Cover girl
Posted on January 7, 2026 by David M Willis

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Tags: becky, dorothy, raidah

455 thoughts on “Cover girl”

  1. NGPZ

    that FACE in the last panel

    IM FUCKIN DEAD BRUH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

    ?

    1. NGPZ

      to be clear, Raidah,

      I hate you

      BUT

      I hate the carceral state even more.

      godspeed ✊?

      1. Steamweed

        ‘Twas my 1st and 2nd thoughts, too.
        I do not like this character. But, if she can be helpful in this situation, then fine. I accept it.

        (not mary though…if i lose my one and only last character-to-hate, then i riot.)

        1. Taellosse

          I have trouble imagining a scenario where Mary could do something of genuinely positive value for one of the other characters, on purpose. It just…doesn’t seem plausible.

        2. NGPZ

          I mean of course not, Raidah may be written to be a villain basically, but very different *kind* of villian from Mary, to say the least

          one’s an opportunistic, clique-y, naive snob, the other is downright fascist

    2. Grimeyville

      Raidah’s turned on by succeeding at something over Sarah

      I did not have that on my bingo card.

      Or my Bongo card.

      1. Strain Of Thought

        She’s happy and she knows it.

        1. Imp

          Then why isn’t she clapping her hands?

      2. Kelli217

        What about Bango or Irving?

    3. Rose by Any other Name

      That final panel puts me in mind “Jizz in my pants” song from SNL.

      1. NGPZ

        *spits out coffee*

        AAAW MY GAWD STAAAAP IT ???

  2. darkoneko

    so what are the odds that something happens to joyce while Dorothy is away ? (as in getting arrested, maybe. But at least the cops wouldn’t see the “kissing couple” from the front page together, which would lessen the chance of them being recognised. hopefully)

    1. tim gueguen

      I don’t get the current obsession on here with Joyce getting arrested. Arrested for what?

      1. Clif

        Causing Dorothy to be drawn in a less perfect manner. Just see the surrounding strips.

        (I guess.)

      2. ProfNekko

        well most people just really want Joyce to have to suffer some form of karma for her recent behaviors. Not the dating Dorothy part but the more general thing of ever since she lost her faith she somehow managed to become more “holier than thou” in her personality than when she actually believed in things being holy and being a general asshole to others like rubbing it in Walky’s face that she swiped his girlfriend or her treatment of Joe.

        As for an arrest. I don’t see it likely happening. Most of the times in the US at least when police mass arrest protestors it winds up being a short detainment of a day or two in jail and then if they can’t find valid evidence of a greater crime they get released. If they didn’t arrest Joyce at the protest they likely won’t bother now. The bigger threat of arrest is for Billie since she’s the one carrying the incriminating evidence of Amazigirl right now. For the reason why Robin and Leslie might be being held longer, it may be a case of Robin being Robin and suffering from what legal scholars call “STFUYGDI” syndrome where a person feels compelled to keep yelling stupid things that get them into greater legal trouble.

        1. darkoneko

          uh what the hell. No. Arrested for being a perceived leader and public figure of the protest

      3. zee

        Ig bc she was in the process of getting detained at the protest before amazi girl popped in?

    2. anon

      i mean considering the cops mentioned superhero costume specifically they’d have no reason to notice joyce

  3. Bill Erak

    They’re stronger than me because I’d proceed to spit in her face and go ask Sarah if she can help.

    1. Amós Batista

      They are more worried to ask help to Sarah than Raidah? Did they swept their brains up or something?

      1. Dot

        Sarah isn’t answering her texts.

        1. Zaxares

          Oooh, that’s right! She’s busy being swooned right now. I was admittedly rather baffled that Dorothy would be coming to Raidah for help, even if she does indeed have “connections”. (Which, I must admit, is all too often invaluable when it comes to actually getting things seen to in a timely fashion. Sadly the wheels of justice grind extremely slowly unless you “know someone.”)

        2. thejeff

          OTOH, it’s not clear this really needs “connections”. Getting a protester bailed out of jail is pretty routine. Understandable that a freshman wouldn’t really know offhand how to contact a lawyer, but should be easy for Dorothy to research online.

        3. elebenty

          researching online might not be a great idea atm, though

        4. DashWallkick

          She also isn’t social enough to know anyone who could fix this. She would at best have advice and then say something mean.

      2. Wraithy2773

        Sarah doesn’t have connections the way that Raidah does.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Sarah would blame Robin and Leslie for being at the protest. Not because she doesn’t agree with it but because Sarah has made it clear she’s keeping herself clean of any controversy to get herself through law school. I think she’s also on scholarship.

          Which is another feature of the Raidah/Sarah hate.

          Sarah is walking on eggshells to get her degree. Raidah has connections.

    2. Steamweed

      I’m trying to think why Dorothy wouldn’t ask Sarah. Can’t think of any reasons. Unless it’s “Raidah has connections into the law enforcement system.” And presumably Sarah doesn’t.

      1. Dot

        Again, Sarah is not answering her texts.

        1. Nymph

          If only there were SOME reason they wouldn’t ask Sarah for help. ?

        2. Dot

          Yeah thre is also the elephant in the room but Sarah would be mature enough to overlook that for an urgent matter… IF she wasn’t treating her phone like she was the theater locked in on Marty Supreme.

        3. Clif

          They can get Raidah to help now and if it doesn’t work out they can always ask Sarah latter.

          Assuming Sarah ever answers her texts again.

        4. Nymph

          Yeah, I was just being silly about you having to explain several times in a row that Sarah wasn’t answering her texts.

        5. Needfuldoer

          How do we know she isn’t? Maybe that’s where she and Tony were going.

        6. Steamweed

          It is possible that Sarah’s just not answering her phone right now. For some wild-ass reason. Who knows.

        7. Dot

          Yes, that is exactly what’s happening, as I said. We saw it a few strips ago.

      2. nadamás

        I honestly likes Willis’s choice of making Raidah a more fleshed out characters, that cares about important stuff and can b helpful while not trying to make her any less insufferable. It’s great and it’s way better that trying to completely change a character so they more likable.

        1. nadamás

          Was meant t9 be it’s own comment but whatever, it’s work well enough.

      3. Cimorene

        Sarah is busy with Tony.

      4. Wraithy2773

        Because Sarah can’t do what Dorothy needs done. She’s not asking for a pre-law college student to help her out, she needs fully certified and capable lawyer that might be willing to do a pro-bono job defending a pair of protesters.

        1. Minivet

          Raidah is also a pre-law undergrad, no? The difference is she’s more likely to know the right lawyers for this job, or be able to find them.

        2. Wraithy2773

          Yup. Making connections is Raidah’s obsession, and Sarah is anti-social in the way that Becky is a Lesbian or Booster loves to mess with people. Sarah just isn’t the sort to have tried to introduce herself to a future employer, while I bet Raidah practically has the modern equivalent of a rolodex of every lawyer she’s ever met and what law firm they work for.

      5. Ray Radlein

        Aside from the Airplane Mode phone thing, Raidah’s whole thing is that she has connections. She has a (possibly literal) Rolodex of influential people she knows. Sarah isn’t making powerful connections, because she is not a social climber, and because she is bit of a misanthrope, and because she is devoting all her attention to her studies.

        If Dorothy wanted a good lawyer in ten years, she’d probably call Sarah; but she needs someone with pull and connections now, so Raidah is her logical entry point

      6. zee

        Dotty explicitly said she wanted to make use of raidahs connections

    3. anon

      i mean just bc sarah’s also studying in law it’d be better to have someone with connections or a proper lawyer tho i’d imagine it’d be expensive either way

      tho lawyer aside i’d expect them to rope another teacher into helping/vouching for robin and leslie at the holding cell , tho i doubt anyones rly close to them to care

  4. Nono

    Raidah will accept another girl’s name being said during sex, as long as you preface it with “Not”.

    1. Throwatron

      honestly that’s so valid for her

  5. Dot

    This was the final strip I got to see in advance in my month of patreon membership, which feels fitting as one of th most vocal Raidah defenders on here.

    Anyway hi Raidah, love you babe, one of my favorite characters fr

    1. Sirksome

      Been saying for a while I think Raidah gets a bum wrap. She’s said some objectionable things, and especially treated Dina poorly, but it’s really no worse behavior than other characters we’re supposed to like probably. We should be way more angry at Jacob in my opinion. But we aren’t ready for that discussion.

      1. Dot

        People get way more mad at Raidah for being kinda bongoy towards Jacob cheating on her than they do at Jacob for cheating on her

        1. Dot

          Like man I’d probably hate Joyce too if I were in her shoes

        2. Bill Erak

          I mean, she’s classist, ableist, sees other people as nothing but assets and manipulates them to her benefit then discards them when they’re no longer useful to her (like she accused Sarah of doing despite Sarah having a pretty valid reason for doing what she did). She can be correct on the political spectrum but she’s still a shitty ass person.

        3. Bryy

          Plus, she’s built Joyce up as some horrible supervillain who must be stopped. Raidah’s responses to how she’s been hurt very much trump the inciting incident(s).

        4. Dot

          Do they? All Raidah’s really *done* is be catty and drive a wedge between Billie and her friend group (which didn’t last). I don’t really give a damn about this comparative morality BS, but how is that actually worse than what Joyce did?

        5. Bill Erak

          Joyce has been racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, among many other fucked up shit. And you know what? In about 6 months in-universe she’s worked on these biases, some more than others, and changed.
          Then she cheated on a guy. What a crime.

          Raidah, on the other hand, despite having a presumably better upbringing (for what we know of her) has been a non-stop piece of shit since we know her.
          What has she done that’s worse than Joyce? Bully Sarah for months, for example.

        6. Dot

          But she HASN’T bullied Sarah for months. She’s sniped at her in passing at lunch, and been hostile when they’ve interacted, all of which are a perfectly reasonable response to someone who from her perspective got her friend yanked out of school and into a situation where, her friend informs her, she is not doing well.

        7. Bill Erak

          Passing by someone and insulting her. Informing anyone she meets that she’s a ‘toxic person’ that should not be interacted with. Making sure every interaction with her is offensive and shitty.
          Sorry mate, you’re not going to convince me it wasn’t bullying.

          All over, must I add, the risk of Sarah losing her scholarship. Which she can’t afford to if she wants to study. Which just takes us back to Raidah being a classist pos.

        8. Tequila Mockingbird

          I mean, if anything she could stand to be a little angrier at Jacob. It feels like a lot of her venom was reserved for Joyce, but Jacob’s old enough to make his own decisions and take some of that heat for them. I haven’t read that panel in ages, but that I remember that being one of my takeaways a while back.

        9. Shade

          Yeah, that’s unfortunately realistic.

        10. Sirksome

          Raidah definitely still had her problems before Jacob but the Raidah we hate today is arguably a direct result of her broken relationship with Jacob, as in there’s literally a panel of her basically admitting to herself “Yeah I’m probably gonna be a worse person now.”

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/bubblebrained/

          It’s actually kind of sad.

        11. Effie

          I’m thinking the main problem is that Raidah’s entire introduction for a book or two was her being deliberately mean, or tone-deaf, or both, to anyone tangentially related to Sarah. Which, basically means everyone with the Protagonist character trait. It was a long time before we started to see a second dimension to her.

        12. Effie

          And then of course Sarah punched her. But first Raidah was physically pulling on Joyce’s arm. But before that, Sarah was physically pulling on Joyce’s other arm. So that was a pretty extreme reaction, or maybe a proportional response? You be the judge.

        13. Risky

          I judge Sarah owed them both an apology and Raidah should not have grabbed Joyce’s arm so owed Joyce an apology. I still feel like it could be water under the bridge assuming they all grow up someday and Dana recovers.

        14. thejeff

          Punching her seems to have stopped the routine drive-by harassment we saw in her first appearances, so I’m calling it a good thing all around.

        15. Pocky

          Kinda not gonna defend Jacob at all for cheatin, but I also don’t get the feelin their relationship was ever gonna last. Especially since; like a lot of Raidah’s relationships, they are transactional or made for gettin ahead.

          I am sure she can find someone who matches her ladder puller vibe tho

        16. Dot

          Raidah will end up with Walky and it’ll be great for both of their devlopmemt #trust

        17. Pocky

          bruh, IMAGINE how much better Walky would smell and dress if she hooked up with him.

