Jennifer was extremely irresponsible as far as we’ve seen her. This isn’t really a clap back moment. This should have been a ‘why do people think that poorly of me?’ moment.
Billie was a human disaster. Jennifer seems like she’s trying to change to become a good person. People do change, especially in a transitional points in life, like college.
People can definitely change, but taking offense because people don’t start believing in their new self after the first display of change is rather arrogant.
I think Billie would have stayed as well. Billie’s good traits are mostly kept behind breakable glass in case of emergency. Jennifer seems to be trying to let those good traits out in non-emergency situations.
Billie and maybe Jennifer was a desaster to herself only. Whenever she could care about other people she does. Some of her caring went downwards becaus her alcohol to blood ratio, but even in the first Ryan incedent she cared.
She’s *usually* been extremely irresponsible but there’s a huge “but” which we’ve seen before – when Joyce was roofied, it was Billie who was instantly there, being super responsible, focused on the practical issues of Joyce’s health rather than worrying about police and hospitals and so on. She was always an absolute dumpster fire of a person when it came to herself, and she was completely emotionally unavailable, but when faced with someone else’s practical problem, she clicked into her “head cheerleader, problem solver” mode. She’s still got all the same problems as before (except she’s maybe solved her alcohol problem?) but when she’s able to help people, she steps up to the plate and sees it through.
Billie wasn’t great when Joyce was roofied (and especially not the morning after). Sarah was the one who really took charge. She made and executed a plan while everyone was standing around not sure what to do.
seems like despite knowing each other for a decade(?), or so, compared to sal and the brief kidnapping drama, i guess walky hasn’t especially had a ‘hard’ life where he needed anyone to ‘be there for him’ or so (did we see how he reacted to jennifer’s dui at all?)
Pretty much, Linda might have favored him but her brand of nurture left him very dependent and sheltered. In away his upbringing was similar to Joyce’s minus religion.
There’s a reason she doesn’t like hanging out with him. Neither of them sees each other at their best often because that’s just the style relationship they have. They bicker, they know what buttons to press. This is what Jennifer was talking to Joyce about at the doctor’s office. Walky is one of those people that won’t let her change, because just interacting brings out that side of her. The parts of her personality he knows and loves, but parts Jennifer’s trying to change about herself.
And vice versa, Jennifer doesn’t often see the more emotionally mature aspect of Walky. The difference is he’s not trying to change who he is. He’s comfortable being Walky. Which is great, but not what Jennifer is trying to do.
What we’ve seen of their relationship has had him being alternately (or even simultaneously) teasing and supportive – from the very beginning in the recent flashback to their first bus to school. We’ve also seen or heard about her pushing him away because he’ll hurt her social standing, but then turning to him again when she’s in need.
We’ve seen her try to support him after the break-up with Dorothy, though it wasn’t very effective.
Nothing about the dui until well after the fact – no flashbacks with him at least.
Noice.
Also, the thing about references – it absolutely amazes me when anyone can draw without them. I’m not terrible at drawing from things I see, but without a model, I just can’t do anything.
So how much experience are we assuming Walky has here?
Cuz, while I like and appreciate the fan art with this, he seems to be lacking in self confidence here that I would expect wouldn’t be so noticeable after Dorothy and possibly Amber.
Not that he should be overconfident, of course.
I just expected him to have done similar positions multiple times by now so shouldn’t be this worried if he’s doing it right.
Based on what we’ve seen Walky do with Dorothy (It’s ambiguous if anything happened with Amber) I can’t say for absolute sure if they ever tried anything all that crazy.
I am probably overdoing it cuz I myself am a virgin so most stuff is new to ME.
My reasoning being that with Dorothy she sorta coached him through it while Billie is sorta throwing him curveballs and throwing him off his game. I could probably give Walky a little more credit but it’s just more fun for me to give them this dynamic. He probably feels like Billie just knows way more than he does about this stuff so he’s feeling a bit more insecure than usual.
I think he and Amber only ended up making out and I agree that Dorothy sex is probably quite regulated and very much Dorothy in the lead. So I can see him having some confidence issues.
Well, to Walky’s credit, all you ever do is blow him off, treat being around him like a chore and act like you’re above everything to do with him or who you once were. And HE’S like your oldest friend. So I think it is at least REASONABLE to assume that you would’ve done the minimum and it’s a pleasant surprise that you didn’t.
That’s even, like, exactly the expression on his face. Homie has been nothing but happy for her, this whole time. She just can’t see it, because…well, because absolutely nothing about his general affect has changed, so why would Jennifer notice that he isn’t acting the same?
Which also makes it pretty funny that she’s literally doing the exact same thing she is currently griping about it sucking to live through, to Walky, but the comic’s gotta get a laugh, somewhere.
Well to Jen’s credit Walky’s only ever acknowledged or associated with the worst aspects of her personality and the version of herself he prefers instead of validating the better person she’s trying to be. So it would be reasonable to say he doesn’t actually know much about what Jennifer is capable of. It would be nice if they both took the time to acknowledge who each other really are for once.
I’m not sure when it comes to these two, I’m sure when it comes to personal growth Jennifer has made a lot of progress but when it comes to the dynamic between them nothing has changed really. Before the time skip it was her in her own world dealing with her own problems with her current lover, no time for Walky and his nonsense. Now it’s her dealing with her problems in her own world with her current lover and still no time for Walkys nonsense and also she goes by Jennifer.
The act of her being caring tawords a friend isn’t a new feature, her being more open and honest about being caring is though. I feel like she changed more with Ruth and at the the start of freshman year than she knows.
That was the only version of herself who interacted with him in even a remotely positive way for five years. She was happy to openly antagonize him in front of the popular clique in high school.
agreeing hard with yotomoe and throwatron here. she’s always been pretty caught up in her own ego and probably has no idea how rude she’s always been to walky (and also i’m sure it’s happened but i’m having trouble remembering when she’s done anything all that kind for people? even getting ruth to the hospital was after weeks of encouraging her death spiral)
She helped Joyce after she was roofied at the party, and with how quickly she went through the steps and knew what to do implies that she’s done it before (and I believe she’s mentioned helping with things like this?) so there’s that. But Walky wasn’t around for that one, and I don’t know if he was ever told about any of it.
I was about to say even she th knows when to cut the bull and prioritize another person when she needs to.
But then I remembered that was only after things got serious and she ditched Joyce and Dorothy at that party alone to get wasted. Fortunately I like to think everyone learned a lesson that night.
She’s definitely scored higher on *saying* she helps than actually helping. Not even necessarily that she’s lying, but her skillset hasn’t matched up well with her college experiences (except that one time when Joyce was roofied).
On the one hand, yes he isn’t as familar with “Jennifer” and her sudden decision to… do something else. On the other, he has known her since elementary school and up until recently hung out.
So acknowledging her new attitude, can anyone explain what she means in the last panel?
She’s offended he thinks she’s the kind of person who would leave a friend in pain alone. Because he should know her better (because this has nothing to do with the new person she’s trying to be).
To be fair she seems to be making an effort to cut him out of her life (though that seems to be easing up since he started dating her roommate), its hardly unreasonable to assume she’s doing that with all her old friends
Walky has also been kidnapped. He’s had to face that his parents are possibly racist and have mistreated his sister. He’s had to face he’s been a shitty brother. He’s stood up to his mom which is big and scary for him. He’s trying to be a superhero which is basically a giant red flag in this comic.
He also only hasn’t failed a class because the girl who stabbed his sister hacked his grades. Plus now his girlfriend’s roommate and childhood friend is currently dating the guy who called the cops on his sister.
Like sure when you compare it to Becky, Walky isn’t dealing with much. But compared to your average college freshman – Walky has been dealing with a crapton of emotional pain and because of his attitude, no one really notices.
Certainly true. Not to mention an abusive roommate. Who died saving his (semi) girlfriend.
And he’s surely good at hiding any of that emotional pain. Since we time-skipped soon after most of that happened – especially the kidnapping and standing up to mom – we don’t really know how Jennifer interacted with him when he was likely at the worst in terms of needing support.
I will point out that he did apparently manage to catch up and pass the class – Amber’s hacking only changed his early quizzes. He would have needed to pass the midterm and final at least in order to move on to this year.
Yeah, but that’s male pain, so it doesn’t count in American society. He should just toughen up and get a real job. Other people have problems too, so he needs to get over himself and stop being affected. Doesn’t he know that other people have more extreme things going on, can’t he just take a back seat and quit being an attention hog?
(I shouldn’t have to say that this is sarcasm or that I’m aware nobody said it, but some of y’all can’t be trusted sometimes.)
Her vibe is, he SHOULD know she’d do that, he shouldn’t be surprised.
Which is either, this behaviour is consistent with how she’s acted in the past,
OR
she’s lying to herself about the kind of person she’s BEEN, perhaps in an effort to believe in the person she’s Trying to be,
Or Maybe,
it’s not consistent with past behaviour, but a person who Knows Her should have Seen that the Good Friend was There All Along, underneath the teenage fuckup.
