Inclination
Posted on January 11, 2026 by David M Willis


Tags: dorothy, raidah

264 thoughts on “Inclination”

  1. QueenofSodor

    i-it’s not like i wanted to help you or anything, b-baka!

    1. Clif

      Well someone had to say it.

    2. Tequila Mockingbird

      my thoughts exactly.

  2. NGPZ

    “YOU’RE NOT AFFILIATED WITH ME!”

  3. V

    girl help

  4. Dot

    Loooove her

    1. Dot

      “Yeah doing this decent thing for other people who are fighting for a cause I believe in is uuuhhh all part of my supervillain plot” she’s so silly

      1. Rosicrucian

        Whoever cracks this nut is gonna find something gooey.

        1. NGPZ

          I mean what you expect

          to make some chocolate happen ya gotta break a few nuts

          XD

        2. Dot

          Need Walky to get on that shit

        3. Rosicrucian

          It takes time for him to determine the right trajectory to yeet a toy at her head.

      2. Bryy

        Yeah she’s such a bad villain.

      3. apocryphascribe

        She’s so bad at this, I love it.

      4. Shade

        Reminds me of this anime I watched a while back called “I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History”, yeah it’s an isekai but it was fun watching her justify all the good things she’s doing as being villainous.

        1. Chris Phoenix

          You may enjoy “Only Villains Do That” on Royal Road (in progress, but many amusing chapters).

      5. Adept

        I usually follow your perspective just fine Dot, but here I’m lost. Raidah seems so relentlessly negative, and mostly a pile of resentment and scheming. She seems like a toxic person to avoid, so what am I missing?

        1. Dot

          She’s obviously got hidden depths to draw out and the fact that she’s (badly) trying to justify this good deed as part of her masterful manipulations is adorable

        2. Big Z

          I mean, it DOES kinda work out exactly how she’d have wanted it to work if she’d planned it as a master manipulation, even if she only did it because she was asked to help by Thing 2.

        3. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

          Raidah was a big part of Dorothy questioning her faith in institutions and desire to be president, for one.

        4. Thag Simmons

          I mean, Dorothy definitely needed that wake-up call about what her ambitions would actually ask of her but Raidah did not appear to be doing that for reasons that weren’t full of toxic resentment.

        5. Shade

          Doesn’t mean she can’t be grateful.

        6. Thag Simmons

          It absolutely doesn’t, but it’s still an instance of Raidah being resentful and scheming and generally toxic, even if Dorothy ultimately benefited from that specific instance of toxicity.

        7. Ovan-Creator

          Considering what happens to Dorothy in It’s Walky, she needed that wake-up call. That version of her failed to get into high office, and it went downhill from there.

      6. ResRam

        Incredibly common demagogic tactic though.
        Wether the socialist dictatorships of the eastern bloc, the messianic religious movements … or simply someone like Musk?
        Pretending to want to do good, save the world and claiming to make peoples lives easier is the most basic grift of all.

        What Raidah practices here is the fundamental politics of manipulative power – making others believe you are on their side, want to help them – but largely to further your own goals.

        1. Dandi_Andi

          When has a Raidah ever made Dorothy think that she was on her side? Send to me like she’s being very explicit about what she’s getting out of this.

        2. Zero

          I’m not sure who she’s arguing with, given that Dorothy said she knows Raidah wasn’t inclined to help her. She’s agreeing with her argumentatively.

        3. Dot

          I think you meant to put this reply somewhere else.

    2. zee

      Yeah that last panel is absolutely reading like cope to me lol. Sure girl, you totally didn’t just go something nice. Keep huffing that copium

      1. Jon

        But as Raidah points out, that “something nice” does wind up with a former Congressmember owing her a favor, as well as (she thinks) making Sarah’s friend-group think less of her because Sarah couldn’t help here. (That part won’t work, of course, because for most people friendship doesn’t have to be transactional, but that doesn’t seem to be the way Raidah thinks.) Sounds to me more like she’s mocking the idea that she was helping anyone but herself here.

        1. zee

          It feels more like she’s trying to convince herself she’s mocking the idea of helping anyone here. It’s the look on her face, it’s giving denial

        2. Dot

          100%

        3. Shade

          Right is not smug or otherwise showing some kind of satisfaction for how everything is coming together. She’s clearly bothered by the implication.

      2. BarerMender

        Also, no way does she have Robin in her pocket. If it comes to manipulation, Robin will eat her alive.

  5. ZombieKyrik

    Is Raidah tsundere? Another good reason to not like her.

    I can’t stand tsundere people/characters, and I don’t know what makes them appealing to others.

    1. Pocky

      Nah, think that’s Sarah’s thing. Which tbf, I think a few of the tough gals in this comic get flustered by affection lol

      1. Nono

        No that’s Ruth’s thing. Sarah runs on apathy, not spite.

    2. nadamás

      It just funny to see someone trying and very badly failing to pretend they don’t like someone.

    3. Armadillo

      It mostly started from the sad desperate hope that the person who treats you like shit is actually secretly into you.

      Though these days the archetype is more about people being hilariously bad at being honest about their feelings.

      1. nadamás

        Yeah when i say i think tsuderes are funny i always am referring to the that second kind. First one is just kinda bad, and when it’s someone treating you like shit being into, it’s the fantasy of someone who repeatedly reject you being into because yiu can’t take no gor an answer.

