26-08-13 Essential supplements

[Bambikles]

Ruby is also very smart. She has a business degree after all. The thing is, she lacks common sense.

Which is actually an incredibly common yet not acknowledged characterization IRL.

It's just a bloody token cat for a comic which was doing fine without one. Yawn.

Best we can hope is that it will be Lita-like.

[Spidrift]

Kileys and Matts are of limited use in a comic like Ma3 or SBD which is based on dumb and dysfunctional people doing dumb and dysfunctional things.

Yeah, I know. I tend to wish these comics were something they just aren't. I like them, but I have to accept that they aren't my favourite sort of comedy. Having grown up with Jeeves and Flora Poste, and spent some of my happiest half-hours with Arthur Dent and Edmund Blackadder, I have misguided standards. Heck, very occasional moments like Kiley's mind-blast attack on Sonya suggest that G & D can sometimes write smart characters if they try.

I guess my big problem here is the mismatch between Ruby's character history and her behaviour. I just can't quite believe in her. Her nerdiness is just too extreme.

Ruby is also very smart. She has a business degree after all. The thing is, she lacks common sense.

Which is actually an incredibly common yet not acknowledged characterization IRL.

True enough. But Ruby takes it to weird extremes, and is more about the "no common sense" than the intelligence (for which we have no real evidence except the business degree). My mistake was hoping to see some signs of the brains in action.

She's proving quite a lot like Gary, actually. Except that he has an excuse for his idiocy - sexual excitement makes him stupid. Ruby has no such explanation.

It's just a bloody token cat for a comic which was doing fine without one. Yawn.

Best we can hope is that it will be Lita-like.

You mean crops up occasionally to provide a visual gag about her owner's emotional state, then disappears again? Yeah, we can hope.

Double post merged. The DAMNed

[genefever898]

I think he makes the perfect Pet Shop Boy.

Always on My Mind by the Pet Shop Boys

[Odd Man Out]

I think we may finally have a camp gay character I like even less than Dillion. That takes some work.

[themacnut]

Ruby is also very smart. She has a business degree after all. The thing is, she lacks common sense.

Which is actually an incredibly common yet not acknowledged characterization IRL.

True enough. But Ruby takes it to weird extremes, and is more about the "no common sense" than the intelligence (for which we have no real evidence except the business degree). My mistake was hoping to see some signs of the brains in action.

Ruby seems to be one of those people who's book smart (probably aced most if not all of her classes), but real life dumb - has little life experience since she probably got those top grades by spending most of her spare time with her face in a book doing schoolwork and didn't go near the party scene and may not even have gotten an internship, and if she did she probably didn't socialize much with co-workers.

[Artemisia]

She strikes me as someone who probably doesn't have many social skills, and is awkward around people in ways that Gary couldn't even manage.

[Gil Hamilton]

First true thing that kid said.

[zaprzapb]

Of course even Kiley and Matt have their dumb but funny moments...

And their current dumb but funny moment is to have Yuki join their "therapy sessions". What could possibly go wrong?

[Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot]

Ruby's glasses, short skirt, naive schoolgirl demeanor, and now her proclivity for getting frequently suckered makes me wonder if Amber and Dillon will realize that Ruby might be "a natural" in, uh, the business that Amber herself just recently left...? ;)

[Spidrift]

Ruby seems to be one of those people who's book smart (probably aced most if not all of her classes)...

We have no evidence for the latter that I've noticed, actually. She got the BBA, but we don't know her final grade. The fact that she's scrabbling to find a job might suggest that it wasn't actually a starred first.

If she's not even that book-smart, but had to spend her entire university career buried in the library to land even a passable second ... it'd be rather cruel characterisation, actually. No social life, and not even that good at the thing she does to distract herself from her emotional problems. But it'd save G&D from having to write an intelligent character.

Though to be honest, I doubt that they have that much detail defined for her. "Has a business degree" is enough to define her plot function; actual grades would be superfluous.

[Hurbster]

I think we may finally have a camp gay character I like even less than Dillion. That takes some work.

Agreed.

And Ruby is an ex-student who has no job. Pet cats are expensive and the supplies exorbitantly so. How the hell can she afford this ? Has it had it shots ? Has the shop provided a certificate of health ? Does Dillon's flat even allow pets ? Many do not.

[TheEighth]

Of course even Kiley and Matt have their dumb but funny moments...

And their current dumb but funny moment is to have Yuki join their "therapy sessions". What could possibly go wrong?

Matt gets kicked in the groin
Yuki learns about Kiley's one night stand with Gary
Kiley loses the trust of her first patient, who then decides to cut ties with her
Matt's self image gets damaged further when he learns that Kiley slept with Gary.
Kiley's second patient cuts ties with her to avoid further escalation of his problem

And.....that's all I've got.

[Spidrift]

And Ruby is an ex-student who has no job. Pet cats are expensive and the supplies exorbitantly so. How the hell can she afford this ? Has it had it shots ? Has the shop provided a certificate of health ? Does Dillon's flat even allow pets ? Many do not.

All good points. But comparing their lifestyles to their sources of income ... all these people are obviously trust fund brats who live on air.

[zaprzapb]

Of course even Kiley and Matt have their dumb but funny moments...

And their current dumb but funny moment is to have Yuki join their "therapy sessions". What could possibly go wrong?

Matt gets kicked in the groin
Yuki learns about Kiley's one night stand with Gary
Kiley loses the trust of her first patient, who then decides to cut ties with her
Matt's self image gets damaged further when he learns that Kiley slept with Gary.
Kiley's second patient cuts ties with her to avoid further escalation of his problem

And.....that's all I've got.

Oh I think the writers will think of something more complicated and devious than that.

[TheEighth]

Maybe all five at once.

But then again, all three of these people have had visions of the same persons face.

Yuki, because of her fragile mind trying to process romantic feelings for a man
Kiley, because she formed an emotion connection based on their insecurities,

We still don't know exactlywhat Matt's hang up is yet, for someone so into people, he doesn't seem to try to look inward to solve his problems

Probably because he thinks the problem could possibly be in him.

Maybe it'll involve their visions

New theory.

When the "therapy" helps Yuki to the point where she can see and feel a penis without flipping out, Kiley will ask Matt to have sex with her as the final step. As they are having sex, the only thing on Yuki's mind is getting back with her ex-boyfriend, so at the moment of climax Yuki shouts Gary's name, dealing two crushing blows to Matt's ego by having him lose out to Gary again and revealing the name of Kiley's one night stand in one fell swoop.