I’d say it’s consistent with how she see’s herself and it’s even consistent with how she’s acted to some in the past – particularly her flock of cheerleaders in high school, along with a few glimpses in the first semester.
But it’s not how she’s acted to Walky, so he’s surprised.
Walky doesn’t actually know her. The version of Jennifer he thinks he knows isn’t actually her, mostly because she specifically treated him like crap because he’s like a brother to her. The whole idea that Jennifer is a selfish person who lacks compassion is just wrong. She is 100 percent the type of person to take care of people. That was the basis of her last relationship. Taking care of Ruth, caring too much about her well-being and getting too invested in a somewhat toxic relationship. Even now she still cares about Ruth, and her friends. There was a whole storyline where Jennifer just decided to try and be the dorm’s problem solver.
Walky doesn’t realize or acknowledge this because Jen and him have a specific relationship akin to that of him and Sal. He probably doesn’t realize how sensitive Sal truly is either and just thinks of her as the tough, cool sibling. That’s what’s happening here.
“When I go around kicking over old ladies, people always think I’m a person who’s always kicking over old ladies for some reason.” – Leonard Nimoy, 28 Days Later
Honestly, if I’ve known you to be a certain way from toddlerhood trough college, it’s possible that is how you actually are. If you pretend you’re something for 99% of your life, that’s only technically “pretending”.
It’s not really pretending though, it’s just different aspects of her. It’s all wrapped up in her “head cheerleader/problem solver” side and when that gets aimed at Walky it comes out all wrong, because being close with him doesn’t fit her alpha percussion instrument persona.
She has tried to do it with him though – mostly aimed at his romantic life. She tried to get him hooked up with Dorothy (after the fact, but still) and she tried to help him after they broke up.
I have never exoerienced this kind of anger and hate at a website. But now I can live my dreams of hating this fucking site and knowing what it feels like to be absolutely livid.
It should not take 9 attempts to leave a single goddamn comment. But getting the page to move up and down randomly, every time I try to click the comment box, name/email or post comment areas it decides to move and make me click on something else that loads a new page and eats my comment.
There are some people who think since there’s no procedures taking place there’s no reason to hang out until the consult is finished since Joyce will be unimpeded after it’s done.
Ah, there’s a hint of that “head cheerleader, problem solver” ofold. Well, not so much the “head cheerleader” part, but definitely the “problem solver.”
Jennifer’s trying so hard to be not-Billie that it’s understandable that people from her Billie past might think she would extend that avoidance to ‘being a decent human being’ especially given her association with ne’er-do-well, back-stabbing Asher, and “helping someone with their addiction is party pooping” Raidah.
I’m struggling to remember, but *should* Walky know better? I’m not recalling much in the way of Billie being much concerned for anyone else’s welfare, and for all of Jennifer’s eagerness to stomp on Dorothy (which was merited)…why the fuck is she telling people about the details of Joyce’s doctor visit? Even if Joyce didn’t have cult reprogramming issues relating to it, it’s not her place to go gossiping about it.
Was the one who helped Joyce post roofie in the first week.
Took Becky into her room against school rules.
Deeply got invested in Ruth and wanted to help (blocked by their dynamic)
Punched Mary for being Transphobic to Carla.
Pretty sure she had a big hand in making the Walkertons not get Amber expelled for her Dad.
Honestly there is likely more. Billie might be distant and talk shit, but when the chips are down she’s been VERY caring about members of the cast she doesn’t even interact with much. Cheerleader, Problem Solver.
Definitely selfishness, but there were deeper currents there as well.
Probably at first not really understanding how dangerous that was, but later trying to get Ruth to cut her loose since Ruth was getting better and she was still poison, too dangerous for anyone getting healthy to be around.
And remember how she reacted when she did meet Ruth at the bar – instant panic over Ruth drinking.
I think an important note is that Walky wasn’t there for any of that except for the last one. And she went out of her way to put distance between them when they were in highschool, so he wouldn’t effect her social standing.
There’s a very real possibility that Walky has never witnessed or been the recipient of Jennifers “head cheerleader. problem solver.” schtick. In fact, from his perspective, she was probably just fickle and distant.
Dangit, I didn’t even know he got married much less that he got a divorce. I still held the image of the older teen Ben Fold from about a decade ago, or is that still too young for the time?
Considering that even before they went to University Jennifer had a track record of treating Walky poorly… why would she expect him to “know” her differently? She tries to avoid him/distance herself from him any time she puts on her “cool person” persona and only goes back to him when she hits rock bottom so he’s only granted those glimpses. Once she decided to re-invent herself again (post-ruth breakup, I’m guessing) she seems to have pushed him away again so he’s not got much of an idea of the person she’s “supposed” to be right now.
Jennifer’s been invested. She was the first to recognize Joyce was roofied and checked her vitals and gave advice on her recovery. This was after knowing Joyce for less than a week. She’s also the one who volunteered her room to Joyce’s best friend when said best friend ran away from her college and dangerous home life and was living on campus illegally. Jen’s has cared about Joyce from the beginning.
that why Dorothy and Becky are the ones she told to not swoop in after she convinced Joyce to actually go to the Doctor without much fight? Also she was rooming with Ruth so she didn’t need her room and she plays it off as “just makes sense” not her being good IIRC
Absolutely you stay with a Joyce for an appt like that. Even for a non-joyce, bad periods are a red flag, that appt could uncover some serious health questions. And for a Joyce, it’s ideologically challenging on top.
Idk, it really does seem like a ‘you don’t know me at all’ question from Walky, but I’m inclined to think, yes he Does, but he’s seen her be all. off kilter. all year. loooots of reinventions and re-reinventions. She’s bounced around groups a lot, she’s been hot and cold on several of her relationships.
But not this thing, not this J. Billingsworth thing that Walky knows about her. ‘You’re STILL the kind of person who waits all thru way through a scary Dr visit with someone. That’s not been reinvented away’.
I don’t have any deep-time relationships like Walky and Jennifer have. They always seemed to have a unique value- not greater, just different.
man i don’t like her grown-up shoulder bag. It reminds me of my mums’, and my mum is great and all, but she’s a 50-something year old woman, not a uni student, cmon.
Women of all ages carry bags like that. If we were given appropriate pockets we might not have to. (Though, admittedly, I stow way too much in my bag to ever fit in my pockets. I would need a utility belt.)
This whole Billie was a jerk, and didn’t care about her friends consensus is deeply confusing to me. There are several examples of her doing altruistic things for her friends she didn’t have to.
She helped a roofied Joyce after less than a week of knowing her
She volunteered her room to Becky who might as well have been a complete stranger at the time, just because she was Joyce’s friend
She punched Mary in the face for being a transphobic asshole to Carla and trying to blackmail her way into a free pass to torment Carla forever
She convinced the Walkertons into not pressuring the school into trying to expel Amber post bad dad kidnapping. She doesn’t even hangout with Amber…like ever.
This is just stuff off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more examples. Jennifer’s pretty shallow, and maybe a bit vain too, and she’s hanging out with squares I don’t like, and she’s constantly annoyed by Walky, but she’s never been this jerk people seem to think she has been.
What about the time she ambushed Dorothy and Amber in the middle of the night, quoting bible stuff at them and forcing Amber to lock Dorothy inside and defend herself? That was pretty bad, I’d say
In the moment and when shit gets real, Jennifer/Billie’s instincts are to do the right thing, no question about it.
But when its not those critical moment, she leans hard into being an asshole. She actively pushes away those that want to be friendly to her, places supreme importance on incredibly arbitrary bullshit, is harsh and judgmental towards those that aren’t being “cool”, for whatever arbitrary version of cool she ascribes to at the moment.
It’s that whole line, you know? When someone tells you who they are, believe them? I’m sorry, but she’s not a good person just because she comes through when she’s around and it’s in the clutch, not when she’s also being an abusive asshole to those that would call her friends when things aren’t on the line at the moment.
Sounds like most of that also describes Joyce. Does the right thing when it comes to it, but outside of that, has been shown to be judgmental, disrespectful of boundaries, places importance on arbitrary things, has been rude, even mean, to Walky or Sarah or Dina…
I always felt like Jennifer (or past Billie in this tense) was more of a mix bag between caring friend and a tad bit selfish. She had her good moments along with some that were not as much
Jennifer literally got mad at Ruth for not sleeping with her boss which is the type of thing good friends don’t ask you to do in the first place.
Jennifer SOMETIMES performs altruistic acts because she likes being seen as a problem-solver by people. It is part of her ‘Head Cheerleader’ business card. But she is also a petty jerk a lot of times when it is unwarranted and gives bad advice to people to also be petty jerks about stuff.
It would be surprising if Walky DID believe she was genuinely kind rather than hella fakey and performative most of the time.