    4. mindbleach

      She’s a narcissist. Everything is transactional, egocentric, and obsessed with control.

    5. Wraithy2773

      Girl needs a lot more dere to go with all that tsun.

    6. zee

      Weak, tsundere supremacy. Inject that gap moe directly into my veins

  6. Morhek

    “Yes, my eeeevil plan to…bail out queer protestors after they opposed a fascist genocide…SUCCEEDED!”

    Somewhere, Galasso is shaking his head at the amateur hour on display.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      “You’re kinda new to evil, ain’tcha.”

      (not a raidah strip but i’ll gladly take any opportunityo to link one of the all-time greats of doa)

      1. RassilonTDavros

        dammit fucked up the html

        1. True Survivor

          The link worked for me. Also, kudos in recalling this strip. That is quite a memory you have.

      2. Tequila Mockingbird

        Ah! A capital callback. Well played, comrade.

    2. C.T Phipps

      Raidah seems to think she’s a supervillain but she’s actually just upset at all the crap she takes as a educated brown woman.

      So she embraced being the Mastermind.

      https://youtu.be/Tmz1lz0zcLQ?list=RDTmz1lz0zcLQ

      1. justin8448

        In my head I immediately assumed that was a link to a clip from the movie “Megamind,” with it’s villain-to-hero arc.

        Instead I got to hear a new-to-me Taylor Swift song.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Hahah!

          🙂

    3. anon

      tbf i don’t think raidah would’ve agreed if they were trying to bail out someone pro facist

  7. The Rev

    How many chapters before Raidah is added to the polycule.

    1. Disastroid

      She lies there, naked, panting, sandwiched between Joyce and Dorothy, clinging to her last ounce of consciousness and smiling. “Sarah could never.”

      1. Tequila Mockingbird

        Hell, I’d read that fanfic.

      2. Airyu

        I genuinely laughed so hard i gave myself a stomach ache, amazing comment a+++

  8. Pocky

    honestly it may be more dangerous to owe Raidah a favor than Asher at this point lol

    1. Newlland(Henryvolt)

      I honestly still don’t see the current Asher as a malicious conniving antagonist who’s lying in wait, if there’s any danger with him it’s because of a storm cloud of trouble from his past that he’s trying to convince himself he’s left behind that he knows fully well that he hasn’t.

      Raidah on the other hand I do see being more malicious but I’ve yet to see her have any REAL leverage to harm the people she’s decided to have animosity with.

      1. Pocky

        Asher has mob family ties; and the meme of “just when I think I’m out, they pull me back” might be the big issue goin forward. Him havin to use a mob doctor also kinda puts him in a spot where that might come back to bite him and the others in the ass later on.

        I joke mostly about Raidah. In spite of all her piss and vinegar, she actually hasn’t done anything really harmful, outside of some weirdly homophobic leaning stuff to Joyce. But I think that may have been more of her trying to shame Joyce or get her to feel bad about her future, rather than actually harm her.

        1. Nono

          It’s less that Asher has mob family ties because otherwise we also have Amber and Faz. It’s that Asher was (at least up til fairly recently) USING said mob family ties, though he may at least have been partially coerced to do so.

          I do believe that Asher is trying to be on the straight and narrow, circumstances just keep making him make use of those resources. It’s not like he could have said ‘okay there’s a dying person here but I want to be honest so I’m not going to call in my mob doctor connections’.

  9. Newlland(Henryvolt)

    This is a fun dynamic, Raidah is shutting down any inclination that the two of them were true Allies at any point, as she should. “Don’t get it twisted, I did this for me and me alone. I have no intention of being your friend.

    I get it though, their interest aligned for a moment and that’s it.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Raidah is kind of a Mike variant.

      She thinks she’s hard but she’s just soft.

      1. Armadillo

        Nah. Mike knew exactly how soft he really was. It’s how he was able to so disturbingly easily commit to dying for the people he cared about.

    2. nadamás

      She is Trying to shutdown any inclination of that. She is not particularly succeeding.

  10. Taffy

    She’ll be fucking Kevin within the hour.

    1. ZombieKyrik

      Who is Kevin?

      1. Clif

        He was a physicist changed the course of educational institutions forever by inventing degrees.

        Even today you can here physicists talking in their sleep about degrees Keven.

        1. True Survivor

          I hate you. That was beautiful.

        2. ZombieKyrik

          I don’t get it; can you explain?

        3. Clif

          The joke is that they mispronounce his name as Kelvin.

        4. ZombieKyrik

          Ah, thank you. That should have been obvious, but my brain is fried at the moment. I have a hard time understanding jokes when I’m mentally exhausted.

        5. Jeff K!

          I was also trying to work in “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” to my interpretation of the joke, because my brain processed it as more complicated than it was.

        6. Nymph

          6 degrees of Kelvin Bacon

        7. Jon

          Bacon at 6 Kelvin would be unpleasantly hard and cold…

        8. Van Jealous

          Oh Lord!……..Kelvin, that is.

        9. eh, whatever

          Kelvin is Lord!

        10. Van Jealous

          Yes, he Absolutely Rank(ine)s up there with the best of them!