        18. Tequila Mockingbird

          Someone recommended that… last year, I think, and honestly I’d be fascinated to see it.

        19. Holly

          I’d be icked out at how Walky was recreating his parents’ dynamic. Which now makes me see Raidah as Walky’s mum, great.

        20. Dot

          Yeah that was me! lol

        21. thejeff

          How could we ever trust her interest in “that stunted man-child”?

        22. Thag Simmons

          This is not a pairing I would have come up with but there’s like a dozen ways you could swing this and I think most of them would be compelling.

        23. Freemage

          Honestly, I don’t blame her for being mad at Jacob at all, and agree that he’s got some reckoning coming, there. I don’t even object to her hating on Joyce. I do wish she didn’t invariably do it in the worst possible way, though.

        24. Ike

          I don’t think anyone really gives a shit about her reaction to Jacob and Joyce? It’s mostly about her campaign against Sarah, which isn’t at all justified.

        25. thejeff

          It was all about how she responded to Jacob & Joyce. That attempt to undermine Joyce and manipulate Jacob, with all the classist and ablist overtones. If she’d been open about it, it would have been an entirely different story.
          Along with the whole Sarah thing of course. And whatever’s going on with recruiting Jennifer. That’s she’s openly told the audience she’s only pretending to like Jennifer (lie she also did with Walky.)

        26. zee

          Idgaf about her reaction to Jacob, if anything she should’ve been way madder at him. I’m more bothered by the misogynistic notion of going after the girl trying to “steal your man” instead of the man actively trying to be stolen. And I hate that in that process she went for classist lowblows. Like girl hate Joyce as much as you want, but what did American teachers do to get sucked into this? They’re being tortured enough already, damn.

        27. thejeff

          Yeah, she went directly for classic mean girl manipulation. The teachers are poor thing and also attacking Joyce for her picky eating, iirc.

          Rather than talking to Jacob.

      2. NGPZ

        yeah like regardless of all else

        if someone calls Dina “”m_ntally chall_ng_d”” and thinks it a *kindness*,

        for me that’s well beyond the point of forgiveness ?

        1. Sirksome

          I really want another interaction between Raidah and Dina. That to this day is their only real interaction and I really want to know if Raidah will apologize for that or even acknowledge it happened and her insult. It feels like her character has evolved since that moment.

        2. Rakeesh

          It’s certainly possible. I’m happy to admit my bias, both more narratively in terms of her characterization and a cultural unconscious willingness to view her in a negative light, despite prolonged efforts to unpack such over many years. It’s very difficult for anyone to really shake off things *entirely*, especially given that they’re often so ambiguous but nevertheless present in one’s thoughts and outlook.

          All of that being said, has Raidah ever apologized for *anything*? That’s a genuine question. I’ve read the whole comic, but never done a re-read besides rare little re-reads of particular moments and characters, so it would be completely unsurprising if she had and I’d missed it.

          Also, I don’t think a lack of Raidah ever apologizing for anything is a damning or even a very significant indictment of her character. She doesn’t get much screen time, and she’d be very, very far from the first person to have difficulty doing that.

        3. NGPZ

          PREFERABLY i would like for that interaction to not be soon

          Dina already having the worst day of her life, she dont need nunna Raidah’s shit

          ???

        4. Nymph

          Yeah, like if we’re holding early appearances against people, Danny has a racist streak that hasn’t been addressed either. Calling a black guy “mowgli” was a… choice.

        5. Dot

          Yep!

        6. RassilonTDavros

          Yeah, that’s probably a reasonable way to approach it. Hell, both Billie and Joe used the r-slur waaay back in… huh?

          …huh! Okay, it seems Willis actually edited that word out when they uploaded larger images of the Book 1 strips. Decide amongst yourselves whether this is tampering with history, but honestly I think it’s prolly for the best

        7. NGPZ

          i mean i appreciate Willis doing that highly, its not really re-writing history in so much as showing consideration for that part of his audience

          and like, Billy and Joe have at least seen some growth since then?

          meanwhile Raidah… is honesty still a clique-y opportunistic judgemental bully, she just changes who she judgemental against 9-9

        8. OngoingConversation

          Yeah no, that one was my breaking point as well. There really is no way forward with people like that, who have already decided that your difference from the norm makes you lesser. Doesn’t super matter if that perception of ‘lesserness’ comes through in the form of treating you like a charity case, it’s just awful.

      3. RassilonTDavros

        Yeah. I remember people giving her shit when she deconstructed Dorothy’s political aspirations to her face but, like. She was right.

        1. Dot

          Raidah is right very often and I feel like I’m often one of the only people willing to acknowledge it

        2. Pocky

          Dot, at some points I wonder if you are secretly Raidah on an alt 😛

        3. GMOrganism

          Raidah is the epitome of “You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole”.

        4. Amelie Wikström

          Like a lawyer, she generally hand-picks her facts to be on her side and doesn’t asks questions unless she knows the answer. You could say she’s often right, or that she rarely wants to risk being wrong. Of course she’s completely, massively wrong in her judgment of Sarah’s character in a way that’s messing up both their lives, so I’d say she still has a lot to make up for.

        5. Embe13

          to follow ngpz, until raidah, apologizesto dina, sarah, jennifer,and walky, she cannot and should not been seen in a positive light by anyone, she isnt right, anyone who is willing to think of others like she does, is reprehensible, and being correct about a fact, doesnt forgive making reprehensible and vile statements about other people

        6. C.T Phipps

          A lot of the hate is also the result of fans digging their trenches on it.

          They were all 100% on Dorothy’s side and then…Dorothy crumbled like a tissue.

          So the anger was at Raidah.

        7. Rakeesh

          She was right, sure, in the way someone can lie with the truth is right.

          Of course, if she were *fully* right in her analysis of Dorothy, Dorothy probably wouldn’t come to her to endure what is, I’m afraid, sheer spiteful gloating.

        8. Freemage

          Ugh. Nope. She was not right. She was very wrong, and not only that, she was wrong on multiple levels all at once.

          First, her motive there was clearly to emotionally wound someone close to Joyce and Sarah. She was not in any way, shape or form trying to help Dotty find a better path in life.

          Second, even on that miserable motivation, she screwed it up. She didn’t undermine Joyce’s closest friendship on campus–by contributing to Dotty’s decision to not go to Yale, Raidah is ultimately responsible for Dorothy realizing that what she really wanted was Joyce, and Joyce finally getting into a loving relationship. Hell, she was responsible (albeit indirectly and accidentally) responsible for The Kiss, and thus the loss of focus on the protest by Daisy.

          And thirdly, if Dotty hadn’t been already so discombobulated, she could’ve simply retorted, “Hm, interesting–so you’re saying we should leave the most powerful political position in the country to the people who are okay with committing genocide?” *

          Raidah was wrong on the motive, wrong on the effect and wrong on the content. Yet I keep seeing folks saying she was right, just because she did such a good job of quoting Baby’s First Chomsky.

          *: Real-world note, here–a lot of Arab-Americans, particularly in Detroit, decided to sit out the last presidential election using Raidah’s exact reasoning–pulling their support from Harris (even if they didn’t vote for Trump) because of her position of tepid but ongoing support for Israel. It is quite likely something that helped tip the state of Michigan to Trump’s side. Ask the Gazans how they feel about this virtuous grandstanding.

        9. Rakeesh

          Pretty much exactly this. Raidah correctly diagnosed a problem-what sorts of people become AND want to become political leaders?-and offered exactly zero solutions. In fact, her solution-to deconstruct and confuse/dismay someone who isn’t already a bad person from becoming a politician-explicitly exacerbates the problem. Perhaps Raidah has higher-minded motives, but…she’s never really been shy about how much spite and retaliation inform her motives.

          Which, btw, isn’t a major character flaw. Most folks when they’re hurt will want to hurt folks right back. But just because it’s a very human motive doesn’t mean it’s not still bad.

        10. Adept

          Oh it’s a massive character flaw. It being unfortunately common doesn’t make it any less of a character flaw.

        11. Embe13

          absolutely a flaw, if taught as a child (as i was) that my frustration doesnt not justify thinking about harming others, you don’t react that way.

          this sort of statement comes out of a history of ignorign mental health societally. like “i am mad, i should hurt someone” is textbook intrusive thought,and should be easily recognized as such and treated the same as any other intrusive thought.

        12. Bryy

          Yup.

          Here entire motive here is because it gives her the jimmies to get some sort of imaginary boost/leverage over Sarah. She doesn’t give a shit about Robin or Leslie, at least not in the context of Dorothy asking for help.

        13. NGPZ

          yeah for folks like Raidah, it’s never *actually* about doing good for it’s own sake,

          it’s always about being better than other people 9-9

        14. deliverything

          Sometimes that can still be helpful (doing good for egocentric reasons is still doing good), but don’t trust it to stay that way. If something else seems like it’ll boost their ego more, they may drop your cause as soon as they can do so without looking bad.

          Another example was, apparently, Elon Musk; Sam Altman was quoted as saying “Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.” He did cause some nice progress to be made on electric vehicles (through paying other people to do it), but his ego wanted extra massaging and the Twitter nonsense happened, revealing who he really was to anyone not blinded by misplaced hero worship, and now… well, he’s managed to get worse.

          Also, the car he designed himself (at least to some degree) is terrible.

        15. deliverything

          Oh, just to add: I’m not saying Raidah’s as bad as Elon Musk. Not even close. But I suspect there may be similar underlying motivations.

        16. apocryphascribe

          First, disregard her motive and her means, because that’s completely irrelevant to what is being talking about here, which is the accuracy of her assessment of Dorothy, which was correct. Obviously she was trying to hurt her, that’s what Raidah does. Doesn’t change the fact she absolutely pinned Dorothy’s whole deal.

          And I’m not even going to BEGIN to try and deconstruct why your “real world example” is highly inappropriate here. I’ll let someone else touch that with a 10 foot pole. Goddamn.

        17. Rakeesh

          In what way did she ‘pin Dorothy’s whole deal’? My recollection is really that she just one-lined a Dorothy who was already feeling conflicted, but I’ll be the first to admit it’s completely possible, even likely, that I’m misremembering.

        18. C.T Phipps

          Raidah’s like an Anti-Mike in that she is actually very helpful with her observations that are designed to hurt you rather than help you. Like when she pointed out to Lucy that Sarah discards people at will.

          And Sarah told Lucy to break up with Walky because his mom was racist.

        19. zee

          I generally try to make a habit of not responding to you but I just have to jump in and say. No week old teen relationship is worth dealing with racist in laws, especially if your partner isn’t in a place where they can meaningfully stand up for you. Just don’t do it. Don’t willingly walk into misery. Lucy shouldn’t have insisted on meeting walky’s parents but that’s a temporary ass solution, bc I doubt he was gonna cut them off ass soon as he graduated. At least with where he was at before seeing how they treated her. If you don’t want to feel like you’re gonna have to give a “them or me” ultimatum at some point, just skip over it all and leave before the cost starts sinking

        20. Dot

          It’s so inappropriate that I honestly don’t know where to begin. It borders on victim-blaming.

        21. Dandi_Andi

          Yup. Red team wants to kill Alice and Bob. Blue team only wants to kill Bob. But if Bob doesn’t want to vote for either of them, he’s blamed for the outcome and accused of hating Alice.

        22. deliverything

          Unfortunately, due to the flawed First Past The Post system used in the U.S., not voting for one of the two main parties is effectively giving each of them a half vote (the last US president to not be either Democrat or Republican was Andrew Johnson when he was elected shortly before the end of the Civil War, because he was temporarily in the National Union).

          This isn’t to say hating the people who were left with no good option is right. It’s just a symptom of one of the many problems with the current system.

        23. Freemage

          Our voting system is remarkably fucked up, yes. But it’s also the only system we have. You get two choices (especially for President), and you have to choose between those two. Insisting that you cannot vote for the lesser evil means you’re going to bear some of the responsibility for when the greater evil wins.

          And it’s not victim-blaming. The victims are the Palestinians in Gaza, who are being subjected to an ever-more-accelerating genocide in the Four Horsemen mode. I’m blaming their advocates, in this country, who totally screwed the pooch by insisting that they would withhold support from anyone who doesn’t fall into march step with their demands. It’s become a disaster, and that disaster was entirely predictable before the election.