We as the audience know and can see the genuine moments of care like her attending Sal’s roller derby event but Walky hasn’t been there for pretty much any of them where she was acting on her own free will and followed through.
So it is totally understandable to me that he might see her as only doing nice things for performative purposes and being caught off-guard that she might actually give a damn.
I feel like the whole “punching Mary” thing would be more altruistic if it wasn’t paired with the fact that Billie herself was being blackmailed. Like don’t get me wrong, Mary mentioning Carla is what sent Billie over the edge, but Billie also seemed generally upset at Mary just because of her insistence on being antagonistic.
Lucy seems like the kinda person who would be really into an MMO for a while, get into an intense RP relationship with another player, and sort of keep it to herself.
I mean, that’s a good way to make gil in FF14, so it’d be fun and lucrative. I’ve seen (and done) some things in that game, and money flows like water.
I’m mean, give him some time and he’ll adjust to knowing the new you just fine since he seems so eager to do so. Right now though he’s just going off by an older idea of you.
Jennifer/Billie clearly doesn’t want to be seen around them, yet “solves their problems”. Yet, Joyce already had Dorothy willing to do that… and J/B admonished her for “swooping” in… yet, that’s kind of what she was doing anyway. Dorothy was just willing to work within Joyce’s boundaries, while J/B doesn’t seem to care about those. Just grabs them and gets it done. So demonstrates she cares (in a problematic way)… and then outwardly says she doesn’t.
Walky’s question doesn’t seem like a challenge to her personality… but a question of logistics. If Billie waited the whole appointment… why wouldn’t they just come back together?
Yeah, Jen/Billie, maybe he doesn’t know you… how can anyone when you keep changing your story and attitude every 5 minutes?
“Dorothy was just willing to work within Joyce’s boundaries”
[Citation needed]
Dorothy was willing to work within what she presumed Joyce’s boundaries to be, unless she really felt she knew better and used the veto power she bestowed upon herself as the “mom friend”. That’s how the optometrist visit went.
This time, she held back until someone else (Billiefer) broke the ice about the doctor visit, then she immediately tried to swoop in and take care of everything again.
Man, Dorothy was most definitely NOT willing to do that. Jennifer went in (taking all the social and emotional risk), and only THEN did Dorothy move in, “no, *I*’ll do it”. It was already done, Dorothy. You already got into Yale, you can stop pretending you care for credit.
People who don’t want Dorothy dunked on shouldn’t bring Dorothy doing things that deserve her getting dunked on into conversations, like Victor Riley did.
Head cheerleder, etc. has probably spent more time in hospitals than the rest of the cast put together, due to accompanying other girls there. Hmm, maybe not counting the time Ruth was committed.
That’s not a new Jennifer. It’s Walky being incredibly unobservant.
First, you’re assuming she does it/did it a lot.
Second, you’re assuming that even if she did, Walky, who she both bullied and avoided in high school, would know about her spending time at the doctors with her cheerleader friends, and simply didn’t pay attention.
Yeah? We have seen the flashbacks. We’ve heard all the comments about them acting like siblings. We have heard the multiple times she’s told him to stop trying to be her friend and getting his nerd stank over her. It’s pretty clear Walky has been a huge presence in Jennifer’s life for like 15 years. And he’s never cared about anything that she says or does. Of course he doesn’t know about the 20 or 50 times she’s sat with Karen having a secret abortion or rape care or concussion or alcohol poisoning or asthma attacks or whatever, because he’s never asked. And yes all that has most likely happened based on her confidence in dealing with Joyce getting roofied and such things.
Hey, from kindergarten to high school is about 10 years.
High school is only about 4 years.
So yes, he has been a big part of her life.
But the part of her life where she would have been spending anytime with friends at doctors, that you are still assuming happened a lot, would have been the 4 years where they both admit she bullied and avoided him.
He never cared about what she did? But she avoided him, not the other way around.
He never asked about HER friends’ SECRET abortions or rape care?
You realize how that sounds, right?
Even in your head canon, it’s a secret.
Why would he know to ask?
Especially since they were her friends that also bullied him?
I don’t know about you, but I never asked my friends if they helped someone I don’t know and/or doesn’t like me deal with a personal and possibly traumatic situation at the doctors.
Also, we’ve seen almost no flashbacks from high school involving the two of them together.
Never cared about anything she says or does? He’s shown more concern for her than anyone else in the series, including his ex gf and his blood sister, and that’s despite being an emotionally stunted man child.
Walky has also been shown to be observant, when he’s not goofing around. He’s also intelligent in that “I’ve never had to study because school was easy” kind of way.
He realized Ethan was gay based off one meal with him and Joyce (I’m sure that’s not the only example, just the only one that springs to mind at the moment).
But you think if he was around/aware of Jennifer helping her friends deal with doctors “20 or 50” times, he just never noticed? In 4 years?
Walky has more than enough issues to down him on. No need to add more just to fit head canon.
There’s no need to make a federal issue of it. There’s just Jennifer’s observation, that Walky does not know her. I’m saying the available evidence would suggest she’s right, he doesn’t, and never has, no matter how much he likes her and cares about her. I am hearing your arguments for why it’s possible I’m wrong, and I admit it is possible. I don’t think I have given the impression that I think I’m definitely right. So I’m not sure what you want me to say.
I mean the theme of the book, as far as I can tell, is “people growing and needing to fight their oldest friends for the right to become a different person than who they’re used to”. I have trouble imagining a world where Walky is “right” about his assessment of Jennifer, that she is the kind of person who leaves her buddies to the doctors once she gets them to the hospital and takes care of her own business. Or ever have been that person. His line to me says more that he thinks it’s what a normal person would do, and Jennifer is weird for staying with Joyce. Because that’s what he would do, because he doesn’t like doing anything that takes effort. It doesn’t have anything to do with Jennifer; just like most things Walky says and does, it mainly involves him. But she takes the opportunity to confirm her identity as a person separate from him that she’s working on.
Nothing more complicated than that. Jenny thinks Walky doesn’t know who she is, and I think she has reasons for thinking that, even though he would like to just go on not thinking too hard about things and make lighthearted jokes about how you aren’t supposed to care about people.
Looks back to Walky visiting Jennifer (and Ruth) in the hospital and even pretending not to be upset with Ruth for Jennifer’s sake. Yeah, he wouldn’t bother doing anything that takes effort.
Don’t look at just the surface with any of these characters. Even Walky.
He might well be wrong about Jennifer, but if so that’s more about what she’s shown him over the years than about him.
When Walky learns Jennifer’s health is jeopardy, the dude forces his way past two rooms to get to her. He outgrowls Dina to do it.
Walky’s shtick isn’t that he can’t put in effort, it’s that there’s a limited amount of things he think are worth the effort of… well, of putting effort into. Jennifer’s wellbeing is definitely one of those things.
are we gonna enter an arc of Joyce hanging out with Jennifer and her new crew with Raidah and Asher over everyone else? I’m living for the upcoming drama…..
Can’t wait for the truth about Asher being involved in orchestrating the kidnapping potentially coming to light too.
Eh, the Billingsworths have lots of money and lots of influence, I assume that Raidah’s angle with Jennifer is just “networking”. Raidah barely talked to Joyce when last they met.
Yeah but making “friends” with Joyce could be a way of getting at Sarah. Really just the whole current situation is ready to explode with potential drama energy no matter how it all plays out
and in addition to that, Raidah seems to just be going along with whatever for Jennifer to stay in her good graces, like inviting Walky to breakfast. And Jennifer is basically saying that Joyce should stop spending time with Becky, Dorothy, and the others to have the opportunity to grow and change so if Jennifer starts bringing Joyce along I feel like Raidah would put up with it.
Plus though she obviously doesn’t like Joyce for ruining her relationship with Jacob, their relationship felt much more strictly “political” so I’m sure it’s much the same with Jennifer and Asher.
Eh, Jennifer pretty much went “what? no. hell no.” very vocally on Walky coming along, so I think Raidah… actually, I still don’t know what’s Raidah’s angle on Walky.
I guess what I really mean is Raidah clearly has ulterior motives when it comes to Jennifer and trying to mess with her previous relationships could be a part of that. Pulling Joyce away from her and Jennifer’s primary friend group would help to disrupt it, including Sarah. Whether or not that’s part of her intention remains to be seen.
My suspicion is that she’s trying to befriend Joyce’s social circle as part of a move against Joyce. Sarah getting caught up in it as well is just a side benefit. After Jacob, Joyce is her real target.
I think there’s something different with it – we didn’t see anything as nasty as her digs to Carl about Walky and Jennifer with her previous “political” friendships.
Personally I’m expecting Asher’s role in orchestrating the kidnapping to come to light at about the same time that Amber’s role in changing Walky’s grades comes to light, which is to say never. But I’ve been wrong before.