        11. Anna

          OK…Keven, Kevin, Kelvin…that got a bit confusing

        12. Tequila Mockingbird

          This is the best possible response. XD

        13. NGPZ

          physics major here

          it aint degrees Kelvin, it’s just Kelvin 😛

  11. RassilonTDavros

    You like Krabby Patties, don’t you Squidward Raidah

  12. Smooti

    Sometimes Raidah does enough things that my jaw unclenches a little around her, and then strips like this bring the bruxism right on back. Oh, Raidah, I would say “never change” but I really hope you do

    1. Clif

      Hey, I’m impressed she understands the conventions well enough to hang back and monologue on her evil plans.

  13. nadamás

    The lady doth protest too much methinks

  14. C.T Phipps

    Raidah is kind of fascinating.

    She’s the anti-Dorothy.

    She thinks she’s a scheming political mastermind but is just the Taylor Swift song version of one.

    Like Dorothy thinks politics is about education and helping others.

    1. Axel

      What drives me crazy is that Raidah’s whole thing is networking and making connections, except that (from what we’ve seen) whenever she’s done with someone, she seems to just completely burn her bridges and like??? girl you’re making more enemies than colleagues

      1. Pocky

        From my experience with ladder pullers in minority communities, they weight their burned bridges against the value of the bigger connections they make. Raidah has been consistent with that kinda behavior, down to the hatin of 1 or 2 other people they have beef with for dumb reasons lol

      2. Cameron Stone

        She’s a spiteful bitch, not that complicated.

        1. Adept

          Yeah. Neither complicated nor fascinating.

        2. Axel

          in my defence I said it drives me crazy, not that it’s confusing

    2. HueSatLight

      I see her as a version Dorothy, but less naive. or naive in a different way. Like Dorothy didn’t seem to understand the correlation with Ivy League and Powerful People. It was just a formula missing details that would have made it moot.
      Raidah knows about networking. well the broad strokes. She has more realistic understanding of American society than Dorothy, so she’s a step or two ahead, but that’s it. She’s like a year older, she’s not the power player she imagines she is.

      1. Tequila Mockingbird

        See, this take makes the most sense to me. End of the day, these characters are teenagers. Remember how dumb we were as teenagers? Exactly. They’re smart kids, but they are still learning things about both the world and themselves.

        Plus, no matter the age, anyone who is certain they got it all figured out inevitably does not…. but that’s the kinda wisdom only time can teach you. As the joke goes, “good decisions come from experience, and experience? Well, that comes from bad decisions.”

  15. Axel

    I don’t think Robin’s all that useful a former congresswoman to have in your pocket, but Raidah’ll find that out eventually.

    1. C.T Phipps

      If Robin ever switched to a Democrat, she’d been overwhelmed by people trying to welcome her like they did Megyn Kelly, Liz Cheny, and MTG.

      It’s just all of those women were still horrible people.

      She could easily be the next Democratic candidate. Maybe during a special election after the current one is kidnapped by aliens.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Yeah, Robin’s out of politics because she chose to be, not because she didn’t have any viable avenues back into power

      2. ValdVin

        Robin will never be a Democrat unless she has a “road to Damascus” journey.

        Robin has absorbed Murc’s Law–the idea that only Democrats (not Republicans, not the mainstream press, not the right wind puke funnel) have political agency.

        1. Tequila Mockingbird

          Wasn’t aware this dynamic had a name. I got to learn something today. 🙂

        2. ValdVin

          Now that you know the term you’ll be using it sooo often.

      3. thejeff

        Encouraging one enemy to turn on another is hardly welcoming them. You want their voice to help sway Republican leaners away from Trump, but that’s not the same as “welcome to the party”. You’ll notice none of them actually switched. None of them tried to run as Dems – because they would lose badly.

        And it’s an even weirder thing with Robin, where the whole threat was that she’d win on a combination of Republican voters just voting “R” as usual and leftists who liked Becky’s tweets. Not by mainstream Democratic support.

      4. Chris Phoenix

        One of those things is not like the others – Cheney seems to have intelligence and integrity. I don’t agree with her of course. But if we have a post-Trump era, she and Peter Meijer may be people to watch. (Any Republican who can say, seriously, “Something is wrong in the US and I don’t understand it and I’d need therapy to understand it” has my attention. That’s a lot of things that 90% of Republicans would never say.)

        1. C.T Phipps

          My distaste for Liz is she voted for 90% of the things Trump supported. Which is a reminder of agenda being the R agenda.

        2. thejeff

          Of course, first term Trump, when Cheney cast those votes was more constrained than he is now. It’s more now that the Republican agenda is the Trump agenda.
          And Cheney broke with him fully after 1/6, which is a low bar, but one the vast majority of elected Republicans couldn’t clear.

    2. Doopyboop

      I dunno, if Raidah gives her a giant bag of froot loops cereal she might have a one woman army on her hands…

    3. Newlland(Henryvolt)

      Kind of underestimating Robin’s recent Accolades. She snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and made a great come back in her re-election bid all by betting on the right person and then just chose not to take the job out of a new found sense of principle.

      Then takes up a job teaching politi-sci on a college university and not only ends up being good at it but also ends up Amassing several different new proteges who will end up having a bit of pull in thr political world in the future.

      And them there being arrested for protest college campuses for funding the military industrial complex. Bernie Sanders himself was arrested once for protesting against apartment owners discriminating against black renters and that just got him a lot of good will and credibility in the long run when he didn’t think it would. What do you think this will do for Robin?

      1. Cameron Stone

        Well nowhere fast because she was a Republican.

      2. thejeff

        Where “betting it all on the right person” meant got a wave of sympathy after the kidnappings.

