01-09-15 Who is offering you this

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Shouri
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01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Shouri »


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wiseguy
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by wiseguy »

oh golly

Dillon just got his new agent
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themacnut
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by themacnut »

Exactly how I thought Ruby would act if Dillon made the colossal mistake of confiding in her. Her desire to see live Yaoi seems to be her primary motivation these days, which is clearly going to be to Dillon's detriment.

Excellent. :ymdevil:
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Spidrift
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Spidrift »

Oh dear yes, Ruby's moral compass does seem to have got rather badly bent. Presumably even Dillon will notice that now, though he may have some trouble getting his head around the problem. It'll be interesting to see how long this lasts before somebody gets through to her with the news that she's started treating people as objects. (In other words, how long Giz feels she can keep milking the joke before Ruby gets some more character development.) It may not be straight away; I suspect that we'll see her talking Dillon into going along with this, if only for the sake of plot.

And while I'm very happy to see the story cut back to Ruby, I was rather wondering if we'd be seeing more of Amber about now, what with her interest in Ray and all. At present, we seem to have Dillon and Ruby taking it in turns as the focus character, and Amber, who seemed to be set up as an equal third lead, with her own problems and interest value, permanently shuffled into a supporting role.
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Pier777
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Pier777 »

Yeesh. First I didn't like Ruby. Then I liked her. Now I'm starting to dislike her again. I don't like these kinds of roller coaster rides!

:|

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Spidrift
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Spidrift »

She's a flawed character who showed enough of her positive features to make her sympathetic over time, but who is now going through a hormone-addled phase of crappy behaviour. You're allowed to like and dislike different sides of a moderately complex character, but if you treat any one part of her as being the whole person - well, you're going to find fiction difficult and real life impossible.
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brasca
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by brasca »

Ruby' has an ulterior motive, but thinking critically is Dillon doing the right thing by walking away from a role like this just because the producer is a sleaze? It is another paycheck and a potentially high profile role that could bring him to the attention of producers who are not like Nathan. Moreover, someone needs to keep an eye on Ray who already was easily manipulated by Nathan and since Dillon knows him better taking this role puts him in that position. Sure there are a lot of perks that make this far from an altruistic decision, but to turn Nathan down is more like cutting off your nose to spite your face than taking the moral high road.

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Spidrift
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Spidrift »

Dillon might feel that working with Nathan is like wrestling a pig - you know, you both get dirty but only the pig enjoys it. Basically, staying anywhere near Nathan is likely to feel grubby, working for him means that you help put money in his pocket, and he may try some other dubious seduction trick at any time.

On the other hand, yeah, if you avoid working for or with anybody a bit dubious in the movie business, you might end up quite short of work. And the point about keeping an eye on Ray remains a good one. So an objective Ruby might have given the same advice - though the moralistic Ruby we saw at the beginning of her story probably wouldn't.

Also, it'd now be doubly ironic if the part Dillon has been offered is actually sheduled for no substantial love scenes but a tragic death scene in the first ten minutes of the movie.
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by brasca »

Perhaps this is a sign of character growth in Ruby. Yes, she has an ulterior motive in promoting Dillon and Ray love scenes. I can see it in her eyes. The Ruby we first met was far too rigid, but she has relaxed somewhat in the past few weeks. Now maybe she does not know the whole story or maybe she does and analyzed the situation without too much yaoi bias. Nathan is sleazy, but at least Dillon knows this and can avoid being sweet talked into something he will really hate himself for doing later. What does he gain if he walks away from such a role? Someone else would be cast and that person would have no interest in looking out for Ray. It would be nice if a gift from Nathan could be untainted, but it is still a gift so best to work with that.

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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by KittyHat »

I would actually say that this is just the latest expression of character flaws that Ruby has exhibited from the outset: a self-centered attitude and a general lack of empathy.

Now that doesn't mean that she's an awful, irredeemable person, but it does mean that she tends to think about situations only with respect to how they impact her, and she also has difficulty understanding others' motives (the most extreme example of the latter problem involved her being convinced to dress herself as eye candy, as I recall). She's basically bad with other people insofar as she doesn't understand them and has most of her focus only on how things affect Ruby, not on how others might feel or be affected.

That's my take on it, at least, so I'd say the problem runs deeper than just this latest misbehavior. It's rather a manifestation -- a symptom, if you will -- of the same problems that had her showing up at someone else's home acting like she owned the place, and it won't really go away until and unless the underlying problem is somehow resolved.

tl;dr: This is really just Ruby being Ruby. Again.