I mean, I would like to find out that Jennifer and Amazigirl were playing the long game investigating Asher for his role in the death of Amber’s father and possibly Mike’s as well since if he got better he could identify people, but it seems unlikely.
still waiting for it to somehow turn out that Mike’s death was falsified and he was entered into witness protection for having so much dirt on the mob and to protect him from the corrupt cops
That wouldn’t be a retcon, as it would not contradict any facts presented so far. A retcon would be something like “Jennifer and Walky did not go to the same high school.”
I’d call it a retcon. Unless the terminology has changed since my day, it at least includes changes that change the interpretation of previous events, not factual contradiction. Even with factual contradiction, it’s usually presented with some excuse for it’s not just “I’m changing this”.
In this case, it would be pretty hard to swallow. We don’t see much (if anything?) of their high school years, but we do see how she treats him at the start of the first semester and it all seems like “popular mean girl” stuff not any specific anger. Nor was there any mention or addressing such anger when they got closer.
Realistically speaking, “retcon” is just short for “retroactive continuity”, which is just a fancy way of saying “back-then details”. I figure even something as minor as “Hey, 🅱️eter, remember the time you got super glue in your hair and had to cut it?” would count. Doesn’t need to be life-shattering revelations on the internal machinations of the Phoenix Force.
True. It’s generally reserved for more significant details – not necessarily life-shattering revelations, but either new stories or different takes on what actually happened. The first examples I know of that used the terms were DC’s All-Star Squadron (WWII stories fitting in and around the Golden Age comics) and Alan Moore’s take on Swamp Thing – revealing him never to have been the human he’d thought he was.
This actually would be a little different – new revelations on back story don’t always count because you often expect new back story information.
To me, the defining characteristic of a retcon is that it was not what was originally planned, it’s a piece of backstory, or a twist, or a revelation that the creator(s) came up with *after* the fact, in some kind of serialized srorytelling. It can sometimes be hard to distinguish a true retcon unless the creator comes out and says it was. (There’s a famous one on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, sometimes referred to as the MOAR—the Mother of All Retcons—that did such a neat job of tying together some confusing elements of a character’s backstory that a lot of fans were convinced it WAS a planned twist seasons in the making, despite the writers and the actor each confirming that no, it was a third-act episode twist that the writers hadn’t given a lot of thought to beyond their immediate story needs, to the great annoyance of the actor.)
Walky has probably always been treated like this by Jennifer and thinks she behaves like this to everyone. I wonder if Lucy will say anything about it.
One. Jennifer is from a family that didn’t model caring and concern for others. Just the opposite. For gods sake, Linda was her good role model. She’s more alone in the world than most of the cast. Walky and Joyce count as her best friends. Her drinking and hanging out with bad company are not character traits but signs of just how isolated she feels. For a very mixed up kid, she’s doing ok.
I think Willis going to pull a fast one on us by revealing that, in fact, everyone just kind of shrugging off the fact she was a semi-suicidal alcoholic….was in fact unhealthy for her.
Part of the humor and yet actually quite serious is Walky is 2 for 2 with not knowing his sisters very well. The two people he’s spent the most time with he takes at a purely superficial level.
Yeah, Jennifer talks about all the head cheerleader stuff she did in supporting her squad, but she didn’t LET Walky be around for that. Sal is different because Walky didn’t WANT to see it.
It’s impressive that Lucy, Walky, and Billie manage to discuss Joyce’s lingering religious hang ups about sex/birth control with more respect than her two best friends.
Sometimes, a best friend is just an enemy keeping you close. For example, Zenos yae Galvus, from the critically-acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, who’s basically the player character’s biggest cheerleader and is simultaneously trying to murder the fuck out of them.
I’m a little surprised that people feel Joyce’s upbringing doesn’t affect Dorothy in a negative way, or that to point it out is suggesting Dorothy’s suffering is equal to Joyce’s suffering.
I genuinely don’t think Dorothy is harmed by Joyce’s upbringing, no. She is occasionally appalled by elements of it, and has expressed that it makes her sad for Joyce when Joyce says stuff like “everything good I do is Jesus working through me”, but Dorothy has a nice strong ego and she’s not internalizing any of the religiously-based weirdness coming from Joyce.
I don’t think “is sometimes annoyed by” equals “is negatively affected by.” Being annoyed is just a feeling, and you can do whatever you want with that feeling. There’s nothing in Dorothy’s dynamic with Joyce that feels like it’s causing Dorothy harm or distress—it doesn’t affect her grades, or her social life; she doesn’t feel trapped in this relationship; spending time with Joyce doesn’t appear to place an uncomfortable psychic or emotional burden on her. Like when Joyce’s comical overreaction to learning that Dorothy was sexually active crossed the line from “funny” to “annoying,” she just said so? It didn’t make her insecure or doubt herself, or ruin her night.
I mean, tl;dr, there is a distinction between “I dislike a thing” and “this thing harms me”, and it’s important to be able to recognize that, so you can prioritize working on the actual harmful things.
There were times in the first semester where it was close to crossing the line – mostly in the “I don’t have time or mental reserves to walk you through this” sense.
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Walky, she’s not YOU
Jennifer was extremely irresponsible as far as we’ve seen her. This isn’t really a clap back moment. This should have been a ‘why do people think that poorly of me?’ moment.
Billie was a human disaster. Jennifer seems like she’s trying to change to become a good person. People do change, especially in a transitional points in life, like college.
People can definitely change, but taking offense because people don’t start believing in their new self after the first display of change is rather arrogant.
I think Billie would have stayed as well. Billie’s good traits are mostly kept behind breakable glass in case of emergency. Jennifer seems to be trying to let those good traits out in non-emergency situations.
Billie and maybe Jennifer was a desaster to herself only. Whenever she could care about other people she does. Some of her caring went downwards becaus her alcohol to blood ratio, but even in the first Ryan incedent she cared.
She’s *usually* been extremely irresponsible but there’s a huge “but” which we’ve seen before – when Joyce was roofied, it was Billie who was instantly there, being super responsible, focused on the practical issues of Joyce’s health rather than worrying about police and hospitals and so on. She was always an absolute dumpster fire of a person when it came to herself, and she was completely emotionally unavailable, but when faced with someone else’s practical problem, she clicked into her “head cheerleader, problem solver” mode. She’s still got all the same problems as before (except she’s maybe solved her alcohol problem?) but when she’s able to help people, she steps up to the plate and sees it through.
Billie wasn’t great when Joyce was roofied (and especially not the morning after). Sarah was the one who really took charge. She made and executed a plan while everyone was standing around not sure what to do.
Billie’s always been something of a foulweather friend.
I mean he spent most of his life knowing Billie so he probably has no idea what Jennifer’s deal is yes.
seems like despite knowing each other for a decade(?), or so, compared to sal and the brief kidnapping drama, i guess walky hasn’t especially had a ‘hard’ life where he needed anyone to ‘be there for him’ or so (did we see how he reacted to jennifer’s dui at all?)
Pretty much, Linda might have favored him but her brand of nurture left him very dependent and sheltered. In away his upbringing was similar to Joyce’s minus religion.
“(did we see how he reacted to jennifer’s dui at all?)”
Well, his introduction was him making fun of her for being an alcoholic.
We did see how he reacted to Billie/Ruth going to the clinic, there as Billie’s emergency contact/next of kin on record.
I mean… wasn’t there a scene where Billie is shoving him away when she was with her “cool” friends?
If he doesn’t know her, that seems more like a Billie problem.
EXACTLY
I hope he uses some of his newfound spine to remind her of this.
I really don’t get these takes, like Walky is somehow the victim in what is clearly a two-way relationship. Walky is easily at his most annoying when around Jennifer. Like this.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/babe/
There’s a reason she doesn’t like hanging out with him. Neither of them sees each other at their best often because that’s just the style relationship they have. They bicker, they know what buttons to press. This is what Jennifer was talking to Joyce about at the doctor’s office. Walky is one of those people that won’t let her change, because just interacting brings out that side of her. The parts of her personality he knows and loves, but parts Jennifer’s trying to change about herself.
And vice versa, Jennifer doesn’t often see the more emotionally mature aspect of Walky. The difference is he’s not trying to change who he is. He’s comfortable being Walky. Which is great, but not what Jennifer is trying to do.
What we’ve seen of their relationship has had him being alternately (or even simultaneously) teasing and supportive – from the very beginning in the recent flashback to their first bus to school. We’ve also seen or heard about her pushing him away because he’ll hurt her social standing, but then turning to him again when she’s in need.
We’ve seen her try to support him after the break-up with Dorothy, though it wasn’t very effective.
Nothing about the dui until well after the fact – no flashbacks with him at least.
Wait is that like a Amber/Amazi-Girl deal with Billie/Jennifer?
Not really. Not in a way that’s nearly as severe, but I think Jennifer is honestly trying to have it be that way and I want to respect it.
Need I say it? The big freak out timer is still ticking with just seconds left….
😗😗😗
It’s five seconds to midnight.
