Jennifer’s parents show up in the area for business related reasons. Asher happens to run into them. Mentions he knows Jennifer. They’re like, “Oh, tell her we said hi, would you?” Asher’s like, “Actually, we’re meeting up right here, she’ll be hee in two minutes.” Jennifer’s parents: “Byeee!”
The thing is I think there’s like a 50/50 shot that the Mob also made sure that Mike didn’t wake up, and even if that’s not true it wouldn’t be hard for Ethan to assume that.
I have to say that I have never understood how Mike was a threat to the mob, how they knew he was a threat to the mob, and why he was perfectly safe from them until he jumped off that staircase and then suddenly had to hide from them afterwards. Maybe Asher was involved somehow. If so, I’d like someone to explain.
Implication I got was that Mike had dirt on Amber’s Dad, and so had access to a lot of very important information through this. Amber’s Dad didn’t go broadcasting this, because if people found out he was getting blackmailed by a high school/ first year college student (Pretty sure Mike started fucking with Amber’s Dad before the start of the comic), he would have been dealt with a whole lot sooner. But once Amber’s Dad started kidnapping people and put Mike in the hospital it became clear what a massive liability he was and so the mob suddenly had a lot of tidying up to do.
That’s the situation as I understood it at least, could be wrong about some details.
Blaine didn’t start kidnapping people until after Amazi-Girl stashed Mike in a hospital with no ID. Which was after Mike suddenly went from tooling around campus without precautions to “No cops!”
And none of that adds up to Asher being complicit in Mike’s death anyway.
The “no cops” wasn’t so much that the mob was after Mike as that he knew Blaine had mob connections to corrupt cops.
I don’t see any reason for the mob to be after Mike now that Blaine’s out of the way. Unless Blaine told Lester, before getting killed, that he’d let Mike get evidence of mob activity. Which seems unlikely.
No, Asher has some problems on account of his “””past””” “I could make some calls” mob connections, but he isn’t complicit in Mike’s death. Just Blaine’s and maybe Ross’s. He is going to get crap for Mike just by association when people find out, though.
mike blackmailed ambers dad (who seemed to be ripping off a Korean mafia thing) into taking them on a school trip and they stopped at the gas/convenience store that Sal tried to rob
Asher and Sal were robbing stores to pay for Marcie’s operation that she never received and can’t talk because of it well that’s why sal did it asher seemed to be just a hood ….
How do you figure Asher as complicit in Mike’s suicide? I’ll grant that he was complicit in the miraculous kidnapping and in the murder of Blaine, but Mike picking a fight with Blaine and Ross wasn’t even part of that plan.
I don’t know about that. He tackled Blaine off a fire escape from two stories up. The only reason it wasn’t a murder-suicide was because Blaine got lucky grabbing that rope.
Was he sacrificing himself to save Amber? Mostly. Did he regret his “be an asshole for the right reasons” path after drawing parallels with Blaine’s explanation of his own motives to Amazi-Girl? Maybe a little. We may never know definitively.
He tried to take Blaine with him, but yes, he killed himself by intentionally diving off a fire escape.
Even if he did it in an attempt to murder Blaine. Even if he did it to atone for having bullied Amber. Even if Blaine and Ross were trying to kill him at the time. He did it to himself and he died of it.
I’d rather call it unintentional death by misadventure. If he wanted to die and take Blaine with him there was much more street to aim for than car, to me it seemed much more a “this might kill me but I’m out of better choices” move than “here comes sweet death.”
Two stories up is a fall where you expect to wish you were dead because of the pain from the numerous broken bones. If you land badly like Mike did (as I recall he went over head first and landed square on his head) then yeah you die but it’s not a “this is certain death” fall.
It’s also a fall where you’re likely to have some spinal damage, and maybe some internal bleeding and organ damage, but the kind where you survive and might have to be in a wheel chair if you’re unlucky as long as you get to a good hospital quickly.
I sure hope Walky doesn’t end up in the same position, people are saying maybe Lucy didn’t break up with him. They both have equal grounds to have assumed their girls are done with them.
“Breaking up” is a straightforward thing. This is more of the same “we’re in a relationship, but we can’t actually be in a relationship because that would make me vulnerable, and so I’m just going to tell you everything you do is wrong, but I don’t even care” nonsense she’s been on ever since she noticed he dressed like Walky.
