in a form Dina can use.

        7. Emily

          Joyce is basically a Matryoshka doll of bigotry but go off I guess.

        8. thejeff

          That’s not wrong, but it’s also kind of the whole point. Her entire story arc is overcoming those bigotries and the conflicts that causes.

        9. Inahc

          aren’t we all? nobody is born knowing how to be a good person, it’s something you learn. some parts are more self-explanatory than others.

        10. SUGauthor

          She was, but they weren’t like her only traits, she had positive traits too. Like, she was totally condescending to Dina when they met, but she was also visibly upset when her friends started throwing insults at her. It feels like recently we’ve only seen the worst parts of her character while her more positive traits have been ignored. Which is a bummer, because I’d rather see an arc about Joyce realizing that Jacob is already dating someone pretty decent and that what she’s doing is kind of underhanded, rather then an arc where Jacob’s girlfriend is the evil witch that Joyce needs to rescue him from (just like a romantic comedy).

        11. Deathjavu

          A) she only corrected the terminology of her friends insult, which just results in a vocabulary treadmill and comes from exactly the same shitty mindset, just with the subtlety to not get caught out saying something totally unacceptable

          B) I seriously doubt this storyline will end that cleanly, I forsee many tears from both Radiah and Joyce

        12. SUGauthor

          It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get caught, in fact when she chastised her friend they responded with “oh right, we’re in public” and she responded with “oh right, we’re in the universe.” indicating that she clearly just thought it was an offensive thing to say in general.

        13. Regalli

          The thing is, the (deserved) offense to the r-word was followed up with her calling Dina mentally challenged or the like. Means the same thing. Taken just as offensively to someone who gets that, particularly if they do a lot. Socially acceptable. Raidah has the exact same attitude towards Dina as Char, wrapped up in the polite condescension you also learn to know and hate as a disabled person. Her offense at the slur means very little when she immediately demonstrates the same ableist attitude.

        14. StClair

          No, see, it’s totes okay if you address them from a position of pity rather than disgust or hatred. It’s not her fault she’s, you know…

        15. SUGauthor

          There’s a really big difference there though. Raidah thought Dina was lesser then herself, but she still didn’t want to hurt her, her friends did.

        16. thejeff

          It’s possible this is going to wind up in a bog-standard romcom where Joyce wins Jacob because she’s the protagonist and Raidah is revealed as the jerk she is.
          But there’s been enough hints dropped about the problems with what Joyce is doing – from Joe earlier to Dorothy’s expression a couple of strips back that suggest that’s not where this is going.

          Assuming I’m right about that, I kind of like this approach, it’s complex. Our sympathies as readers are already with Joyce by default and made more so by Raidah being unsympathetic, yet we’re also forced to confront Joyce doing something uncool and that’ll be driven home in the end when it all blows up in her face. To a chorus of “Damn You Willis!”
          I do expect Raidah to lose Jacob, basically by overplaying her hand, but I don’t expect Joyce to get him. Which I’m honestly a bit sad about, because I do like their chemistry together.

      3. Kyle

        ive had beef with raidah from the beginning tbh. she showed her true colors the second she talked down to dina as if being autistic makes us children.

        1. Norah

          But Sarah and Amber did also, when they implied that Dina shouldn’t be in a relationship, or that if she was in one they didn’t want to know about it. Sarah especially, at the party right before Dina kissed Becky.

        2. thejeff

          It’s been clear throughout that for whatever reason – both in appearance and in behavior, it’s easy to mistake Dina for much younger. Less so now that’s she been working on social behavior, but especially early on.
          Raidah’s is in fact more forgivable than most of the main characters. She had no reason to think Dina wasn’t 12 other than her being with Sarah, while the others knew she was their age and still treated her differently. For weeks.
          The “mentally challenged” comment and following condescension is less forgivable, but does occur in the context of very weird behavior from Dina.

      4. Björn

        Maybe it’s for the best. This comic needs more villains that aren’t white dads.

      5. Zee

        Um…no? When she was first introduced (being literal) she was telling Sarah to die. Then acted like a conga that (or at least I thought) the readers hated, die to her unnecessary behavior. Yeah, Sarah got your friend kicked out. That’s shitty, how about you cut her out of your life and never talk to her again. What? Seek her out to harass her for almost an entire year? Okay

        1. Arian

          Ah, I didn’t realise ‘conga’ existed as a substitution before now. Cool.

    5. Regalli

      In this one I will give her a point or two – Fundies are super selective of which parts of the Bible and Christianity’s history as a whole they choose to acknowledge, and lawyers literally run on arguing over minutia.

      Now, it’s gonna bite her in the ass if she can’t curb that trait to be professional with other people outside a court setting, it’ll REALLY bite her if and when she works with clients or if that attitude extends to non-lawyer staff (don’t piss off the clerks), and even in the courtroom it could cause her trouble, but hey, lawyers are allowed to make lawyer jokes.

  10. Regalli

    Dorothy, back to sleep.

    Raidah… actually, fair, but the human cost of your actions still has to be considered before you alienate enough people you deem ‘lesser’ that, to give a random example, the waitress spits in your food. Which is totally at this moment a hypothetical, absolutely.

    1. King Daniel

      Their waitress is Becky, who got her job here _because_ the previous holder of the position deliberately messed up the food orders she was supposed to take – I don’t think Becky’s going to jeopardize her job like that.

      1. C.T Phipps

        It depends just how mean Raidah is because, well, Joyce put her up while homeless and got a superhero to rescue her from her dad kidnapping her at gunpoint.

      2. TheKelliestKelly

        Technically, the previous job holder was fired for merely confusing her patrons rather than striking fear in them

      3. Smiling Cat

        No, she got fired because she failed to bring her customers to submission.

        1. King Daniel

          And the failed method she used to do that…was to mess up their food order, deliberately.

        2. Cyrus

          Right, but if she’d succeeded at dominating the customers, the order messing up wouldn’t be a problem.

      4. Regalli

        Ah right. I forgot Sydney. Which was, of course, the vital first step in her plan.

        I also can’t see Becky risking that with everyone else at the table she likes and Raidah being a late arrival (also does Galasso’s serve full pizzas, individual slices, or both?) but there’ll probably be another member of the wait staff at some other restaurant who overhears her saying shit. (And if Raidah thinks teachers are underpaid and beneath her, wait till she sees what waiters make.)

        1. cbwroses

          Did Raidah even order?
          I thought she arrived after the order was taken.

        2. BBCC

          She did. Becky’s busy listening in on this and relaying the juicy bits to the staff in the kitchen, so she hasn’t come by yet.

  11. C.T Phipps

    I think Dorothy meeting Radiah is going to be a big potential development for her because she’s a looking glassland mirror. She’s the first really truly ambitious student which Dorothy has met and also one that has all the same super-levels of ambitious plans. She’s also ruthless and utterly happy to tear apart people to get what she wants–seeing it as part of the job. Also, her goals INCLUDE that.

    It might be a wake up call that Dorothy’s expectations for politics and its environment are not what she thought. Then again, she was confused by Robin DeSanto’s blatant hypocrisy and corruption too. As if she expected her to be honest and noble.

    Is Dorothy really that sheltered by her good guy family?

    1. HL

      I don’t think it’s so much naive as optimistic. Like, she genuinely wants to make the place better than she left it and has high standards that other people should as well.
      I think she’s aware that people won’t have the same ideals as her, but is trying to point it out without appearing confrontational

      1. C.T Phipps

        I dunno, confrontational is part of the job.

    2. TheKelliestKelly

      It’s one thing to be AWARE of this kind of behavior, it’s another to experience it firsthand and be confronted by it. Also, she’s 18 and way stressed right now

      Also, I think Dorothy’s and Raidah’s ambitions differ in so far as what lies at the center. Dorothy, as we’ve seen through her actions, wants to help other people and be and agent of change. Raidah seems to want power for power’s sake and prestige.

      Certainly those aren’t mutually exclusive motivators but one must consider what they draw more from.

    3. Deathjavu

      Dorothy does seem to have her own brand of sheltered naivete. She’s going to be president with no money, no connections, not enough raw talent to go straight to an ivy league school, and seemingly completely deflated by the idea of confrontation? She thinks that just working harder and harder is going to get her where she wants?

      Dorothy’s in for a harsh trip back to reality, eventually.

      1. Agemegos

        Raidah will be president before Dorothy is.

      2. LordHaw

        Hey it works in anime.

  12. CMasta

    Is there a long German word for “Makes an accurate point while being an underlying asshole?”

    1. C.T Phipps

      No. In the same way that fish have no word for water. That’s just how we argue.
      -My German American wife.

      1. Lokitsu

        Your wife is awesome.

    2. Fogel

      There is an English word for “spews toxic lies and invective, because”: 5 letters, starts w t, ends with p.

      1. cbwroses

        Thwip?
        I thought that was the sound for spider-man’s web shooters.

      2. adjudicus

        Twerp?

      3. thejeff

        I can think of one, but it’s British slang for “fart”. Which I suppose fits closely enough.

      4. Schpoonman

        Had to come back to it later, but I finally got it.

    3. OnyxIdol

      I can’t think of one, but I feel we should have a word for that.

      1. CJ

        Seconded

  13. Sionyx

    And any sympathy I had for Raidah defending her relationship (which wasn’t much) just went flying out the window. Amazing how Joyce can be the sympathetic one when she’s trying to break up a relationship, what with that usually being a Villain Role. Joyce is coming from the perspective of a very sheltered childhood, Raidah’s looking for something to be insulted by and if Jacob’s paying any attention may well be doing more damage to the relationship than Joyce could ever do herself.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I think Radiah has demonstrated she’s not really all that into Jacob as a person and enjoys a certain level of classicism towards Joyce.

      1. Crusading Barista

        Wuh-ho, that’s a no-no for Jacob, as he specifically said that relationships should be on mutual love and interest. Sexual attraction and trophy husband does not fit in that category.

    2. Deathjavu

      I am completely confused that Jacob is just totally OK with everything Radiah has said so far. She’s barely even being subtle about her insults.

      Jacob is either straight up not listening or not processing what’s being said.

      1. Lauralot

        Since we can’t see Jacob’s face in this one, I’m going to assume he’s just gaping in growing horror at how things are devolving.

        1. Deathjavu

          I mean, he was apparently totally OK with the first awful exchange about teachers??

        2. Solenoid

          My assumption has been that Jacob’s busy stuffing his face with pizza while waiting to see how far down her throat Raidah’s stuffing her foot.

          Lesson to the future lawyer: your job isn’t to make the defendant uncomfortable, your job is to sway the jury.

        3. thejeff

          And in this case, she has the advantage of knowing the jury well and the jury having a bias towards her (or at least towards taking what she says in a positive light, since we know he likes Joyce as well.)

          So far, I expect she’s ahead – The first round opened somewhat crassly with the money talk, but combined with the mention of his brother served nicely, not so much to make him think less of Joyce, but to remind him of their shared goals and ambitions and that Joyce’s lack of any such beyond “find a husband” wouldn’t fit well with his.
          This second round is a little shaky, but we’ll see where it goes. Religion may not be a subject where Joyce shines.

  14. Nono

    When did Raidah get Dorothy’s name?

  15. Bagge

    Bless her heart, Dorothy really tried. But let me tell you, there are times for diplomacy, there are times for RUNNING FOR THE HIIIIILLS.

    Jacob, meanwhile, thinks about pizza.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Dorothy seems remarkably uncomfortable with conflict.

      That…doesn’t bode well for a Presidential run.

      1. BigDogLittleCat

        I think Dorothy is uncomfortable with conflict when she just wanted to have lunch with friends during a very stressful week. She doesn’t want a “scene” at Galasso’s.
        I suspect she also fears Joyce is not only in the wrong, but outgunned.

      2. Cronomatt

        It’s already been addressed in the comic that Dorothy has no actual charisma or people skills at all, so the idea that any reader ever thought she had a chance to become president in this fictional world just because she herself thinks she has a chance is pretty laughable.

        Dorothy has an anti-social, analyst thought process of approaching politics instead of a real world, practical mind set. She thinks if she Crosses every t and dots every i, she will become president, which is partially a side effect of having delusionally supportive parents railroading her into being unfamiliar with any self doubt until she’s at an age where she finally feels it, she’s completely overwhelmed by it. She has no place in politics at all.

        1. Emily

          There’s also the fact that she’s a decent human being with a moral backbone which is basically the antithesis of a US President.

      3. Bagge

        I… don’t quite get the idea that you can look at a 19 year old and tell her that she doesn’t have what it takes to become president.

        She’s reaching for the stars. Is it really that important to discuss the exact metric of the star she is reaching for? Isn’t it more interesting to see what moon that trajectory might take her to?

        1. thejeff

          Part of my problem is that it does seem like reaching for the stars.
          It seems like a child’s “I’m gonna be a fireman.” (Or Joyce’s “a fighter pilot”.)

          Her plan has gaping holes in it, to the point it doesn’t even make sense. She hasn’t even really talked about wanting to be a politician, rather than just President.

          OTOH, I seem to recall Willis saying something early on about it being serious, not something he would just shoot down.

        2. Emily

          I mean it’s entirely possible that Dorothy’s flawed understanding of what is required to become president is a result of Willis’ understanding being flawed because a liberal atheist woman becoming president in our lifetimes is farfetched on its own let alone one with Dorothy’s temperament.

        3. C.T Phipps

          I think it’s important if you’re making a lifeplan that you need to build on the steps to it. Also, realistically, confronting the fact you may not be able to get what you want and what you’ll do after.

        4. Inahc

          we know she thinks step 1 is getting into Yale. was there anything about why she thinks that, or what step 2 is supposed to be?

        5. thejeff

          1) Yale
          2) ????
          3) President!

        6. Bagge

          And what if she ONLY gets into Yale, fuled by the dream of becoming a president and then weirs off into another career? Would that be so bad?

          Or if she ONLY gets top grades in her attempt to go to Yale, and then does something else, would that be so bad?

          …I don’t get it.

        7. thejeff

          Or goes to Yale and into a political career, but only makes it to Senator or Governor.

          Bad? No. But her goal is incredibly focused: she doesn’t want to go into politics and change the world – it’s just “be president”.
          And the only step we’re aware of on her plan to get there is at best only tangentially relevant. Again, it’s not “go to good school to get the best education and make necessary connections”, she’s fixated on Yale.

  16. Deathjavu

    Not prioritizing rhetorical oneupmanship at any cost? Dorothy, you are definitely not cut out for politics.

    1. C.T Phipps

      She really seems horrified by a fairly minor conflict. Politics is more like a shark tank.

      1. Doopyboop

        I don’t think it’s the conflict that upsets her, but the idea of Joyce basically trying to ruin the relationship between Raidah and Jacob. If this were a friendly debate, or even just a normal one, I can see her trying to negotiate but not being so nervous. Instead this is “wait is Joyce flirting with him? Is he still dating Raid-OH FUCK RAIDAH IS HERE. Oh god and now they’re having a pissing contest!”

        1. Deathjavu

          Pretty low stakes stuff compared to “hey this politician knowingly wants to let these people die even after numerous experts told them people would die”

          And then people die and the politicians are “sad”, but take 0 responsibility for their part.

          See: environmental regulations, gun control, health care, prescription drugs, deportations…basically any important political issue.

        2. Airyu

          I think it’s also the location, like, a public pizza place where she just wanted to have lunch with a friend isn’t a venue she was expecting conflict.

        3. thejeff

          She’s also torn on the “Joyce is her friend, but also out of line” aspect, kind of like many of us.
          She probably wants to defuse this and get out of there, so she can give Joyce a talking to herself – or at least find out what’s up.

        4. MM

          Yeah, I think it’d be easier for her if these were professional and not personal stakes.

  17. Yumi

    Raidah loves to offend me, a teacher with a mom who is both a lawyer and a decent person.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Raiah strikes me as someone who thinks the poverty in America is caused by the poor being stupid and unambitious.

      1. Bathymetheus

        So she’s a Republican, then?

        1. C.T Phipps

          I’m imagining she’s all for social justice as long as it keeps the poor away from her.

        2. King Daniel

          In the current climate? Highly doubt it, the Republican Party would likely be calling her terrorists and chanting for her deportation (non-white, Muslim, etc).