    4. Bryy

      That’s the beauty of Raidah. She’s actually an idiot.

      1. NGPZ

        i mean this level of naivity is pretty typical for a freshman honestly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        1. Nymph

          Raidah is a sophomore jsyk.

        2. NGPZ

          oh yeah

          eh, still has a long way to go as with the rest of them youngins XD

  16. Sirksome

    Don’t trust being heavily in denial.

    1. Clif

      Denial is nice this time of year. Once the floods peak in August and September, not so much.

  17. Coatl

    I don’t know what to say. I mean, Dorothy thanking the person who crushed her dream in the most cowardly way possible.

    And I know many see this as the starting point for Raidah’s character development, but I honestly don’t think so.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I mean, she just made a single zinger in the hallway.

      THAT’S the most coward way possible?

      1. Coatl

        I say this because she met Dorothy as part of that plan to separate her from Jacob, and since she’s friends with Joyce, she simply took it out on her.

        Ultimately, Raidah is awful, and the fact that this strip wants to show us a possible development…hmmm

    2. nadamás

      I don’t get what you mean with cowardly. Id Dorothy being cowardly for Thanking Raidah? Was Raidah being cowardly when she told Dorothy many presidents committed war crines (or just regular crimes)? Neither make much sense to me.

      1. Coatl

        Cowardly for taking revenge on her because she knows she was Joyce’s friend at that time

        1. nadamás

          I don’t think that counts as revenge? Like, Dorothy whole presidency thing was kind of weird and i think Raidah response would had been the same wherever Dorothy knew Joyce or not. I don’t see anything cowardly about it. Cowardly would had been if she started saying shit behind her bsck or something like that, she just told her to her face something she probably genuinely believes.

        2. Coatl

          Good point, but the fact that it was Raidah who said it doesn’t change the fact that it was hurtful.

        3. nadamás

          I didn’t say it wasn’t? I just said it wasn’t cowardly. I do think it was something Dorothy needed to hear, which most of her friends wouldn’t had said at the time, which is why she thanking Raidah for it

        4. Coatl

          The point is that I don’t like Raidah, but yes, one only learns the hard way, and the truth is that neither Joyce nor Walky would have said that to Dorothy.

        5. Thag Simmons

          It was certainly mean, but I don’t really know about cowardly

          I also don’t really blame Dorothy for thinking about it as something harsh but true that she needed to hear.

    3. Pocky

      I’d argue what she said to Joyce in regards to LGBT stuff and her bein a teacher, and threats that could be made, deserved more of a side-eye than anything she said to Dorothy to shake her dreams. If anything; Raidah really didn’t go that hard in disillusioning Dorothy. lol

    4. Rand Brittain

      Dorothy’s response to learning that Being Involved In Politics Frequently Means Making Moral Compromises was honestly so ludicrous that it’s hard to really credit Raidah with any agency whatsoever in the actual results.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Raidah’s argument is unpersuasive and not particularly thorough, but Dorothy did very much need a wake-up check on her presidential ambitions.

      2. Rakeesh

        Honestly, taken strictly as it’s presented on the page in the panel, it’s good writing. They’re *both* very young people only *sort* of in the wider world (first couple of years in college), and they both of them have very incomplete views of the world and how it works. Dorothy hadn’t considered the full implications of one of the most impactful jobs a person can conceivably have, shocking! Raidah thinks advocating that ‘wanting to do good things in a big job will make you an evil person!’ accomplishes anything (OR she thinks tearing down a friend of her enemy will make her feel better), and hasn’t thought about *that* either, also shocking.

      3. Jon

        Raidah didn’t say it “frequently involves moral compromises”, though – she said that if you’re elected to high office, you’re automatically Evil with a capital E. She flat-out told Dorothy that being elected president makes you a war criminal.

        1. Clif

          There are people who would agree with that though. I think you could probably find people in the commentaries that would say that being a successful businessman automatically makes you Evil with a capital E.

        2. Thag Simmons

          Swap out “successful businessman” for the more specific “multibillionaire” and I would say a huge chunk of the commentariat probably agrees that that is pretty much an inherently evil thing to be.

          There isn’t an ethical way to accumulate that much money and power, you have to have the sort of ruthless ambition that leads you to do evil things to put yourself ahead in order to even get there in the first place.

    5. Nono

      I think Dorothy would be less likely to thank Raidah if she wasn’t riding a high of doing good, and also riding the girlfriend high.

      Two days ago she was still kinda in the middle of an angry burnout.

  18. IntangibleMatter

    Raidah, I know it’s hard for you, but you don’t have to be an asshole all the time.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Raidah wants to think she’s tough and a genius social schemer but she’s just a teenage girl.

      Same as Dorothy.

      Which is an interesting angle.

      1. StClair

        So was Azula.

        (Her dad really, really> fucked both his kids up.)

        1. StClair

          And now it’s my turn to mangle a closing tag. :p

        2. Throwatron

          That’s okay in the grand scheme of things; Ozai mangled his actual son.

        3. Tequila Mockingbird

          Now there’s the understatement of the century.

        4. C.T Phipps

          Azula was also someone I give hope for redemption because, again, she’s a child trying to please her father.

          Zuko being fundamentally different is toxic to me.

  19. Sirksome

    Between this and thinking Jennifer was her friend I think Raidah has a fundamental misunderstanding about what would actually happen hurt Sarah.