Two Minutes to Midnight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IfM6HM2rRs
Your one-way ticket to midnight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KMLLZF2qI0
https://i.imgur.com/dzdXwZX.png (NSFW)
o3o I gathered all my energy and did it. This is a hard pose and I should probably look up more references than none at all.
Story so far…
https://imgur.com/a/9Ob1cy3 (NSFW)
😂 👏
so in character, both of them!
well worth the wait, Yoto! 😉
Noice.
Also, the thing about references – it absolutely amazes me when anyone can draw without them. I’m not terrible at drawing from things I see, but without a model, I just can’t do anything.
Same here fam fam.
In fact I just had a 3D character model done for this very purpose 😎
So how much experience are we assuming Walky has here?
Cuz, while I like and appreciate the fan art with this, he seems to be lacking in self confidence here that I would expect wouldn’t be so noticeable after Dorothy and possibly Amber.
Not that he should be overconfident, of course.
I just expected him to have done similar positions multiple times by now so shouldn’t be this worried if he’s doing it right.
Based on what we’ve seen Walky do with Dorothy (It’s ambiguous if anything happened with Amber) I can’t say for absolute sure if they ever tried anything all that crazy.
I am probably overdoing it cuz I myself am a virgin so most stuff is new to ME.
My reasoning being that with Dorothy she sorta coached him through it while Billie is sorta throwing him curveballs and throwing him off his game. I could probably give Walky a little more credit but it’s just more fun for me to give them this dynamic. He probably feels like Billie just knows way more than he does about this stuff so he’s feeling a bit more insecure than usual.
😛 But I’m just making excuses.
I figured as much (not the making excuses part).
I think he and Amber only ended up making out and I agree that Dorothy sex is probably quite regulated and very much Dorothy in the lead. So I can see him having some confidence issues.
Well, this can only go well.
Well, to Walky’s credit, all you ever do is blow him off, treat being around him like a chore and act like you’re above everything to do with him or who you once were. And HE’S like your oldest friend. So I think it is at least REASONABLE to assume that you would’ve done the minimum and it’s a pleasant surprise that you didn’t.
That’s even, like, exactly the expression on his face. Homie has been nothing but happy for her, this whole time. She just can’t see it, because…well, because absolutely nothing about his general affect has changed, so why would Jennifer notice that he isn’t acting the same?
Which also makes it pretty funny that she’s literally doing the exact same thing she is currently griping about it sucking to live through, to Walky, but the comic’s gotta get a laugh, somewhere.
Well to Jen’s credit Walky’s only ever acknowledged or associated with the worst aspects of her personality and the version of herself he prefers instead of validating the better person she’s trying to be. So it would be reasonable to say he doesn’t actually know much about what Jennifer is capable of. It would be nice if they both took the time to acknowledge who each other really are for once.
I’m not sure when it comes to these two, I’m sure when it comes to personal growth Jennifer has made a lot of progress but when it comes to the dynamic between them nothing has changed really. Before the time skip it was her in her own world dealing with her own problems with her current lover, no time for Walky and his nonsense. Now it’s her dealing with her problems in her own world with her current lover and still no time for Walkys nonsense and also she goes by Jennifer.
The act of her being caring tawords a friend isn’t a new feature, her being more open and honest about being caring is though. I feel like she changed more with Ruth and at the the start of freshman year than she knows.
That was the only version of herself who interacted with him in even a remotely positive way for five years. She was happy to openly antagonize him in front of the popular clique in high school.
agreeing hard with yotomoe and throwatron here. she’s always been pretty caught up in her own ego and probably has no idea how rude she’s always been to walky (and also i’m sure it’s happened but i’m having trouble remembering when she’s done anything all that kind for people? even getting ruth to the hospital was after weeks of encouraging her death spiral)
She helped Joyce after she was roofied at the party, and with how quickly she went through the steps and knew what to do implies that she’s done it before (and I believe she’s mentioned helping with things like this?) so there’s that. But Walky wasn’t around for that one, and I don’t know if he was ever told about any of it.
I was about to say even she th knows when to cut the bull and prioritize another person when she needs to.
But then I remembered that was only after things got serious and she ditched Joyce and Dorothy at that party alone to get wasted. Fortunately I like to think everyone learned a lesson that night.
She’s definitely scored higher on *saying* she helps than actually helping. Not even necessarily that she’s lying, but her skillset hasn’t matched up well with her college experiences (except that one time when Joyce was roofied).
Yeah, I’m hoping Walky takes her down a couple notches after the self-righteous tirade that’s bound to be coming.
Yeah, based on how Jennifer has treated him the whole time they were friends, I’m not surprised at Walky’s reaction to hearing this from her.
Oooh this is going to hurt. Buckle your seatbelts, ladies, gentlemen, and dignified thems.
On the one hand, yes he isn’t as familar with “Jennifer” and her sudden decision to… do something else. On the other, he has known her since elementary school and up until recently hung out.
So acknowledging her new attitude, can anyone explain what she means in the last panel?
She’s offended he thinks she’s the kind of person who would leave a friend in pain alone. Because he should know her better (because this has nothing to do with the new person she’s trying to be).
To be fair she seems to be making an effort to cut him out of her life (though that seems to be easing up since he started dating her roommate), its hardly unreasonable to assume she’s doing that with all her old friends
He’s not physically suffering though.
And emotional suffering is different because…?
He’s not even really emotionally suffering – other than having been worried about her and missing their old friendship.
Back in the last semester she did try to help him after he and Dorothy broke up.
Walky has also been kidnapped. He’s had to face that his parents are possibly racist and have mistreated his sister. He’s had to face he’s been a shitty brother. He’s stood up to his mom which is big and scary for him. He’s trying to be a superhero which is basically a giant red flag in this comic.
He also only hasn’t failed a class because the girl who stabbed his sister hacked his grades. Plus now his girlfriend’s roommate and childhood friend is currently dating the guy who called the cops on his sister.
Like sure when you compare it to Becky, Walky isn’t dealing with much. But compared to your average college freshman – Walky has been dealing with a crapton of emotional pain and because of his attitude, no one really notices.
Certainly true. Not to mention an abusive roommate. Who died saving his (semi) girlfriend.
And he’s surely good at hiding any of that emotional pain. Since we time-skipped soon after most of that happened – especially the kidnapping and standing up to mom – we don’t really know how Jennifer interacted with him when he was likely at the worst in terms of needing support.
I will point out that he did apparently manage to catch up and pass the class – Amber’s hacking only changed his early quizzes. He would have needed to pass the midterm and final at least in order to move on to this year.
Yeah, but that’s male pain, so it doesn’t count in American society. He should just toughen up and get a real job. Other people have problems too, so he needs to get over himself and stop being affected. Doesn’t he know that other people have more extreme things going on, can’t he just take a back seat and quit being an attention hog?
(I shouldn’t have to say that this is sarcasm or that I’m aware nobody said it, but some of y’all can’t be trusted sometimes.)
I don’t see her taking offense. I see her stating a simple fact.
Her vibe is, he SHOULD know she’d do that, he shouldn’t be surprised.
Which is either, this behaviour is consistent with how she’s acted in the past,
OR
she’s lying to herself about the kind of person she’s BEEN, perhaps in an effort to believe in the person she’s Trying to be,
Or Maybe,
it’s not consistent with past behaviour, but a person who Knows Her should have Seen that the Good Friend was There All Along, underneath the teenage fuckup.
I’d say it’s consistent with how she see’s herself and it’s even consistent with how she’s acted to some in the past – particularly her flock of cheerleaders in high school, along with a few glimpses in the first semester.
But it’s not how she’s acted to Walky, so he’s surprised.
Walky doesn’t actually know her. The version of Jennifer he thinks he knows isn’t actually her, mostly because she specifically treated him like crap because he’s like a brother to her. The whole idea that Jennifer is a selfish person who lacks compassion is just wrong. She is 100 percent the type of person to take care of people. That was the basis of her last relationship. Taking care of Ruth, caring too much about her well-being and getting too invested in a somewhat toxic relationship. Even now she still cares about Ruth, and her friends. There was a whole storyline where Jennifer just decided to try and be the dorm’s problem solver.
Walky doesn’t realize or acknowledge this because Jen and him have a specific relationship akin to that of him and Sal. He probably doesn’t realize how sensitive Sal truly is either and just thinks of her as the tough, cool sibling. That’s what’s happening here.
“People I treat like crap assuming I treat people like crap” is… not the sympathetic look you make it out to be.
“When I go around kicking over old ladies, people always think I’m a person who’s always kicking over old ladies for some reason.” – Leonard Nimoy, 28 Days Later
Honestly, if I’ve known you to be a certain way from toddlerhood trough college, it’s possible that is how you actually are. If you pretend you’re something for 99% of your life, that’s only technically “pretending”.