        3. King Daniel

          *her and her family

        4. Lauralot

          Log Cabin Republicans exist. Caitlyn Jenner supported Trump. I’m sure there’s probably groups out there for both Republican Muslims and Republican immigrants.

          I guess they assume the leopards won’t eat their faces.

        5. KM

          Like this guy? https://www.electomar.com

          Once you get past racism in of itself, there are many republican platforms that appeal to Muslims, especially wealthy upper class ones.

        6. StClair

          Recent events have revealed a whole lot of members of the GOP Face-Eating Leopard Party who were shocked when the leopard decided to eat their face.

        7. MM

          I dunno. Her enthusiasm for Harrison’s Work yesterday aside, Raidah actually managed to win back a handful of sympathy points for me on this strip: “Oh, you wanna come at my faith, girl who knows nothing except what she’s been told about it?” That doesn’t strike me as someone who’s willing to compartmentalize when surrounded by conservatives if they have a choice in the matter.

        8. Zee

          Well, Joyce didn’t come at raidahs faith. She said talking about the picture Bible would be unfair because she made the fair assumption that Raidah doesn’t know that much about a religion she’s never participated in. Raidahs the one inviting her to “come at” her faith

        9. Schpoonman

          Living in America really doesn’t let you be ignorant of Christianity. Presumably Raidah had the same resources as Dorothy for reading about Christianity (the Internet, for one), so given everything we know about Raidah inviting her to tango was a bad move on Joyce’s part, both in terms of her standing with Jacob and the fact that unless Joyce knows something we don’t she’s about to look very foolish.

          Mind you, this all predicates with no one saying “Hold up. You just said you don’t care who you hurt or offend so long as you can say you ‘won’,” but that would be cutting the knot and I don’t know if that’s in any of these characters’ skillsets.

        10. Knayt

          There’s nothing fair about that assumption. A fair assumption is that Raidah is probably decently well read, has spent her life in a country (and state, for that matter) dominated by Christianity, and has probably had conversion attempts aimed at her personally (she’s very openly Muslim). A decent level of knowledge is a reasonable assumption, and Joyce assuming otherwise is read as condescending with good reason. Particularly given that Raidah knows Joyce is disproportionately ignorant about Islam, even by the sad standards of Indiana.

        11. TerribleName

          Then shes the fabled ‘centrist’ Democrat then

    2. Regalli

      Autistic with eighty percent of a paralegal certification, and same. I may be saying ‘sure, you’re entitled to the Lawyer Joke, that’s the least shitty thing you’ve said in this interaction,’ but seriously she’s gonna burn through whatever networking she builds with the people who matter in her world depending directly on how shitty she is to the people who don’t and where that line is drawn.

      1. Norah

        I think she’s only shitty to people who she thinks don’t matter. But that could backfire on her some day too.

        1. CJ

          The more intelligent people might realize you’ll throw them under a bus whenever it suits you.

        2. Z

          The Waiter Rule is increasingly being acknowledged and followed- judge people by how they treat the waiter. Peoples’ character is shown by their attitudes towards people who can do nothing for them.

          Increasingly, our society is going in favor of basic civility.

          Law is a cut throat, increasingly oversaturated job market. Just having a law degree, even having connections, isn’t necessarily enough.

          Raidah is setting herself up to majorly burn bridges, to be that person who alienates the entire office, who can’t get promoted, and sits there blaming everyone else.

        3. Regalli

          Like I said, it matters A LOT where she draws the line between people who matter and people who don’t.

          For instance, what are her thoughts on paralegals, or interns in her office? Neither of them have the glamorous job, but they still can do enough of the work* that her being dismissive of them could end badly. How about the other side’s paralegals, do they matter? How about the librarian when you have to find that one piece of research in person? Because all of these people COULD not matter to Raidah, but have the industry contacts to be like ‘yeah, that one’s toxic.’ and it to end up impacting her. And if she doesn’t care about Jacob hearing her talk shit about teachers, that says to me she won’t care about showing her ugly side to someone in the Don’t Matter category while someone who does is around.

        4. Regalli

          * The thing about paralegals is that depending on the office, they can be anywhere from ‘get my coffee and answer the phone’ to ‘the person drafting things you end up signing or giving you the information you base your case on’. The latter won’t intentionally sabotage you, probably. They could get fired for that. But I can absolutely see ways they could make your life hell if you start it.

  18. GoldStarz

    So has Raidah just like

    completely forgotten that Jacob is sitting right next to her while she dunks on his friends?

    1. Z

      Raidah legit believes this is earning her brownie points, because in her world it is. She’s mentally wiping the floor with other people and showing that she’s superior to them. Why WOULDN’T Jacob be super aroused and on the verge of ripping her clothes off and doing her on the table?!

      This is who she is and how she sees the world.

      The question is: Who’s Jacob?

  19. DailyBrad

    I am intrigued. I see a few places this can go, and while all of them are messy, not all of them benefit Raidah.

    1. DailyBrad

      Which is to say, this CAN work out for her, and she could definitely make Joyce stumble, but she’s also shown that she underestimate Joyce, and beyond that, “winning” here could also hurt her standing in Jacob’s view if she is too openly petty about it.

  20. All-Purpose Guru

    Dorothy is never gonna make it in politics. Politics is only *peripherally* about making people get along with each other, and it’s all Dorothy is about.

    Raidah, on the other hand, is all about the power trip. This will make her successful, and pretty much universally hated.

    The only possible good thing I can see coming out of this is Jacob’s disillusionment with what a asshole Raidah is when she tears Joyce apart– and him leaving the group and chasing after Joyce when she runs away crying.

    Problem is, chances are good that Jacob can’t see past the end of his dick when he’s playing hide-the-sausage with it with Raidah.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Dorothy strikes me as a wonderful negotiator for settlements on behalf of her clients as well as arguing for the genuinely innocent, Phoenix Wright style. “OBJECTION!”

      The problem is that she’s going to be confused when she loses her party’s support the moment she votes her conscience rather than the line.

      1. BBCC

        Tell that to every single Red state Dem who’s kept the party’s support despite sometimes having to vote against the majority of the party to keep their constituents happy.

        1. JBento

          That only happens when they vote RIGHT of the party, not left. Exhibit A: The DNC’s response to Ms. Cortez.

        2. BBCC

          The point is that just voting outside the party line isn’t necessarily going to get anybody to lose their support. Other factors go into play (including, sadly, yes, left or right of party line).

    2. Puckish Rogue

      Joyce being torn a new one and running off crying is exactly what she deserves

      1. Airyu

        I don’t get how you hate Joyce more than Raidah tbh.

    3. Wraithy2773

      Oh, she’d never become president, sure. But congressman/senator in a safe seat, serving as the carrot to the more stick-ish politicians, helping keep the party organized and cohesive?

      There’s places in politics for people like Dorothy. And, who knows, maybe she develops enough cynicism eventually to advance to the upper echelons…

      1. thejeff

        Not being completely cynical at 18 isn’t exactly a fatal flaw, even in politics. There’s plenty of time.

    4. thejeff

      I don’t think Joyce running out of here crying is in the cards. Joyce’s tougher than that. Barring Raidah finding some really weak spot – like another revelation of how Joyce has been seriously hurting people.

      I don’t think it’s really Raidah’s goal either, unless she does just get too deep into her “future lawyer” game. Everything in the last couple strips was aimed at Jacob, not Joyce. It’s not quite clear to me how today’s fits in, but we’ll see where it goes.

      1. Nakams

        I wonder if by this Picture Bible deal, Raidah isn’t going after White Jesus vs. Historical Jesus, and make Joyce appear racist in front of Jacob?

    5. Nakams

      Hmm. I wonder how many Presidents appeared like President-meterial back when they started college?

      I don’t think it matters if Dorothy becomes President or not. That’s way off in the future, and people can be succesful in life or even politics and never hold the highest office in the land.

      That being said, I always thought Dorothy was based off, at least a little bit, on Hilary Clinton. A younger, more modern, Hilary Clinton. I’ve read that one of Hilary’s most recognized traits is that she’s a good listener. She does her homework, asks good questions, and generally makes other people feel respected and heard. As a senator she was known to reach across the aisle and hammer down bipartisan agreements. And of course, she didn’t make President but came damn close, even winning the popular vote.

      Maybe that means Dorothy will suffer the same fate, which is nothing to sneeze at, or she will win, because she’ll be running for that office decades later than Hilary has and maybe the world has changed enough in the interval.

      1. Reaver

        You say that, and she still managed to say”pokemon go to the polls!” I now want Dorothy to do that :V

  21. Defensor

    Yup. This is definitely going to backfire on Raidah.

  22. Roger Sterling

    Dorothy’s face in panel one is the look of someone who’s experiencing earth’s gravity for the first time, having been raised on the Moon for most of their sheltered life.

    Motion to declare Dorothy the new Danny of the DoA-verse, seeing that the resident wet-blanket’s self-actualized and she’s so lacking in character that she needed her boyfriend to dump himself because she didn’t have the spine to do it herself, after she scape-goated him for her own shitty priority setting.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Dorothy broke up with Walkerton. However, she’s a naturally nonconfrontational and peace-maker person who is idealistic to the point of actually thinking grades matter to becoming President versus money or networking.

      1. BBCC

        She thinks grades matter to transferring to Yale. Which is something she very much wants on her way to be President.

        That’s not idealistic. That’s realistic. Yale’s transfer program is already ridiculously competitive. She’s going to have a rough go of it already. Trying to make her application as immaculate as she can is probably for the best.

        1. Goki

          Indeed. Dorothy wants to become President someday, but she can’t even relate to people in her dorm enough to get them on her side to become RA (when that arc happened) Roz seemed like a better option in comparison… ouch.

          Dorothy needs to learn how to deal with people better because at this point, Danny is better at it than she is.

        2. Roger Sterling

          Her fixation on Yale as a necessary prerequisite to become the leader of the free world is like someone thinking that ketchup is the best part of a bacon cheese burger.

        3. Deathjavu

          Is “leader of the free world” even an accurate job description these days? Even discounting the lack of leadership or freedom, there’s something like 4 or 5 times as many people in India, which is also a democracy…

        4. StClair

          tsk, don’t you know anything? Part of America being just the best country in the whole world is that we’re automatically the best-qualified to be leader in any particular group that we happen to be in. :p

        5. Roger Sterling

          “Leader” in the sense that the US is a nexus of any serious international system or treaty that plans on actually accomplishing anything. India, while populous, lacks teeth.

        6. Roger Sterling

          *America’s big teeth

          I can’t exactly call a nuclear power “without teeth”

        7. BBCC

          That’s quickly changing as America is proving itself more and more untrustworthy and unstable in international proceedings. Other countries have begun leaving the US out of talks and deals other than sometimes to say (basically) “Yes, sweetie, you’re helping”.

        8. thejeff

          One of my favorite takes on Trump’s inauguration, from George Takei:

          The peaceful transfer of power is a thing of beauty. One moment Barack Obama is leader of the Free World. A moment later it’s Angela Merkel.

        9. MM

          Yeah, driving herself crazy to get into the one or two transfer spots Yale might have open if she’s lucky is considerably less realistic than coming up with a non-Yale backup plan that lets her keep her social life. And sleep.

        10. thejeff

          Or the far more reasonable plan of setting herself up for grad work at Yale (or another Ivy League School – not sure why she’s fixated on Yale over Harvard or some such.)
          Once you’ve got your Law Degree, no one ever cares where you did your undergrad.

  23. BBCC

    Raidah, no, the Amoral Attorney trope is NOT a good thing!

    Although that said…yeah. In the US (and Canada. And a good chunk of other places I’m sure) Christianity is kinda…everywhere. It’s baked into the cultural milieu. What Raidah says in regards to knowing more about Christianity than Joyce does Islam is almost certainly bang on.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Joyce doens’t know that much about Christianity (beyond her family’s vesion) given how she reacted with panic attacks at Jacob’s.

      Mind you Raidah just wants to put Joyce down about her own religion.

      1. BBCC

        Christianity in general is pretty culturally embedded. Joyce may not know much about how the rest of the Christian world practices (or at the very least, she doesn’t like it) but she knows the stories, what people making references will mean, etc.

      2. MM

        I really don’t know; I think there’s room for her to want to take Joyce down as a rival and release some genuinely righteous anti-fundie indignation.

        Of course, if Joyce holds true to her usual pattern of being shocked, absorbing the information, and growing and learning from it, this could seriously come back to bite her in regard to the former.

    2. CJ

      It’s actually likely that Raidah knows more about Christianity than Joyce does. And what Joyce knows about Islam probably fits in a thimble.

      But though Raidah implies Joyce suggested she doesn’t know enough about Christianity to join in a discussion about the Picture Bible, I thing Joyce just suggested it might not be a topic Raidah’s interested to talk about.

      I really like to know what goes on in Jacob’s head.
      Bet Willis switches to other characters tomorrow?

      1. Felian

        Even though i dislike how Raidah keeps trying to push Joyce down…
        … i really like this one blow that’s very spot on – christianity being a state religion (even if the state might claim otherwise) and being in your face whether you want it or not being one thing, but possibly there was still an interest Raidah might have had in learning about it. While Joyce for sure didn’t ever try to learn about other religions. (with a similar upbringing, i can say that it’s discouraged to really learn anything, what with the premise that these other religions were false… anything you might learn might be tainted by that, or, plainly, false information.)

        1. CJ

          Actually reading the Bible (full German Lutheran translation) is something I did when 16 or so. It just convinced me that is a and interest cultural artifact. Even then I couldn’t wrap my hand around taking anything in in literally. Considering the inherent contradictions that was just too much cognitive dissonance.
          No wonder fundi churches cut the texts.

          When the discussions raged about implementing religion into the school curriculum in Berlin and Brandenburg (where it had been a non-curriculum subject) I always thought what we need is not anyone teaching Lutheran Protestantism, Catholicism or Islam, but we need a mandatory school subject to teach comparative religion: which religions do exist, which of the have common roots, where do thy differ? At what times did they emerge, who promoted them with which aims, …

      2. CJ

        Having looked at panel 3 again I retract my statement about Joyce not implying Raidah doesn’t know enough.

    3. Nakams

      I think it goes further than this. Raidah strikes me as the kind of person who would study christian doctrine in order to better debate religious people who, let’s face it, don’t always think critically about their faith. And since the conversation is turning to the Picture Bible, I think Raidah is going after White Jesus, to make Joyce appear racist in front of Jacob.

  24. Squirrel

    This is where she’s going to blow it. Jacob has been slowly widening Joyce’s eyes, and Raidah is about to say something that might damage that hard work. If Joyce cries Jacob is going to be pissed.

  25. All-Purpose Guru

    My niece is an Attorney General. She got into it to help people. While altruistic lawyers like my niece exist, asswipes like Raidah are much more prevalent in law.

  26. Synnerman

    God I despise Raidah.

  27. Jaime

    I know Dorothy was raised to believe that her religion is the only true religion and probably was taught that people of other religions are “heathens” and might be going to hell (my father’s family was pretty hardcore religious and they believed that about my mom, my sisters and me). However…

    Dorothy, it is NOT OKAY to put down someone’s religion to make yourself look better. (From the smirk on Dorothy’s face, I believe that is what she is doing rather than politely saying, “Let’s talk about something interesting to everyone.)

    NOT COOL. While Raidah is supremely rude and snobby, Dorothy carries her own share of the blame here and is increasingly throwing fuel on this garbage fire. I also don’t have a lot of respect for people who are interested in someone who is in a relationship and deal with that interest by attacking the current partner. The horrible trope of “She stole my MAN!” *ugh* is so prevalent that we don’t need women reinforcing it.

    Dorothy, GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN. I understand what she is doing here and she is making a really good effort. However, there is no way this is going to end well and Dorothy is only going to get caught in the crossfire.

    1. Roger Sterling

      In paragraphs 1-3, you meant to say Joyce, right?

      1. Jaime

        Yes.

    2. C.T Phipps

      You said Dorothy instead of Joyce.

      1. Jaime

        Yes I did – I wish there was an edit function on these comments!

    3. BBCC

      You mean Joyce?

      Dorothy is an Atheist.

      1. Jaime

        Yes, I meant Joyce.

        1. BBCC

          I’m so sorry, there were no replies when I posted this.