Why is everyone so surprised and acting like this is weird or uncalled for? She has explicitly said, out loud, for our benefit, what she currently needs in a relationship – aloof and distant.
Which is of course the Love she received from her parents.
As we were just reminded like three fricking days ago DID YOU ALL FORGET ABOUT TREE LAW SO QUICKLY
Did y’all already forget that Jennifer JUST lost some of her cool towards AN AUTHORITY FIGURE SHE HAS STAYED ON THE POSITIVE SIDE OF FOR DECADES as a coping mechanism for not receiving the same good girl points from her actual parents? Specifically because Linda was pushing ABOUT the absence and aloofness of her parents?
And in one of her most recent strips, Jennifer said “finally, this relationship’s on track” when Asher was giving her the aloof, distant, barely-recognizable-affection that she craves, but now he ruined it by PUSHING ABOUT HER PARENTS RIGHT AFTER LINDA DID.
Billie can’t afford to break up with Linda and Charles. She’s known Asher for a couple months, and he’s crossing her lines. See ya, fuckboy
Whaaaaaaaat the fuck. “I need my boyfriend to be aloof and distant, and if he starts expressing emotions I get to treat him badly until he gets back in line” is not like, an acceptable boundary. Yeah, Jennifer has a lot of reasons for why she is acting this way, many of which are or stem from childhood neglect. So fucking what? That does not make it okay to treat someone this way, at all.
This is not about Asher bringing up her parents. “I need you to give me more space” would be a fine boundary, saying “You need to continue embracing unhealthy habits and suppressing your emotions” is not a boundary. A relationship in which one of the participants is not allowed to express emotions or be anything other than aloof and distant is unhealthy, and saying “Finally this relationship is back on track” when your boyfriend seems aloof, distant, and UNHAPPY, it’s emotional abuse.
Jennifer’s “needs” cannot be “Asher isn’t allowed to have needs.” If him expressing a desire for closeness is “ruining” it or crossing her lines, then she needs to break up with him because that is emotional abuse, not setting healthy boundaries.
Oh right, now you mention it Jennifer very directly expresses the old therapist saying “until we heal, we seek intimate relationships that remind us of the parents that hurt us.”
Why on Earth can’t Jennifer’s needs as a character be for Asher to not have needs? I don’t even agree with your read that that is what is happening here, but what a wild thing to say! Characters are allowed to have needs and drives that are not healthy. That’s how drama happens.
Please remember that these are fictional characters and representation of bad actions is not endorsement of bad actions. We need to be able to make messy art about messy humans making messes.
I am curious what she means on the technically meeting them, like has he met the Billingsworths?
Also, I know she’s going to get a ton of shit here in the comment section, and understandably so, but I am not even really finding it in me to get mad at her. Their relationship seems to have reached its expiration point. Pull the plug, both of you, for both your sakes.
I thought she meant that the Walkertons are technically her parents. But he might have met the Billingsworths at some point but before meeting/dating Jennifer herself?
And they both come from families with some level of power from the same town. It’s possible they’ve met either at a “networking” type of event or a visit to one of their homes to discuss business.
Well, there’s no reason to suppose the he did go to the same high school (there are half a dozen or more in Evansville). Even if he did, I don’t believe that everyone at prom would go along with Billie when she left in her car, or called on her afterwards, let alone necessarily while her parents were with her.
Yeah, as much as it’s shitty that Jennifer finds “anything that reminds her even a little bit of Walky” to be an immediate and complete turnoff, and as much as she’s being unreasonable with all of this, the former point is not necessarily her fault, and the latter point is a good reason for her boyfriend (and while people are free to define their relationships however they want, this here feels either like gaslighting or breaking up) to break up with her. Which I think is actually what she’s trying to get him to do, maybe? Possibly so she doesn’t have to be the one to do it, and possibly so she can reinforce her previous beliefs about herself as being unlovable and undeserving of love.
As the audience, we have more appreciation for her toxic behavior and where it comes from. I kind of doubt Asher does. But unless the guy really, really likes her, or is aware of her trauma and doesn’t want her to be self-destructive, or is aware of her trauma and is invested in her finding redemption because he too cares about finding that himself… this is a lot of BS for a relationship to deal with.
i thin kshe did mention ‘i was always on teh other side of the playground’ so i imagine they prolly at least saw him while he was hanging around with sal?
