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RConrad wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2019 7:12 pm

Well there's definitely some baggage that needs unpacking. Guess Marie has some real abandonment issues that puts things into better perspective. Without Sandra to confide into, she turned to Eva, who once again used Marie's emotionally vulnerable state to her advantage. And I'm predicting that if Sandra were to explain how and why exactly she just up and disappeared, it will only make Marie hate Zoe more and push her further into Eva's clutches, unless our red-headed heroine can find a way to convince her to let all the hate go.

Aaaaaaaannnnnndddddddd we have a winner!!!

BTW. Love last panel.

Indeed. But honesty was the only real option because Sandra would probably stumble on making something up about leaving.

Of course this may lead to Eva’s downfall if she gets careless and openly brags about her master plan.

Or perhaps the real lesson for Sandra here is that if you're going to disappear from people's lives without making any effort to get in touch with them it could well have negative consequences and cause them pain.

Still I suppose if you're just too busy to find an hour or so to use the internet or write a letter what can you do?

Very predictable. But it’ll be interesting to see what comes after this.

Will say that the only plausible reason Sandra couldn’t stay in contact with Marie and others is because their contact info would be on whatever phone she had after her adventure in the modeling world started, and wasn’t with her when she was shipped back to Canada, and she didn’t remember said info.

Not that plausible really because unless Sandra was a total airhead you'd think she might remember people's names and where they work or what websites they run. So while she might not be able to just pick up her phone and call or text them it shouldn't have been that difficult for her to get in touch.

I can understand Marie not trying to contact Sandra if she was feeling responsible for her leaving without saying anything but we've been given no reason I can remember why Sandra wouldn't or couldn't make the effort except the supremely lame "They kept my phone" bit.

It's not a really big thing and I'm probably making too much of it but if we're supposed to think that Sandra really cares about these people then at least give some proper thought to why she might forget all about them until she came back to show off to Zoe about her success in Canada.

dmra wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:30 pm

Or perhaps the real lesson for Sandra here is that if you're going to disappear from people's lives without making any effort to get in touch with them it could well have negative consequences and cause them pain.

Still I suppose if you're just too busy to find an hour or so to use the internet or write a letter what can you do?

Sandra did say that she wished had learned everyone's last names (and, presumably, phone numbers). The real lesson here is memorization!

dmra wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:30 pm

Or perhaps the real lesson for Sandra here is that if you're going to disappear from people's lives without making any effort to get in touch with them it could well have negative consequences and cause them pain.

Still I suppose if you're just too busy to find an hour or so to use the internet or write a letter what can you do?

Honestly, you’re logically 100% right. But Dave was absolutely determined that the plot logic should be that Sandra should be utterly unable to contact anyone in Paris, so by the frothing gibberish logic of the comic, she’s in the clear.

No sense in blaming the characters for way-beyond-idiotic plotting. The problem and the guilt are this side of the fourth wall.

Anyhow — Marie ends up looking quite weird in panel 2, doesn’t she? Guess it’s sorta chibi, is that the term?

I did say I was possibly making too much of it but for me it just undermines the idea that Sandra cares one bit for the people she left behind. And attempts by the author to use plot logic are a lot more meaningful if the writer makes an effort with them rather than just half arsing it.

Not getting a mobile phone signal while being hunted by some inbred mutants will work if you're out in the middle of nowhere. Not getting a signal if you're in the middle of the local high street not so plausible. So just saying Sandra didn't have a phone and couldn't remember anybody's surname just smacks to me of not bothering.

And it's important because we're now being told how important all these people are to Sandra but that's totally undermined by her doing nothing to even try to speak to them for a year. Why should I believe she sincerely cares for them now that she's in Paris when they never seemed to cross her mind while she was in Toronto?

But the only, only thing this says about Sandra, for good or ill, is “she’s a fictional character whose creator done fucked up at least once”. She’s not a good person or a bad person; she’s an incoherent fiction.

And Ruby in SDB was similar or the three leads in MA3. But people still care about them as characters.

It adds a lot to the story if there are some sort of stakes involved beyond just simple slapstick comedy. And here we see that Marie was obviously deeply affected by Sandra's disappearance and blamed herself for it. And all that could have been avoided if Sandra had just made a minor effort to let her know what happened and why.

Marie could still have gone off the rails because of finding Alex in bed with another woman so it wasn't even necessary to the plot for Sandra not to talk to her but to leave her in the dark about why she left.

There's caring in the emotional sense and then there's caring in the practical sense. There are definitely people whose hearts and heads don't cooperate very well, and I've met a fair of people who can be warm and supportive in person but are absolutely impossible to get a hold of remotely. It does hurt my relationship with them a bit, of course, but Sandra isn't unrealistic here. Remember that "responsible" and "perceptive" are pretty low on the list of traits to describe Sandra, so it's not out of character for Sandra to (1) not realize that Marie would be that bothered by her sudden disappearance (especially since Marie seemed to be doing pretty well for herself, at least from Sandra's POV), and (2) keep forgetting/procrastinating/avoiding getting back in touch with her Paris friends, especially since she messed things up really badly with multiple people in rapid succession just before leaving (Pierre, Lavali, Cammi, Zoe). It's a failure on her part, to be sure, but a consistent and relatable one.

Alternate take: Sandra suffers from some sort of depression, which is why she's such a heavy drinker in the first place. The reason her actions don't quite make sense is that her thought process is pathological and because of it she has extremely low self-esteem. She was afraid to face anyone she knew from Paris until she had something to show for all her efforts. It was only when the Canadian agency kicked her back up to star status that she had the confidence to go back to Paris and (attempt to) rub Zoe's nose in it.

This, by the way, is extrapolating a bit from my own experiences, so trust me, it makes sense.

BrianX wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 16, 2019 7:03 pm

Alternate take: Sandra suffers from some sort of depression, which is why she's such a heavy drinker in the first place. The reason her actions don't quite make sense is that her thought process is pathological and because of it she has extremely low self-esteem. She was afraid to face anyone she knew from Paris until she had something to show for all her efforts. It was only when the Canadian agency kicked her back up to star status that she had the confidence to go back to Paris and (attempt to) rub Zoe's nose in it.

This, by the way, is extrapolating a bit from my own experiences, so trust me, it makes sense.

It honestly kinda does. Going by her original appearance in Ma3, she appeared to use alcohol as some sort of compensator, and to encourage her to do things she felt anxious about. And despite being best buddies with DiDi, she probably felt like she was stuck in her friend's overly-endowed shadow, hence the possible inferiority complex. And when she was sent back to Canada, she looked like she literally did hit rock bottom with having to go back to work at the diner, giving more credence to the theory.

Plus I still feel like Sandra was more successful than Zoe let her realize. While she was still thinking of herself as a Hooters waitress who almost made it big, the Canadian agency probably saw her as a license to print money.