          I hold the same level of derision for folks who refused to vote for Hillary in 2016, or Biden in 2020. Yes, Hillary is corrupt in all the petty ways that Democrats have tolerated for decades. Yes, Biden was doddering and often gave creepy vibes towards women. But neither of them could hold a candle to the walking atrocity that is Trump, and the same was true of Harris.

          If you take an action (or even a willful inaction) that has a very predictable outcome, then I have every right to ‘blame’ you for helping that outcome manifest.

        24. Dot

          Hold your derision for the ruling class who enact social violence on the oppressed, not for the oppressed who refuse to engage in electoral Russian roulette. I have no interest in this liberal claptrap. I am a revolutionary socialist.

        25. Dandi_Andi

          I say this not to contradict but to add

          It’s way more broken than that. Some votes count for more than others. Some don’t seem to count at all. The electoral college system makes the value of our votes highly variable. And because of that, you end up with small groups that could make a big impact. I do understand the desire to find single identifiable voting blocks that could have swung the result. “If only Palestinian American women aged 18-45 had turned out to vote, Harris would have won!” But it feels gross to me when the rhetoric focuses on shaming people who didn’t turn out rather than the millions of people who DID vote for Trump. Because the same impact could have been achieved if a very small percentage of white men had just a little bit more compassion for those same marginalized voters we end up scolding.

        26. Thag Simmons

          Kind of maddening to see this venom aimed at a largely powerless bloc of voters who desperately tried to use what little leverage they had to stop the Democrats from committing both a moral atrocity and a strategic mistake.

          There was a truly staggering series of failures necessary for the world to get saddled with a second term of Trump, and blaming it on being stabbed in the back by people who couldn’t stomach voting for genocide is letting the actual culprits off the hook.

        27. Yotomoe

          Its literally everyone’s fault y’all. I just want you to know nobody is blameless in the hell on earth we live in right now. We can’t just sit around pointing fingers at who’s fault it is when every day the very foundation of living is being torn asunder. If you think this is bad and if you think this was a preventable outcome then I am filled with fury that any of this shit is happening at all. Its hard not to victim blame when 99% of us are gonna be victims.

        28. Dot

          Let’s be clear-eyed about this: the pro-Palestinian movement gave the Democratic Party ample opportunity to play ball. The Uncommitted faction, which represented the interests of anti-genocide activists within the party during the primaries, asked for a meeting with Harris, concessions like conditioning military aid to Israel, and a speaker at the convention – not some radical firebrand either, an elected Democrat from Georgia. They were rebuffed. They sent Ritchie Torres and Bill Clinton to campaign in Michigan instead. The message sent by the Democrats was that Arab votes were either being taken for granted or not factored in as part of their strategy at all. Instead, the Democrats pursued the votes of moderate and neoconservative Republican voters by seeking surrogates such as Liz Cheney. This proved to be bad politics, and the party has no one to blame for that but themselves.

        29. Yotomoe

          The problem is there truly are no other options. I remember watching them fucking fumble that shit like watching your favorite soccer team kick the ball into his own net. Honestly I dont even know of theres any point in continuing to live. Ive realized we dont get to have choices. Theres no point to any of this shit anymore

        30. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

          @yotomoe here’s the point to this; you find the people who are doing the work you want to see and you uplift them. you find the people who have chosen to become public servants and you hold them to the public. you politely wait on the phone and ask your local congressperson to not vote on a bill that would ruin lives, and you fucking yell at them if they do. you find your local anti-war committee, you read the literature, and you learn from them. you call in and make sure your loved ones are ok. you tell them you love them. You vote for people you believe in, and you make sure that politicians that are supposed to represent YOU cannot rely on sports team tribalism to dictate their campaigns. You develop a moral and ethical code so strong it becomes your anchor in absolutely miserable, wretched times like this, and when you come out of it you hold the politicians that propagate the same losing strategies that lead us here to begin with to the fire.

          I did not vote for harris, i could not vote for harris after months of active derision and distain from her campaign towards the communities and politics that i believe in, but i still went to the polls and filled out a ballot because i still believe there is power in this civic duty and because i cared enough about what was on my ballot outside of the presidency. I still helped my brother register for the first time in his life so he could vote for harris out of his own desire, and i told my cousin that despite the contrary, she isn’t a monster for whatever happens afterwards after she came to the conclusion she couldn’t put aside her moral values and vote for anyone.

          I live in minnesota now. the national guard is coming in right this moment because ICE just murdered someone in cold blood. I do not have much faith in the local leadership to not compromise in the long run under all the extra scrutiny the federal government has pushed in some sick attempt to act as political retribution for waltz’s involvement in the harris campaign. i am fucking terrified and scared and exhausted all the goddamn time. trust that i fucking get it, i really truly do.

          but despite it all, i stand up for my community because being in a community has saved my life time and time again. save your vitriol and spit it not at those trying to push back, nor at those who refuse to compromise their morals to people who will insult them to their face, but at those in power who continue to concede to an impossible binary just because it’s more beneficial for them than it is to actually commit to the ethics that they claim to uphold. little by little, i create the world i want to see, even if it takes my entire life, because i believe in that world existing, more than anything.

          if nothing else, everything that has been so heinous about usamerica right now is because it is a fucking death cult, so the most bare minimum thing you can do is live. live vicariously, or even out of spite, but just live.

        31. Yotomoe

          I’m truly truly not a person who has enough spite to want to live in the same way I don’t have enough spite to willfully poison myself. And it is a poison. Death is inevitable and there is literally no point in a life not worth living. I can’t survive on hate. I can’t live seeing hate. I can’t fight hate with hate. And everything I love is pure bitter poison.Maybe some people can find that as a motivation but for me it just proves that I was not meant to survive.

        32. Yotomoe

          The best thing weak people like me can do is just disappear quietly so nobody notices or misses us.

        33. Yotomoe

          I mean no worries I probably won’t die for the forseeable future (barring any unforseen circumstance) because as much as I hate living I fear death infinitely more. At this point I’ve basically given up until something happens that gives me even a shred of hope. I’m just gonna keep drawing.

        34. NGPZ

          I feel hella ALL of those both of ya

          TT~TT

          just got back from doc with stitches in my leg, really painful

          if I may say anything

          as both a scientist and a leftist, I KNOW that there’s 100 ways forward and only one way back, so much we can further progress beyond from the old ways of capitalism, patriachy, all the forms of systemic bigotry, that these are ultimately long-term manmade problems which have long term manmade solutions

          for me, to be a leftist at its core means to desire a spreading out, an exploring of possibilities, an abandonment of hierarchy and hegemony and the rigid ways of the establishment

          I KNOW a better future is possible. I don’t know whether or not it’s likely, or that we’ll even live to see it manifest. But I just know it’s possible.

          Where there is life there is chaos, but where there is life there is also hope.

          Life finds a way.

        35. Thag Simmons

          Yeah it’s an embarassing bit of analysis, revealing of either a lack of understanding or willful ignorance.

        36. Thag Simmons

          Yeah, I’m sure “I would magically become president without reshaping myself into the sort of monster who can actually achieve that ambition” would be a great retort and Raidah would have been totally owned by Dorothy’s facts and logic.

        37. Rakeesh

          Strangely, you’re right! If Dorothy adopted the absurd even by strawman standards position, it would not be very compelling to Raidah.

        38. Thag Simmons

          The character’s argument is that “[It’s a red flag that you’ve decided you] want a job that essentially requires you to become a war criminal”, and the proposed response is “So we should leave the most powerful political position in the country to the people who are okay with committing genocide?”

          So yeah, the argument is “I would just be a good president and not a bad one (implicitly because I am fundamentally a good person who wouldn’t make the bad decisions that actual presidents make)”, which is not actually a particularly persuasive response to someone arguing that becoming President requires becoming a specific sort of monstrous person.

        39. Rakeesh

          In that instance, Raidah wasn’t really making an argument, she was just tearing down. Raidah assumes what she is trying to prove-as do you-and condemns for failing to disprove the core of her argument *immediately*, before the mic hits the ground.

          Or are we meant to think that Dorothy just *hasn’t thought* about some of the awful things American presidents have done in the past? I don’t even mean ‘hasn’t thought *enough*’, but hasn’t considered *at all*? Her case would really be ‘I’m just a good person, so it’s no problem’?

          Well. I reiterate my remarks about straw people.

        40. Thag Simmons

          It’s not my argument! “So we should leave the most powerful political position in the country to the [bad people]” was Freemage’s proposed retort. If you think it’s so shallow and facile that it might as well be a strawman, fair enough.

        41. Jon

          Raidah’s original argument was a strawman. The fact that some people who become president are war criminals does *not* mean that ipso facto anyone who becomes president must automatically be a war criminal. Just off the top of my head, what exactly were the war crimes of, for instance, Jimmy Carter? Yet this discussion assumes that Raidah’s statement of “all presidents are war criminals, therefore becoming president makes you a war criminal” is correct and valid.

        42. Chromatic Roses

          even if you disagree with their actions calling people being unwilling to vote for a president who is genociding their people “ virtuous grandstanding” i’d fucking disgusting. these are people who’s family members were being killed at the hands of biden and harris. their decision to not support that is not grandstanding. how cold and callous do you have to be not to be sympathetic to the position they were in.

        43. Dot

          There’s a really nasty vindictive streak in American liberalism where anyone who doesn’t line up behind their flavor-of-the-week genocidaire ultimately deserves what they get. You saw this also in some early responses to ICE raids at the beginning of last year – swings towards the GOP in Latine communities meant that they elicited schadenfreude in some liberal circles rather than disgust and urgent action. Thankfully this mostly fell away as ICE continued their brutality over the year, but you definitely still see it in how some liberals talk about Muslims.

        44. apocryphascribe

          Agreed. Basically anytime I see the word “Detroit” or “Dearborn” come up in conversation of this shape, I can feel my body bracing for impact, getting ready to hear the most islamophobic, tut-tutting, victim blaming shit imaginable, because that train is never far behind. It’s the same logic behind people posturing about breaking BDS boycotts on social media post-2024 election; even unspoken, the message is always “you deserve this happening to you because you didn’t do what you were *supposed* to do.” A ghoulish attitude, no matter who or where it comes from.

        45. Rakeesh

          Speaking strictly for myself, for someone who feels community much less kinship with folks in Gaza, I don’t criticize (on ethical grounds) someone who decided not to vote for Harris given her lukewarm (certainly by Trump’s standards) support for the state of Israel. I think, given the alternative, it was a mistake, but thinking other folks made a mistaken decision isn’t the same as *blaming* them, or holding them morally accountable for some sort of unvirtuous behavior. When folks are hurting, that’s reflected in their votes and behavior.

          That being said, the Venn diagram of ‘people who feel kinship and community with Gazans’ and ‘people who might be able to spell the word ‘Gaza’ because it’s easy in English, who were prone to not voting anyway’…well.

        46. Yotomoe

          Im glad that now theres no genocide happening now. Im sorry but did I get teleported to an alternate universe where suddenly not voting means nobody becomes president and bad things stop happening. At no point in my entire life has there ever been a “good” option for president. I have never had the luxury of not having to choose the lesser evil. This isnt some new dichotomy that just emerged. But I’m not allowed to be mad that now health care is fucked and public broadcasting is fucked and Trans people are fucked and the internet is fucked as king pedophile has now moved on to kidnapping world leaders because nobody is trying to stop him anymore because nothing ever fucking happens because everyone in a position of power is just as fucke in the head.

          Sorry I have no love for anyone who feels any level of moral victory from not voting. I wish we had better options I do. I dont think Kamala would have been HALF as bad as this holy fuuuuuuck

        47. Yotomoe

          Yeah sorry that was uncalled for. Im just so sick anytime I think of the situation we’re in right now. I dont fucking know what to fucking do anymore.

        48. deliverything

          I know the feeling…
          There’s a reason I couldn’t bring myself to even try to come up with anything more meaningful on the subject than my fairly generic comment above. There’s not much else I can think to suggest that doesn’t allude to a certain occurrence in France a little over two centuries ago, and that’s not an ideal solution.