        2. Jaime

          No worries! 🙂

    4. King Daniel

      Dorothy raised to believe that her religion what? She was raised areligiously. I think you meant Joyce there? 😛

    5. Jaime

      TYPO: I meant Joyce in the first three paragraphs!

    6. Roger Sterling

      Sorry dude, thought I could have headed everyone else off at the past. There’s no holding back the tide once the ol’ shit posting dam falls down unfortunately.

      1. Jaime

        No problem! I really wish we could edit or at least preview these comments.

    7. cbwroses

      Yeah. That’s not a good look for Joyce to use religion to try to throw shade at Raidah.
      On the other hand, that’s the first time Raidah dropped her smile since she got there, so Joyce is finally getting under her skin.

      1. Defensor

        I don’t think Joyce is putting down Raidah. Joyce just assumes that anyone who isn’t a Christian will have limited knowledge of the bible.

        1. cbwroses

          Nope. Because Joyce would normally take the opportunity to educate said person about the bible.
          Plus, the conversation earlier included Dorothy who’s an atheist. If a nonbeliever can contribute to the conversation, a believer in a related religion should definitely be able to contribute.
          Joyce is not being innocent with that remark.

        2. Jaime

          I read Joyce’s expression in panel 3 as her smirking and being snarky. IMHO, she is showing off that she is a “good Christian” and Raidah isn’t. As someone else pointed out further down the page, the fact that Raidah is a Muslim in a country where Muslims are often persecuted due to their religion makes Joyce’s behaviour especially blame-worthy.

        3. Agemegos

          And counter-productive.

        4. Eldritch Gentleman

          Still Muslims in Christian US still have it much better than Christians in Muslim Countries… especially converts from Islam to Christianity…

        5. thejeff

          Not if some of our Christian Dominionists have their way. 🙁
          Nor at various points in the history of the Christian West.

          I suspect the difference is more because we are still basically a secular country. Most (not all, but most) majority Islamic countries have much closer ties between religion and the state than most majority Christian countries do. Tighten those links in some Christian countries and you’ll very likely see similar behavior.

        6. Eldritch Gentleman

          Quite. West worked to dislodge itself from Religious fanaticism while many Islamic countries embraced it wholeheartedly. I find it ironic that one of US’ strongest allies in that region, Saudi Arabia is also one of the most fanatical Islamic countries. Not to mention that it was mostly Saudi Arabia people who did 9/11.

        7. thejeff

          It’s worth remembering though that through much of that was during the colonial period and its immediate aftermath when western powers dominated the Islamic world. Embrace of Islam was often a tactic to oust that or conversely one embraced by the Western backed rulers to keep control. Saudi Arabia would be an example of the second, while Iran, where the Ayatollahs came to power after a rebellion overthrew the secular, US backed dictator.

        8. Eldritch Gentleman

          Quite. I’m becoming more and more convinced that West should just back off from Middle East and maybe Africa too and let them sort their things out. Though considering various problems that’s quite unrealistic.

        9. thejeff

          Let’s just say that it’s at best arguable that the west has never actually had the intention of sorting their problems out.
          OTOH, this is a global world and there’s actually no such thing as “just back off and let them sort their things out”. If the West backed off, others (China?) would be happy to step in and would be at the very least, no better.
          They have resources (oil!). If their process of sorting things out produces waves of refugees, does Europe just seal its borders and let them die?

        10. Jaime

          @thejeff: Not to mention that U.S. and Europoean intervention in the Middle East has *caused* or at least exacerbated many of those problems. Maybe that means the “west” has some responsibility help fix things?

  28. Irredentist

    Dorothy, this is the part where you stop playing mediator and pick a side. And that side is team Joyce! Woo!

    1. Holly

      Or Team Jacob, perhaps?

      1. King Daniel

        Team (Pineapple) Pizza is where it’s at.

        1. cbwroses

          Never!

        2. Keulen

          Team Pizza without pineapple is better.

        3. cbwroses

          Agreed.

        4. King Daniel

          Heretics, the lot of you.

    2. Deadjolras

      Team Pizza!

    3. Wraithy2773

      Nah, I think Dorothy is right to be on Team “Oh my god this fucking situation is just the worst everyone deserves to lose here gaaaaaaah.”

      …team “Fuck this noise” for short >_>.

    4. Emily

      The best team here is Team This is Juvenile Nonsense.

      1. thejeff

        Pizza isn’t Juvenile Nonsense. Pizza is good. Join Team Pizza!

        1. Inahc

          Pizza! 🙂

      2. Zee

        It’s almost like they’re actual literal juviniles

    5. JBento

      Team Joye is a shitty team. This is the most obvious case of Team No-one But the Pizza that I’ve ever seen.

    6. Reaver

      OR Don’t pick a side, Joyce’s side is bad too…

  29. Jess

    So idk if I’m just being weird, but you can’t really tell if Jacob still has his arm around Raidah… In the last panel of the comic yesterday, it wasn’t, but ya can’t really tell if it still is here. So maybe MAYBE he’s actually noticing the insults here. Please notice the insults here….

    1. BBCC

      God I hope not. If these two break up, I don’t want it to have anything to do with Joyce.

      1. thejeff

        I’m okay with it having to do with Joyce, if that means Raidah goes overboard trying to stop her from taking Jacob away.

        As long as it doesn’t mean Joyce wins Jacob as the prize.

        1. BBCC

          If Raidah and Jacob break up, I want it to be about Raidah, not Joyce. Not even Raidah’s classist crap being aimed AT Joyce, because that’s still more centred at Joyce. I want her 24601 metaphorical miles away from that breakup.

      2. Zee

        I mean its more that raidahs revealing her shitty nature, which was gonna happen sooner or later. It just happens to be directed at Joyce, who Jacob considers a close friend

        1. anonymsly

          And I think it helps that Joyce is entirely and completely being a sweet/friendly/clueless/weird girl here, too. She’s honestly engaging in conversation and being as nice as she knows how to be, and Raidah is responding with LOL I WILL TEAR YOU APART.

          It’s got to be super jarring for Jacob at least.

        2. thejeff

          Joyce really isn’t “honestly engaging in conversation and being as nice as she knows how to be”. She might be faking that as a tactic, but she’s certainly not doing it sincerely.

        3. Delavan

          Bingo. Joyce is engaging is classic Midwestern passive-aggressive “sweetness with an edge” and Raidah/Dorothy know it.

          That said… Raidah is an unmitigated asshat and I hope Jacob runs away from her toxic ass. I’m at the point where I don’t even care *how* it happens or who is responsible.

        4. BBCC

          I still don’t want that. Because that still hinges on her and Jacob’s relationship ending because of Joyce and I don’t want that.

  30. C.T Phipps

    I think Raidah is missing something obvious that sucks. Power couples are great but not actually all that common. If Jacob really DOES want a highly successful career, he may want a spouse who is simply sweet and supportive rather.

    Like, say, Joyce.

    1. BBCC

      Nah, if he wanted that he wouldn’t be dating Raidah who is very clear about being ambitious and wanting a glamorous life. Jacob wants to be on par with his brother career and success wise and Raidah is more likely to support him getting there and not mind the late nights and taking time to study instead of fool around and push him to get there. Like he said, Raidah’s check for check what he wants in a relationship.

      1. Irredentist

        But does he care that she’s a terrible person lol

      2. C.T Phipps

        I think BBCC you’re making assumptions that Jacob actually was calculating in his romantic advances like Raidah. He seems to have asked her out because she was cute and available. He was available to Sarah right up until she backed away due to her misanthropy.

        1. BBCC

          Yes, that’s probably why he asked her out initially, but he’s said since then that Raidah is exactly what he wants in a romantic partner. I’m thinking the glamour life appeals to him more than a little bit, at least when it comes to reputation and prestige.

        2. Irredentist

          I mean maybe, but Jacob seems to me like someone who DOES value the human cost.

        3. BBCC

          He absolutely does, but it’s possible to want the high life glamour existence and care about being a decent human being.

        4. Irredentist

          Only if you lie to yourself.

        5. Jaime

          To be fair, we’ve never seen Jacob and Raidah alone together. We’ve never seen Raidah with her family either. People often have different public and private faces. While I personally think Raidah is a douchcanoe, there is always the possibility she is different when it’s just her and Jacob.

        6. BBCC

          …Really? It’s impossible to want a glamorous lifestyle and still care about being a decent person.

          Yeah, okay, I’m out. Waaaay too much edgy cynicism for me right now.

        7. CJ

          Yes, I remember him saying that. But has his idea that Raidah is that reality (well, in-story-reality) behind it, or does he just think so coming from experiences with girls/women who wanted to be with him because he’s a hunk and they wanted sex and ignored all other parts of him?

        8. C.T Phipps

          I think Raidah isn’t his girlfriend because he wants a super ambitious person but because she’s not pushing him for sex.

        9. thejeff

          I think Jacob’s quite happy having sex with Raidah. He’s just not into casual sex with random girls who see nothing more than the attractive hunk.

          A more positive interpretation might be that he doesn’t necessarily want a super ambitious person, but he does want a peer. Someone with her own goals and ambitions, not someone who just wants a husband.

        10. C.T Phipps

          I think Raidah and Jacob are chaste right now.

        11. thejeff

          Not sure why?

          He did ask casually about going upstairs and fooling around when they met up about the church visit. She turned him down in favor of studying, but not in a way that sounded like it was out of the ordinary.

  31. Tacos

    God I hate Raidah.

    1. Airyu

      Same. I don’t get people who are not on team Joyce for this one at all.

      1. thejeff

        It is possible to dislike Raidah and still think Joyce shouldn’t be playing this game at all.
        We don’t have to pick one team, just because the other one is lousy.

        I’m on Team “Jacob dumps Raidah and Joyce learns a lesson about life not being like shitty romantic comedies.”

        1. anonymsly

          Jacob absolutely needs to dump Raidah, yes. I don’t care what happens re: Joyce and him, myself, until we hear more about Joyce’s actual intentions and feelings post-exposure of Sarah’s plans. Most people seem to be assuming that ‘the plan’ is still on, but I don’t think we have any indication that it is. (Or, honestly, that there was ever anything more to ‘the plan’ than Joyce saying ‘Sarah is awesome!!’ which failed out a looooong time ago stripwise.)

        2. thejeff

          It hasn’t been explicitly stated, but there’s been a ton of subtext. Operation Win Jacob is still on, it’s just that the beneficiary has moved from Sarah to Joyce.
          Her reaction when she realized Joe and Sarah thought she had a chance with him. The look she gave after telling Sarah not to apologize for her scheming. Prettying herself up for Jacob (and not objecting to Billie undoing her buttons.) The “bring it on” looks between her and Raidah when she showed up.

        3. Airyu

          I actually don’t think Joyce noticed Billie undoing her button. But I also don’t think that other stuff is wrong. Maybe I just have different morals than other people here idk.

        4. thejeff

          It’s all an indication she is actively pursuing the plan.

          Whether you think that’s wrong is another question.

      2. the final pam

        Because even though Raidah is bad, Joyce is behaving bad too? From the beginning, the plot of trying to set Jacob up with Sarah was bad on the part of Joyce because Joyce was trying to break up a couple while at the same time ignoring the wants and desires of one of the parties. Now, it’s the same exact thing only she’s put herself in Sarah’s place.

        Joyce needs to learn to respect other people’s boundaries. This isn’t a movie where the other girl is an easily-disposable love interest. And like.. this also isn’t an issue where there are only two options lmao Team Jacob where he just dumps both of them for being manipulative sounds pretty damn good to me.

        1. Airyu

          Hmmm talking about how Joyce prolly thinking this is like a rom-com is making me agree more that things really shouldn’t actually work out between Jacob and Joyce.

      3. Emily

        Because fake niceness towards the person whose relationship you’re trying to sabotage is also super shitty it’s just more palatable. Joyce is being just as much of a passive aggressive asshat as Raidah she’s just better at hiding it behind a facade of sweetness.

        1. Airyu

          I guess I just disagree with everyone on here that if someone flirts with someone that’s a cardinal sin. To put it bluntly, Jacob is the one in the relationship, it’s his job to keep it together, and if Joyce’s flirting is enough to break it up, then things weren’t meant to be with Raidah in the first place.

        2. the final pam

          Yeah, if Joyce’s flirting is enough to cause Jacob to break off his relationship, then that is on him. But also, Joyce should respect Jacob’s boundaries and not flirt with him. Even if she doesn’t like Raidah and thinks she’d be better for Jacob, that’s not for her to decide. That’s up to Jacob.

      4. Hrovitnir

        Because I find her gross patronising attitude on top of her gross unethical actions at least as grating as Raidah’s bullshit here. Team Dorothy/Jacob/anyone-but-those-two right now.

        To address the flirting thing, as someone who is explicitly into pretty heavy flirting being A-OK in my relationship, that doesn’t stop me being repulsed seeing behaviour like this from someone who is doing it in a blatantly disrespectful way. She is actively trying to sabotage someone’s relationship, and it’s unpleasant as all get out.

  32. Roger

    I see everyone’s still dunking on Raidah, and like I agree she’s the worst and the last few strips really cemented that. But also coming from a Muslim family who was abused by many Christians for perceived and assumed ignorance, can I also point out that Joyce’s little comment there also really fuckin sucks? And I get that she’s learning to be better and is by and large the less shitty person in this situation (even with the whole manipulation of Jacob bit which really sucks) can I say that for exactly 2 panels up there I found myself thrust into intense and severe pathos with Raidah?

    Hell maybe I just want Joyce to talk to a muslim that isn’t also the worst.

    1. Yumi

      Yeah, Joyce sucks in this strip too. Like, Raidah just said she was up for talking about it, so however much she intended to use it to put down Joyce, Joyce’s response that Raidah wouldn’t be able to “contribute” really shows Joyce’s ignorance.

    2. Squirrel

      I think it’s more back peddling trying to be aware that her religion is different. Her face to me reads oh sorry or wait that’s really not fair

    3. Irredentist

      Yeah it was pretty snide of her to say. Not unprecedented perhaps given the general nature of the conversation. But still shitty.

    4. BBCC

      Yeah, they’ve both been sucking pretty bad this whole lunch trip.

    5. Jaime

      I agree and made that point in an earlier comment, but I mixed up people’s names, so I was just confusing.

      It is NOT COOL to put down someone else’s religion to make yourself look better. It’s especially terrible here because Raidah is Muslim and, as Roger pointed out, Muslim people have faced horrible discrimination and violence in the U.S. since basically 9/11 (and before then as well, to be fair). I really think that is what Joyce is doing here based on her expression in panel 3. I see her as smirking and being snarky – she thinks she is coming off as a “good Christian,” IMHO.

      While I’m not a fan of Raidah, I think her response is perfect and probably accurate.

      This whole thing is a garbage fire and Joyce keeps pouring more lighter fluid on that fire. Also, I don’t think it’s okay to attack your crush’s current partner. I know Joyce really has a thing for Jacob and maybe this is the first time she’s experienced this level of attraction. But the “B*&^ stole my MAN!” trope is prevalent and terrible and women shouldn’t buy into it.

      Also, if Joyce really likes Jacob and thinks he is a decent person, and Jacob really (likes?) (liked?) Raidah, maybe that means there is something decent about Raidah. Is Raidah is a complete douchcanoe, what does that say about Jacob that he is involved with her?

      1. Irredentist

        You seem to be forgetting that Raidah is the one who turned this conversation confrontational in the first place. So she really only has herself to blame.

        1. Jaime

          Oh, Raidah is definitely a douchecanoe in my book and I think she was obviously looking for conflict (or at least willing to fight). But I think going after someone’s religion is hitting below the belt. For example, you can get into a fight with someone without bringing their mother’s amorous activities into it.

          And just because Raidah started getting confrontational doesn’t mean that Joyce had to take the bait or stoop to her level.

        2. Irredentist

          That’s very true. Unfortunately I don’t see this particular one ending with smiles all around lol

        3. Jaime

          Me neither. The only possible way I could see this not becoming a *total* clusterf#ck is if either Joyce or Raidah get an urgent cell phone call, or a sudden attack of intestinal distress, or something that means one of them has to leave abruptly.