It’s not really pretending though, it’s just different aspects of her. It’s all wrapped up in her “head cheerleader/problem solver” side and when that gets aimed at Walky it comes out all wrong, because being close with him doesn’t fit her alpha percussion instrument persona.
She has tried to do it with him though – mostly aimed at his romantic life. She tried to get him hooked up with Dorothy (after the fact, but still) and she tried to help him after they broke up.
I feel like I constantly mis-judge all the people around me.
Especially after college.
Well, yeah, Jennifer, you put an awful lot of effort into avoiding him.
But that said – yeah, Jennifer’s good when it matters. I have no doubt in my mind she waited for Joyce the whole time.
I have never exoerienced this kind of anger and hate at a website. But now I can live my dreams of hating this fucking site and knowing what it feels like to be absolutely livid.
It should not take 9 attempts to leave a single goddamn comment. But getting the page to move up and down randomly, every time I try to click the comment box, name/email or post comment areas it decides to move and make me click on something else that loads a new page and eats my comment.
❤️❤️❤️ I have totally been there. Not with this website, but on others. Technology is supposed to make our lives better!
You’re using an Android device, aren’t you.
I have a similar experience on iOS.
Yes, I am indeed on an android device. It is an old tablet but it works 90% of the time.
I wouldn’t even think someone wouldnt stay through the appointment.
There are some people who think since there’s no procedures taking place there’s no reason to hang out until the consult is finished since Joyce will be unimpeded after it’s done.
Ah, there’s a hint of that “head cheerleader, problem solver” of old. Well, not so much the “head cheerleader” part, but definitely the “problem solver.”
Jennifer’s trying so hard to be not-Billie that it’s understandable that people from her Billie past might think she would extend that avoidance to ‘being a decent human being’ especially given her association with ne’er-do-well, back-stabbing Asher, and “helping someone with their addiction is party pooping” Raidah.
I’m struggling to remember, but *should* Walky know better? I’m not recalling much in the way of Billie being much concerned for anyone else’s welfare, and for all of Jennifer’s eagerness to stomp on Dorothy (which was merited)…why the fuck is she telling people about the details of Joyce’s doctor visit? Even if Joyce didn’t have cult reprogramming issues relating to it, it’s not her place to go gossiping about it.
Billie:
Was the one who helped Joyce post roofie in the first week.
Took Becky into her room against school rules.
Deeply got invested in Ruth and wanted to help (blocked by their dynamic)
Punched Mary for being Transphobic to Carla.
Pretty sure she had a big hand in making the Walkertons not get Amber expelled for her Dad.
Honestly there is likely more. Billie might be distant and talk shit, but when the chips are down she’s been VERY caring about members of the cast she doesn’t even interact with much. Cheerleader, Problem Solver.
Minor note .. while she has helped people in the past, I am not sure her relationship with Ruth is an example.
Remember, she did try to bring her to a bar, after Ruth had her meltdown. So there was a lot of selfishness involved in that relationship.
Definitely selfishness, but there were deeper currents there as well.
Probably at first not really understanding how dangerous that was, but later trying to get Ruth to cut her loose since Ruth was getting better and she was still poison, too dangerous for anyone getting healthy to be around.
And remember how she reacted when she did meet Ruth at the bar – instant panic over Ruth drinking.
I think an important note is that Walky wasn’t there for any of that except for the last one. And she went out of her way to put distance between them when they were in highschool, so he wouldn’t effect her social standing.
There’s a very real possibility that Walky has never witnessed or been the recipient of Jennifers “head cheerleader. problem solver.” schtick. In fact, from his perspective, she was probably just fickle and distant.
Alt-Text: That song’s a bop, but that record just kinda made me sad. We get it Ben, you hate your Ex-Wife, can we move on already?
Dangit, I didn’t even know he got married much less that he got a divorce. I still held the image of the older teen Ben Fold from about a decade ago, or is that still too young for the time?
Ah yes, teenage 45-year-old Ben Folds of a decade ago, I remember him also!
(I can’t believe he’s 55 now, holy crap)
The song is from 2008. He’d gone through three of his four divorces at that point.
Considering that even before they went to University Jennifer had a track record of treating Walky poorly… why would she expect him to “know” her differently? She tries to avoid him/distance herself from him any time she puts on her “cool person” persona and only goes back to him when she hits rock bottom so he’s only granted those glimpses. Once she decided to re-invent herself again (post-ruth breakup, I’m guessing) she seems to have pushed him away again so he’s not got much of an idea of the person she’s “supposed” to be right now.
So what does she expect?
idk Jennifer, Billie was never that invested in Joyce enough for anyone to notice.
Jennifer’s been invested. She was the first to recognize Joyce was roofied and checked her vitals and gave advice on her recovery. This was after knowing Joyce for less than a week. She’s also the one who volunteered her room to Joyce’s best friend when said best friend ran away from her college and dangerous home life and was living on campus illegally. Jen’s has cared about Joyce from the beginning.
that why Dorothy and Becky are the ones she told to not swoop in after she convinced Joyce to actually go to the Doctor without much fight? Also she was rooming with Ruth so she didn’t need her room and she plays it off as “just makes sense” not her being good IIRC
In a way Billie got begrudgingly attached to Joyce in the vain as Sarah, maybe not to the same intense degree but in a similar fashion.
-Jennifer
Absolutely you stay with a Joyce for an appt like that. Even for a non-joyce, bad periods are a red flag, that appt could uncover some serious health questions. And for a Joyce, it’s ideologically challenging on top.
Idk, it really does seem like a ‘you don’t know me at all’ question from Walky, but I’m inclined to think, yes he Does, but he’s seen her be all. off kilter. all year. loooots of reinventions and re-reinventions. She’s bounced around groups a lot, she’s been hot and cold on several of her relationships.
But not this thing, not this J. Billingsworth thing that Walky knows about her. ‘You’re STILL the kind of person who waits all thru way through a scary Dr visit with someone. That’s not been reinvented away’.
I don’t have any deep-time relationships like Walky and Jennifer have. They always seemed to have a unique value- not greater, just different.
man i don’t like her grown-up shoulder bag. It reminds me of my mums’, and my mum is great and all, but she’s a 50-something year old woman, not a uni student, cmon.
Women of all ages carry bags like that. If we were given appropriate pockets we might not have to. (Though, admittedly, I stow way too much in my bag to ever fit in my pockets. I would need a utility belt.)
Also I bet alpha bongo Jennifer has like. Most of a pharmacy in there too :p
This whole Billie was a jerk, and didn’t care about her friends consensus is deeply confusing to me. There are several examples of her doing altruistic things for her friends she didn’t have to.
She helped a roofied Joyce after less than a week of knowing her
She volunteered her room to Becky who might as well have been a complete stranger at the time, just because she was Joyce’s friend
She punched Mary in the face for being a transphobic asshole to Carla and trying to blackmail her way into a free pass to torment Carla forever
She convinced the Walkertons into not pressuring the school into trying to expel Amber post bad dad kidnapping. She doesn’t even hangout with Amber…like ever.
This is just stuff off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more examples. Jennifer’s pretty shallow, and maybe a bit vain too, and she’s hanging out with squares I don’t like, and she’s constantly annoyed by Walky, but she’s never been this jerk people seem to think she has been.
What about the time she ambushed Dorothy and Amber in the middle of the night, quoting bible stuff at them and forcing Amber to lock Dorothy inside and defend herself? That was pretty bad, I’d say
Yeah, but nobody ever remembers that.
In the moment and when shit gets real, Jennifer/Billie’s instincts are to do the right thing, no question about it.
But when its not those critical moment, she leans hard into being an asshole. She actively pushes away those that want to be friendly to her, places supreme importance on incredibly arbitrary bullshit, is harsh and judgmental towards those that aren’t being “cool”, for whatever arbitrary version of cool she ascribes to at the moment.
It’s that whole line, you know? When someone tells you who they are, believe them? I’m sorry, but she’s not a good person just because she comes through when she’s around and it’s in the clutch, not when she’s also being an abusive asshole to those that would call her friends when things aren’t on the line at the moment.
Sounds like most of that also describes Joyce. Does the right thing when it comes to it, but outside of that, has been shown to be judgmental, disrespectful of boundaries, places importance on arbitrary things, has been rude, even mean, to Walky or Sarah or Dina…
I always felt like Jennifer (or past Billie in this tense) was more of a mix bag between caring friend and a tad bit selfish. She had her good moments along with some that were not as much
Jennifer literally got mad at Ruth for not sleeping with her boss which is the type of thing good friends don’t ask you to do in the first place.
Jennifer SOMETIMES performs altruistic acts because she likes being seen as a problem-solver by people. It is part of her ‘Head Cheerleader’ business card. But she is also a petty jerk a lot of times when it is unwarranted and gives bad advice to people to also be petty jerks about stuff.
She also used to shove Walky into lockers, so maybe Walky is justified in not thinking highly of her.
It would be surprising if Walky DID believe she was genuinely kind rather than hella fakey and performative most of the time.