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Spidrift
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Spidrift »

brasca wrote:Perhaps this is a sign of character growth in Ruby. Yes, she has an ulterior motive in promoting Dillon and Ray love scenes. I can see it in her eyes. The Ruby we first met was far too rigid, but she has relaxed somewhat in the past few weeks. Now maybe she does not know the whole story or maybe she does and analyzed the situation without too much yaoi bias.
I'm sure that Ruby could prepare a perfectly good argument for why Dillon should take the part - but she didn't. She just pinched his phone and impersonated him. Which I'm putting down to hormonal over-excitement more than outright evil intent, because after all, Dillon can reverse the acceptance any time, if he wants; he could just call Nathan back and say "That was a friend of mine playing a stupid joke, and I'm not doing the job, you sleazy scumbag". But Ruby is so excited by the idea of Dillon playing sex scenes with Ray (which may not even be in the script) that she forgets everything about good manners, logic, and honesty. At most, she can now explain to Dillon why he should take the part - but she's actually made it harder for herself to convince him.

So what we're getting here is Ruby's character development, but not her growth, assuming that "growth" means "improvement". When she first arrived, she was repressing her own libido so hard it hurt; now, she's let it off the leash and it's bouncing round like an over-excited puppy, yapping and biting people. The pendulum will swing back sooner or later, and she'll realise that she shouldn't act like this. She's discovered a capacity for enjoyment; the next step is learning to control it.

Though I'm not sure how easily Dillon or Amber will be able to persuade her that this is a moral issue; I can't see her classing them as reliable moral guides. They might do better to divert her into exploring other areas, such as dating Andy. Which is not quite the same as saying that she needs to get laid, though that's a probable medium-term side-effect;* she just needs to stop treating love and sex as purely a spectator sport.

*Actually, I'm now wondering if Ruby getting laid will be written as an off-screen anticlimax. I could imagine Dillon or Amber getting back from a night elsewhere to discover Ruby and Andy in the kitchen, having breakfast, with Ruby's body language saying loudly that they and we are never going to learn any juicy details.
KittyHat wrote:I would actually say that this is just the latest expression of character flaws that Ruby has exhibited from the outset: a self-centered attitude and a general lack of empathy.

Now that doesn't mean that she's an awful, irredeemable person, but it does mean that she tends to think about situations only with respect to how they impact her, and she also has difficulty understanding others' motives (the most extreme example of the latter problem involved her being convinced to dress herself as eye candy, as I recall). She's basically bad with other people insofar as she doesn't understand them and has most of her focus only on how things affect Ruby, not on how others might feel or be affected.
Up to a point, at least. Remember also that she's never had many friends, owing to a fairly extreme nerdy personality and a very high degree of introversion, while her relationship with her sister went bad years ago and her parents seem to be pretty useless. (So her family interactions are based on mutual duty rather than love.) It's kind of hard learning how to deal with people and understand their motives if you never get any practice.

That in itself maybe shouldn't make her selfish, but she also has a pretty strong sense that virtually everybody she has dealt with at all has screwed her over, one way or another. When you look at her history, it's quite impressive that she's come out as nice as she is.

She's getting there now, but Dillon and Zii, the two friends she has now made, tend to be bad influences in other ways. That's another reason why she could use a few dates with Andy, even if they never get beyond the odd goodnight kiss; she needs some practice dealing with people on a better basis than "use or be used".
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brasca
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by brasca »

This may or may not have anything to do with character growth, but taking Dillon's phone, calling up Nathan, and accepting the role is certainly not a mousy thing to do. She may have a problem with social interaction, but she certainly can take charge.

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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Spidrift »

Oh, she's developed as a character, no question. (Though she was always sort-of capable of being assertive; it just tended to be a cover for her uncertainties in the past, and to get damped down by her problems with embarrassment. She was fragile and flaky, but not mousy.) The nice thing is that she's actually enjoying herself quite a bit of the time now, what with the interesting new hobbies and the discovery that she can actually make friends and the honest praise for her talents.

She just needs to develop a bit more empathy and resolve her anger issues towards Amber.
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-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Don Alexander »

SDB Trivia: The elapsed time between the "end" of frame 3 and the "beginning" of frame 4 is 0.02 seconds. :P
Pier777 wrote:Yeesh. First I didn't like Ruby. Then I liked her. Now I'm starting to dislike her again. I don't like these kinds of roller coaster rides! :|
Strangely enough, this strip has made me like Ruby quite a lot more...
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Re: 01-09-15 Who is offering you this

Post by Treader »

Just one of many reasons you should have deleted his number from speed-dial.

(Or Ruby's yaoi-sense also has psychic capacity.)

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