Tbh I find it hard to get truly mad at any of the characters except like, amber sometimes. Not even billifer here. This did make me wince though. I home homeboy has it in him to just cut the cord when hes being disrespected like this
FIGURES WHO GIVE HER AFFECTION KEEP PUSHING ABOUT HER PARENTS AND THEIR LACK OF AFFECTION DURING A TIME SHE KEEPS TALKING OUT LOUD ABOUT HOW SHE NEEDS HER AFFECTION TO COME VIA COLD ALOOF DISTANCE
SHE CAN’T AFFORD TO BREAK UP WITH CHARLES AND LINDA BUT SHE’S KNOWN ASHER FOR A COUPLE MONTHS AND HE PRESSED DOWN HARD ON HER TRAUMA TRIGGERS RIGHT AFTER LINDA DID THAT WAS THREE DAYS AGO Y’ALL TREE LAW TREE LAW TREE LAW
Jennifer needs therapy. But on the other hand, she’s probably driven so many therapists to drinking that I bet there’s enough of them to reboot the cast of Cheers. or at the very least cash in on their current predicament and start a brewery together?
I think Jennifer needs to stop getting into relationships full stop. At least for a while. She’s not good for anyone in a relationship right now, including herself.
See, I don’t really feel like that’s Asher’s wish, though. He seems almost disproportionately well-adjusted. I could see him seeking redemption, but not destruction. He’s not clinging to Billie like she’s his one ticket to redemption, though, as far as I can tell; he’s in the process of escaping from his family’s influence, and other than getting blackmailed last semester into getting the fire alarm pulled, and then admittedly having Blaine murdered for being a threat (to both him personally but also to his family) (…but it’s also Blaine, and as much as I am not pro-murder even of people who have done deeply evil things, I also recognize that this was at worst a fairly grey use of Asher’s mob contacts…), he doesn’t feel like he’s at particular risk of backsliding on his own. Meaning, unlike Ruth and Billie’s dynamic, Asher is much more free to leave Jennifer.
So yeah, other than a little light murder, well-adjusted. Which maybe doesn’t sound as convincing as I’d hoped. But yeah. Point is, he doesn’t seem the self-destructive type.
This made me realize something. Not only was Jennifer’s reaction to Ruth dating a man due to her internalized homophobia, but…. she also knows Asher kissed a guy. So it’s gotta be frying her wires a little bit.
No amount of physical attractiveness can overcome THAT Personality. Not even if she was the last women on earth. And Squishy girls with Glasses are my Jam.
Same. (Glasses optional, but reviewing my dating history… well, I can’t speak to causation, but there’s definitely a correlation.) On the bright side, I can confirm there are squishy girls with glasses out there who are NOT deeply toxic to be around. Which seems like a plus?
hate fucks are apparently a thing but other than being drunk or at a party i can’t imagine the lead up/right after to where ppl would tolerate each other 5 mins before or after it lol
i don’t think tolerating in an ‘argument’ is the same as stripping naked and jumping in bed together unless you also just always have sex without ‘intimacy’ or also have some self hatred but i imagine asher doesn’t think of it that way even if his original intention was more of a hookup
Not strickly on topic, but for those of your still suffering from the fallout of a terrible, traumatic X-mas, just here to let you know, you’re not alone.
No, they’re not OK, and I’ve been in a slow-motion train wreck with them since I was a very small child. And now that the train cars are (metaphorically) piling up on them, I don’t know how to deal with it.
I can’t talk about the specifics of it. I just need to find a way to go robot-style and stop hurting so I can function.
Maybe like what Jennifer’s doing right now. How she’s trying to do the “I’m a confident, put-together young woman” act that Walky’s mom expects from her. Maybe she’s just sick of having empathy for others and has decided that “turning off” her emotions is easier.
I just went through that slow-motion decades-long train wreck thing coming to a head. It ended them.
The important thing is to talk with someone who understands loss. You have to process it. You can’t dull it, hold onto it. You need to experience it and come out the other side. Try to take some time to get away from your daily routine to take care of yourself.
I’m afraid I’m still in that “Only I can rescue them” state of paralysis, which keeps me spinning wildly off-center. Need to find my center again so I can at least sleep.
Do you have a comfort food or a soothing music or video or a soft fabric to snuggle with, or something to help take the edge off and create a little wiggle room for yourself in that cycle?