We as the audience know and can see the genuine moments of care like her attending Sal’s roller derby event but Walky hasn’t been there for pretty much any of them where she was acting on her own free will and followed through.
So it is totally understandable to me that he might see her as only doing nice things for performative purposes and being caught off-guard that she might actually give a damn.
I feel like the whole “punching Mary” thing would be more altruistic if it wasn’t paired with the fact that Billie herself was being blackmailed. Like don’t get me wrong, Mary mentioning Carla is what sent Billie over the edge, but Billie also seemed generally upset at Mary just because of her insistence on being antagonistic.
Lucy seems like the kinda person who would be really into an MMO for a while, get into an intense RP relationship with another player, and sort of keep it to herself.
She’d go really hard into the kinky stuff in ERP too…
I mean, that’s a good way to make gil in FF14, so it’d be fun and lucrative. I’ve seen (and done) some things in that game, and money flows like water.
Hey Taffy!
How have things been going?
What are you doing for pride month? 😊🏳️🌈
Is it Temporary Rainbow PFP Month already? Probably just gonna keep existing as a queer person, tbh, that’s enough effort already.
😊
Thankfully if my spoons run lower than usual, my avatar’s been prepared for Pride Month for quite some time now!!!!
💖🤍💜🖤💙
Would an alpha bongo wait the entire visit (yes)
How else would she properly take charge afterwards?
I’m mean, give him some time and he’ll adjust to knowing the new you just fine since he seems so eager to do so. Right now though he’s just going off by an older idea of you.
This is a lot of mixed messages.
Jennifer/Billie clearly doesn’t want to be seen around them, yet “solves their problems”. Yet, Joyce already had Dorothy willing to do that… and J/B admonished her for “swooping” in… yet, that’s kind of what she was doing anyway. Dorothy was just willing to work within Joyce’s boundaries, while J/B doesn’t seem to care about those. Just grabs them and gets it done. So demonstrates she cares (in a problematic way)… and then outwardly says she doesn’t.
Walky’s question doesn’t seem like a challenge to her personality… but a question of logistics. If Billie waited the whole appointment… why wouldn’t they just come back together?
Yeah, Jen/Billie, maybe he doesn’t know you… how can anyone when you keep changing your story and attitude every 5 minutes?
“Dorothy was just willing to work within Joyce’s boundaries”
[Citation needed]
Dorothy was willing to work within what she presumed Joyce’s boundaries to be, unless she really felt she knew better and used the veto power she bestowed upon herself as the “mom friend”. That’s how the optometrist visit went.
This time, she held back until someone else (Billiefer) broke the ice about the doctor visit, then she immediately tried to swoop in and take care of everything again.
Man, Dorothy was most definitely NOT willing to do that. Jennifer went in (taking all the social and emotional risk), and only THEN did Dorothy move in, “no, *I*’ll do it”. It was already done, Dorothy. You already got into Yale, you can stop pretending you care for credit.
She’s not pretending to care, she’s just too prone to inaction and peacemaking to really push for something she thinks will cause a problem.
She’ll make a fantastic Democrat politician then
man dorothy aint even in this strip and shes getting dunked on by everyone for weird reasons
People who don’t want Dorothy dunked on shouldn’t bring Dorothy doing things that deserve her getting dunked on into conversations, like Victor Riley did.
They wouldn’t come back together because Joyce was off to class and Billie was going back to her own dorm.
You put on a mask the moment you met him. Why would he know you?
[Michael Scott thank you dot gif]
Head cheerleder, etc. has probably spent more time in hospitals than the rest of the cast put together, due to accompanying other girls there. Hmm, maybe not counting the time Ruth was committed.
That’s not a new Jennifer. It’s Walky being incredibly unobservant.
Isn’t he suggesting she hasn’t changed?
First, you’re assuming she does it/did it a lot.
Second, you’re assuming that even if she did, Walky, who she both bullied and avoided in high school, would know about her spending time at the doctors with her cheerleader friends, and simply didn’t pay attention.
Yeah? We have seen the flashbacks. We’ve heard all the comments about them acting like siblings. We have heard the multiple times she’s told him to stop trying to be her friend and getting his nerd stank over her. It’s pretty clear Walky has been a huge presence in Jennifer’s life for like 15 years. And he’s never cared about anything that she says or does. Of course he doesn’t know about the 20 or 50 times she’s sat with Karen having a secret abortion or rape care or concussion or alcohol poisoning or asthma attacks or whatever, because he’s never asked. And yes all that has most likely happened based on her confidence in dealing with Joyce getting roofied and such things.
Hey, from kindergarten to high school is about 10 years.
High school is only about 4 years.
So yes, he has been a big part of her life.
But the part of her life where she would have been spending anytime with friends at doctors, that you are still assuming happened a lot, would have been the 4 years where they both admit she bullied and avoided him.
He never cared about what she did? But she avoided him, not the other way around.
He never asked about HER friends’ SECRET abortions or rape care?
You realize how that sounds, right?
Even in your head canon, it’s a secret.
Why would he know to ask?
Especially since they were her friends that also bullied him?
I don’t know about you, but I never asked my friends if they helped someone I don’t know and/or doesn’t like me deal with a personal and possibly traumatic situation at the doctors.
Also, we’ve seen almost no flashbacks from high school involving the two of them together.
Never cared about anything she says or does? He’s shown more concern for her than anyone else in the series, including his ex gf and his blood sister, and that’s despite being an emotionally stunted man child.
Walky has also been shown to be observant, when he’s not goofing around. He’s also intelligent in that “I’ve never had to study because school was easy” kind of way.
He realized Ethan was gay based off one meal with him and Joyce (I’m sure that’s not the only example, just the only one that springs to mind at the moment).
But you think if he was around/aware of Jennifer helping her friends deal with doctors “20 or 50” times, he just never noticed? In 4 years?
Walky has more than enough issues to down him on. No need to add more just to fit head canon.
There’s no need to make a federal issue of it. There’s just Jennifer’s observation, that Walky does not know her. I’m saying the available evidence would suggest she’s right, he doesn’t, and never has, no matter how much he likes her and cares about her. I am hearing your arguments for why it’s possible I’m wrong, and I admit it is possible. I don’t think I have given the impression that I think I’m definitely right. So I’m not sure what you want me to say.
I mean the theme of the book, as far as I can tell, is “people growing and needing to fight their oldest friends for the right to become a different person than who they’re used to”. I have trouble imagining a world where Walky is “right” about his assessment of Jennifer, that she is the kind of person who leaves her buddies to the doctors once she gets them to the hospital and takes care of her own business. Or ever have been that person. His line to me says more that he thinks it’s what a normal person would do, and Jennifer is weird for staying with Joyce. Because that’s what he would do, because he doesn’t like doing anything that takes effort. It doesn’t have anything to do with Jennifer; just like most things Walky says and does, it mainly involves him. But she takes the opportunity to confirm her identity as a person separate from him that she’s working on.
Nothing more complicated than that. Jenny thinks Walky doesn’t know who she is, and I think she has reasons for thinking that, even though he would like to just go on not thinking too hard about things and make lighthearted jokes about how you aren’t supposed to care about people.
Looks back to Walky visiting Jennifer (and Ruth) in the hospital and even pretending not to be upset with Ruth for Jennifer’s sake. Yeah, he wouldn’t bother doing anything that takes effort.
Don’t look at just the surface with any of these characters. Even Walky.
He might well be wrong about Jennifer, but if so that’s more about what she’s shown him over the years than about him.
When Walky learns Jennifer’s health is jeopardy, the dude forces his way past two rooms to get to her. He outgrowls Dina to do it.
Walky’s shtick isn’t that he can’t put in effort, it’s that there’s a limited amount of things he think are worth the effort of… well, of putting effort into. Jennifer’s wellbeing is definitely one of those things.
“due to accompanying other girls there”
And, also, y’know, PUTTING other girls there.
are we gonna enter an arc of Joyce hanging out with Jennifer and her new crew with Raidah and Asher over everyone else? I’m living for the upcoming drama…..
Can’t wait for the truth about Asher being involved in orchestrating the kidnapping potentially coming to light too.
Joyce is probably (and justifiably) on Raidah’s shit list, so I’m guessing no.
Frankly, I’m assuming Raidah’s entire “friendship” with Jennifer is aimed at Joyce, so maybe?
Eh, the Billingsworths have lots of money and lots of influence, I assume that Raidah’s angle with Jennifer is just “networking”. Raidah barely talked to Joyce when last they met.
Maybe. Seems to me like the type that holds a grudge and wants more than just barely talking to her enemy.
Yeah but making “friends” with Joyce could be a way of getting at Sarah. Really just the whole current situation is ready to explode with potential drama energy no matter how it all plays out
and in addition to that, Raidah seems to just be going along with whatever for Jennifer to stay in her good graces, like inviting Walky to breakfast. And Jennifer is basically saying that Joyce should stop spending time with Becky, Dorothy, and the others to have the opportunity to grow and change so if Jennifer starts bringing Joyce along I feel like Raidah would put up with it.