        49. deliverything

          Oh, on the “any point to continuing to live” subject raised above: as long as we’re still here, we at least have the potential to oppose the people exploiting the world. Just have to keep looking for opportunities, I suppose…

        50. Jon

          I disagree, Yoto. I think that was very much called for.

        51. Andrusi

          I’m really glad we’re relitigating the 2024 election in here. Wonderful development. This can only improve the comments section.

      4. Dandi_Andi

        I feel like the people who bring up Raidah infantalizing Dina are quick to forget how a bunch of people at Joyce’s party (including Sarah, Dorothy, and Joyce) told Becky that it was weird and gross to flirt with Dina because they saw her ass functionally 12 years old.

        1. Dot

          Yes, being ableist to Dina is a sin that most of the main cast has been guilty of at some point or another. The difference between Raidah doing it and the main cast doing it was that the latter were present for Dina confronting it and establishing a hard boundary about infantilizing her, while Raidah wasn’t, meaning some people see it as something she still has to answer for – although these same people don’t tend to give Billie shit for her constant ableist slurs early on, nor Danny being racist to Walky, and those never really got a follow-up on, so I dunno. The way Raidah treated Dina was wrong and ableist, but there’s definitely a double standard in how folks talk about it as opposed to some of the shitty things the rest of the cast did early on.

        2. apocryphascribe

          Once again, Raidah being singled out for behavior that was on display from other characters in the cast. We don’t talk about that much anymore though, because those characters aren’t designated hate sinks.

        3. Rakeesh

          I think that’s certainly part of it, for many people. Part of it, too, though, is that other characters get a lot more characterization. We see more of them, learn more of their inner lives, their bad behavior becomes proportionally less looming than for Raidah, who *frequently* (in proportion to her appearances) acts explicitly out of or plausibly out of spite and hostility and vengefulness.

        4. thejeff

          And who is also known to be deceitful, to pretend to be nice and to like people we know she despises, which makes it hard to trust those cases where she seems to nice.

          All of which is kind of what makes her a “designated hate sink”. It’s not just that she’s done some bad things. It’s not the commentariat randomly picking a black Muslim woman to target. It’s her characterization.
          If perception of her is going to change, her characterization will have to change.

        5. Dandi_Andi

          She is nice to people who she does not personally like. I have never understood why that was a bad thing.

        6. thejeff

          She pretends to be nice to their face to manipulate them, while tearing them down behind their back.
          She’s not nice to people she doesn’t like in general – see her interactions with Dorothy. This isn’t being polite. Just to marks like Jennifer. Or Walky, though he seemed to see through it.

    2. Amós Batista

      She’s feeling this moment, like a sweet nectar

    3. apocryphascribe

      I’m so glad to see the comic’s best antagonist back in action.

    4. zee

      I’m like this close to making a Potential Man meme of raidah bc I want her to be a fully fleshed out character beyond her hate boner for the main cast so bad, I want to like her, but she just keeps hitting us with the classism, internalized misogyny, and her beef with Sarah has the same flavor of anti blackness that Sarah’s haters in the comments have.

      Girl I’m rooting for you but come on give me SOMETHING

      1. zee

        Like as a black woman the vibes she brings to Sarah leave a nasty taste in my mouth. I’ll never stop reiterating in the Dana drama: Dana was a rich white girl with a fancy lawyer daddy, Sarah’s a dark skin black girl on scholarship with no connections. Don’t even matter if Dana herself confessed, if the university caught that there was weed in that room Sarah would be blamed and would’ve lost everything. Raidah should be thankful she ONLY went to Dana’s dad. And the total disregard for Sarah’s scholarship status and racial circumstances (are mostly a symptom of Willis being a white sheltered Indianan writing this shit in like 2012 but also) crawls under my skin like bugs

        1. Embe13

          this is also a big source of my ick with raidah, thank you and well said

        2. apocryphascribe

          Thank you for saying this, because I’ve also been saying the same. Sarah did the best she could under those circumstances and she still regularly gets dragged both in universe, and out of universe in the comments, for making that decision even though the alternative would not only have cost her her scholarship and school, it would have potentially resulted in jailtime. Like, they’re operating on two different sets of rules here. Raidah absolutely needs more fleshing out if she’s going to be a mainstay in the cast for those reasons you described alone.

        3. thejeff

          And honestly despite her protests, I don’t think her scholarship was her biggest concern and I doubt she’d even considered that Dana getting caught with something was a legal threat to her. She was worried about her roommate, who was the closest thing to a friend she had at school.
          She hides it with her usual misanthropy and we don’t easily see that because most people tend to frame their actions as more altruistic than they are, not the reverse.

  6. Tequila Mockingbird

    Honestly? Being able to talk to someone who is normally hostile and actually recruit them into a task you’re needing done is probably the most savvy thing that Dorothy has ever done in a long time.

    1. Nono

      Dorothy forgetting in her panic how Raidah had surgically destroyed her previous dream.

      1. Dot

        Honestly in the long run Dorothy really ought to thank her for that

      2. Tequila Mockingbird

        Or understanding that compared to that slight, she can put aside her personal dislike of someone long enough to get something productive done. Even Dorothy forgets how competent she can be when the chips are down (see also the escape from Blaine and Toedad’s basement.)

      3. C.T Phipps

        Dorothy didn’t forget.

        Dorothy knew that while the day she had her dreams since childhood crushed was the most important day of her life, for Raidah, it was Tuesday.

    2. Throwatron

      the leadership is flowing through her

    3. Rakeesh

      Not only that, it is exactly one of the skills that makes an effective politician. It’s ethics-neutral, other things inform whether someone will be a *good* (that is to say, virtuous) politician. But that? Being willing to eat crow to achieve an objective? Pretty dang valuable.

    4. anon

      raidah’s also not obligated to help them either

      1. Rakeesh

        Well, it depends on her own sense of ethics. Those may very well obligate her to help, now that she’s been informed.

    5. Francoinblanco

      As some dead CEO on planet Pandora said “its about teamwork or at least compromise if you menage to work with people you want punch their throats you will live longer

      1. Thag Simmons

        Which Pandora is this?

        1. Embe13

          honestly describes all 3 (that movie is so bad that it is a 3rd pandora, can only be watched drunkand simply shouldnt be, and i cannot believe i am not talking about furngully in space)

        2. Thag Simmons

          I mean it’d make sense in any of them, which is why I’m curious about which CEO said this or which Pandora they were talking about

        3. Embe13

          1st avatar is more likely than boarderlands 2, as that has handsome jack hyperion ceo, but it doesnt sound like one he’d say

        4. Francoinblanco

          Tales from the borderlands Jack as digital imprint drew some conclusions why he die

        5. Thag Simmons

          Ah, I really should do a full playthrough of that, apparently it’s quite good.

  7. Alongcameaspider

    Raidah is going to be riding this high for weeks

    Or at least until she remembers Sarah is dating Tony and decides to be miserable about that

    1. Newlland(Henryvolt)

      Atleast she found a constructive way to be petty.

  8. Sirksome

    Trust…….Raidah???

    1. StClair

      Never.

    2. Nymph

      I do. I do.

    3. anon

      i mean, no more thann the average lawyer/i’m sure dorothy would relish going over a meticulous contract, emotions aside

  9. Cheshrin

    Raidah is the worst and I meant that with all of the affection possible because frankly I love her for being The Worst. Love when a character is an Entertaining Asshole instead of just an asshole.

    1. Mitzi B.

      For all her efforts to be worldly-wise and networked, Raidah is also a 20-year old with petty grudges, and it’s very funny to see both aspects of her in play

      1. C.T Phipps

        Raidah being both the Regina from Mean Girls AND the minority religion/ethnicity in the cast kind of gives people a bit of whiplash in certain issues.

        She is both a awful snob as well as someone with a much closer grasp to multiple issues.

      2. Bryy

        Yeah, Raidah’s so effective as a villain simply because she’s so ineffective. All of the power she holds is inside her own head.

  10. Icalasari

    Ok, so Dorothy didn’t assume

    1. Needfuldoer

      She did, and she even says so in today’s strip. Leslie and Robin’s whereabouts are still unverified.

  11. Mitzi B.

    HELL YEAH RAIDAH

  12. Vivvav

    “So the part about me that everyone usually gives grief over.”

    Has anyone ever done that to her face in the comic? Nobody thinks Raidah’s a bad person for chasing connections, it’s because she’s such an asshole about it and ready to openly treat people as less valuable if they’re not part of that.

    1. nadamás

      That would mean acknowledging she might have flaws and we can’t have that.

      1. Effie

        I think maybe Sarah told her she only cared about people for what she could get from them, or something similar. I don’t remember the details enough to zero in on it though.

    2. Wraithy2773

      She probably thinks that’s what they’re all talking about behind her back, and maybe some people have said that to her face off-screen.

    3. Nymph

      I had time and boredom today so I went back and skimmed all her appearances. No, no one has ever given her grief on-screen for being a lawyer. She has, on a couple occasions, used “being a lawyer” to excuse her shitty attitude and actions, but no one even agreed with her. I think she might be experiencing a personal bias there.

      1. nadamás

        And it’s very in character for her to do that.

        1. Nymph

          Yep.

      2. thejeff

        I think it’s more the connections than the wanting to be a lawyer part.

        Which I’m also not sure anyone’s directly given her grief over, outside the comment section.

    4. anon

      i mean it is a large college campus it could’ve been another classmate/ some ex friend group

    5. Freemage

      Like much of this arc, it feels like Willis using a character to addess the audience.

      1. Bryy

        I feel like we’re way too obsessed with whether or not Willis is “apologizing” for whatever we personally think he should apologize for.

        1. deliverything

          It’s been over a year and Roadblock has only disparaged Ethan in rhyme in a single strip, and we’ve haven’t even had a hint at an apology for that!

          (We’re not entitled to one, of course. I just wanted to derail the topic.)

      2. Nymph

        Yeah I’m with Bryy, people are way too fixated on this idea and it’s just not in evidence at all as far as I can see.

      3. NGPZ

        RIP good faith 9-9

      4. Thag Simmons

        No, I don’t think it does

      5. apocryphascribe

        Yeah, no. Bryy’s absolutely correct here. This is a strip insert (Willis all but confirmed it on bluesky with the art comparison), but just because it is doesn’t mean it’s “addressing audience complaints.”

        1. thejeff

          Her specific line about connections might be though, since the comments tend to give her a lot of grief about that, but that doesn’t seem to have happened in the comic itself.

  13. tim gueguen

    So, what will happen if a few strips from now they arrive at the local jail and Sarah is not only already there, but she’s produced a lawyer and gotten them out? Will Raidah explode?

    1. anon

      i mean sarah ignored the call so i doubt she knows what’s going in/i don’t think she particularly cares for robin even if she might respect leslie more/only helping out bc she knows that becky and joyce are fond of leslie (have the y even interacted?)

      1. Ray Radlein

        Tony could well have heard somethingfrom his father. “Faculty arrested at protest” might be a significant enough detail to have been noticed

    2. C.T Phipps

      Sarah would probably lecture both teachers for being stupid and destroying their careers.

      1. anon

        i mean other than showing up to the protest idk if htey rly did anything ‘bad’ unless it’s against the school policy for teachers to get too politically involved (which soudns like it’d be a violation of rights but iti s america, so…)

        1. C.T Phipps

          Morally they’re correct but they’re also faculty protesting their employers. Which is absolutely protected by law…until the university got the protest made illegal.

  14. Tan

    Barely a couple days with Joyce and now she’s making another woman orgasm.

    1. NGPZ

      ???

      goddammit of all strips of COURSE one with Raidah had to be a fuckin gut buster

    2. Throwatron

      dorothy keener: lesbian orgasm technician???

      1. Embe13

        that sound like a Micheal Swaim tv pitch

  15. Taffy

    Raidah should stab Dorothy in the kidney with a wavy ornate dagger. It would be so funny.

    1. Tequila Mockingbird

      How oddly specific. Why the wavy ornate dagger, some aesthetic statement perhaps?

      1. Throwatron

        Practically, I think they’re supposed to make the victim bleed out faster or more reliably. More importantly, however, is that they’re sick as hell.

      2. Nymph

        wavy ornate daggers have magical powers, this is well-documented.