          I have to admit that I wish Dorothy would grab Joyce and say, “Joyce, come to the bathroom with me NOW!” and take the opportunity to talk to Joyce and tell her to back off. But that’s easy for me to say; I haven’t been 19 for a while and I’m not sure I would have had the wherewithall to do that when I was 19. And I’m not sure Joyce would listen right now anyway.

        4. JBento

          Joyce is what made EVERYTHING confrontational in the first place, by trying to break Raidah and Jacob up.

      2. anonymsly

        I don’t know, I actually read Joyce’s ‘I’m not sure that would be fair’ as her genuinely trying to be nice. She knows very well that Raidah is Muslim, Raidah invited her to mosque. She’s been trained all her life that Islam is evil and terrorist and nothing like Christianity. She’s not a theologian, she’s a homeschooled recovering fundie, emphasis on recovering.

        Joyce saying ‘it wouldn’t be fair to you’ reads to me like my brother saying ‘We were talking about coil design before you showed up, but I’m cool with changing the topic since you’re not a welding engineer and wouldn’t be able to participate if we continued’.

        It’s understandable that Raidah’s annoyed by the assumption, completely, because she almost certainly IS someone who understands her own religion very thoroughly and needs to understand Joyce-style Christians as well as a survival skill. But Joyce can, in fact, be wrong about things without it being a sign of malice or an attempt to undermine anything.

        1. Roger

          Yea but, the thing about that interpretation is that it’s still incredibly shitty, and now has the added bonus of also being incredibly condescending in the worst way possible. I know it’s just Joyce’s upbringing rearing its little ugly head again, but if the malice in that statement is seeping through it regardless of her intention. If she’s not being actively shitty, she’s being passively shitty, and her deep-set indoctrinated beliefs as to what Islam is tells her being incredibly condescending is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. If anything, that’s worse than direct malice. And that sucks a lot.

          Look don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m surprised that this is coming up, nor do I suddenly think Joyce is some kind of demon I wanna march in the streets to defy. Her recovery is an active part of her life at college, and it’s what makes her an interesting and, hell, endearing character over all. The fact that I’m this uncomfortable may well be Willis being a pretty damn good writer.

          But even as I know about all the complexities at play here, and I can guess she’s gonna have some repercussions to deal with in future, that doesn’t mean I’m gonna sympathize with her when that nastiness comes up again. This whole arc has been one giant shitty situation, and more and more these characters are relapsing into the worst in themselves. And that deserves pushback.

        2. Jaime

          I agree with everything. ^^^

    6. Rukdug

      Panel 3 is definitely a grimace worthy panel. And, not going to lie, it reminds me of every time someone said “oh your not really Christian” or “would you like to see what a real Christian Mass is like” growing up Catholic in the Midwest. Like I was somehow lesser than them. So I think while it’s in the context of what we know about Joyce not very fair of Raidah in panel 4, it’s also very natural and justifiable for her to be upset in that panel.

      1. Jaime

        Depending on how you interpret Joyce’s comment, it could also make her look very insidious and malicious. Raidah is attractive, intelligent, and motivated (albeit in a cold-blooded way). Joyce can’t attack her on those fronts. But Raidah is a Muslim in a conservative Christian area of a country in which Muslim people have been rhetorically and physically attacked. Joyce may see that as Raidah’s “weak spot” and is using that to her advantage.

        I overall like Joyce’s character so I hope this is mostly her being swept away by her feelings for Jacob combined with her religious upbringing. But it does potentially add a nasty element to her character.

    7. jmsr7

      When Joyce sat down, she was ready to fight. “Challenge accepted” was their facial expressions a few strips ago.

      In this case, the challenge is to get the other person to say something awful that makes them look bad in Jacob’s eyes.

      That’s why Dorothy is freaking out. She knows exactly where this is going and how it’ll end. Those two are determined to damage the other’s relationship with Jacob, and Dorothy is a classic “why can’t we all just get along” type of person.

      The only real benefit here is that Dorothy is getting an in-your-face lesson in why humans fight. In this case it’s over limited resources: there’s only one Jacob, they can’t both marry him. If this doesn’t pop her “let’s all live in harmony” bubble, nothing will.

      As for Joyce’s comment in this strip, the current topic is religion. Raidah wants to get Joyce to say something islamophobic whereas Joyce wants to get Raidah to … express disinterest, i guess? Given how important religion is to Jacob? Not sure what she’s trying to goad Raidah into saying here.

    8. Heatth

      Joyce needs to be friends with Asma, is what you are saying? I support that notion.

  33. Irredentist

    You know, if Raidah starts criticizing Christian stuff, someone’s gonna bring up Islam eventually. And that won’t end well for anybody.

  34. newllend(henryvolt)

    Dorothy if you want to change the subject find one yourself asking the other party to do it will most likely make things worst.

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      I hit the instead of e by a slip of the finger.

  35. Paige Davis

    They’re both being jerks. I want Dorothy and Jacob to poignantly move to the other side of the restaurant with their pizza and have a lovely time chatting about their classes and not being put in the middle of other people’s garbage attitudes clashing.

    1. Airyu

      This would be the most ideal soloution omg

  36. Derek

    That smile thing in the last two panels reminds me of this Robin face (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/fivesecond/) and I utterly hate it
    it’s the most punchable face, eugh

  37. Holly

    Is anyone else starting to think Mike and Raidah would actually work well together?
    Not in a totally healthy way, but they’d have great teamwork.

    1. Irredentist

      Oh god, talk about a power couple. Angriest and most self righteous sex of all time.

    2. newllend(henryvolt)

      Oh man how badly do I want Mike to show up with all this tension in the air. I would just love to see what would happen.

    3. Emily

      No because Mike’s only ambition seems to be to be an irredeemable shitheel.

      1. anonymsly

        And that would conflict with Raidah’s stated priorities of ‘LOL human cost LOL understanding, let me prove how I’m better than you’… how, exactly?

        1. the final pam

          Because Mike intentionally goes out of his way to manipulate people to hurt them and Raidah.. doesn’t?

          Like, yeah okay, I realize Raidah’s the head bongo in the comic right now, but honestly look at her MO in the comic and it’s not really comparable with Mike. If anything, for the simple fact that Mike is not subtle at all in his actions and everyone around him can see what a giant asshole he is (but still hang around him for… reasons?) while Raidah objectively knows how to put on a good face and obfuscate her intentions, though admittedly she’s doing a poor job of it right now.

  38. Goki

    Raidah…. Thank you for reminding everyone that you suck.

    Dorothy…. Just stop.

    Joyce. Kick her ass (verbally of course, but if you want to get physical, I don’t think anyone will complain)

    1. Doomska

      I too am enraged that the woman of color defended herself, her religion, and her healthy, mutually respectful relationship against attack from an entitled white woman, and demand that she suffer violence for it.

      1. Goki

        Raidah picked this fight, she isn’t a victim here, she came in fully wanting to make Joyce look bad. Being A POC doesn’t give you a free pass to be a smug jerk.

        As for the violence, well I prefer that it stays mental, no need to get so mad.

        1. the final pam

          Joyce is intentionally going after Raidah’s boyfriend. Joyce is not an innocent victim here, either. Starting from when she first agreed to try to hook Sarah up with Jacob, she’s been complicit to a plan to break up a couple and manipulate one of the parties. So, if we’re talking about who started what, Joyce (and Sarah) started this particular fight. Because Raidah can’t have Jacob.

        2. Goki

          That is completely fair. I never said Joyce was innocent either, and honestly, Dorothy is kind of an accomplice too. I guess I am taking their side because of total bias and I admit that. I think Joyce is a flawed character, but she has shown she can grow and I respect that. I have hope she can become an even better person. Dorothy and Raidah though… not so much. Honestly I kinda think they both suck unless they actually want to change (Dorothy and her issues with dealing with people and failure and Raidah’s pretentious attitude and her mindset that she can’t be wrong), they won’t change.

          The only “innocent” here is Jacob, but that is because he is obvious to what is going on.

        3. thejeff

          Dorothy isn’t really an accomplice here. She hasn’t been in on any of the scheming. I think she first realized what was going on when she caught the looks between Jacob and Joyce at the start of lunch.

        4. Goki

          Hence the “Kind of” part of the description. She isn’t part of the scheming that is true, but she knows what is going on. Oh well

        5. thejeff

          But she just figured it out 5 minutes ago and she’s been flailing about trying to derail the confrontation ever since.

        6. the final pam

          Just going to agree with what thejeff said. Dorothy has been so far removed from the entire scheme, this is the first time she’s realized Joyce likes Jacob, let alone is actively flirting with him while he’s in a relationship. She hasn’t had any opportunity to do anything, either to dissuade Joyce or confront her about it, and unless she either does it at the table right now or pulls Joyce away to the bathroom, she can’t.

        7. Norah

          Dorothy has other issues unrelated to this, sure , but they don’t come into play here, because as everyone else has said, she just realized Joyce has been flirting with Jacob.

          If Dorothy has issues dealing with people, it doesn’t make her a bad person, just someone who has some growing up or learning to do. She’s not actively trying to cause problems for people. Even Walky. She has a very unhealthy idea of what’s needed to succeed (study all the time and cut off your social life if you get one bad grade).

        8. Goki

          Norah, fair enough, and never said Dorothy was a bad person, I just think she and Raidah suck.

  39. KSClaw

    Good grief, Raidah is gearing up for a fight.

  40. Lauralot

    I may be overly optimistic and naïve here, but I don’t see Joyce’s remark about contributing to the discussion as malicious or even as an attempt to exclude Raidah. She seems to me to be genuinely ignorant that the religions have anything in common or that Raidah would know anything about Christianity, and I feel like she honestly thinks it would be unfair. Her face reads as more awkward and uncomfortable than sneering to me.

    Granted, that’s still a painful amount of ignorance, but I just don’t see ill intent on that particular statement.

    1. Squirrel

      Thank you! People seem to forget how much she doesn’t know about the world. She literally has been looking through cross glasses her whole life. She’s starting to realize that not everyone is Christian, that talking about her religion may indeed be unfair to others.

      1. Yumi

        Except that Raidah had JUST expressed interest in discussing the picture Bible.

    2. ScarvesandCelery

      I think it’s kind of an attempt to exclude Raidah and a certain amount of genuine ignorance causing her to make naive assumptions about Raidah’s beliefs, myself. Or rather, her naive assumption that Raidah won’t know anything about the bible is something she’s deliberately using to try and undermine Raidah.

      1. Squirrel

        You’re giving Joyce waaay to much credit. She’s at most a motherly passive aggressive which we’ve barely even seen here. She had an “oh noodles sorry” moment which Raidah has either taken in the wrong or really wants to make Joyce feel about about herself and possibly cry.

        1. the final pam

          Except Dorothy was allowed to participate in the conversation, and she’s explicitly an atheist. Going “Not sure that’d be fair” re: Raidah’s ability to contribute to a conversation reads as incredibly condescending, and if Joyce really was concerned about excluding Raidah, she could have instead asked Raidah “Hey, we could change topics if you would be more comfortable with that.” But in light of her saying it just after Raidah was like “Sure let’s go”, it reads as her trying to change the conversation for no one’s sake but her own, or at the very least, trying to make a point of how ‘unqualified’ Raidah is for the topic at hand.

    3. BigDogLittleCat

      That was my take too. At most it feels like “ah poor you, you don’t know the wonder and glory that is The picture bible”, which is basic ignorant christian, not Joyce>Raidah specific put-down.

    4. Roger

      My dude, the malice is still there, it’s just something way, way more deep set than anything to do with Jacob.

  41. Jabberwocky

    Ah, Dorothy. You’re gonna be a lousy politician.

  42. Zech Judy

    I’m not clear on why this strip is agitating the Raidah hate. She was open to talking about the picture bible, and was justifiably annoyed when Joyce was patronizing. Dorothy tried to mediate, and Raidah made a joke about lawyers. That didn’t insult Dorothy, but praised her and said she was too good to be a lawyer. And I think that is Raidah’s major, so it was self-depricating.

  43. Rukdug

    While everyone else assumes that Jacob is thinking about pizza, I assume he’s now having a little panic attack in his head and wondering when the pizza will be here and the pizza can act as the distraction.

  44. Keulen

    While I really don’t like Raidah, I like what she said in the 3rd panel. I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but in the U.S. it often seems to me that those of us who are non-Christians know a lot more about Christianity than the Christians do.

    1. Keulen

      Er, what she said in panel 4, not panel 3.

    2. Reltzik

      It’s not just you. It’s been confirmed.

      That said, Evangelicals specifically tend to know more about the Bible than Christians generally.

      1. Chris Phoenix

        Kind of ironic, given that Evangelicals are some of the least Christian Christians out there. Oppressing people, voting for Trump, Prosperity… “The devil quotes scripture.”

        1. Schpoonman

          There was that little 3-panel thing Willis did around the 2016 election. The Anti-Christ’s biblical description fits Trump very well, then Hank says he thinks OBAMA is the Anti-Christ, then Carol is hoisting MAGA gear.

        2. LordHaw

          That is largely why I am not a practicing Christian anymore…to many Christians not acting the part. Could not deal with it anymore…amongst other things.

      2. ScarvesandCelery

        I think a lot of Evangelicals know and internalise the specific set of beliefs they’ve been told to hold about the bible by the authority figures at their churches, I don’t think that means they know more about the bible than other Christians. I suspect the majority of Evangelical Christians have not read the bible cover to cover, but have been convinced the specific beliefs they have been taught to hold (e.g. anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs, creationism, etc) are “biblically correct”, and they consider this as good as actually reading the bible and coming to their own conclusions about it

        1. thejeff

          Often they do read the Bible, but in small concentrated doses – analysing particular verses, rather than reading for context. At least as they go through it in church or bible study. Then when they do read it in larger doses, the specific passage interpretation is so engrained it still dominates.

          (Painting with a broad brush, but I do think it’s common.)

        2. ScarvesandCelery

          Yes, this too

        3. davidbreslin101

          And I bet the /choice/ of verses by their pastor, priest or teachers makes a lot of difference too. Religeous education at my Dad’s school had a lot of Old Testament blood-and-thunder, but at my school it was mainly caring-and-sharing stuff from the New Testament.

  45. Thulcandran

    Feeling kind of alone in liking Raidah here. Yeah she’s a little bitey, but she’s got good cause. And yeah, a touch classist, but her bridling at Joyce suggesting she has “nothing to contribute” to a conversation about the bible is pretty legit. Yeah she’s Muslim but she’s in Indiana U S A for pity’s sake. Joyce probably knows someone within at most three degrees who “witnessed to” her family.

    1. Reltzik

      She’s classist and condescending and manipulative… but yeah, she’s definitely catching some undeserved crap here, and likely has in the past. I can like her in this moment, even if I don’t like her overall.

      1. Emily

        It’s another Roz situation: anyone who comes in conflict with Joyce is clearly the devil no matter how much Joyce actually does suck from their perspective.

        1. Schpoonman

          Roz had a point that Joyce for the vast majority of her life gleefully perpetrated and perpetuated Christian persecutions.

          What people disliked about her and now Raidah is that the two of them started using their points as weapons and not tools to help their peer grow.

        2. Emily

          Why should Raidah give a single solitary fuck about the personal growth of some random girl trying to seduce her boyfriend?

        3. Schpoonman

          Well, unlike Roz, Raidah has never claimed to be one to help educate people, but if we’re talking about terms of pure self-interest: Joyce and Jacob like each other at least platonically very much, so going directly for Joyce’s throat won’t go over well with Jacob, especially after Raidah talked about not being an aggressively jealous girlfriend.

        4. anonymsly

          Joyce sucks from Raidah’s perspective because ‘my friends told me this girl is being friendly with my man’. Raidah has no knowledge of Sarah’s angle in initially aiming Joyce at Jacob, and in reality even we the readers have no active knowledge of how much or even whether that’s still in play now that Joyce actually knows about it.

          Joyce certainly likes Jacob. But please note that she has been engaging with him over shared interests – like a friend would! – and making sure she’s not alone with him – like someone who wants to make sure that there’s no funny business might.

          For certain Joyce knows why Raidah showed up at lunch, but she has been her normal friendly honest self since that ‘oh really‘ moment upon seeing Raidah.

          Certainly Raidah’s perspective here is that Joyce sucks. But that’s because Raidah actually is jealous of her man having lady friends, because Raidah does not trust him to act like a mature adult and respect their relationship. Which is to say: given her in-story level of knowledge, Raidah thinks Joyce sucks because Raidah kind of sucks.