    1. anon

      did she ever rly think billiefer was her friend versus knowing who her dad is (but getting her away from joyce/sarah’s ‘friend group’ during that halloween flashback was prolly a bonus [after all, she did basically tell her to get back together or at least make things right with asher after their breakup])

      1. Sirksome

        I don’t know. It’s kind of funny to me though that Raidah needs some sort of rationale that her schemes must negatively affect Sarah even if they don’t. Even if she was befriending Billie just for the connection she thought it would hurt Sarah, but it didn’t.

        This scenario too, does Sarah actually care if Raidah is more connected than she is? Does helping Leslie and Robin (I don’t think Sarah has ever even interacted with Leslie) really do anything to Sarah?

        It just seems like Raidah puts a lot of mental effort into sustaining this vendetta with Sarah without actually knowing enough about her to hurt her.

        1. thejeff

          It does kind of feel like that plot needs to be either dropped/shown to be something else or actually brought to the forefront.

          But no, Raidah has shown no signs actually caring about Jennifer being her friend. It’s been explicitly made clear several times that she’s just using her. It’s far more the other way around: That Jennifer thinks Raidah’s her friend.

    2. BrakenFern

      It’s pretty telling that after all this time, she still focuses so much energy on being antagonistic to Sarah. Especially when Sarah’s “crime” was to try and get Dana care.

      If Raidah really was a cutthroat networker and ladder climber, would have seen Sarah’s choice to protect her own grades as being entirely logical. She’d have moved on from the whole incident, maybe sent a few cards to Dana to maintain the connection, and lost interest in Sarah if Sarah no longer had any use for her outside of keeping Dana in the fold.

      Even Dorthy knew that to have higher ambitions, getting into Yale for the prestige would be a big improvement for her chances. That Raidah isn’t working to transfer to an Ivy League or similar is interesting.

      The fact that Raidah doesn’t seem to have moved on from her gridge against Sarah or refocused on her own plans to move beyond this school really shows she’s an angry teen girl play acting her own version of Mad Men at a state school in Indiana of all places.

      1. Clif

        She had plans to move beyond school. That’s what the connections were for. The plans also involved Jacob.

      2. thejeff

        Raidah understands that what undergrad school you go to doesn’t matter. It’s what Law School you get into.

  20. JessWitt

    Someone seems a tad gratitude-intolerant.

    1. Newlland(Henryvolt)

      “Gratitude-intolerant.”

      I’m going to start using that.

      1. JessWitt

        Sounds really niche but go for it!

  21. Treehawk

    Gosh, Raidah’s so interesting. It almost feels like she’s a character from a grittier and more realistic webcomic that none of the main DoA cast are in, and she just can’t stand this much sillier world she’s occasionally thrust into. I mean, I don’t think I’d want to be her friend IRL, but that’s true of nearly the entire ensemble. I just think she’s neat!!

    1. nadamás

      It is the cynic worst nightmare: Being confronted with the fact sometimes people really are just nice and want to do good and things are silly sometimes.

      1. Nono

        So, Rachel as well?

        Though Sarah is cynical, she’s just been slowly moving towards less grumpy and more actually believing in other people for the sake of it.

    2. Rabid Rabbit

      “This is ridiculous
      What am I doing here
      I’m in the wrong story…”

      Completely different context of course, but it may have started playing in my head.

    3. True Survivor

      Raidah reminds me of one of the fish I had as a kid. He(she?) was a yellow watchman goby. He would sit all day at the bottom of the tank with his grumpy frog-like goby face and drive off any other fish that came near. Yet, the aquarium would not have been the same without him. It was great.

      PS. You wouldn’t want to be friends with any of them? Not even Danny or Sal?

      1. Nymph

        Treehawk said “nearly” the entire ensemble so that does imply there are characters they’d be friends with.

        That said, absolute no and also yuck to being friends with Danny for me personally. Sal’s okay though!

      2. Nono

        I’d probably be fine being friends with Dina and post-reform Joe. Sarah in limited quantities, she’s like a cat where you leave her alone well enough and maybe occasionally ask if she wants to hang out.

    4. Coatl

      Hmmm….that would explain why her appearances feel so unpleasant.

    5. Andrusi

      Dumbing of Age, secretly an isekai all along

  22. True Survivor

    At her core Raidah is a big softy left jaded by the loss of friend, and ultimately just needs some one genuine to play Mario Kart with … That or she is the poster child for the dark-triad personality type. Its one of those two, I’m sure.

    1. Dot

      She needs someone to play video games with you say? I have a suggestion!

  23. Armadillo

    Well Raidah you accomplished exactly one of those things. I don’t think you really did enough to have anyone “in your pocket”, and the chances of Sarah actually getting upset that you helped her friends get people out of jail is… well I admit it’s not zero, but it’s not high either.
    So yeah, your only achievement here is tricking Dorothy. A girl who regularly tricks herself to a far greater extent. Fantastic work.

    1. BrakenFern

      I doubt Robin even registered or remembers Raidah’s involvement. Robin and Leslie both see Dorthy as the one who found them and coordinated their release. So, Raidah isn’t actually seeing the situation accurately.

  24. Bill Erak

    Here’s a reminder she only helped because Dorothy specifically threw Sarah under the bus. So her “actual protesters” line is bullshit, she would’ve done nothing if it wasn’t just to spite Sarah.