        1. Taffy

          This is a mild misconception, but a common one. See, the magical powers come from the large ruby embedded in the dagger, typically in the middle of the handguard or in the pommel. Now, more often than not, these rubies are powered by at least one soul, although the exact mechanics vary from dagger to dagger. Sometimes, the soul is bound to the ruby prior to the dagger’s forging and then you can use the magic in it basically whenever. Other times, the exact cut of the ruby will allow it to absorb the souls of the dagger’s victims, and those models tend to sort of build power until a really big burst of magic can be released, typically for a ritual of some description. There are plenty of other varieties, but those are the most common categories, and both have their pros and cons.

      3. Ray Radlein

        Because it’s the only way of getting to an atheist who specifically denies the Power of Kris

    2. Thag Simmons

      It would be enrichment for her!

  16. MK15

    Dotty cast “Stroke her ego”
    It was highly effective!

  17. Pocky

    your daily reminder that Raidah sucks.

    1. nadamás

      And we wouldn’t have her any other way.

      1. Pocky

        you know it!

      2. Freemage

        Eh, I’d rather have her be a genuinely effective foil. Right now, all she’s done is get Dorothy and Joyce together.

    2. Coatl

      From the first moment she appeared, she already gave off that feeling of natural dislike.

    3. anon

      I mean she’s being fairly reasonable if a bit smug or flat out refusing to help (not that she’s obligated to)

      I wonder what would happen if booster psychoanalyzed her or if they teamed up

      1. Pocky

        oof, I think the world would tremble at their confrontation.

        worse yet if they hook up. the world wouldn’t be able to handle that lol

        1. OngoingConversation

          Oh no. You’ve convinced me. We need Booster and Raidah to meet and hook up, they could potentially have an amazing dynamic. Also, I’m sure Raidah would love to have Booster’s powers of psychoanalysis on her side.
          That said, my stomach dropped at the thought.

        2. Tequila Mockingbird

          Holy cow, I need this to happen. It would be a million pounds of dynamite and clusterfuck abd it would be glorious.

  18. Fail Earnhardt

    As someone who’s previously accused Raidah of being all talk when it comes to developing adult connections, I’m very curious about what she’s gonna bring to this party

    1. nadamás

      A lawyer. She literally just said it keep up

    2. C.T Phipps

      Raidah isn’t actually a fraud with her country clubbing gladhanding.

      She’s just very amateurish.

      Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if her lawyer connection is her dad.

      1. Freemage

        Or, at least, a friend/associate of her dad’s (she might want to keep her own family’s name out of a case involving the protest, especially given we’re talking about Robin, here).

        1. C.T Phipps

          And a stand in for XYZ issue from RL.

      2. anonymsly

        ‘Amateurish’ is always what baby steps look like (Raidah is, after all, trying to develop a higher-level social skill), and babies are probably super proud of their leet walking skills too.

        It feels so weird to judge a teenager harshly for not being as good at politicking/schmoozing as people 2-3 times her age, especially when there are other harsh personal judgements that can both be fairly made of Raidah and don’t essentially boil down to ‘look at that stupid baby, what a STUPID BABY, they actually think they’re hot shit for taking five steps in a row’.

    3. anon

      I assuem she doesn’t approve of carla’s parents company but wonder how effective it would’ve been to ask her for help too. tho i vaguely remember jacobs older brother being a lawyer and helping carla too

      1. anonymsly

        Raidah used to date Jacob, and Jacob’s brother is known for social justice lawyering. She might just call him to say ‘hey, so, we think a former US Representative and a lesbian teacher might have been arrested at that protest that went violent when cops charged in and if they have they definitely haven’t been allowed to contact anyone, so they definitely need a lawyer.’

        She liked Jacob, but she wanted an in with his brother and now she has one.

  19. Doribi

    Dealing with Raidah makes me want to play Sympathy for the Devil on the hacked muzak.

    1. nadamás

      Ehat does that mean?

      1. Clif

        It’s a pro-Devil song that Mick Jagger wrote. The hacked muzak is a long running in joke.

        1. Embe13

          Muzak is the shitty soft rock covers of music played in elevators in the 90s

        2. Jon

          “Pro-Devil”?

          I rode a tank in the general’s rank
          When the Blitzkrieg rained and the bodies stank

          I dunno, doesn’t sound like an endorsement to me…

  20. ?

    the raidah hate game is insane. she’s barely been in the comics and you’re all acting like she shot your fucking dog. none of you act like this about the men in the comic who do even shittier things than she has.

    1. Dot

      It’s almost like there’s some intrinsic quality of Raidah that makes people tend to apply different standards to her than they do to male characters in this strip

      1. Dot

        Doubly so when you consider she’s also brown, and triply so when you consider that she’s Muslim

        1. anon

          tbf, the hate at the start had nothing to do with her religion

          tho other than moving on from the Dana situation i don’t think she’s done anything too bad even if her ladder climbing is seen as a bit annoying (tho i still find it hilarious she’d think walky would be ‘useful’ with how loosely tied he was to the dean)

        2. Rakeesh

          I wouldn’t agree that it had *nothing* to do with her religion. Not consciously, but very few people have really done the difficult, imprecise, long-term work of really decluttering their thoughts and outlooks of biases and prejudices. I suspect Dumbing of Age has a largely Western audience, and for such a group it’s not unreasonable to think there’s a willingness to view all flaws more harshly, and all virtues less kindly.

        3. Freemage

          Honestly, I don’t think I knew Raidah was a Muslim before the strip where she talks about how Jacob just doesn’t know he’s going to be converting, yet (which, for the record? really shitty and shows a massive lack of respect for an ostensible romantic partner–that strip alone made me a lot more willing to overlook Joyce’s behavior in the cheating arc).

          As for race/gender… Given that Sal and Sarah are two of my favorites, I think I’m on reasonably solid ground there, too.

          My dislike of Raidah is entirely based on the fact that, as a person, she’s thus far only shown spite, malice and social climbing as motivations, and as a character, she’s not even very good at that. (I still can’t wait for the day she discovers that she’s the one responsible for The Kiss.)

        4. Invisible Bard

          When did Raidah say anything about Jacob converting? I don’t remember that at all, and can’t find anything like that in the archive. Was it in a bonus strip?

        5. Rakeesh

          I don’t recall it either, but I wouldn’t be entirely surprised. She’s goal-oriented, ambitious, and has a streak of ruthlessness. Couple that with the fact that plenty of people want their partners to be of their faith and it wouldn’t be surprising if she assumed Jacob would convert.

        6. Taffy

          That’s not a real strip.

        7. Freemage

          Well, fark. I’ve been digging through the archives and I can’t find it, either. I’m wondering if it was a side-comment by Willis (or perhaps even a post on Bluesky/Twitter?) back in the day, when he was talking about her (and other characters’) religious affiliations. In which case, I’d like to apologize for introducing it into a discussion about strip canon. I just remember that was my initial awareness of her faith–the comment that she was a Muslim, and was planning to convert Jacob, but that he didn’t know it yet.

        8. Thag Simmons

          Are you misremembering the joke about inviting a questioning Joyce to her mosque?

        9. Lee

          Yeah no I can say with absolute confidence that her religion that I had no idea about at the time is not the reason I hate her for this: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/challenged/

          (yes she scolded her friend in the next strip not to use the actual R word, but she did pretty much everything but in this one).

        10. Embe13

          this, i am sorry but if you can believe that radaih is a good person/someone to be praised after this strip, you need to take a very long and hard look at yourself. this behavior has no place in the world, and i don’t care if in every other way you live your life is the most charitable manner, if you treat any one like that you are not a good person at heart. thus, rightfully you will be the recipient of scorn

      2. Nymph

        Hmmmm wonder what it could beeeee.

        1. zee

          The racism. I mean yeah the racism against her but also her interactions with Sarah feel racist in the same way hate comments about Sarah feel racist. Not intended to be, but I can smell it

        2. Nymph

          Yes. I was doing that thing where someone pretends not to know an answer because the answer is obvious. Misogynoir is strong in the comments.

        3. zee

          I know, I’m just pointing out the racism FROM Raidah, toward Sarah. Which is a more valid reason to dislike her. Raidahs misogynoir. HER interactions with Sarah feel similar to the Sarah’s hate comments

        4. zee

          She’s a target of racism and (unintentionally I believe) a perpetuator of it

        5. apocryphascribe

          Yeah idk where Willis is gonna end up going with Raidah in the future, but I hope it’s *somewhere*, dammit. Right now, we got super unfortunate racism abounding with her and her relationship with Sarah in a way that feels overbearing. Don’t even get me started on the comments.

      3. Bryy

        It’s really rather sad that Raidah is such a great Bad Guy…. but she’s also one of the only three Muslims in the cast.

        1. NGPZ

          yeaaaah

          and like, as of recent,

          and Willis, i say this with LOVE,

          Raidah supposed to be written as a judgemental shit and all but like

          having one of the most prominent Muslim characters unapologetically weaponize homophobia against the main character,

          that was a CHOICE

        2. Rakeesh

          This is true, but…Raidah is very far from the most homophobic person in the cast, isn’t she?

        3. Bryy

          Her dialogue in that strip is not something someone who doesn’t know what they are saying says.

        4. Rakeesh

          I agree. I’m not suggesting she wasn’t weaponizing homophobia, or that doing so wasn’t shameful. I was just putting her homophobia into a context of the behavior of others in the strip, and Raidah’s religion.

        5. Adam Black

          4 Muslims. Nashido and the hot gut with the tattoos

      4. Adam Black

        Like using people?

        pretending to be their friends only to spite someone else?

        Talking behind EVERYONEs back?

        always condescending?

        ableist?

        conceited?

        So many unwholesome inherent characteristics its sooo hard to pick just one.

        Looks at all the hatred that smartmouthed brownskinned hijab wearing Nashido gets

        ( crickets )

        funny that.

        1. apocryphascribe

          Nash, who is barely a character at all? Can’t imagine why there would be crickets for an individual with so little screentime.

          Yes yes, Raidah is a terrible person, we all get that. There’s plenty of reasons to hate her, we all get that. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to dislike her, as you described.

          What we’re saying is that people with unchecked and unconscious biases are all too happy to use the fact that Raidah is a terrible person to unleash their bigotries all over this comment section and elsewhere, especially the Patreon comments which have historically been a nightmare in this regard. Rather than get immediately sarcastic or defensive, it would be nice to actually see some thought from people about how they might be a little too enthusiastic about jumping on Raidah every time she shows up. And btw, making the equivalent of an “I can’t be racist, I have a black friend” argument here (idk if you noticed, but that is how your post comes across) isn’t doing you any favors here.

      5. Ray Radlein

        Considering that literally every other character in the strip with those characteristics is widely beloved, I think that implication is full of shit

        1. apocryphascribe

          Politely and with respect: Sarah is not a widely beloved character (least of all when she was the first – and so far only – character to voice concern and dismay at Joyce and Dorothy getting together the way they did), and the fact I have to say that means you either haven’t seen what we’ve seen, or haven’t been paying enough attention. Neither of those is a bad thing per se, just means there’s a blind spot that should be addressed.

          And furthermore, it does not help you or anyone else to holler like a hit dog offended at an undirected observation that the way the readership responds to Raidah is in part buoyed by racism, islamophobia, and misogynoir, rather than seeking to understand why we (as in the handful of black and brown readers of this comic, many of whom have been around just as long if not longer than the rest of y’all) might keep repeating these observations about Raidah and other cast members who “share those characteristics.”

        2. Dot

          I’m not black or brown myself, to be clear, but I still feel that I have an obligation to point out the double standards I see in the comments that appear to me to be informed by conscious or unconscious racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia. All the people who have nothing to say in response but NUH UH are not particularly compelling to me.

        3. apocryphascribe

          I figured as much, and I appreciate your pointing out of it regardless. A pointing out that was surprisingly gentle compared to the uh, interesting responses some people felt compelled to give.

        4. Adam Black

          Raidahs written strongly to be “white adjacent” and Classist.

          has a history of bulling a black female castmate for a year.
          has been casually ableist, homophobic multiple times.

          Pretends to be peoples friends, only in order to use them.
          So far in comic has been written to be ‘Muslim in name only’,
          never showing this in any way.