        5. thejeff

          Or possibly because Raidah is perceptive and is accurately reading Joyce’s intentions.

        6. Doomska

          No that’s unpossible

    2. Roger

      I mean honestly, I might sympathize with Raidah a lot about this specific moment about religion and also in general Joyce being kinda weird and creepy on her boyfriend, but the notion of liking her went away around the time the extreme classism reared its ugly head.

      Okay maybe if she undergoes a huge change in personal ethics and has a joyce-like recovery to become less shitty on that regard then, yknow, great.

  46. Wraithy2773

    Anyone want to lay odds on Joyce knowing that Muslims actually think really highly of Jesus Christ? Anyone?

    1. King Daniel

      Considering that as of just a few weeks ago Joyce was carrying Chick Tracts around with her…not high, I’d bet.

    2. Wright

      Pretty sure that Joyce only knows right-wing propaganda from her parents and their circle of friends in regards to Muslims; it’s not like she’s had a ton of exposure. But then again, I also don’t think that Joyce would think that anything less than “He’s God” is “thinking really high of” Jesus.

      1. Deathjavu

        “The Father is far greater than I, but, also, if you twist up a bunch of biblical references over a 12 part sermon, my father and I are exactly the same”- Jesus, probably

      2. abysswatcher1993

        Joyce con tolerate different interpretations of God, but she still is triggered by biological evolution and atheism.

  47. Josh Spicer

    Shit now I want pizza.

  48. Xccj

    Am I the only one hoping that Dorothy starts a verbal fight with Raidah now? Previously Raidah was focused on Joyce (who can’t honestly win this intellectual contest) but I would like to see a showdown with Dorothy, who has previously only been awkwardly defending her friend, but who can get serious when it’s her own reputation on the line. But also, Jacob should start speaking up soon, these insults are becoming less veiled.

    1. Jaime

      I actually hope Dorothy and Raidah DON’T get in a fight – Dorothy shouldn’t let herself get drawn into this clusterf#ck. If Raidah was flat-out bullying Joyce, that would be another thing. But Joyce instigated this as well. And while Raidah’s comment to Dorothy was lousy, Dorothy IS kind of inserting herself into a conversation that doesn’t have anything to do with her. (Avoid the drama, Dorothy!)

      YES – why isn’t Jacob saying anything? Joyce is his friend and Raidah is his girlfriend. As I noted a couple of strips back, if my current partner was treating a friend of mine this way, I would have had words with him *way* before this. Probably the most graceful thing Jacob could do here is to pull Raidah aside privately and talk to her about her behaviour and/or convince her to invent a “forgotten” previous engagement and leave.

      1. BenRG

        Two reasons for Jacob’s inaction:

        1) He’s thinking about his impending pizza;
        2) He’s too confused as to why his girlfriend and the cute, crazy girl that has started meeting up with him are so obviously engaged in a verbal fight.

        1. thejeff

          “Hey is my cool, non-jealous girlfriend actually starting to act irrationally jealous like all my previous girlfriends have for no discernable reason whatsoever?”

        2. StClair

          But that would mean she’s…. naaaaaaaah.

  49. BenRG

    “Me? I plan to spend my adult life stamping on human faces, starting with cotton-brained idealists like you, Keener!”

  50. Fire_daws

    I see this as a lioness coming back to her kill and seeing another trying to take it. I expect to see teeth and claws.

  51. stoodmuffin

    Dorothy doesn’t need this, she’s already a wreck.

    And Joyce. You will be destroyed.

    Run. Now.

    1. Chris Phoenix

      Joyce will not be destroyed. She freaks out, and then thinks about it, and then learns from it how to be a better person.

      This is someone who was raised fundamentalist, and then kissed amorously by her same-sex best friend – without warning – and within hours had decided that her church was wrong about gay people.

      Sure, she can defend the picture bible and freak out about the wrong kind of cups for Communion wine. But when things get real, Joyce gets strong.

      Meanwhile, Raidah will see Joyce’s upset as weakness, and will attack it and belittle Joyce for it, thus showing Jacob that he really doesn’t want to be with her.

      Joyce could very easily lose the battle and win the war by the time this lunch is over.

      1. Emily

        Alternatively, this is someone who needed to have her best friend come out to her before she realized the LGBT community are people too. It’s not like she’d never met a gay person she knew Ethan and her reaction was to help him try to “straighten himself out.”

        1. CJ

          Like most people who grow up in a closed environment of manipulating and crazy ideas, she needs a lot of emotional investment AND input that has a chance to connect to what her beliefs do to make her change her mind.
          Becky was already around for some time before something that came up in gender studies got through.
          And then she new that she’d acted wrongly to both Becky and Ethan.

          The problem is that you need saintlike patience to create such connections without a best friend since childhood at hand as an anchor.

        2. Doomska

          Man imagine if fans applied 1% of the context-analysis and empathy they display for Joyce, the vulnerable white girl, to Raidah, the mean-scary-uppity woman of color.

        3. Emily

          This is why the bulk of my empathy for Joyce has been transferred to the girls who get fed up with her Pollyanna shtick masking her moral failings and then get demonized by the community for calling her out on her bullshit.

        4. thejeff

          I would, if Raidah had actually shown any of the good traits Joyce has. Including that ability to grow.

          And I’ve been pretty harsh on Joyce in this sequence.

          No one is covering themselves in glory here.

        5. thejeff

          Remember that Ethan was actively part of that plan. She wasn’t pushing him anywhere he wasn’t at least pretending to want to go.
          Still not cool, but he was likely contributing to her lack of understanding, because he was trying to reject his gayness too. Which fits neatly into the right wing bullshit about homosexuality.

          She was also recently traumatized and clinging to him as non-sexually-threatening man.

        6. anonymsly

          I’m with thejeff. The tendency of people to forget that Ethan was not only fully complicit but the initial instigator of the ‘shove Ethan back in the closet’ plan seems to get conveniently forgotten a lot in favor of heaping all blame and censure on Joyce.

        7. the final pam

          LGBT people willingly putting themselves back in the closet as a means of survival is vastly different than a cishet ally helping them for their own means. Like, Ethan wasn’t doing it for shits and giggles. He spent the entire summer under attack from his family and who knows who else where Amber had to spend all of her time defending him so when she got to school, she was emotionally burned out. That is an extremely shitty situation to be in, and it’s completely understandable why he would want to try and ‘fix’ things so he didn’t have to keep going through that.

        8. thejeff

          I certainly get that. Joyce certainly didn’t help his situation.

          Nor did he help her understanding of gay people as people – at least in the short run. Her caring for him did help when she did get far enough.

          But mostly, Emily paints it as she met a gay guy and immediately tried to straighten him out, which is putting about the worst possible light on it.

        9. Emily

          Even in the best possible light it’s still gross. At the end of the day Joyce only ever bothers to reassess her prejudices when she’s forced to by circumstance. It’s what happened with atheists because of Dorothy and gay people via Becky. As far as I can remember she has yet to make an unprompted effort to examine the humanity of the values she was raised with and in fact seems perfectly comfortable passively accepting them until she reaches a crisis point where it’s examine her beliefs or lose a loved one so I’m not really inclined to give her a whole lot of credit.

        10. Schpoonman

          Joyce has reassessed everything that people have asked her to. She didn’t know any out queer persons before she came to IU, and probably was not given any reliable or accurate information on queer people at large. That’s a fault on the conditions in which Joyce was raised, not a personal failing on her part.

          That’s how people grow, they are confronted with new information that challenges old claims and biases. Unless you’re telling me you popped out of wherever you came from whole and perfect, you had to learn at some point in your life, too.

          Joyce has proven herself over and over again to be willing and eager to stop harmful behavior, so why the fuck are you so insistent on crucifying her over behavior she admitted was wrong and stopped doing?

        11. thejeff

          She accepted atheists within about a day (maybe two?) of finding out Dorothy was one. She’d just met Dorothy at the time.

          To be completely honest, my biggest issue with Joyce is that for someone coming out of her background, she’s adjusting ridiculously quickly. It’s been less than 2 months for her.

          Personal connections are by far the best and fastest way people lose their prejudices about LGBTQ folks. This thing you’re criticizing Joyce for – this is exactly how public opinion has changed so quickly (compared to say racism). Bigots meet people, like them, find out they’re gay and change their prejudices.

        12. Sigh

          Ethan may have been the first openly gay person she’d ever met, though–and she’d only known him for a few days. Homeschooled kids can have very limited interactions with the outside world.

  52. JessWitt

    Oh man I can’t wait for Jacob to drop Raidah like a hot potato.

  53. Mr. Random

    I wonder if Dorothy is using this as a metric to see how well she can mediate.

    1. ValdVin

      It’s quite a challenge. I’m sure she knows that sometimes two parties won’t be mediatable no matter what.

  54. Eldritch Gentleman

    So she is straight up saying that cash is more important than human lives. Yup Raidah confirmed for a shitty bongo.

  55. BenRG

    It would be ironic if Joyce succeeds in breaking up Jacob and Raidah but he never moves past ‘very close friends’ with Joyce because she isn’t the sort of girl with whom he’s interested in having a relationship.

  56. Martin Smith

    This Raidah girl… I don’t know. I’m going to be controversial here and say I’m not that keen on her. No, sir.

  57. J

    Joyce 1) insisting on arguing with a future sharky lawyer 2) about religion 3) while they’re already enemies thanks to Joyce crushing on Jacob… sounds like a jobber insisting on fighting Brock Lesnar thinking they’ve got a legit shot at the title belt. Jobber deeeefinitely ain’t gonna win, but neither will the audience watching this, and Brock’s just gonna look like an awful person for hitting extra hard for unnecessary preemptive vengeance purposes. (I guess in this scenario Dorothy is the inept referee? She’s certainly about as useful at the moment, unfortunately for all involved.)

    1. Zee

      I…don’t know where you got Joyce insisting on arguing about religion? It’s literally raidah saying come at me?

      1. Doomska

        It’s no doubt unintentional but her comments are subtly Islamophobic and demeaning to Raidah. As she rightly points out.

        1. Sigh

          They’re not Islamophobic because they do not pertain specifically to Islam. She could have made the exact same comment to a Buddhist, Hindu, or Pagan.
          At most, they are condescending to non-Christians.

      2. J

        Oh, I’m not saying Raidah has zero blame or anything. I’m just saying panel three doesn’t read to me as Joyce expecting Raidah to back down. And I think that, looking at it from Joyce’s side, Joyce seems to be really, *really* underestimating her opponent. Like, she’s expecting a friendly little tussle, meanwhile I’m not sure Raidah knows the meaning of the word friendly.

  58. Booker

    I demand that somebody get hoisted by their own petard…

    1. davidbreslin101

      …or their own pet aardvark. That’d be fun to watch…

  59. ninja_jesus

    So when does Becky enter the equation and wreck shop?

  60. JBento

    JFC that pizza is taking forever! Just come on already so we end this whole shitshow.

    1. JBento

      @Willis: Can we have some Dina or Agatha as a palate cleanser after this shitshow?

  61. Vulcanodon

    This is all going to end with Joyce in tears and learning.

  62. miis

    Thoughts.

    – I don’t hate Raidah. I don’t love her like I love Dorothy, but nor do I actually feel like she’s being as much of an ass in this situation as Joyce. Raidah has always been up front about herself and her views. She’s not warm and fuzzy and she’s not conflict avoidant. She can be a jerk sometimes, but can’t we all?

    – Poor Dorothy. It’s a long and painful path to figuring out that your self-worth is intrinsic and doesn’t depend on your success at becoming a future idealized version of yourself that’s not actually in keeping with your individual skills and talents. Ask me how I know! 😛

    – Joyce here is so true to my experience of how religion – especially conservative Christianity – can be subverted by people’s interpersonal conflicts. I have a friend I love who is religious like that but she can be selfish and petty while holding her moral views strong and somehow simply ignores the congnitive dissonance. I am sure we all ignore ethical dissonance to a certain extent but I do feel concern that one thing people brought up in very strong religious communities may learn is that dissonance shouldn’t be examined (instead it should be prayed for, etc.).

    1. miis

      Also side note I love Raidah’s eyebrows!

  63. Deanatay

    Is it weird that I interpret Dorothy’s subtle warning in the second speech bubble in panel 5 as being directed towards Raidah? The ‘human cost’ of her ‘rhetorical one-upsmanship’ with Joyce could well be Jacob.

    I mean, it’s directed at Joyce, too. But, Joyce already knows this. She’s willing to ruin her chance with Jacob to torpedo Raidah’s.

  64. Zee

    God I loathe raidah. I can see her touching on a topic sensitive enough to visibly upset Joyce and really pissing off Jacob in the process

  65. OnyxIdol

    Dorothy you cinnamon roll.

    1. abysswatcher1993

      And Raidah is a cinnamon roll burned in the oven.

  66. Anon

    I don’t see Raidah’s comment as an attack against Dorothy here. She isn’t saying that Dorothy will not be a future lawyer. She’s telling Dorothy that she (Raidah) is going to be a future lawyer (Raidah is pointing to herself) and her answer to Dorothy’s question about “all agreeing we should prioritize rhetorical oneupmanship less” is a no.

  67. Wendy

    I love Raidah – I think she’s the best “villain” in DoA because she’s so well fleshed-out for someone who doesn’t often appear.

    She’s vindictive, classist, ruthless, and condescending – but she’s also fiercely loyal, she clearly works hard, and she calls out her friends when she thinks they’re overstepping the boundaries of decency. She’s an unlikable person, but she has enough virtues that it’s not too hard to see why anyone WOULD like her. I think she’s one of the best-written characters in the comic.

    1. Sam

      That’s a fair analysis. I would however add: ableist (due to how she treated Dina, she assumed she MUST have a mental problem and started to speak to her as if she were a child, it pairs with her condescension) and petty (was trying to tell people not to be Sarah’s friend, this pairs with her vindictiveness). And on the pros I would add: charismatic (she is able to keep a conversation rolling), polite (asking questions about others rather than talking all about herself).

      She’s the kind of person where if you are her friend and on her good side? She seems perfectly lovely. On her bad side? She’s pretty unlikable and unpleasant.

      1. thejeff

        To be fair about Dina: She first assumed Dina was actually a child. A mistake that’s been made more than once. Once corrected, she did assume Dina had a mental prolem, which wasn’t exactly unreasonable, given Dina’s semi-random comment about Sarah and dinosaurs. We don’t know how she would have dealt with Dina with more exposure to her.

        Other more popular characters have also condescended to Dina and have done so knowing far more about her and over longer periods.

        Yeah, she ain’t perfect on that front, but she might not be that bad either.

    2. J

      To whom have we seen Raidah be loyal? She calls out people because she enjoys it; it’s very clear she doesn’t give a wet fart about decency.

      1. BBCC

        Dana.

      2. Doomska

        Dana, Jacob. What indication is there that she doesn’t care about loyalty or indeed, for that matter, decency?

    3. Doomska

      I like her and find that the whole conceit about her being so awful is a trick of perspective. We are introduced to her from Sarah’s point of view from which she’s this awful monster, but really, what exactly is that based on, objectively? She’s shitty to Sarah for completely justifiable reasons. Note that it is Sarah who lashes out in actual physical violence to attack Raidah though, and for what? Befriending Joyce. She also basically assaults Joyce by trying to physically drag her away when she doesn’t want to leave. And yet Raidah turns the other cheek and despite having every reason to hate Sarah, from her perspective, does not press charges or tell the Dean, knowing that Sarah is depending on a shaky scholarship ride.

      Yes she’s condescending and ableist to Dina, but not any moreso than Dina’s friends, and she calls out her own friends for much shittier behavior. Her intentions are good.

      Next she becomes the “villain” once again just for being opposed to a protagonist proximal character because she’s in a relationship with Jacob. In which… she is supportive of Jacob’s goals and academic career and displays a large level of trust even in the force of friends encouraging her to be paranoid. I say “paranoid” though but really, they *are* in fact conspiring to ruin Raidah’s relationship.