    1. anon

      wouldn’t it be more throwing under the bus if she actively hurt sarah as opposed to just saying raidah would be more ‘helpful’? i doubt sarah would’ve taken offense that dorothy asked raidah over her

      1. Bill Erak

        Have we read the same comic? Sarah is already offended with Joyce/Dorothy for the cheating stuff. If she finds out Dorothy had some legal stuff to ask about and she went to Raidah over her she’ll be upset about it for years.

        1. Adam Black

          I don’t think so.
          I think she will be relieved.

          She already has an allergy to teenage drama.
          Her roommate is the posterchild of a movement that could get her expelled thanks to Dorothy.

          She’s afraid of losing her scholarship. She’s dating the Deans son and Dorothy neighbor just got the cops to search their rooms.

          I don’t think Sarah wants to be connected to this.

    2. Rakeesh

      How did she throw Sarah under the bus? She tried calling Sarah, Sarah didn’t take the call. Did I miss something?

      1. Bill Erak

        R: “My connections, not sarah’s”
        D: “No. Not sarah’s.”
        Like, even if it was the correct choice (which I’m not debating), if I knew a friend of mine had gone to my worst enemy and admitted to them that they’re better/more useful than me, I probably would take it as a stab in the back.

        1. Adam Black

          I do think that’s how Raidah thinks.

          But not Sarah.

          Sarah is more accurately afraid that
          Raidah is manipulative and only making friends to turn other people against her.
          Which she has voiced multiple times.

    3. C.T Phipps

      Sarah admits she didn’t have selfless motives there either.

      Mind you, it’s kind of fascinating some people are actively pissed that Sarah wasn’t the one who helped the group but her archenemy.

      1. Bill Erak

        I’m not angry Raidah is helping instead of Sarah, I just don’t like Raidah in general. I’d probably still hate on her if it was at any other random strip.

  25. Reltzik

    … I want to dislike her motives, but hey, if it got her doing good, is it really that bad?

    1. nadamás

      Snd it is pretty likely she just lying to herself.

    2. ZombieKyrik

      Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still the right thing.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Wasn’t that what she was accusing others of doing before?

        1. ZombieKyrik

          Yes, which is another reason Raidah needs to go fuck herself.

    3. anon

      i mean there’s still a chance for her to help other arrested ppl but idk if she’d go that extra mile

  26. Astariel

    That last panel is really ominous. I hope Dorothy’s watching her back, because Raidah’s clearly sharpening her knife.

    1. anon

      better than owing asher a favor

      tho while climbing the corporate ladder and getting connections might seem like she’s planning some ‘morally gray #girlboss vibes’ i doubt she’d ask dorothy for anything too malicious as payback

      1. Astariel

        I trust Asher waaaaaaayyyyyyy more than Raidah.

        And I’m not worried she’s going to ask Dorothy for anything. I’m worried she’s going to continue to let Dorothy believe they’re allies right up until she finds the perfect moment to hurt her as much as possible.

  27. Hazel

    Raidah is such a great addition to the comic.

    1. nadamás

      But definitely not one to the comments if previous appearance are anything to go by ?

    2. Astariel

      Ugh, I would pay real money for her to never show up again.

  28. Fail Earnhardt

    Can Raidah tie her shoes without retconning it as a way to indirectly hurt Sarah?

    1. Bryy

      Raidah is the opposite of the “look at that bitch eating crackers” meme.

    2. thejeff

      It’s not even retconning. When Dorothy asked, she said up front “My connections and not Sarah’s?” and “You said the magic words”.

  29. Doribi

    What’s this I see? a crack in the cold, calculating facade? Raidah might actually have some good characterization coming her way.

  30. tim gueguen

    Raidah isn’t as clever or as savvy as she thinks she is. Sooner or later it’s gonna bite her in the ass and someone will take advantage of her. For example I get the impression that she doesn’t know that Robin is sort of a Sarah Palin type, who no one in her party takes seriously, and any connections she hasn’t aren’t particularly useful outside her own locality.

    1. Coatl

      It will be astonishing to see that harsh and lethal blow of reality.

    2. anon

      I mean she could spin it in a way like “helping a queer teacher” more so with robin being an addon

  31. Yotomoe

    I thought Raidah wasn’t wearing pants for a second.

    1. NGPZ

      ??? IM DEAD BRUH AAAAAAAAAAH

    2. Mewzard

      I feel like going pantsless while trying to bail someone out in winter is a poor time for that life decision, lol.

    3. Effie

      Don’t trust pants.

    4. anon

      tight fitting leggings aside that’s one reason why i’d never want flesh colored leggigns XD

    5. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      This is Dumbing Of Age. Pantsless Largo is over there in Megatokyo.

  32. Lightweight Baybee

    alr i give raidah alot of shit but i’m genuinely glad she’s not just a bootlicker

    she still abused the shit out of sarah for little to no reason tho and she’s gonna have to make that right

  33. thenamelesssamurai

    You know,kinda middle of the road on Raidah, but I would be interested in an arc that gives us more information on her internal world, overall worldview and underlying assumptions. It would be a good character moment for her.

  34. Icalasari

    I mean, can’t blame her. Good to have favours owed to you

    1. Bryy

      She views it as “favors”, though.

  35. Shinji16

    Can Raidah go play in traffic already?