          Its OK if your favorite character is the designated nemesis and a homophobic shitbag user and discarder of human beings. Im not going to judge you for it.

          But you could show a fraction of the same grace to the readers who reading the comic “straight” . The ONLY person responsible for the Raidah hate is Willis. He wrote her that way. Narratives need conflict and a foil , and shes and Mary are the designated mean girls.

          Maybe shes also has genuine warmth or any human person values, but Willis has chosen to never to show any , without quickly undermining it.

    2. NGPZ

      Like Ross treated Dina even worse

      but like there’s no point kvetching on him no more because he’s, you know, DEAD

      also Incelerator took a beating from Tony, and he aint got no more appearances since then LOL

    3. C.T Phipps

      She was also mean to Dina, so there’s some reasoning for the hatred.

      But Raidah has actually been the victim of the cast more than the bully (see breaking her relationship up).

      1. Adam Black

        Not for lack of trying tho.
        but her shenanigans managed to break up 3 relationships, ( not the 2 she tried )

      2. Embe13

        she chose to see the lost connection to dana’s dad as sarah fault, she could have 1. workedwith sarah to try to help dana with her addiction so sarah didnt have to report dana to her father.
        2. she could have contacted dana’sfather her self and used doing so as a means to gain closer ties to him.
        3. she could have insisted on maintaining her “friendship” with dana after dana waspulled form the school to try tocontinue cultivating the connection to danas dad.
        4. she could have had the humanity to see sarah’s situation and understand that sarah could not afford to let her friend destroy her self as the risk to her security and future was too great. not saying she needed to remain friends with sarah. but it is noting worth holding a grudge over.

        because raidah chose to hold a grudge against sarah, radaih has made her own bed. her “victimization” at the hands of the maincast only comes about because of her choice tohold a grudge against sarah.

    4. Strain Of Thought

      Honestly for me this strip is by far the most likable Raidah has ever been. We normally only get to see her when she’s being forced to have some interaction she doesn’t want to be having; it would be nice to get some characterization of her in her actual element, doing what she likes doing and is good at around people she finds tolerable. We could find out what actually motivates her! Maybe she might end up having actual character development, or even, gasp, an arc! As it stands she’s basically just been the main cast’s “Team Rocket” style disposable ineffective recurring villain used for comic relief.

      1. Risky

        Raidah seemed likeable in the beginning, despite being shallow and elitist. She was pretty condescending but also corrected her friends a time or two. The way she handles her friends having issues is a real tragedy, and that’s why she keeps losing them, and it really sucks how she dumped Char and Chan’s bodies in the incinerator and stole their shoes, but she’s bongo wiigii her bongo cant with humans is still more similar to say, Dina, than she’d like to admit.

        She doesn’t really seem to know anyone very well at all, and she’s paid for that and will continue to do so. As it stands she doesn’t really know anyone and we don’t really know her.

    5. nadamás

      ?

    6. Adam Black

      I dont KNOW another male character that is equally as twofaced, spiteful, casually homophobic or ablesist, who wasnt Killed off.

      There are barely any male cast members.

      I dont think there currently ARE any ( male antagonistist in her league ) outside of the Felony Murder/ KIdnapping squad.

      1. Bittersweet

        Incelerator is still alive, I think lol. Probably won’t show back up again but he exists.

        1. Adam Black

          ( already mentioned him. )

          Incelerator was part of the Kidnapping squad! proving my point tho.

    7. Doopyboop

      I think there are things worthy of disliking or criticizing Raidah over. Things such as the ableism towards Dina, being a two-faced friend to Jennifer, the year long bullying campaign against Sarah which involved two specific instances we saw in particular of Sarah being called a bongo, prompting Sarah to go elsewhere to eat, and Raidah approaching Sarah to say she hopes she chokes on her food. All this was BEFORE Sarah punched her in the face, mind you.

      However, I will always stand by the fact that Raidah is completely and 100% allowed to have an opinion on what happened with the protest despite us not seeing her attend it. I do think the behavior I saw in the comments of some people insisting Raidah wasn’t allowed to comment or criticize what happened with the newspaper because “Erm, Raidah wasn’t there so she doesn’t get to say anything” was a nasty mixture of racism as well as privilege. This does not excuse her saying homophobic things to Joyce. Honestly I don’t think the kiss picture is really Doyce’s fault, and thus I don’t think Raidah should blame them for that BUT her being upset is still 100% valid. For all we know, Raidah has family still in Bulmeria. There are many reasons why she didn’t attend the single protest we saw in the comic. I wasn’t present at the Pulse club when the shooting went down but I can still read the news about it and still have an opinion on what happened.

      1. Embe13

        i have not seen anyone deny her that right, just that her right to have that opinion does not redeem her in any way

        1. Doopyboop

          I have unfortunately seen it and hotly debated it with people in the comments before. One in particular argued that Dorothy and Joyce “did more for the protest” than Raidah because… Dorothy held up a sign for less than a minute.

    8. zee

      In my case it’s the misogynoir. I want her to have more depth but I can’t get past the racist stank around her beef with Sarah

    9. Reaver

      I’m going to continue to dislike her for her personality being ass, the same way I dislike Walky cuz I also find his personality to be ass, and Booster cuz sometimes they are an ass

    10. Yotomoe

      Im actually trying to think of male characters who have done or said worse things than Malaya who are not as hated

      -Joe
      I think he’s the best option. Being a misogynist pig who made the “Do-list” and not only objectified but also endangered every girl on the floor. (Also its implied he left Carla out for transphobic reasons) I think his redemption arc was definitely an uphill battle but yeah I think the public opinion on him is pretty positive right now.
      -Mike
      He’s a mixed bag. You either love him or hate him. For some he was a natural shit starter that was a necessary component of the comic. For others he sucked and theyre glad he’s dead. Though I do think him being dead kinda shifts the opinion of him cuz now he can never grow or change.
      -Incelerator
      Everyone hates him in universe and out of universe
      -Ryan
      Everyone hates him in universe and out of universe
      -Walky
      He has a habit of bullying and negging people, especially Joyce. Also hes a bit of a privelaged nepo baby and the favorite child. But I think we’ve seen enough depth in his character that he still feels relatable and fully realized in a way Raidah has yet to be.
      -Danny
      Danny sucks. What kinda guy tells his crush that his best friend dying wouldnt be so bad
      Yes Mike sucks too but holy shit dont say that shit now. While hes dying in the hospital. That said he’s mostly stayed off the radar. Hasn’t done much.
      -Jason
      Slept with Sal as a TA. While he didn’t seem too keen on abusing his position he still did what he did and he got fired for it. I feel like people still kinda feel negative about him as a whole. I dont think hes anyone’s favorite character. He’s also kind of a posh bully who negs people and ridiculed their intelligence so he actually might be a much better analogies for raidah than I thought. That said I feel like hes softened up quite a bit since earlier comics. He basically just exists to be bullied by strong women now.

      I think the issue with raidah is that she hasn’t changed much since pre-timeskip and she has never apologized or been punished for her previous behavior. Shes the go to “mean girl” and hasn’t really had a chance for redemption. Personally I’m neutral on raidah. At least she’s supposed to be mean. I would take 1000 raidahs over Dorothy.

      1. thejeff

        Joe and Mike really benefit from white male privilege, mostly in that both have always had defenders who think they were never bad – Joe being slut-shamed by everyone despite being all about consent and Mike being the asshole sage trying to help people with uncomfortable truths.

        I don’t know if it’s misogynoir if Raidah doesn’t get that same grace.

        1. Yotomoe

          I mean I’d argue there’s also lots of Raidah defenders. I mean heck, this is a thread started by one. It’s sort of a weird vibe cuz she’s clearly meant to be unsympathetic and hateable but she does get a lot of hate. TBH I think most people are more hostile these days than they were in the past. I may be misremembering but I recall reactions to raidah being more of an “eyeroll” than this visceral hatred. But that’s kinda been the vibe as of late. Raidah exists to be hated just like Mike or Mary but now she’s being given more spotlight due to the protest while still being a mean girl we’re supposed to hate.

          Which is just SO FUN that it happens right after the white girls kissing over a genocide protest arc yipee.

        2. Adam Black

          all of this.

          Its bizarre that some readers want to attack other readers for the crime,
          … of disliking a cartoonish written nemesis.

        3. Reaver

          Joe is white???

        4. NGPZ

          *provisionally white

  21. M!a

    ugh. fuck. see you guys in a couple weeks; I can’t do this bongo right now ?

    and I did not type ‘bongo’

    1. anon

      it’s kinda hilarious the auto replace is still in effect tho

      1. Nymph

        I’m honestly glad it’s still in place. Having somewhere I don’t have to watch that slur get thrown at female characters whenever they aren’t perfect is… honestly really nice. Even if sometimes people are SO eager to throw it at them that they need people to know they typed the actual word.

        1. Freemage

          Yeah… I’m no longer enchanted by ‘bongo’. It was a decent band-aid when Willis first decided to discourage that sort of language, but honestly, at this point I’d just prefer an auto-delete of any post that uses misogynistic slurs.

        2. Nymph

          That would also be acceptable.

        3. Adept

          Freemage, sure. I’d prefer that as well.

        4. Adept

          I really like not having to endure casual misogyny here. It annoys me to no end how people (I think genuinely) believe words like that aren’t ”genuinely misogynistic, and have become gender neutral”. Fuck right off with that sort of ”reasoning”.

          Such slurs are based on the deep rooted cultural bias of female = weak, bad, shameful… etc etc.

        5. Embe13

          am i the only one who remembers a period in 80s and 90s where hollywood tried to rebrand the adjective as positive, like saying you had a “bongoing time” was a great time?

        6. Taffy

          You’re not supposed to admit the 80s and 90s happened. Stop admitting they happened.

        7. Jon

          That wasn’t Hollywood, that was actual ’70s and ’80s slang, mostly used (in my personal experience) by dedicated potheads. It kind of died out in the late ’80s, and made occasional later appearances in movies written by people who were in their early 20s in the ’70s.

  22. Wraithy2773

    Raidah clearly doesn’t hold grudges.

    She *savors* them.

    1. Bryy

      I highly feel like Raidah is the type of person that needs people to think poorly of her.

  23. anon

    i mean other than dating tony i don’t think sarah rly has ‘connections’ but if anything i’d think they’d also ask carla tho idk how much she likes robin/leslie. tho would be quite the move to just bail one of them out

  24. Bongoplush

    Is it weird to say I kinda wish I didn’t know about the whole “raidah got a lot of extra scenes added in late in the game” thing? Cause now I feel like I can’t turn off analysis brain nitpicking every detail of every raidah scene trying to figure out which scenes were added in and which ones were planned to be apart of this storyline from the start, and I feel like I wouldn’t even notice if I didn’t know about it

    1. C.T Phipps

      To be fair, as an author, I’m sure Willis does smaller adjustments all the time. An extra strip or removed is probably frequent for him as his form of editing.

    2. Nymph

      Yeah, I’m not sure why it matters. Everything in the whole comic was added in by Willis, it’s all their writing and art.

      1. Bongoplush

        That’s kind of my problem, it doesn’t matter and I know it doesn’t matter, but the fact I know about it means it’s always a thought in the back of my mind as I read, it’s solely a me problem and not a critique of the work, just I wish I hadn’t found out is all because it’s hindering my personal reading experience

        1. Bongoplush

          Like I said, if I hadn’t found out about it I really wouldn’t have even noticed anything feeling off, it’s just now that I DO know I’m being super nitpicky and over analytical without really wanting to be

        2. Nymph

          Sorry you’re struggling with it. I can’t offer you any advice on the issue, because I am not personally experiencing it, but I hope it shakes out okay for you and you can relax about the comic again.

        3. Nymph

          I do wonder if looking at it as “editing” the way CT said is a good idea?

    3. anon

      i mean this webcomics been going on for years so i’m sure lots of ppl are getting spotlights you wouldn’t expect, idk if we’d get like a ‘meredith’ arc tho
      (tho yo ucan see how far ahead his buffer is on the sidebar)

      1. Clif

        I was thinking that the added scenes were primarily Asma. This use of Raidah feels pretty organic.