      Like the worst things fans like to point out about Raidah and Jacob’s relationship is that they don’t really seem to be in love, and I’m sorry but that’s like. A pretty juvenile attitude. No, Raidah doesn’t seem to be tripping over herself swooning at the concept of being in love with Jacob; their relationship seems to be just, from her perspective, a healthy and mutually beneficial support arrangement with future prospects. I’m sorry but I can’t really get worked up over that. Love doesn’t have to be all Romeo and Juliet, and in fact, shouldn’t be. Raidah and Jacob may have the closest thing to a really healthy and functioning relationship in the strip and fans are upset because Raidah’s demonstrably not in love with the idea of being in love for love’s sake, because she views a relationship as less an opportunity to display a lot of passionate emotions and engage in self-destructive behavior, and more a partnership for life?

      Fans hate Raidah because they insert themselves into the place of the protagonists and Raidah is in the protagonists’ way a lot. This speaks badly of the fans. It suggests that in real life they don’t have the ability to identify when they are in the wrong.

      1. Inahc

        maybe I can’t speak for dina herself, but Raidah’s behaviour felt a *lot* shittier to *me*. I don’t know how to explain it, it just…. it’s a lot worse. one makes a little irritated, the other makes me want to punch things.

        1. Doomska

          Okay but you can’t point out why because there’s no objective reason. The difference is the framing. Raidah is positioned as being opposed to protagonist characters for various reasons and so her behavior is seen as worse. Joyce is the protagonist and we’re given more of her background and encouraged to empathize with her.

          And of course the optics matter here. Joyce is a vulnerable white girl and Raidah is a mean and scary self-assertive brown girl.

        2. Schpoonman

          In Raidah’s first appearance she saw Sarah and went out of her to tell her how friendless Sarah was and that Raidah hoped she choked and died. Her first lines in this universe.

          Justify that to me, please.

        3. Emily

          She thinks Sarah got her friend pulled out of college for purely selfish reasons and now she hates her.

        4. Schpoonman

          Raidah’s lack of knowledge of the situation does NOT justify her campaign of abuse.

        5. Schpoonman

          Lemme correct that: Nothing would justify her campaign of abuse. It also makes her a hypocrite because she said that Sarah was toxic and you need to cut toxic people out, but she keeps harassing Sarah.

        6. Doomska

          No she doesn’t.

          She is free with her opinion of Sarah but I think we see her actively and voluntarily talking to Sarah exactly once. We see the inverse way more often. Including when, you know, Sarah actually physically assaulted Raidah for daring to befriend Joyce.

        7. thejeff

          True. Part of the problem there is that most of her campaign was last year, before the strip started and we only know most of it from Sarah – but what we know is nicely corroborated by their first few interactions: Raidah comes by in the cafe and attacks her for being alone (with our first bit of recap of the Dana story), then just walks by and calls her a bongo in her next appearance.
          Then the infamous scene in the mall with Dina and when Sarah punched her, which both take on a slightly different cast when we consider Radaih and her cronies apparently waged a campaign to get everyone to ostracize Sarah last year. Now she’s telling Dina (in the most condescending manner possible) to stay away from Sarah and then seeming to befriend Joyce. That last may well have been innocent, but it could have looked to Sarah as the start of turning her new roommate against her, rather than simply “befriending Joyce.”
          Which doesn’t justify punching her, of course.

          That said, the punching might have worked – the animosity is still there, but we didn’t see the random harassment after that, even before she showed up with Jacob.

          Still that’s 3 times early in the strip and they’re all out of the blue attacks on Sarah, with a strong implication that’s what all last year was like.

        8. Doomska

          I mean yeah what Emily said. This is such a like. “Read the comic” moment tbh, the reason that she said that is that she hates Sarah for what are honestly not the worst reasons in the world. The audience is biased to Sarah and takes her side without question over the essentially non-character she, in Raidah’s view, betrayed. But the situation is extremely ambiguous at best, and honestly I’m leaning more on Raidah’s side. I mean Carla encountered a lot more backlash in these comments for exposing the Ruth/Billie situation with a lot more cause for immediate concern, and less ulterior motive mixed in- Don’t forget that even according to Sarah’s account, her primary motivation was her own falling grades. And she told Raidah as much.

          You’re also acting as if casually hoping for violence to befall another character is the same thing as actual violence, which is a frankly absurd double-standard. Characters speak of violence to each other in this strip all the damn time. Hell characters actually hit or forcefully grab each other all the time in ways it’s not clear how seriously we’re meant to take, e.g., Ruth flipping Billie, Joyce and Mike attacking Joe etc..

        9. Inahc

          her primary motivation was keeping her scholarship, which has high grade requirements.

        10. Doomska

          Yeah. Which is understandable, but still ultimately self-interested.

          I’m not trying to paint Sarah as pure evil but the idea that Raidah would view her negatively is really extremely reasonable from Raidah’s perspective. It doesn’t make her a bad or unreasonable person.

          And like people bring up her class privilege and that’s fair but that makes it harder for her to empathize with someone betraying her friend over the terms of a scholarship.

          (Sarah also indicates that she waited a super long time to turn in Dana, but given that she makes the decision around midterms and there were clearly several weeks at least elapsed in the term before Dana’s mom died, we’re really talking about a a handful of weeks here before she made this decision, without attempting any other recourse. So yeah I’m actually partially on Raidah’s side here, Sarah’s actions are understandable given the pressure she felt but pretty… problematic, let’s say.)

        11. thejeff

          Worth remembering that Sarah isn’t exactly a reliable narrator. In fact, she’s so attached to her curmudgeonly image, she’s very likely to overemphasize her self-interest and downplay her actual concerns.

          It’s what she does regularly with Joyce.

        12. Emily

          If anything people who’ve know Dina for a while (and even lived with her in Amber’s case) treating her like that seems way worse than a stranger making the same mistake. Especially since she’s probably the closest thing to a functional adult in this cast and these dysfunctional idiots think they have any grounds to condescend to her.

        13. timemonkey

          Joyce and co diminished Dina as a sexual being. Raidah diminished Dina as an independent person, diminished her mind. One is an aspect of her personality, the other is her entire self, both are shitty but the latter is much more so.

        14. Emily

          “She acts and looks like she’s 12.” This is something Joyce said literally in front of Dina.

        15. thejeff

          To be fair about that: Dina met an actual 12 year old, Riley, and bonded with her until Amber pointed out that Riley was actually 12.

          Especially early on, Dina did look and act like she was 12.

          How someone is supposed to react to that is unclear. The look part is easy to get past, once her age is clear, but the acts is harder.

          Luckily she’s seemed more mature as she’s put more effort into social skills.

        16. Inahc

          that might be it… my mind has always been the part of me I care the most about 🙂

          also, joyce and co have demonstrated a willingness to learn and change. Raidah, otoh, looks like she’s the type to double down on her dickishness. that’s probably part of it too.

        17. Sigh

          The reasoning behind diminishing Dina as a sexual being is because they think of Dina as a child (People say that to me, too, for the same reason.) It’s the exact same logic, just expressed differently.

          But the people who *know* Dina and live with her have much less excuse for that than someone who just met her randomly and five seconds ago thought she was a kid. That person is still trying to process a new person who acts in unexpected ways. The people who know Dina have had plenty of time to process her and their conclusion was “mental child who needs to be informed that she is a mental child because I am an important arbiter of such things.”

          I will take Raidah’s shit over any main cast’s shit on this subject.

        18. Norah

          I thought Raidah’s condescension to Dina was awful; but Sarah’s was almost as bad. And so was Amber’s saying she didn’t want to think about Dina being in a relationship. These are two people who should know better—they knew Dina better, and they themselves are far from being social butterflies.

          I’ve never been diagnosed as autistic, but suspect that I might be, and have been thought of as “different “ and “odd” all my life. I have a lot of issues with anxiety, social anxiety, etc.—in fact, I can relate to Sarah when she said that Jacob wouldn’t be interested in her—that’s how I usually feel about myself. I would be pissed at Raidah, of course. But I think I’d be almost as pissed if two people whom I thought were friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, implied that they thought it inconceivable, or at least bizarre, that I might ever be in a relationship.

  68. bunivasal

    I feel like we haven’t seen Jacob’s face in a while. I’m SUPER curious to see how he feels about all this.

  69. abysswatcher1993

    Raidah is aware that Dorothy is trying to keep peace between everyone, which is why she feels she has to fuck up everything and start a scene.

    If the next scene is Raidah mocking Dorothy for being a pacifist politician and not a power hungry politician, then I hope the comeback is Dorothy jumping the table and punching Raidah for being a stereotypical pretentious rich liberal.

    1. Doomska

      I have no idea what comic you’ve been reading. Is it the one where the Muslim girl is singled out by the privileged white chick that’s actively trying to sabotage her relationship?

      1. CJ

        The privileged white chick who grew up in a fundi church in a family with not much money is sooooo easily more priviledged than the rich lawyer chick who looks down on people only making 25k.
        Yeah, right, very clearly drawn lines here.

        Though I suppose abbyswatcher just wants Dorothy’s pacifism exposed as fake, else he wouldn’t have mad such an absurd statement.

        Punching people is absolutely not called for in the current situation, it’s never called for with people who haven’t already been violent themselves.

        Though Raidah with her way to bully people and put them down for not being who she is has every right to be pissed off about Joyce’s idea she hasn’t a clue about Christianity, it was Raidah herself who started the pissing contest in the first place. So it’s seems absurd if she would complain about getting wet.
        (Though that’s a true and tried bullying tactic.)

        1. Doomska

          > Though Raidah with her way to bully people and put them down for not being who she is

          So again I’m going to ask what comic you’ve been reading.

          Yes Raidah’s comments about teachers betray privilege from class, but they’re also basically word for word the standard liberal talking points. You can find countless sympathetic, liberal articles and podcasts portraying teaching as a “noble profession, steeped in poverty.”

          Like as a full time substitute teacher I am more than conscious that plenty of people make well less than $50k a year (plus summers off, plus health insurance, plus paid sick days etc. etc., all of which subs don’t get if you’re wondering.)

          But it is the common media narrative to frame teachers as being desperately poor. And like heck I am by any means saying they’re not underpaid, but singling out Raidah for the narrative of “teaching is living in poverty” as if she invented it or was evil for saying so is just ignorance speaking.

          And it certainly doesn’t rationalize the wild and absurd claim that there’s any evidence of her “bullying people and putting them down for not being who she is.”

          If she’s attacking Joyce at all it’s not for “not being who she is,” it is for Joyce’s actually shitty behavior in trying to deliberately get Jacob to cheat on her.

        2. Sigh

          Yeah. Joyce actually does deserve to know that most people don’t regard “elementary school teacher” as a well-paying job, (though no one needs to be snippy about it, since her ignorance isn’t intentional.)

          Raidah thinks Joyce is ignorant and unambitious, but this is basically true.

        3. Doomska

          But yeah I guess it’s bullying. It’s an assertive brown woman defending herself against a crybaby white woman’s shitty behavior, so what else could it be but bullying that poor defenseless white girl.

        4. BBCC

          Just because its a common thing to say doesn’t make it acceptable and while Raidah has the right to defend herself from Joyce’s bad behaviour, that doesn’t make it acceptable to start hurling classist nonsense at Joyce and her family (including the stuff like getting sarcastic about Joss’ job). That doesn’t make Joyce’s behaviour any more acceptable either, but Raidah’s hardly squeaky clean, especially on the bullying front.

        5. Doomska

          Jesus it’s one line of an extremely common, slightly problematic but clearly well intentioned message. It’s not “hurling” class invectives. This is clearly just poisoning the well rhetoric.

          A comparison would be if someone said we shouldn’t judge gay people because they’re “born that way.” This would be a slightly problematic argument but it would be clearly well-intentioned and it would be both dumb and shitty to then jump all over that person and paint them as evil, a bully etc., as people have done with Raidah itt.

          You know who was both reciting actually homophobic language and enacting it in their personal life until their best friend came out to them and they had to confront their shitty bigotry, was Joyce.

        6. BBCC

          First of all, that is not all she did. She also was poking fun (subtly) at Joss for being a blogger and made condescending cracks about the glamorous life. She wasn’t just saying these things out of ignorance. She was saying them to make fun. She was not ‘well intentioned’ in saying that.

          Second of all, I never said it was the worst thing in the world she could say. I said it was still not okay and the fact its a common attitude and that Joyce is being shitty at the same time does not make it okay.

          This is also hardly the only time Raidah’s been a bully. We also know she was harassing Sarah for roughly a year. Yes, from her perspective, she has good reason not to like Sarah. That doesn’t make coming up to her in the cafeteria and making fun of her for being alone and then telling her she hopes Sarah chokes okay. That IS bullying.

          We can only judge the characters by what we’ve seen of them. We have seen some good qualities from Raidah and things I like about her but we’ve also seen quite a bit that is NOT good, whereas we’ve seen far more good from characters we’ve seen more of. That doesn’t put Joyce in the right in this situation but that is probably why people tend to like her more.

          Finally, I never said Joyce’s homophobia was okay either. That’s not what we were talking about. Joyce also has learned from it and chased down an armed gunman to rescue Becky. Raidah, thus far, has not learned to overcome her class biases. That doesn’t make her satan incarnate but I fail to see why ‘but this character overcame a large chunk of her bias’ is a good argument to overlook what Raidah said here.

    2. Doomska

      But yeah I hope white women beat up those uppity women of color trying to quietly defend their relationships against deliberate saboteurs too. Show them their place!

  70. Cerberus

    Oh Raidah, I think you might, just might have forgotten about your future lawyer boyfriend right next to you in your drive to one-up and shame Joyce.

    I’m thinking this is where she overplays her hand and Jacob gets upset at her.

    That said she’s 100% right in Panel 4. The marginalized always have to learn the dominant bullshit, not so much the other way around. You learn to become an expert in that culture while they trade wildly ignorant ideas about your culture based on what someone once heard somewhere.

    1. Bagge

      Either that, or Jacob is busy thinking of pizza.

    2. Doomska

      lol I can’t even with fans, how do you guys get so wrapped up in your protagonist-proximal bias that you just totally forget all sense of right and wrong?

      Raidah is a Muslim woman of color being subtly, if probably pretty unconsciously, shamed for her religion by the white privileged chick who is continuing a protracted and deliberate effort to get her boyfriend to cheat on her, but she’s the bad guy for really quietly pushing back against it.

      1. Inahc

        how the fuck did you get from “she’s 100% right in Panel 4.” to “totally forget all sense of right and wrong”? are you just throwing out attacks at random now regardless of what people are arguing?

        also, Raidah’s a rich, classist muslim woman of colour. there’s plenty of blame and privilege to spread around on both sides here.

        1. Doomska

          Talking about Raidah’s “drive to shame Joyce” is ridiculous. Raidah tried to befriend Joyce back before, you know, Sarah *physically assaulted her for it.* She also tried to turn a blind eye to Joyce’s obvious and deliberate attempts to sabotage her relationship.

          If she’s pushing back now that’s hardly from a “drive to one-up and shame” her, it’s defending her relationship against actual, deliberate, knowing sabotage.

        2. Inahc

          the “drive to one-up and shame” her *is* her way of defending her relationship. and it’s gonna backfire just like the OP said. (there’s some weird horizontal scroll bug so I can’t actually see who that was now, lol)

        3. BBCC

          It’s one thing to try to get a saboteur to back off, but it’s another to spew classist and elitist crap like she’s been since she got here.

          Raidah and Joyce can BOTH be being crappy.

        4. Doomska

          Again, this is a ridiculous mischaracterization. Raidah has not “been spewing classist and elitist crap since she got here.” She talked about the teaching profession literally the exact same way I hear NPR and liberals generally constantly talk about it- so noble, but it must suck to be soooo poor etc.. it’s well intentioned and seemed to come from a place of genuinely not realizing that $50k a year *isn’t that bad*, certainly not to a large portion of the country.

          But like I and others in the teaching profession have said… this is just normal. That’s how people talk about teachers. ALL THE DAMN TIME. Acting like it’s some uniquely crappy line that Raidah made up is just ignorance. It’s kind of Rowling-ish limousine-liberal logic but that’s the worst that it is, and that’s a far cry from the rhetoric of people who actually do attack teachers.

        5. Inahc

          classist and liberal are not mutually exclusive.

        6. Doomska

          Uh that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that this is all just normal liberal attitudes so it’s weird to act like it’s some unique sin of Raidah’s.