    1. anon

      not saying it’s right but considering she’s prolly not white passing, irl i wonder if any officers would question/stop or eye her cautiously just being around this correction center or so (i wonder how far the station is from the center)

  36. Florence

    I like this

    1. Florence

      Like taking her cartoon villainy and it being a terrible front is so funny

  37. anon

    i mean, i don’t think sarah’s gonna be all that fuss that she couldn’t have been the one to help rob/leslie

  38. Bryy

    Love that Raidah actually thinks that Robin is in any way in debt to her.

    1. anon

      Robin will prolly ‘pay her back’ with some bs kinda thing

      (imagine if she took a selfie together with her and like “shout out to future lawyer who helped me!” and just that act would be enough for any major firm to black list her from being hired

      1. Bryy

        oh, no, yeah, I totally want an arc where Raidah “comes to collect” and each strip is Robin buying her ludicrous stuff.

        1. NGPZ

          yeah this is literally like when James in pokemon keeps falling for the same scam where he pays $1000+ for a Magikarp XD

  39. Kyulen

    Unless Robin intends to somehow get back into politics in the future, Raidah having this particular former congresswoman in her pocket probably isn’t gonna be as useful as she seems to think. I don’t remember entirely since that storyline was years ago for us readers, but I’m pretty sure Robin alienated all her old political allies during the last storyline when she was still a congresswoman.

  40. apocryphascribe

    Raidah sucks at this, and I love that she does. Also, she looks great particularly in panel 3, good art Willis.

  41. DashWallkick

    If her and Dorothy end up being friends despite her loathing of Joyce I’m going to cackle.

  42. Imogen

    The steady cartoon villainification of Raidah is wild to see. She started out looking like a very specific archetype of “self-righteous bully poisoned by toxic ideas of loyalty and a need to be Right into basically just exiling her exes from their communities under the guise of justice”. She was a hypocrite *who didn’t know she was a hypocrite.*

    Like, remember when she made one comment to Sarah–after prompting from Sarah–about “oh, actually, your contempt for these people is unhelpful, you shouldn’t assume none of them have connections”, and it sort of showed a complicated mix of affection and practicality? Now it’s her one personality trait.

    Now she gives evil villain monologues like Blaine.

    I honestly think this comic needs to stop featuring these villains and start featuring dumb kids who make stupid choices.

    1. Imogen

      So, in other words, whenever Billie isn’t on the screen, Imogens are asking “Where’s Billie?”

      I struggle to put all this constructively, which lessens me a little. I am not hatereading Dumbing of Age. This is just a really frustrating trend with characters like Raidah, and it’s not too late to change it if Willis wants to? Probably. What’s the buffer looking like?

      1. nadamás

        I honestly just wouldn’t expect Willis will change things in ways that will specifically cater to what you want to happen. That is just statistically unlikely. They might really don’t see any problem with the way they write Raidah and some people will like it and other wouldn’t. That’s just it is.

        1. Imogen

          IDK, I don’t disagree, but it feels more constructive to say “I don’t like this, I hope it changes” than “I don’t like this”. I don’t comment negativity here much, and that’s half because I don’t usually think I have much to say that’s of any good. I always try to assume authors see my posts when deciding how bitchy to be.

          (the other half is, you know. what’s below).

    2. Bryy

      Raidah is a dumb kid making dumb choices. This is the entire point of her monologue. She thinks she is Blaine. She is not.

      1. Techhead

        Which is a good thing for her considering where being Blaine got Blaine.

    3. Cameron Stone

      I mean, Raidah was really never that complex, she existed mostly to be an antagonist/romantic rival for Sarah. Her main quality was she was a two-faced social climber who was mostly upset Sarah got her roommate pulled out of school because it meant she couldn’t network with her anymore, but veiled it in a veneer of Sarah being a narc.

      1. Throwatron

        The only current weakness in Raidah’s characterization IMO is that she started out as being transparently awful and abusive to everybody around her, and now we kind of have to retcon how extremely antagonistic her characterization was in her first 20 or so strips…but I’m willing to do that, because I’m deeply intrigued in the possibilities for a more nuanced version of her character, who could have a less obliquely caustic contribution to the narrative.

        1. nadamás

          I don’t see why we gotta retcon anything, nothing she has done so far really contradicts anything she did before.

        2. Daibhid C

          I think it’s more we have to pretend she’s been less awful to the other characters to explain how they react to her.

          “Joyce, I think … we need to ask Raidah for help.”
          “Really, Dorothy? What about Mary? Is there any way talking to Mary could help, because that seems slightly preferable.”

        3. nadamás

          I don’t agree with that, can’t really pit it any more eloquently than that. ?

    4. Taffy

      Where’s the evil villain monologue? Is it in a Patreon-exclusive strip? In this one, she’s blatantly lying to herself with nobody around to hear her lie.

      1. nadamás

        Never let reality get in the way of bongoing about something that doesn’t matter.

        1. Imogen

          This isn’t a very respectful way to talk about people.

  43. Kyle

    Wow, this is stupid.

  44. Zamperla

    Sometimes you got so many chips on ya shoulder you cant even take a W. This, however, is a pretty normal part of Being Like 18-19, Which Everyone In This Cast Is.

    1. ValdVin

      Agreed.

      But Raidah’s whole schtick is “Future lawyer here; I’m more mature than you.”

      I want to see that maturity, influence, and weight thrown around elsewhere against worthier forces, not just her circle of friends, Dorothy, Walky, Billie, or recovering fundie homeschooled Joyce.