    4. NGPZ

      that honestly sounds more like it’s a you problem ?

    5. Yumi

      For me, it was more something that was in my mind closer to the point when Willis decided on major adjustments. By now, that’s around five months back, and yes, their buffer is longer than that and things that have been changed/added are still coming up, but it feels far enough that it’s just…Willis writing their comic with consideration for feedback they’ve gotten. Which is just the default.

  25. IntangibleMatter

    On the one hand, fuck yeah.

    On the other, those are some really petty magic words.

    1. Jon

      Well, they activate a really petty person, so that’s fitting.

  26. Cameron Stone

    Is this an insert like the ones with Asma? Raidah just appearing with no establishing shot feels really disorientating.

    1. Nymph

      Does it matter?

      1. Taffy

        No.

        1. Effie

          I agree that it don’t matter, but for folks who are curious, the alt-text basically admits that it’s an insert

        2. thejeff

          Which is weird. How much of this whole bit about Becky looking for Leslie/Robin is an insert? Seems like Raidah’s becoming a pretty integral part of it.

        3. Nymph

          It’s all an insert. Everything in the comic was inserted by Willis.

        4. Cameron Stone

          By insert I mean it’s not originally part of the 1 year buffer Willis keeps an instead was made recently to have more appearances of Asma and Raidah in order to make up for the lack of Muslim rep and the tone deafness of using Israel/Palestine as set dressing for the 2 white leads. All of which Willis has directly admitted to doing.

    2. Freemage

      I don’t ~think~ so. The lead-up to it being Raidah they approach for help–in no small part, being cut off from several other possibilities–has been going on for a bit, now. So I think it’s likely that this was intended.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Raidah gets a lot of X-Pac heat.

        She’s not loved to be hated.

        A lot of people just hate-hate her.

        1. deliverything

          I had to look up “X-Pac heat”… though you explained it pretty well, it turns out. Although, it’s apparently been renamed “Hogan Heat”:
          https://www.kayfabenews.com/x-pac-heat-officially-renamed-hogan-heat/

        2. Cameron Stone

          She hasn’t really been given any sympathetic qualities up to this point, she’s really only a few steps up from Mary in terms of being an antagonist with no real redeeming aspects.

      2. Cameron Stone

        I didn’t see the alt-text at first, but it pretty much admits to this being an insert.

  27. Kyulen

    Again, I feel like the people who organized the protest should have already planned for the possibility of some protesters getting arrested. I’m gonna be annoyed if the protest organizers turn out to be so oddly inept that they don’t even have a lawyer to help get Robin and Leslie and any other protesters who were arrested out of jail. Or maybe they already have a lawyer, and Becky and Dorothy are doing all this for nothing.

    1. Freemage

      It also seems weird to me that Robin, at least, doesn’t have a lawyer she can call to get bail.

      1. Clif

        Oh Robin could get out any time she wanted, but this way she gets to stay in a tiny jail cell with Leslie and drive her nuts.

      2. SvenTS

        Robin used her phone call to order in snacks (and to drive Leslie nuts).

        1. Random832

          the “you get one and only one phone call, which you can choose to waste on something that is not contacting a lawyer” thing is largely a myth iirc.

        2. deliverything

          But does Robin know that?

      3. Doopyboop

        Robin doesn’t seem the type to have a lawyer. Or, if she does have a lawyer, I imagine they’d either be:

        1. Super overworked and stressed out, to the point of not being functional because they’ve had to run after Robin to settle different legal disputes. OR

        2. A Jim Carrey from Ace Ventura esque figure who is incredibly eccentric with his job. He’s not getting her out on bail, he’s personally tracking down the cops who arrested her so he can blackmail the cop over something like “you don’t separate your recyclables from your refuse and if you don’t free Robin, I’m gonna make sure EVERYONE knows” and for silly reasons that would actually work.

      4. FacelessDeviant

        Robin might have a lawyer. But if the cops are corrupt bastards, she might not have been allowed to call that lawyer.

    2. C.T Phipps

      I 100% guarantee you that Robin showed up at the protest with no contact with the actual protest group.

      Not sure about Leslie but I could also see her not wanting to put her name down on anything, only to bonk herself.

    3. eh, whatever

      I’ve never been to or heard of a protest that was organized anywhere near to the level of detail you seem to imagine. In particular, protest organizers do not know who’s coming to the protest they’re starting.

      1. thejeff

        Even without knowing up front who’s coming, they should be able to go through channels to get lists of who was arrested at their protest and at least help them contact lawyers or family/friends/employers/etc if not actually get them bailed out.

      2. smolgrlboi

        it’s not so much that the organizers know every single person attending, more that they organize it in a way that folks who do show up will have resources an support should something go awry. That’s why so many protests encourage you to come with a group, and even letting someone who you trust but who isn’t attending know you’re attending so they can reach out to lawyers on your behalf. It’s why the National Lawyer’s Guild has chapters all over that attend protests on their own as legal observers or to provide legal support for protestors. You can be extremely organized as a protest and not have a single name written down anywhere.

    4. OngoingConversation

      Honestly I think the last one might be what’s going on. Dorothy not getting to fix everything because someone else already did has been a bit of a theme lately (see: her conversation with Dina about Amber). I don’t think it would occur to her that the protest organizers could already be on top of things, because her self worth comes from solving everything and helping everyone. So when it dawns on her, there will be some juicy drama. (No clue how it’s going to affect Becky though, relief maybe? Does anyone have a better guess?)

    5. Cameron Stone

      Or the joke will be they aren’t actually in jail and it’s a big misunderstanding.

  28. Francoinblanco

    Look who need stroke they ego to do something for idea now

  29. Newlland(Henryvolt)

    This is…such a “Dr.Doom” move. All they needed to do is tell her was that they have a challenge she’s better equipped at handling than Sarah. Just like telling Doom there’s something Reed Richard’s can’t do.

    1. JessWitt

      “Raidah toots as she pleases!”

    2. Clif

      You mean like giving Ben back his original appearance?

    3. C.T Phipps

      Raidah will turn out to be the Princess of Bulmeria in exile!

      Diplomatic immunity!

      (Which turns out not to mean much these days)

      1. Tequila Mockingbird

        I would read the hell out of that fanfic/AU.

    4. Dot

      So we know who to go to if Sarah’s wife is having complications in childbirth?

  30. Mr.Morningstar

    Raidah you had a chance to not be insufferable for five seconds.

    1. Taffy

      I’m suffering her easily, seems like you’re unskilled.

    2. Arianod

      Raidah not being insufferable for five seconds challenge (impossible)

    3. thejeff

      But why should she when she can savor her victory instead?

  31. Taffy

    Raidah should just ignore Dorothy and go fuck Kevin like she was trying to do in the first place.

    1. Adam Black

      Is this a reference to kevin can go F himself ?

      1. Taffy

        I don’t know what that is.

        1. zee

          It’s a cool show where the sitcom wife who’s always subject to misogynistic jokes and is too good for the main character, really fucking wants to kill her husband and is the star of a gritty drama whenever he’s not in the room. Haven’t finished it yet but it’s rad

        2. Adam Black

          Whos kevin?

  32. Odo

    I think this interaction really highlights the Raidah’s logic behind her behavior.

    Raidah focus on power and status at the expense of people. She strategically prioritizes connections with people who can give her valuable connections and advantages.

    This is because Raidah is a cynical realist. She believes that it is only by seizing power through the means available to you, will you be able to make the changes you want to make.

    And in this conversation she is seeing her worldview confirmed. She sees Joyce and Dorothy, people who don’t like her personally, coming to her for help because of her power. She sees herself as being in a position to help because of her contacts.

    1. Risky

      She’s just been presented as so shallow, I’m not sure her connections are going to be as valuable to her as she thinks they are. She’s also a lot more confident in her ability to read people than she should be. Most times she’s laid it on the line she’s been wrong. Hopefully at some point she’ll have a rude awakening and hopefully it won’t cost her as much as it wakes her up.

  33. Amelie Wikström

    Can we call “doing a helpful thing while being so shitty about it people can barely stand talking to you” “doing a Raidah?” Or “Raidaing up?”

    1. Risky

      Better than being miked up like a mike.

      1. Effie

        I miked your Mike for a nickel

  34. Acher4

    I will NOT start liking Raidah… no I will NOT.

    <.<
    oh no.

    Will I?

    1. NGPZ

      I assure you, you will not.

  35. The Rev

    They’re not in jail they’re just snoggin’

    1. thejeff

      They’re in jail and snoggin’

      1. Effie

        Yes!

  36. Adept

    Is the hover text hinting that this strip is an insert, drawn almost a year after the ones in the buffer?

    1. Effie

      Yes.

      1. Leadsynth

        Dorothy matches fine to me, but I’m no art snob

  37. Arianod

    The strip would be easier to read if Raidah wasn’t so clearly getting off on this

    1. nadamás

      That’s exactly what makes me love it.

  38. Lys

    Huh, so I guess it turns out Dorothy actually does have leadership chops when she is focused on getting things done rather than in getting people to like her. Convincing someone who doesn’t like you to do you a favour by appealing to their vanity is no easy task, but Dorothy executed it brilliantly!

    1. Rakeesh

      Seems that way to me, too. Appealing to their vanity while enduring digs at her own expense, no less. Probably not unintentionally, on the one hand a very valuable skill for a politician to have-being able to take hits to the ego to get things done-hand in hand, in Dorothy, with a very pressing urge to have folks like her and understand why they don’t and how to make them do.

      1. Ray Radlein

        “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit” — Harry S Truman

    2. thejeff

      She actually does. She’s shown it before.

      I think she’d actually make a good president, she’d just wouldn’t be great at campaigning for the job

      1. Lys

        Like anything else, there is a skill element to charisma that Dorothy can work and improve on. Also, there have been a number of successful politicians who are not super personable but still attained high office due to being able to project an aura of being someone who gets things done. Dorothy would not appreciate the comparison, but Richard Nixon is the kind of politician that she could be, just hopefully not evil. Like, check out Nixon’s Checkers Speech . You can’t tell me Dorothy can’t pull something like that off.

  39. ADLegend21

    damn, inferiority complex to Sarah….I think if Sarah found out she’d never stop smiling.

    1. Big Z

      Is it an “inferiority complex” or just wanting to rub in that for all their protestations, Raidah’s approach to life is valuable to them in a crisis compared to head-down-get-degree Sarah?

      1. ADLegend21

        being coerced by being told they need her over Sarah screams that she needs to be better than her, so she sees herself as inferior by default. She doesn’t even know it yet.

  40. DashWallkick

    She’s petty. But fortunately, she’s also petty!

    1. Amós Batista

      you just missed a “R”

  41. Sarah

    inb4 Leslie and Robin escaped from the cops but, through wacky and romantic hijinks, have kindled a passionate love and are just banging at Robin’s place.

    But if they did get arrested, I hope they got their mugshots the way Robin wanted.

    1. thejeff

      Leslie and Robin escaped from the cops but, through wacky and romantic hijinks, have kindled a passionate love, which got a little out of control and got them arrested for banging in public before they got to Robin’s place.

  42. Maddie B

    The gosh-dang pettiness of this girl.

  43. GUIGUI

    As a matter of fact, why not actually rely on Sarah, there?

    1. thejeff

      1) She wasn’t answering texts earlier
      2) She probably doesn’t have the lawyer connections Raidah’s been cultivating.

  44. Da Boy

    Slow down Raidah, I know you dislike Sarah but to get horny over that? Not healthy, girl.

  45. Twig

    “novel territory for you” girl this is only the third time you’ve interacted????? and neither of the first two times were about Joyce and Dorothy’s sapphic-ness for each other either?????

    1. Taffy

      Fourth interaction, even. The first time, Dorothy was stuck in a booth, with Joyce trying to homewreck Raidah’s relationship with Jacob, and Dotty really didn’t affect the conversation much.

      The next time they met, Raidah decided to put Dorothy’s life choices and aspirations down (do not attempt to debate me about the President thing, I do not care).

      The third time, Raidah happened to be walking by when Joyce and Dorothy got back from the protest and just decided they’d intentionally hijacked the whole thing.

      Now she’s giving Dorothy shit for a trait she never displayed in Raidah’s presence (and has only been displaying for like 2 days in the first place), based on on photograph in a newspaper.