          Like Dorothy straight up echoes Raidah’s sentiments. Dorothy is also an upper middle class liberal, does that make her “evil”? Does it make her a “bully”?

        7. Inahc

          Dorothy isn’t the one being a jerk about it. she sees 50k as low, but she’s not the one painting that as something *lesser* and being all condescending about it. If she does have problematic biases along those lines, we’ve not seen them yet.

          besides, other people on the planet being jerks does not make it okay for raidah to be a jerk. I don’t see this as “normal liberal”, I see this as jerkassery that’s mostly orthogonal to whether someone’s in the liberal half of the american political spectrum.

        8. thejeff

          Oddly, when the liberals I hang out with talk about teachers being poor, they’re generally arguing we should pay them more, not bullshit about “noble sacrifices”.

          And just to add to the financial debate from a few days ago: $50K is above average, overall. It’s well below average for a college grad, which teachers will be and even farther below average for a Master’s Degree, which teachers will need before they reach that $50K median.

        9. Doomska

          Okay so this is making me physically twitch so I will say as someone in the teaching profession that Raidah’s words are exactly the same shit I have heard countless times from liberals, without significant variation. If you think there’s something especial about that then honestly that’s just you reading into it to justify your dislike of the character.

        10. adjudicus

          Also where the hell did you get the interpretation that Raidah was well-intentioned and anything other than classist and condescending when she talked about it being a “noble profession”. Her facial expression and body language say it all

        11. Doomska

          “Also where the hell did you get the interpretation that Raidah was well-intentioned”

          From having to deal with this sentiment expressed in the same fucking terms all the fucking time as a full time substitute who gets to envy even the regular teachers. That’s from fucking where the Hell I get it, adjudicious.

        12. Doomska

          And while it annoys me, I do have to process as an adult functioning in the real world what the person’s intentions are. And they’re good and not malicious.

        13. BBCC

          I’m not saying Raidah is alone in it but the fact lots of liberals have the same classist attitude doesn’t make it not classist and the fact many are well intentioned is irrelevant because Raidah, going by her expression and body language, is very much not. She and Joyce are in a passive aggressive pissing contest wherein Raidah said a crappy thing. Joyce has been doing crappy things since she first decided to disregard Raidah and Jacob’s relationship.

          Joyce, imo, is being worse here but that doesn’t suddenly make Raidah clear of anything not okay.

        14. Doomska

          Okay so when you acknowledge that this is a routine and normal way of talking about teachers but say that you can tell that this comic character’s “expressions and body language” mean that she’s doing it in an evil and sinister way, which she’s not beyond her (justified) guardedness to Joyce based on the fact that Joyce is literally trying to get her boyfriend to cheat on her with her, then I am going to disregard your further thoughts because you’re just justifying your protagonist-bias and irrational feelings about a character who, while certainly far from perfect, is basically in the right here. I am going to disregard these, “Raidah’s no angel” arguments as just that, spurious rationalization to try to equivocate actions that are not equal.

        15. Inahc

          suuure, you’re the special rational snowflake here among all us confused liberals… 😛

        16. BBCC

          @ Doomska – I never used the words ‘evil’ or ‘sinister’. Those are YOUR words. I said Raidah said a crappy thing and, based on the fact she and Joye are engaged in, again, a passive aggressive pissing contest, is making fun of Joyce for not planning anything glamorous.

          Also, this is a comic. Yeah, expressions and body language are a valid way to try to tell what a character’s thinking.

          I also said, right there, Joyce is being worse. When it comes to Jacob, I am ON RAIDAH’S SIDE. That doesn’t mean anything and everything she says is okay.

          @ Inahc – ??? Not sure what you mean like that. Plenty of liberals also call out this sort of classist talk – there were plenty back when Raidah said it too.

        17. Inahc

          @BBCC I find it weird that Doomska keeps bringing up “liberals” today.

        18. BBCC

          Ah, I see! My mistake. I thought that was directed at me.

        19. thejeff

          @Inahc A thing I’ve noticed as well.

          @Doomska Because we’re reading the subtext of why Raidah is doing this. She wasn’t just casually chatting with Joyce when the subject came up. She picked the topic and weaponized it against Joyce. I don’t know how, but she already knew Joyce was an education major – she commented on it to her cronies last time we saw them. This is not “guardedness to Joyce”, this is a planned attack.
          This is what I don’t like about Raidah. She is calculated and deceptive. She makes that seem like casual conversation, when it absolutely isn’t.

          If she wasn’t that way, she could just talk to Jacob about this whole business. I actually had high hopes for her awhile back, when she had that chat with Jacob about not being jealous and trusting him, but it’s looking more and more like that was a front too – because she’s obviously not trusting him. There were hints of that before too, but they were more subtle.

  71. Ryan

    Radiah is playing a game of Poker.

    Joyce is playing a game of Go Fish.

    1. Inahc

      Dorothy is playing Can’t We All Just Get Along?

  72. Roborat

    I am hoping Dorothy gets pissed off at Raidah and completely destroys her verbally.

    1. Norah

      And after that, I hope she takes Joyce aside and talks to her about flirting with otherbwomen’s boyfriends. Even if the other woman is a percussion instrument.

  73. Ed Cherlin

    I have a great picture bible with lots of Rembrandt reproductions. Which does not affect the nonsense level of the text. I want to hear more about Joyce’s picture Bible, though.

  74. Disloyal Subject

    I wonder whether Raidah is studying to become a prosecutor or a defense attorney.

    1. BBCC

      My guess? Health law. That’s where some serious money comes in.

    2. thejeff

      Fixer for a mob-connected businessman turned politician? Sorry, been reading news. 🙂

      Honestly, she’s years away from having to make a real commitment. She has to actually graduate and get into law school.

      Though for some fields, like BBCC’s suggestion of health law, some background undergrad knowledge in the medical field would be helpful, I suppose.

  75. Doomska

    Man just. I know it’s mostly just protagonist proximal bias and not primarily actual racism or Islamophobia, but I am not loving the look of the fanbase in these comments who seem to love coming up with excuses and contextual analysis and empathy driven arguments to justify every shitty thing Joyce, vulnerable and helpless white girl, has ever done or said, but apply none of that to Raidah, the mean ol’ scary woman of color who’s totally attacking our white protagonists by… defending herself against Islamophobic insinuations and actual literal attempts to sabotage her healthy and mutually respectful relationship.

    1. Porto

      Except we’ve almost never been shown anything positive about Raidah until recently, so………..

      sorry we’re biased against the girl who’s totally acted like a bongo until now?

      Yeah, nah

      1. Doomska

        She hasn’t acted like a bongo. She’s been positioned as being opposed to the protagonists. You can conflate the two if your sense of morality is totally self-centered I guess.

        1. Kat

          Raidah has had a harassment campaign against Sara since the previous year. That’s a bongo thing to do. Even if what she felt had happened with Dana was correct, the thing to do there is for ties and not speak to her again, not say “bongo” when you pass by her in the cafeteria.

        2. Doomska

          I mean she called her a bongo in passing a few times.

          Note how no one in this fandom applies this logic of, “Even if people do shitty things to you, never retaliate in any way or say anything to make them feel bad” to people *they* dislike. Who here wants to say that Mary should just be left alone and not punished for her systematically shitty behavior?

          Now I know you’re going to say that Sarah was in the right but I have two points:

          1) That is really far from obvious objectively. Remember how many complaints people had about Carla exposing Ruth and Billie? Well Carla had way more reason to think that Ruth’s life was in actual danger. Carla didn’t expect serious repercussions whereas Sarah actively *wanted* Dana being pulled from school. And Carla was acting purely in self-disinterest, whereas Sarah, by her own admission, was primarily motivated by her own dropping grades.

          2) Even if you think it’s clear Sarah was in the right, I do not think you are taking any time or effort to actually try to empathize with Raidah’s position for a minute. Sarah narced on the friend who had gone out of her way to try to help her build a social life and learn to network and make friends- things Sarah clearly does need help with- behind her back, to the authorities, with the intention of getting her pulled from school, right after her mom died, all so that she could protect her own GPA.

          That Raidah would call Sarah a bongo when they pass each other is to me not hard to understand, and hardly paints a picture for me of Raidah being a really terrible person. It is an extremely human and relatable reaction.

          Hell Joe got a lot more shit from people he did a lot less harm to and the fandom seemed just fine with that.

        3. Inahc

          sarah made a tough decision in a situation that didn’t *have* a right answer. and she didn’t tell the authorities, she told the girl’s dad (who she didn’t know was not an entirely safe person).

          one of them was going to be leaving school either way, or at least that’s the way it looked to sarah.

        4. Doomska

          It looked that way to Sarah but really, she acted rather quickly- a handful of weeks after Dana’s mom died- and didn’t try safer alternatives. Hell she could have just requested, y’know, a room transfer, like Malaya did. Look Malaya was more level headed and reasonable than Sarah everyone marvel.

          Are Sarah’s actions understandable? Yes. Is Raidah’s attitude to her and her reaction to Sarah’s actions understandable? Also yes.

        5. BBCC

          She did try alternatives – talking to Dana’s other friends and suggesting someone get Dana a therapist. Neither went any further because none of Dana’s (much closer) friends believed anything was wrong because they didn’t see her all the time and realize how bad she was because whenever Dana had the energy to go out, she put on a happier face. It’s not like Sarah can COMPEL Dana to go to therapy (and, without support from others, it looks very much like a ‘she said, she said’ situation).

          Also, that room transfer took over a month to go through and Malaya made her request on the first day. That list is apparently quite long. Sarah had stopped getting ANY sleep by the time she called Dana’s dad. Humans can’t go over a month without sleep (never mind how much Sarah’s grades could suffer in the interim). Sarah also told Billie that Dana had spiralled so much that she was afraid she was going to DIE (which, since you can’t kill yourself on weed iirc unless its laced, suggests either Dana was moving on to heavier stuff OR that Sarah was afraid it wasn’t helping anymore and Dana would commit suicide).

          Sarah didn’t even do anything that bad to Dana. She didn’t go to the cops or report her to the school (which would have gotten her kicked out or some sort of record of drugs involved, even if she wasn’t arrested). She called Dana’s dad who withdrew her, which has no academic penalties that would carry over to other schools (other than having to answer why, which has the easy answer ‘my mom died and I was a mess’ which most schools will accept), and she can probably try coming back if/when she feels better.

        6. thejeff

          Unless of course Dana’s dad wasn’t safe, which there have apparently been hints of. I know Cerberus has talked about it.
          OTOH, I think most of those hints were relayed through Raidah, so there’s that.

        7. BBCC

          Yes, Dana’s dad may absolutely be an unsafe bastard. That’s why I said Dana being withdrawn would have no academic penalties as opposed to any other consequences.

      2. King Daniel

        That’s what the “protagonist-proximal bias” was referring to – we’ve gotten an intimate, day-to-day view of Joyce’s entire life over the past in-universe month-and-a-half, covering close to a thousand strips; we’ve seen Raidah in 4% as many strips (she appears in a mere 41 strips, including today’s). It would be pretty easy to pick out 41 strips where Joyce’s actions are pretty bad…that whole long-running arc where she was trying to date Ethan into being straight, for example.

        1. King Daniel

          And Raidah hasn’t even been a “bongo” to Joyce for all of those strips; she was initially pretty friendly with Joyce before Sarah showed up, grabbed Joyce by the arm to pull her away, and punched Raidah in the face.

        2. Doomska

          Right. Like look at all the shitty things Joyce has done: She helped try to get Ethan back in the closet, she described Dina as being functionally a twelve year old talking about her in third person in front of her, she physically attacked Joe for looking at another woman when they were on a date and encouraged Mike to attack him too, Hell she was planning on trying to convert him too. She is currently actively trying to deceive Jacob while sabotaging his relationship which is shitty to him in addition to Raidah. Sarah has talked about her total lack of respect for boundaries.

          But the fans are positioned to empathize with and rationalize these actions or put them in a greater context and like her anyway.

          We see far lesser crimes from Raidah but because of the story framing the audience just leaps to the assumption that she must be evil.

        3. thejeff

          As for “protagonist-proximal bias”, if the story framing leads the audience to incorrectly assume a character is evil, that’s not bias, that’s bad writing.

          (Unless it’s intentionally done, in which case it could potentially be good – though even then the clues should be placed.)

        4. Doomska

          I mean.

          There are a lot of “clues” telling us that Joyce is the one in the wrong here, including numerous characters like Joe, Dorothy, and, even though hypocritically, Sarah, straight up telling her she’s trampling boundaries and just going to hurt people. And the lead in to Raidah showing in was Joyce telling Jason that he shouldn’t have hanky-panky with a student- unless it’s “true love.” Which is a recurring theme we see with Joyce; she thinks otherwise bad behavior is justified if it’s for “true love.”

        5. thejeff

          I’ve stated any number of times that part of what I like about this particular storyline is that I don’t think there’s any “one” who’s wrong here. We don’t have to look at this arc and pick one of the two to get behind.
          Joyce is the nice sympathetic one who’s completely out of line in trying to break up their relationship. She’s very likely to learn part of a very needed lesson about boundaries and romantic meddling and I’m looking forward to that.
          However, in my view, it’s not nearly so simple as “that means Raidah is the innocent victim, blameless in all things”. I think there are lots of hints about Raidah not being who she presents herself as to Jacob. A lot of it is subtext and if you don’t see, you don’t see it. It’s all been said and I’m sick of repeating it.
          I expect Raidah to clearly not look good by the end of this – not necessarily by the end of lunch, but before the finale of this arc. Enough for Jacob to recognize it and walk away.
          But not to Joyce, because rewarding her doesn’t do the needed character growth.

        6. Inahc

          yeah.

        7. Doomska

          So yes I think it’s being pretty obviously set up that Raidah is not the evil monster Joyce is mentally turning her into and her behavior here is just shitty and bad, to both Jacob and Raidah.

        8. Inahc

          *that* part I agree with. (I’m on Team Pizza!) although I’m not sure even *joyce* sees her as an evil monster so much as an unpleasant obstacle.

    2. thejeff

      So, just out of curiousity, when it turns out in the end of this arc that Raidah is a manipulative jerk and the various posters you’ve been accusing of misreading her because of either protagonist bias or maybe even racism/Islamophobia are actually closer to right about her, are you going to shift the racism/Islamophobia accusations to Willis or just quietly drop them?
      Or I suppose you could say we didn’t actually have reasons for our opinions and then Willis made us right, but it came out of left field.

      1. Doomska

        Dohoho

        1. Doomska

          (I’m laughing that you think that’s the point of this arc. Like Christ, Willis is trying to redeem *Mike,* and you think with all the subtext and set-up here that this is going to be a lesson about Raidah being a “manipulative jerk” for uh. Responding to the woman trying to secretly get her boyfriend to cheat on her.)

        2. thejeff

          Not “cheat”, whatever that would mean for Joyce. Holding hands?
          Break up with.
          Minor point, though.

          No, I think the lesson is “Don’t mess with other people’s relationship, even if they’re bongos.”
          Honestly “Don’t mess with their relationship because Raidah really is a saint and Jacob’s True Love”, isn’t actually as important a lesson.

        3. Doomska

          I don’t think anyone in the comic thusfar is a saint. Maybe Dina.

          But Raidah doesn’t have to be a saint for her to deserve people respecting her relationships and not trying to destroy them. And again that’s besides the fact that Joyce’s actions are also really shitty to Jacob. In fact she’s essentially objectifying him way worse than anything Joe ever did.

        4. thejeff

          Yeah, as I’ve said again and again, Joyce is in the wrong trying to break them up.

          Though I don’t think it’s “objectifying” to crush on someone and act on that – even when you shouldn’t.
          Certainly not in the same category as Joe: Who did that to women as a class. In his list, all women were reduced to how they made his boner feel, as Cerberus put it.

    3. the final pam

      To some degree, it’s kind of reminding me about fan reaction to Malaya. Okay, sure, say what you will about her personality and behavior, at most she is abrasive and grating. But she’s not actively harmful. However, whenever Malaya appears, there’s always a tendency to compare her to Mary, a comparison that often falls in favor of Mary. As if Malaya, in all of her obnoxious ways, is somehow worse than an out-and-out bigot who has regularly expressed different prejudices towards other people and led harassment campaigns with the end goal of getting other people kicked out of school or killing themselves, whichever came first.

