11-03-14 No matter how frustrating

[FlashD81]

"and here we GO!"

Dillon's power of persuasion is too much for poor Ruby to handle. I love the look Ruby has in the last panel too. You can almost see her go (shit, I suckered again?).

The event that will probably known as The Gig is going to one long remembered for various reasons. I have a few ideas on what could happen but with so many people it's too hard to see how this can go anyway but bad.

[Spidrift]

Ruby is naive and inexperienced, but she's not a complete idiot. She's just sentimental (under a very thin shell), and averse to confrontation. She wants to be liked, and more importantly, she doesn't want to be disliked by people outside her family. As Dillon forces confrontation every time he opens his mouth, she's having trouble dealing with him right now. But that should at least help her cultivate some healthy cynicism over time, which is what she needs.

I'm not sure that Angel would help her much, in that he uses much the same tactics as Dillon. Of course, if he got to her, he might help her with Dillon by persuading her to be cynical about everything Dillon says. From his point of view, that would be a way to mess with Dillon; from Ruby's point of view, it would help her deal with the situation in the apartment better.

Anyhow, while the concert is clearly going to be a storm of chaos, I wonder if the two comics will actually run parallel strands rather than one interweaving story? It'd make sense to have one camera focussed on the Ma3 folks down the front, and the other mostly on Ruby (and, I suspect, Jerzy and Andy) at the back, with occasional movement between them courtesy of Amber or Dillon.

(Old Coupling fans will get what I'd really, really like to see if I say "9 and a half minutes".)

[Artemisia]

Play out the storyline, back up and see it from a different perspective, and do that three to four times total, right?

[Ecchi-Spud]

Okay, this calls for popcorn.

Truckloads of it.

EVEN RUBY??? Hilarious!!

AGREED!! So many characters on a collision course!!
CARNAGE!! CRASHES!! CHAOS!!
At the Convention Center on Sunday SUNDAY SUNDAY!!!

[zaprzapb]

Now Ruby is going to the band's gig. This is gonna be good.

[sukebe senpai]

I think we should start shipping Ruby and Dillon.

[vampire hunter D]

When Ruby met Zii...

I wonder how that will go.

She may already know Zii. She was Amber's best friend in HS after all.

[Geeno]

I can Ruby and Gary both hiding in a quieter spot in the bar. Technically there, for their friends, but as far away as possible while still being there. Frankly, though, I can't see anything passing between them but minimalist, stilted conversation, and both of them being content with that.

[Spidrift]

She may already know Zii. She was Amber's best friend in HS after all.

As I said before - she may indeed. But worldly, sex-crazed late teen meeting her best friend's nerdy, speccy, pre-pubescent sister? Not much for them to talk about back then.

I can Ruby and Gary both hiding in a quieter spot in the bar. Technically there, for their friends, but as far away as possible while still being there. Frankly, though, I can't see anything passing between them but minimalist, stilted conversation, and both of them being content with that.

If the bar is the quietest spot... But Gary's relationship with alcohol may still be geekily uncertain, and Ruby strikes me as a "One glass of wine to prove that she's not unsociable" type. (She seemed to be on soft drinks when Amber was on wine, the evening she arrived in the comic.)

Agreed on the likely nature of any interaction, though. Unless she gets trapped the way she did with Andy, I reckon that Ruby would see Gary as hopelessly frivolous and faintly irritating, and that she'd intimidate him.

[Optimus Kate]

Dilly, no. Jerzy is my eye candy in this strip. Don't chase him away with your crazy.

Hehehe I love crossovers.

[themacnut]

See, this is why I say Ruby would be easy meat for a player-type of guy. If Dillon were hetero, he would've bedded Ruby already. That's why I kind of shuddered after the last panel - since Ruby's been tricked into attending The Gig, she's likely to run into Matt.

If Matt takes any interest in Ruby, Andy will have no chance. Not even a ghost of one.

[Spidrift]

Matt, for all his faults, strikes me as having some kind of baseline sense of morality - and he's certainly perceptive. I think that, once he'd spoken to Ruby for five minutes, he'd mark her down as off-limits.

Anyway, a lot of his conquests are people who actively pursued him. He doesn't have to play the great seducer much. And while Ruby would probably get confused by the way she felt every time he smiled at her, I don't think she'd go that far. Though she might keep hanging around close to him if she saw him with other guys.

[Odd Man Out]

Matt meeting Ruby doesn't worry me. He's just not active enough to pursue most partners unless, you know, Didi. He also goes a bit slower on occasion, as we saw with Sandra (until she turned into whatever super powered form booze triggered). If anything, Ruby seems too uptight for his tastes.

I am curious to see Ruby in a rock and roll with alcohol setting though. So many unknowns to observes in that scenario.

[Bambikles]

Hey, Ruby hastes sex, but maybe she knows how to have fun and will surprise us. Though what we've seen until now doesn't allow to be very optimistic.

[Spidrift]

Doesn't hate so so much as fears and, therefore, defensively despises, I think. But no, I think that Ruby's pleasures are likely to be more cerebral and quiet than rock and roll and hard liquor. If she got to parties, she wouldn't be so generally naive about the sort of thing that happens at parties, would she?

(Though the quasi-Ruby type I know best took to this sort of thing quite happily. But she didn't have Ruby's issues.)