      None of their interactions have been about Dorothy 69ing Joyce live on camera caught in 4K real not clickbait, so I don’t know what the fuck her problem is with specifically Dorothy. God forbid queers get photographed without their knowledge or consent, I guess.

      1. nadamás

        Her problem with Dorothy is mostly that she is with Joyce and is friends with Sarah that already predisposed to think the worse of her, not helping she thought the president thing was bad as well.

  46. JBento

    So, first Sal and Asher’s mob connections and now Dorothy and Raidah’s connections.

    If I had a nickel for every time a character the commentariat loves turns to another SPECIFICALLY for the thing that people give the second character grief over, I would have two nickels.

    1. Ray Radlein

      That’s, like, two nights with Mike

      1. Big Z

        Easily the worst five nights at Freddie’s prequel.

        1. yak

          Slant rhymes just don’t work as well as alliteration

  47. Raven

    Now who’s making this all about herself, Raidah?

  48. WizardPantaloon

    You’ve got to be kidding.

  49. JJazz

    I’m glad to see Raidah stay true to character but get to have a little more depth and complexity than she’s gotten in past depictions. It makes her more interesting.

  50. Amós Batista

    Now I understand the LAST panel.
    I thought Raidah were waiting Dorothy to beg, or something like that. But Dorothy already said what Raidah wanted to hear: “No. Not Sarah’s”

  51. John

    Raidah is kinda pathetic.

    1. Arianod

      It’s a thin line between pathetic and despicable.

    2. Jon

      Raidah is kinda a twenty-year-old who’s apparently been raised to believe that her connections are the only thing that can possibly make her important. That’s why she was angry with Sarah in the first place – Sarah turning in Dana ruined one of Raidah’s connections – and that’s why she’s so pleased here – her having connections shows that she’s clearly superior to Sarah.

  52. Byron Orpheus

    Posit: Sarah isn’t answering her texts because she actually was arrested.

    1. Da Boy

      Naah when cops first came in and they wanted someone to retrieve the Amazisuit she was with Tony.

    2. Taffy

      For what, dating a white guy?

      1. Jon

        Possibly. They are in Indiana, after all.

  53. Andy

    Raidah’s main flaw is treating people as things. That’s pretty evil in itself.

    But she’s likely got connections to the protest movement. Not law enforcement-that wouldn’t be helpful. Not to the legal community – most lawyers specialize. But to the student groups that care about bulernia.

    1. Jon

      Granny Weatherwax and the Omnian priest Mightily Oars, in Carpe Jugulum:

      “There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

      “It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .”

      “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

      “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes . . .”

      “But they starts with thinking about people as things . . . ”

  54. Ian Clark

    Raidah continues to be my favourite terrible person in the comic. Is it because she’s well-written, or is it because she has ample not-terrible attributes? Probably a little from column A, a little from column B.

    1. smolgrlboi

      there’s a meme in the Interview with the Vampire fandom that says something like “It’s not about who’s your favorite person it’s about who’s your favorite liar and murderer” and I feel like that can apply pretty well to Raidah. (obv not implying she’s a murderer or liar, she’s not a vampire, but that liking her character isn’t necessarily about moral judgement one way or the other). While I probably wouldn’t want to be friends with Raidah myself, I cannot lie that *as a character within DoA* she is starting to grow on me.

  55. ACAB

    Oh Dorothy. Have we not learned that wanting the justice system to work really bad doesn’t mean it’s going to work? I’m assuming we’re going to get to the jail and Dorothy will realize that Leslie knows how to fucking protest lmao and that the organizers of this protest know to prepare for arrests. Bail might be stupid high, and maybe Dorothy can help promote the cashapps the organizers would already be sharing.

    And since others on here seem to think so…. if this is NOT feeding into Dorothy’s lesson that POTUS is not a position you can reach while acting morally, that Great Man Theory is bunk and constantly inserting yourself into the center of things without any preparation is not how to organize effectively…… I’m done reading. Dumbing of age indeed.

    1. Amós Batista

      off: you nailed with your nick

    2. Dot

      yeah a lot of people are praising Dorothy’s leadership abilities here but ultimately this is pretty lousy activism. Dorothy still barely has any notion of the protest, the movement, its tactics, or really even the issues involved. It’s great that she wants to help the people she cares about, but she’s placing herself at the center instead of stepping back to learn. No investigation, no right to speak, and she’s scarcely done any investigating.

      1. thejeff

        This isn’t lousy activism. This isn’t activism at all.
        This is Dorothy taking the lead to find out what happened to her friend’s moms and to get them bailed out if necessary. Should she step back and learn about the movement while Becky panics about them?

    3. John Campbell

      The justice system can always be relied upon to work really bad.

    4. NGPZ

      yeah like look at activists like Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panthers

      brotha was never really interested in being famous or the center of attention all the time, and in retrospect he felt it did more harm than good for the cause

      he firmly believed (and this is something that Dorothy, and all of us really, should internalize) that genuine social change did not come from celebrities, but from the people themselves

      The revolution will not be televised.

    5. nadamás

      Yeah, yeah see you next week

  56. Florence

    I want to believe in the nuance direction with Raidah but every time she’s in the comic she’s operating like a cartoon supervillain

    1. Dot

      Feels hyperbolic to call her a supervillain here. At worst she’s being petty and it’s not like that’s an uncommon trait.

      1. Florence

        I guess maybe it’s the final panel comedic effect

        Still find myself confused by what’s going on with her character wise, it’d be nice to get a bit of actual focus on her that’s not just her being some level of cruel

  57. zee

    I so, so badly want this woman to be given a personality beyond hating this specific group of people. Like at this point I don’t even hate Raidah, I hate how Willis writes her. I feel like the worst aspects of her (namely the anti blackness) were by accident and therefore aren’t likely to be addressed in text

    1. Dot

      Agreed. It feels maddening seeing all the potential this character has and then every time she shows up she just becomes a hate sink for the commentariat.

      I agree that the antiblackness in how she treat(ed) Sarah was probably unintentional, and it hasn’t really been helped by the fact that the Dana stuff has basically gone unaddressed and unelaborated-upon since it was introduced way back at the start of the strip.

      1. Wraithy2773

        Not that I’m suggesting that Willis add a 15th plate to keep spinning, but I do think that one thing that would help with Raidah and develop Sarah a bit is to have a shoe drop with Dana.

        Could be that Dana spiraled (or worse) by getting kicked out of school, and Sarah will have to deal with how she might have seriously hurt someone to protect her scholarship (although that’s complicated).

        Or maybe Sarah’s intervention actually did help Dana, it was the wake-up call she needed and she’s doing better, and Raidah will have to consider that maybe Sarah did the right thing.

        ……..or maybe they’d both bury the hopeful epiphanies under a layer of spite and denial like they’re both so good at doing >_>.

        1. Dot

          The only thread we’ve been given came right after the original lore dump about Dana, where Sarah insisted that Dana is in a better place now, and Raidah countered with “not according to Dana, last I checked.”

          So my read is that Dana is doing as bad or worse than she was when Sarah reported her.

        2. zee

          Just popping in; Dana was never kicked out of school. Her dad withdrew her. She can come back any time she’s ready.

        3. zee

          She’s effectively on indefinite bereavement leave

        4. Dot

          Or, well. Anytime her parents decide she’s ready. Among other things, we don’t actually know what Dana’s home life is like.

        5. Yotomoe

          Assuming her dad is a good person. We know so little about her home life.

        6. zee

          Until the comic gives me a real reason to believe she’s got a bad home life beyond one vague throw away comment ten years ago, I’m gonna assume things are relatively fine.

    2. apocryphascribe

      Need this unironically more than anything else if Raidah is going to become a mainstay in the cast. The longer it goes unaddressed, the worse it’s going to stink up her potential for growth and narrative, because it’s the biggest elephant in the room. Idk if I have hope it’ll be addressed at all, honestly

  58. smolgrlboi

    Idk if Willis will include them in the DoA universe but in case anyone is planning on going to a protest irl, even if it seems like it’s going to be peaceful, memorize or write down on your arm with sharpie the number for your local chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild. They have a Mass Defense Program wherein they provide legal support for activists and protestors. I can personally attest that they are legit and have done good work for folks who were arrested at protests.

    https://www.nlg.org/massdefenseprogram/

    1. Dot

      As someone in law I can vouch for the NLG.

  59. yak

    OK but imagine the type of lawyer Sarah would know

  60. Cricket

    Gosh, Raidah is petty. I’m not immensely socially perceptive, but I just realized that she is very center-focused, and that all her accusations of other people centering themselves are actually confessions.

    1. Nevermaker

      Psychological projection is a hell of a thing. Especially when you’re a manipulative two-faced social climber.

    2. Yotomoe

      Misread that as “gosh Raidah is pretty”

      Which to be fair she is.

      Pretty mean!

      (Also regular pretty)

  61. ElderlyMarxist

    ngl i appreciate raidah’s commitment to haterism but girl. your vendetta about sarah is undermining your claim to the moral high ground here

  62. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

    maybe one day I’ll be able to pontificate the reasons as to why I genuinely adore raidah outside of making “there is something deeply wrong with her (complement)” jokes but today is literally not that fucking day, not with the shit that’s been happening in my city. RIP to Renee Good, and please keep an eye out for the city of minneapolis during these upcoming days.

    1. nadamás

      Absolutely valid.

    2. NGPZ

      More than valid at this point

      I’ve just about ran out of patience with anyone whose still in denial about the fascist reality of our country and what’s become of modern US conservatism

      If we’ve gotten to the point to which we have to say to ourselves stuff like, “you are going to outlive Donald Trump no matter what” just to not feel helpless, LIKE

      that’s when you KNOW something has gone very, VERY wrong ☠️

    3. Thing 2

      Those of us out here watching in horror. Wondering what we can do. None of us out here believe the lies put out about what is going on. Something has indeed gone very wrong.
      Here, we are mourning a death, but it was a young man who fell off a mountain, doing what he loved to do. Sad but normal. Not scary.

  63. Quinn

    As a reader I know Raidah is all about networking and making connections to advance her goals, but when did learn she’s all about that?

    1. Quinn

      …when did Dorothy* learn…

  64. Juanoku

    I hate her

    1. NGPZ

      I hate her too.

      Which of course isn’t to say, that the last panel isn’t hella fuckin funny :p

  65. VolticEXE

    Man, Raidah can feel like a pretty fleshed out character sometimes, but she’s still JUST a Dumb College Student at the end of the day.

    She occupies the same spot in my brain as Jacinthe from Legends Z-A: “Wow, this character is great! I’m glad they’re in the spotlight more! I want to drive their head through a brick wall.”

    1. Alongcameaspider

      So what youre saying is Raidah has an absolute banger song for her battle music

      1. Jon

        Probably, yeah.

  66. darkoneko

    “let me get” so, not you ?

    1. Jon

      She’s still a law student. She’s intelligent, so she knows that what’s needed here isn’t a law student, but an actual member of the bar. And she’s all about the networking, so she knows at least one actual lawyer, possibly more.

  67. Thing 2

    So. Willis has written a lot of comic. It contains characters of a variety of races and sexualities and genders and skin colours and maturities and etc. The people in the comic do/say kind and unkind things sometimes, but it doesn’t look to me to be related to these differences.
    There is representation of prejudice and intolerance, but mostly from religious fundamentalism/parents.
    What I am not seeing in the comic is what people often come to the comments and say, which is that X said/did Y to Z *because* of their religion, skin colour, gender, sexuality etc. I can understand that it is easy to be jumpy, esp. in the USA at the moment and because the real world contains prejudice.
    But.
    Willis has created a place where different people hook up with different people, people learn stuff, people find out about sexuality, gender etc. There is a broad acceptance. I am, in short, NOT seeing the things that some people are seeing and pointing out in the comic.

    1. anon

      i mean i never went but that seems like a part of the college experience (and he did say a long time ago it’s semi autobigraphical when it comes to joyce’s upbringing and religion)

  68. Mishyana

    Please no more discourse about Joyce and Dorothy “centering themselves in the protest”, please no more discourse about Joyce and Dorothy “centering themselves in the protest”, it’s like a mantra, if I repeat it often enough it might come true

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