      Not to co-opt your point or anything, I also just recognized a certain… pattern. Like, I don’t know how many comments have justified Joyce’s behavior with “Oh, she’ll recognize what she’s doing is wrong and learn and grow from it, like she has in the past!” And… while it’s great for Joyce to be learning and growing, it sure sucks for the people around her to have to constantly be lessons for her.

      Like, it would be great if Joyce could have a revelation about her actions without someone quite literally yelling at her about it for it to sink in (Roz, Joe, Raidah).

      1. thejeff

        I’m sure there’s some, but OTOH, I think Malaya’s height of popularity has been those strips where she’s feuding with Mary – the art class bit in particular.

        As for Joyce – that’s the main arc of the whole comic. If she wasn’t coming out of that background with those prejudices, this whole comic wouldn’t exist. And if she just got better with no conflict, there’d be no point.

        1. the final pam

          That’s true, though outside of when she was interacting with Mary, those kinds of comments popped up again.

          And I agree. I realize that’s the point of the comic and yes, it would not be very interesting if Joyce never progressed through the comic, or if she just got better suddenly with none of her previous prejudices being acknowledged. And I’m not saying that she should just learn without conflict.

          But conflict does not have to be direct confrontation. Joyce could have a realization and grow as a person without needing someone to tell her exactly what it is she is doing wrong, like in the case of Ethan, where Sarah told her she was wrong, or this current situation, where Joe has already told her she was wrong and people are clamoring for Dorothy to pull her away and tell her she was wrong.

          And while seeing how your actions affect other people (and hearing from other people how your actions affect them) is a good way to develop empathy for them and reflect upon your behavior, again, it would be great if Joyce could have a self-realization prompted entirely by herself. Like, my point is just that Joyce could absolutely have conflict and be in conflict, but she could have the realization and resolve it without someone telling her that she is in the wrong first.

        2. the final pam

          And also just.. people excusing her current behavior, because she’ll ‘get better’ in the future is an assumed foregone conclusion is… ehhh. Because we don’t see that reaction with anyone else in the comic, even the other ‘good’ main characters, like Dorothy. I realize that’s because it’s been a consistent pattern of Joyce doing something shitty, learns better, changes her ways, rinse repeat etc. But that it’s become such a recognizable pattern that people know that the character development is going to happen and so her current actions don’t seem to matter so much? I don’t know, it’s not something I’m that fond of. I’d much rather people focus on how Joyce is acting at this moment currently in the strip, instead of assuming she’ll learn better, so it’s all okay. If that makes sense.

        3. Inahc

          so, like… you want people to rage at her more? ’cause to me it seems like there’s a few people who are all “flirting with someone in a relationship is fiiine!” and more who are like “joyce and raidah are both being percussion instruments, I can’t wait for this to blow up in both their faces” and like… you think the second group is excusing her behaviour somehow? or you see a different thing that I’m not seeing here?

        4. the final pam

          No? I’m seeing the few comments that are saying “I’m not worried about Joyce, she’ll realize what she’s doing is wrong and change, that’s how the formula’s been so far” and saying I don’t like that Joyce’s actions are already being excused based on the foregone conclusion of her going through character development. Especially because this same assumption is not being afforded to other characters. I get that the comic is about Joyce learning to become better. But just because she will be better in the future doesn’t mean the actions she’s taking in the present aren’t still harmful.

        5. thejeff

          The same assumption isn’t given to other characters who haven’t shown the same growth.

          It has been extended to things like Ruth’s early abuse – because we’ve seen her change.

        6. Inahc

          I don’t think “not worried about” itself constitutes excusing something. like, I’m not worried about my stomach any more because I’ve got an ultrasound booked. there might still be something horribly wrong (or it might just be another idiopathic stress thing) but I’ve done all I can and I trust that the ultrasound will catch anything serious. (I’m still not 100% comfortable with the situation, but I’m trying to not dwell on it)

          it *is* easy to confuse equanimity for apathy, though, especially with how English tends to use the same words for both feelings (and probably several others).

        7. thejeff

          For the record, I don’t think I’ve seen much of people excusing her because she’ll get better in this case.
          There’s been a contingent of “she’s doing nothing wrong”. And a contingent of “Raidah’s a jerk, so I hope Joyce wins”.
          But there’s also Team Jacob/Pizza. 🙂

          I mean, I do think she’s going to learn from this. I think that’s the point of it. But I’m firmly on Team Jacob/Pizza here.

        8. the final pam

          In fairness, I’m not necessarily talking about just this scene, but throughout this entire story line, there’s been at least a few people mentioning the Joyce formula and expecting her to realize the errors of her ways after Dorothy or someone else talks to her about it. And I mean, I also expect that to happen and for Joyce to learn something from it. But she hasn’t learned that yet.

          I will concede that you’re right about most of the defense of Joyce coming down to “she’s not doing anything wrong” or “fuck Raidah”. But when it comes down to it, I’m also on Team Pizza (which makes an unfortunate portmanteau if you combine with with Jacob).

      2. Doomska

        Yeah I definitely noticed the same behavior going on with Malaya. Like, Sal straight up physically assaulted her and fans blamed Malaya for that, just like they blamed Raidah for Sarah attacking her. Now both these cases are actually WoC on WoC so I do again think it’s more just, protagonist proximal bias, and not as MUCH racism, but I do think subconscious racism is certainly a factor in why so many readers are willing to accept uncritically the characterization of these women of color as evil, aggressive, malicious, when they are at worst just kind of abrasive but not any of those other things. Women of color being assertive are very very easily read as being angry, berserk, hateful etc..

  76. Doomska

    Also obviously a lot of people are interpreting Raidah’s statement on “future lawyer” to be an attack on Dorothy when she is pointing at herself, thus clearly referring to herself.

    But that so many people wildly misinterpret this fairly obvious communication is itself a sign of the fandom’s biases. Hell, I had one friend who read the comic remember it that Raidah was the one who physically attacked Sarah, when in fact it was the other way around. Oh, and Joyce. Sarah also assaulted Joyce by trying to drag her away from Raidah to protect her from… making new friends. But they were friends who didn’t like Sarah so that’s okay then.

    1. Norah

      Yes, exactly. This is why I’ve given Raidah a pass until recently. I thought she was very loyal to her friends, and that she believed that Sarah got Dana kicked out for her own selfish purposes. Of course Raidah shouldn’t have kept harassing Sarah, but if she believed Sarah hurt her friend, she might have felt justified. And Sarah shouldn’t have assaulted her or tried to physically pull Joyce away as If she was some kind of toy.

      And yes, Raidah was ableist with Dina, and that was so wrong, but so was Sarah, and this pisses me off almost as bad, because Sarah herself isn’t that socially adept, and yet she implied that it would be weird or bizarre FLUOR Dina to have a love life or a sex life. She wasn’t as obnoxious about it as Raidah, but it was still wrong of her.

      1. Doomska

        Hell Joyce straight up said explicitly that Dina was functionally “like a 12 year old” which Raidah never did (even if she acted like it.) Talking about Dina in the third person this way in front of her.

        But the fans can use empathy and context to justify and defend anything Joyce does. God forbid any of that go to the uppity brown woman defending her relationship against an actual deliberate saboteur.

        1. Sigh

          I agree. We have no real Raidah-perspective like we have Joyce-perspective from which to judge, just a handful of isolated incidents, most of which are no worse than things other people whom we don’t call horrible regularly do in the comic.

        2. thejeff

          No, Raidah said “is she in middle school”?
          And then followed up with “Oh my god. This girl is mentally challenged, isn’t she.”

          Honestly, I’ve defended Raidah on this before (elsewhere on this page, in fact), but let’s not gloss over it either.

        3. Doomska

          Not trying to gloss it over, just haven’t re-read it recently. Her behavior to Dina was definitely ableist and condescending, but that’s been an established pattern of behavior for lots of characters, including ones that actually call themselves her friends and should know better. Treating it as an especial evil of Raidah’s instead of a well-intentioned bit of subconscious bigotry that other characters also exhibit, including Joyce, who’s also exhibited a lot of other negative behaviors that Raidah hasn’t, is just fans reaching to justify their hatred of Raidah, which is based more on protagonist empathy than on any kind of fair reading of the facts.

  77. Sigh

    Comic reactions:
    To be honest, I am not sure why Dorothy is visibly freaking out in Panel 1. The conversation, “So, what is your family like?” seems entirely innocent, even if people are a little snippy. We haven’t even heard yet about Dorothy’s family (Dorothy, if you want to direct the conversation, start talking about yourself!) or Raidah’s. Does she have siblings?

    So in an attempt to diffuse what was not a bad conversation, she decides to resurrect the topic of… religion. While sitting at a table with a fundamentalist Christian, a Muslim, and a Jewish Atheist? This sounds like the safer conversation topic? Or is Dorothy so exhausted she literally can’t remember what they were talking about 45 seconds ago?

    For that matter, why did Dorothy text Raidah in the first place if she doesn’t want some kind of confrontation between Raidah and Joyce? This is not good plotting on her part.

    Panel 2: I’m actually loving Raidah’s expression here. She looks funny. We’re interpreting this whole thing through a frame of “Raidah is obviously being evil because… because!” but I think she is being more humorous than evil.

    Panel 3: I don’t know how to interpret Joyce’s expression. Given that one half of her face isn’t making quite the same expression as the other half, I’m not sure Joyce knows how, either. This could be condescension “OH, I don’t know if YOU would know anything about that…” or it could be discomfort, “Oh, I don’t know if you would want to talk about that.”

    Panel 4: Raidah definitely interprets it as a dig, or at least as a rejection of her offer to talk about something she thinks Joyce is interested in. (Keeping in mind she wasn’t necessarily hostile in panel 2.) She is absolutely correct that she probably knows more about “Christianity” in the informational sense than Joyce knows about Islam in the informational sense (Joyce doesn’t even know much about Episcopalianism, and that’s one of the more popular branches of Christianity in the US, though Joyce’s particular, personal, beliefs she of course knows rather little about.

    Panel 5: Dorothy: You are failing at this. If you want to ask Raidah a question, just ask it. Don’t try to get Joyce to ask it. Why is Dorothy trying to facilitate a Joyce-Raidah question exchange, instead of just asking the darn questions herself? Certainly she should know that Joyce is not particularly interested in the background of Jacob’s girlfriend.

    Panels 6 and 7: Raidah is smiling. Again, doesn’t look evil. Doesn’t look like an evil smile. And jokes aside, Raidah is correct that lawyers don’t just throw out their legal documents and procedural rules because “oh no it would hurt people.” If we want to delve into legal philosophy, lawyers believe that all of that legal wrangling is in the service of the greater good, ie, following procedures is necessary if you want to get fair outcomes. I mean, it’s kind of like saying, “Hey, what if we just abandoned habeas corpus this one time for the greater good?” and the lawyers saying “Ha ha noooo.”

    And as far religion is concerned, Raidah doesn’t feel, as Dorothy appears to, any particular moral obligation not to let Joyce know that Joyce is, well, pretty darn ignorant.
    Joyce is not dumb. Neither is Becky. But both have been lied to and fed an extremely narrow version of religion. Both deserve to know that more information is out there–though neither deserves to be humiliated for their parents’ shortcomings.

    But Raidah is also smart, and doesn’t want to pretend not to be just because Joyce can’t hack it in an adult conversation about religion.

    1. Inahc

      panel 1: the last comic ended on the “tell me when I’m older” thing, so maybe dorothy sees that going somewhere bad, or maybe she just wanted to get away from comparing families like they’re some kid of scorecard. she probably did forget the religion thing, and dorothy didn’t text raidah – jacob did.

      panel 2, no she’s being evil because of all of the classism and other unsavoury subtext that other comments have pointed out ad nauseum.

      panel 3, yes, discomfort and/or condescension.

      panel 4, yup, raidah is right.

      panel 5, oh dorothy. so awkward. I think she’s trying to nudge joyce in the direction of being nicer to raidah, but it’s not going to work.

      6 and 7: evil? no, it looks smug and slightly arrogant. as for lawyers… um… how did you get from “rhetorical oneupanship” to ” legal documents and procedural rules”? I think you’re arguing against a point nobody made in the first place.

      1. Sigh

        1. Oops, my bad on the text, thanks. As for the families, I think Joyce could really use some positive role models of “people being successful without being jerks”–like Jacob’s brother, here. Back in class when Joyce was talking about her future, once the idea of marriage was stripped away, she started thinking about things she might actually like to do, rather than her assigned “job until babies.” Careers could have been a good conversation for Joyce, even if short-term uncomfortable.

        Panel 2: People talk about Raidah’s “classism” a lot, but I find this difficult to take seriously because Americans are so deeply and regularly classist that Raidah’s comments are way less classist than shit I deal with on a regular basis.

        Raidah’s perspective hinges more on Joyce being immature and not serious, which “picture Bible” plays right into. Jacob’s brother does important things. He’s a hero. Jacob’s ambition is to be like his brother. Joyce talks about picture books and her ambition is to teach small children until she gets pregnant.

        Panel 6 and 7: By spending my entire life around lawyers.

        1. Doomska

          Raidah is privileged by being born into a family of means and this colors her worldview.

          That’s about it.

          The meme that it’s this especially vile or virulent classism is strictly readers making up shit that never happened to justify their over-the-top reactions to Raidah, which are actually just them over-empathizing with our point of view characters and thus seeing them as automatically right and anyone who opposes them as wrong, even when the protagonists are the ones being shitty, as here. People in the exact same breath excuse way worse behavior from Joyce etc. with a million different excuses. Calling it “evil” is laughable.

          And once again the optics don’t look too pretty; this looks like viewers knee-jerk siding with a white woman weaponizing her vulnerability/victimhood even when she’s actually the aggressor in this scenario, and siding against the woman of color whose assertiveness for herself is taken as aggression and meanness, even “evilness.”

        2. alice

          yeah something that seems to be pretty overlooked is that joyce is flirting with radiah’s boyfriend, who is very clearly indicated as monogamous (does joyce even know about polyamory?). they exchanged smirks at the start of the conversation; joyce has positioned herself as a “challenger”, and radiah is responding pretty appropriately to this level of inappropriateness and disrespect.

        3. thejeff

          Where she’s not responding appropriately – and what’s likely to bite her in the end, is that she’s focused on tearing down Joyce and not actually talking to Jacob about it.
          Sort of conflicts with her prior talk with Jacob where she boasts about her lack of jealousy and how she’d just dump someone. Instead she’s playing those catty jealous girlfriend games, while claiming to his face she trusts him with Joyce.

        4. Chris B

          Is it honestly inappropriate for Joyce to present herself as an alternative to Raidah? There’s no ring on Raidah’s finger yet, and dating is meant as a mechanism to judge how compatible two people are, not the final declaration that a relationship is set in stone.

          Besides, based on non-verbal cues and interactions between Joyce and Jacob, Jacob is just as interested in Joyce. Raidah wouldn’t respond in such a manner unless she felt threatened because she thinks Jacob has an interest in Joyce, as well. That, if anything, will drive the wedge between Jacob and Raidah: Raidah’s perceptions and manipulation of Jacob, and not anything Joyce may or may not do.

        5. BBCC

          Yes. Marriage is not the only form of a relationship. Lots of couples never get married and lots of marriages break down. The point is that this is a relationship Jacob’s chosen for himself and it’s not Joyce’s place to meddle because she believes she knows better.

        6. davidbreslin101

          There’s a kind of “embedding” thing going on here, like watching a reporter with unit of Our Boys in a war zone. We’ve seen Raidah in conflict with the characters we’ve been following, so it’s easy to default to viewing her as “the enemy.” When you step back from that, yes, she’s just someone who isn’t shy of defending her views, her position and her relationships, and is no more required to be perfect than the rest of the cast are. (Me, I do think the stuff about a teacher’s income was intended as a low blow. But considering what Joyce is trying to pull here, it’s a pretty mild warning shot!)

  78. ego

    methinks raidah is about five minutes from learning the difference between what *she* is and actually being tough, courtesy of a certain redhead.

  79. steelbright

    Dorothy right now is me all the time

  80. Tealjoy Grove

    This is freaking hilarious

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