Plus though she obviously doesn’t like Joyce for ruining her relationship with Jacob, their relationship felt much more strictly “political” so I’m sure it’s much the same with Jennifer and Asher.
Eh, Jennifer pretty much went “what? no. hell no.” very vocally on Walky coming along, so I think Raidah… actually, I still don’t know what’s Raidah’s angle on Walky.
She thought he was hot.
Yeah, but then she… knowingly invites his girlfriend umprompted? Makes no sense.
I guess what I really mean is Raidah clearly has ulterior motives when it comes to Jennifer and trying to mess with her previous relationships could be a part of that. Pulling Joyce away from her and Jennifer’s primary friend group would help to disrupt it, including Sarah. Whether or not that’s part of her intention remains to be seen.
My suspicion is that she’s trying to befriend Joyce’s social circle as part of a move against Joyce. Sarah getting caught up in it as well is just a side benefit. After Jacob, Joyce is her real target.
I think there’s something different with it – we didn’t see anything as nasty as her digs to Carl about Walky and Jennifer with her previous “political” friendships.
Personally I’m expecting Asher’s role in orchestrating the kidnapping to come to light at about the same time that Amber’s role in changing Walky’s grades comes to light, which is to say never. But I’ve been wrong before.
I mean, I would like to find out that Jennifer and Amazigirl were playing the long game investigating Asher for his role in the death of Amber’s father and possibly Mike’s as well since if he got better he could identify people, but it seems unlikely.
Nah, Mike’s death was just the result of free falling several stories onto concrete.
still waiting for it to somehow turn out that Mike’s death was falsified and he was entered into witness protection for having so much dirt on the mob and to protect him from the corrupt cops
Do you?
Joke’s on you Jennifer. You’re showing that you don’t really know Walky at all.
“You disappoint me, Walky”
“well you spent the whole of high school ignoring me and staying away from me, how the fuck could I know”
That’s unfair, she also shoved him into lockers.
I wonder if we’re going to have it retconned that Billie wasn’t just being a mean girl but was actively angry at Walky for something.
That wouldn’t be a retcon, as it would not contradict any facts presented so far. A retcon would be something like “Jennifer and Walky did not go to the same high school.”
I’d call it a retcon. Unless the terminology has changed since my day, it at least includes changes that change the interpretation of previous events, not factual contradiction. Even with factual contradiction, it’s usually presented with some excuse for it’s not just “I’m changing this”.
In this case, it would be pretty hard to swallow. We don’t see much (if anything?) of their high school years, but we do see how she treats him at the start of the first semester and it all seems like “popular mean girl” stuff not any specific anger. Nor was there any mention or addressing such anger when they got closer.
Realistically speaking, “retcon” is just short for “retroactive continuity”, which is just a fancy way of saying “back-then details”. I figure even something as minor as “Hey, 🅱️eter, remember the time you got super glue in your hair and had to cut it?” would count. Doesn’t need to be life-shattering revelations on the internal machinations of the Phoenix Force.
True. It’s generally reserved for more significant details – not necessarily life-shattering revelations, but either new stories or different takes on what actually happened. The first examples I know of that used the terms were DC’s All-Star Squadron (WWII stories fitting in and around the Golden Age comics) and Alan Moore’s take on Swamp Thing – revealing him never to have been the human he’d thought he was.
This actually would be a little different – new revelations on back story don’t always count because you often expect new back story information.
To me, the defining characteristic of a retcon is that it was not what was originally planned, it’s a piece of backstory, or a twist, or a revelation that the creator(s) came up with *after* the fact, in some kind of serialized srorytelling. It can sometimes be hard to distinguish a true retcon unless the creator comes out and says it was. (There’s a famous one on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, sometimes referred to as the MOAR—the Mother of All Retcons—that did such a neat job of tying together some confusing elements of a character’s backstory that a lot of fans were convinced it WAS a planned twist seasons in the making, despite the writers and the actor each confirming that no, it was a third-act episode twist that the writers hadn’t given a lot of thought to beyond their immediate story needs, to the great annoyance of the actor.)
Which is why they’re mostly visible in long running serial multi-creator works – like comic universes – or certain television shows.
Walky has probably always been treated like this by Jennifer and thinks she behaves like this to everyone. I wonder if Lucy will say anything about it.
Welp, breakfast with Raidah is going to be even more awkward than expected if these two are going to have the fight it looks like they will.
Ben Folds isn’t my muse anyway. You don’t know me.
not this one ?
“Of course you would have Walked away, but I am the sort of friend who stays until she is Billed for the consultation.”
Jennifer: When we first met, I was but a learner. Now I am the master.
Walky: Only a master of evil, BILLIE.
Jennifer: That name no longer has any meaning for me.
* Yes, I have been watching Kenobi.
Spooky Joyce appears on this room: “Uuuuhhhh, storytiiiiime….”
Tell us a story!!!
Oh I like this Ben Folds song he had Regina Spektor feature on it. Which I guess is my way of saying I just really like Regina Spektor.
Calm down, Bongo.
One. Jennifer is from a family that didn’t model caring and concern for others. Just the opposite. For gods sake, Linda was her good role model. She’s more alone in the world than most of the cast. Walky and Joyce count as her best friends. Her drinking and hanging out with bad company are not character traits but signs of just how isolated she feels. For a very mixed up kid, she’s doing ok.
Two. Walky kinda aggressively doesn’t really know anyone.
Billie it feels like no one knows you as of late
I think Willis going to pull a fast one on us by revealing that, in fact, everyone just kind of shrugging off the fact she was a semi-suicidal alcoholic….was in fact unhealthy for her.
Probably because she’s changing, as college students tend to do.
Part of the humor and yet actually quite serious is Walky is 2 for 2 with not knowing his sisters very well. The two people he’s spent the most time with he takes at a purely superficial level.
I mean, he hadn’t seen Sal in years and Jennifer had bullied him throughout high school. Big surprise if he doesn’t know them well.
Yeah, Jennifer talks about all the head cheerleader stuff she did in supporting her squad, but she didn’t LET Walky be around for that. Sal is different because Walky didn’t WANT to see it.
Sal is different because she was sent off to Catholic school and it was risking Linda’s displeasure and his golden child status to reach out to her.
It’s impressive that Lucy, Walky, and Billie manage to discuss Joyce’s lingering religious hang ups about sex/birth control with more respect than her two best friends.
Sometimes, a best friend is just an enemy keeping you close. For example, Zenos yae Galvus, from the critically-acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, who’s basically the player character’s biggest cheerleader and is simultaneously trying to murder the fuck out of them.
Her best friends have suffered more from it, and use humor to find some relief.
Dorothy has not suffered from Joyce’s upbringing.
Being annoyed by a friend’s behavior is not remotely the same thing as being traumatized and brainwashed by your church and your parents.
Or if it is, DAMN, go no-contact and get better friends.
I’m a little surprised that people feel Joyce’s upbringing doesn’t affect Dorothy in a negative way, or that to point it out is suggesting Dorothy’s suffering is equal to Joyce’s suffering.
I genuinely don’t think Dorothy is harmed by Joyce’s upbringing, no. She is occasionally appalled by elements of it, and has expressed that it makes her sad for Joyce when Joyce says stuff like “everything good I do is Jesus working through me”, but Dorothy has a nice strong ego and she’s not internalizing any of the religiously-based weirdness coming from Joyce.
I don’t think “is sometimes annoyed by” equals “is negatively affected by.” Being annoyed is just a feeling, and you can do whatever you want with that feeling. There’s nothing in Dorothy’s dynamic with Joyce that feels like it’s causing Dorothy harm or distress—it doesn’t affect her grades, or her social life; she doesn’t feel trapped in this relationship; spending time with Joyce doesn’t appear to place an uncomfortable psychic or emotional burden on her. Like when Joyce’s comical overreaction to learning that Dorothy was sexually active crossed the line from “funny” to “annoying,” she just said so? It didn’t make her insecure or doubt herself, or ruin her night.
I mean, tl;dr, there is a distinction between “I dislike a thing” and “this thing harms me”, and it’s important to be able to recognize that, so you can prioritize working on the actual harmful things.
There were times in the first semester where it was close to crossing the line – mostly in the “I don’t have time or mental reserves to walk you through this” sense.
Jennifer. Do you??
Does anyone really know theirself?
Apparently Rebecca St. James can help with that.
Yeah no, Jennifer isn’t distancing herself because she’s climbing the social ladder.
Well yeah Jennifer, cuz you keep telling him “eww go away Walky, I’m trying to be popular”
This comic doesn’t suggest any possible alternatives for why she doesn’t want to be around him?
After weeks of being blown off and belittled, Walky’s supposed to be perfectly polite and not imply anything negative about Jennifer?