      1. nadamás

        I mean she believes she is more mature. Doesn’t mean she actually is.

      2. Zamperla

        “19 year old who is Super Super Super Super Super Super convinced they’re Way More Mature then Every Other 19 Year Old but also somehow isn’t actually using that maturity or influence in useful or kind ways 90% of the time” is, also, a very normal type of 19 year old. As is her thinking petty local social dynamics are The Most Important Thing To Deal With.

        she still 19ish.

  45. Acher4

    Aaaaaahhh there’s the Raidah we all hate and…. well hate. 😛

  46. Anonymous

    So fiendish! Do nice things for people to plant in them the false pretense that you might potentially do nice things for them!

    The SMBC strip ‘social-2’ comes to mind:

    “Wanna… hear… about… my day?”

    “If I rack up enough time doing that can I trade it for you having to listen to me?”

    “Yes.”

    “Is this… Is this…”

    “Friendship?”

  47. Thing 2

    Maybe Raidah has Dorothy’s hat.

  48. ADLegend21

    putting Robin in your pocket is only slightly less damaging than putting chewed gum in your pocket.

  49. Da Boy

    My shipper brain is now seeing them making out while Raidah is in full “This isn’t because I love you, I just want to stick it to Sarah” Tsundere Mode.

    1. Florence

      Raidah X Dorothy would be a hilariously chaotic direction for this all to go, especially after everything else

    2. John Campbell

      Raidah: “Let’s see how Joyce likes it when her girlfriend makes out with someone else!”

      :Raidah and Dorothy make out licky-style:

      :Joyce sits in the Joyce chair, taking notes while blocking out the Raidah part with her hand:

  50. Needfuldoer

    What did Raidah contribute? If she called a lawyer friend, it happened off-screen.

    I thought Leslie and Robin just had to post bail.

    1. nadamás

      Ok so there this thing called “inference” where you are giving two related points of information and you can do reasonable assumptions about them. (I am being a dick on purpose but come on, it is not that hard we literally saw her say she call a lawyer before they were released and she is there)

      1. Cameron Stone

        I guess, but we know that Sarah was originally in the previous strip helping get Leslie and Robin out instead of Raidah, so she really didn’t contribute anything Sarah couldn’t have!

        1. Throwatron

          Is this a thing that happened on Twitter? ’cause I don’t have the evidence for that in what I remember

        2. nadamás

          She wasn’t. That just flat out not true.

      2. Needfuldoer

        Comics are a visual medium. Seeing events unfold is more interesting than seeing characters stand around talking about off-screen events after the fact.

        1. nadamás

          Not everything is really worth the time of illustrating it.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Would this storyline be improved if we introduced Raidah’s lawyer friend directly.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Yes, because she could gloat. “You’re welcome for allowing you access to my lawyer friend’s help, by the way.”

        1. Needfuldoer

          Instead of “oh yeah well I totally have this lawyer friend who will help you. No you wouldn’t know them. They go to a different school in Canada.”

          Then Ruth appears: “did someone say Canada?”

        2. nadamás

          She could do that without showing tge lawyer, it really doesn’t change anything.

        3. Thag Simmons

          This is, in fact, literally what has happened, without the story needing to show the lawyer.

          Like, if Willis doesn’t have any killer ideas for a lawyer character, why bother introducing them and coming up with a design if they aren’t necessary. Narrative economy.

  51. yak

    Raidah tsundere arc???

  52. Rimwalker55

    Dorothy is so cruel. Not only thanking Raidah for doing a Good, but crediting her with breaking Dorothy away from the Shiny Presidency that was making her crush herself. Truly a masterclass of evil.

    Raidah may never recover violating her principles like this.
    (Actually, good on yer, Raidah. Arguing with your assumptions is the beginning of growth and redemption is NOT just a story.)

  53. Andrusi

    Actual. Protesters.

    Think about that.

    %lt;/injoke>

  54. Andy

    My callback for her is Sydney, who has an inflated opinion of just how powerful she is and how important she is in other people’s lives. Less cackling though.

  55. PrognosticHannya

    Oh my god are we on a Raidah tsundere arc? I am SO here for this.

  56. Marvelman

    The scariest thing about Raidah is that there are probably a lot of people out there who think like her.

  57. Amós Batista

    “That’s you hearth growing a couple inches”
    Raidah ? Bubbles

    1. Needfuldoer

      And what happened then? Well, in Bloomington they say
      that Raidah’s small heart grew three sizes that day!

      Then the true meaning of friendship came through
      And Raidah found the friendliness of ten Raidahs, plus two!

  58. Juanoku

    Is she resisting the fact that she’s doing a good thing?
    Yeah I fucking hate her

  59. Rowen Morland

    Is Raidah’s role model Iago?

    Those stage whispers…

    1. Needfuldoer

      Now she has Gilbert Gottfried’s voice in my head. Thanks.

    2. Steamweed

      Next year, Raidah joins the college theatre. Gets the part of Stage Manager in their production of Our Town.

  60. Sarah

    Girl do you have even a SINGLE sentimental fiber in your heart goddamn

    1. Dot

      She’s trying to pretend that she doesn’t.

  61. Wendy

    Ahahaha Raidah is so awful. I love her.

  62. Amelie Wikström

    It’s still helping even if you don’t intend to and actively resent it, nyah nyah.

    1. Dwampre Scorrigank

      Dorothy delivering the politest of flexes

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