Hey, good for you for trying to stay sober! That takes real courage! I admire you for trying it. Even for holding that intention. Even just stating that preference. Regardless of outcome. You have the right to feel very proud of yourself for making that choice. I am impressed.
My favorite line from that song: “We marchin’ like tomorrow can’t wait. We can’t make it all alone. You ain’t gotta go through it all alone.”
Is there an exercise or dance or game that could help you experience the same kind of catharsis and full exertion and warm dopamine bath? Sometimes that can help.
I used to run, back when my body wasn’t so brittle and achy all the time. That soothed my mind a lot.
I walked a mile yesterday to get some Chinese food. Orange chicken and chow mein, which i had actually intended to get on Christmas. It was great, but i still feel terrible.
I will try my best to keep myself comfortably numb, but like, be it a game, movie, i can’t seem to find joy in anything right now. Just a little flicker of joy or two when my friend was streaming a zombie game yesterday, but not much else. My mood seems endless greyness under a grey sky. 😞😭
I had a pretty great Christmas! But unfortunately my sister did NOT. She and my Mom had a row over a plunger (lmao) and then she broke up with her 1st boyfriend on Christmas Eve. She didn’t want Mom or I to drop in and she didn’t go to Christmas, so we’ve just been anxiously waiting.
Billie…Jennifer. This character genuinely scares me. She’s disinterested so much by any concept of actual…commitment? Affection? Like she craves toxicity in a relationship but she’s aware of it? Or she’s not? I don’t know.
I feel like her attraction to Ruth and Asher are very different and toxic for different reasons. Ruth was comfort for her when she was going through a tough time and toxic in that, at least at first, was an excuse for them both to indulge in their worst behaviors. Asher seems to have been chosen because he is cool and sexy and Jennifer wanted to be those things again. This relationship is toxic because she wants Asher to remain what in her mind is (or at least what in her mind society concludes is) cool and hot: namely, grim, brooding, and distant. Therefore, she is actively sabotaging his personal growth and trying to force distance between them.
@Everyone: Asher hasn’t been dumped, oh no. Jennifer intends to continue banging him and spending time with him, while rejecting any labels or attempts from him to give or receive affection with her. And she wants to pretend that’s always been the deal and he’s wrong for expecting anything else, so that if they do separate, she can blame him for that.
It’s really bad when her previous alcohol-fueled suicide pact was less toxic.
And that the guy who called in a hit last semester is the calm, reasonable one, who it sounds like people might be less afraid of, and is if anything a bit of a woobie here.
Billie/Jennifer just keeps giving me reasons not to like her, and she used to be one of my fav characters when she was with Ruth, she felt like a real person. Now she is just tanking any relationship she has that doesn’t involve people who worship her like Walky’s parents.
Jennifer’s the only main character who’s become less likeable over the course of the comic and it’s sad. I would hope that after she alienates everyone she cares about she’ll hit rock bottom, have a realization and start really trying to become a more pleasant person – but I feel like she’s already hit what should be rock bottom multiple times so idk
If and when she does take a permanent turn for the best I think calling out the Walkerton parents for only valuing her as the elite connected white passing daugther they wish they had will be one sign of said change. Right now she’s choosing pretend approval (Linda) over real care (Asher).
Maybe. When the twins are in a better position to cut their parents off probably. She kinda acts like their lawyer/professional Linda pacifier sometimes, or keeps her distracted and off their backs
Does she normally act like a Linda go between for them? I know there was the one time she tried to talk Linda out of going after Amber but aside from that I don’t recall. She certainly hasn’t tried to smooth the issues the twins have had this week.
I’m still convinced that Asher has grown up to be a nice young man who’s grown beyond the mistakes he made in the past. If you set aside his edgy teen delinquent days, he seems to just be a sweet dork with a shitty family who’s getting played by Raidah.
True, but Blaine needed to die badly enough that it’s still a net positive. Guy was an unrepentant monster that actively made the lives of everyone around him worse.
Dude it’s fiction, let us indulge in the bad abusive man getting comeuppance. No one’s saying murder cop good. In this completely fictional scenario, just this once, it was awesome.
Agemegos, is that something that was explicit in the text or just implied? I just reread the Asher and Blaine panels from that portion of the story, and it’s very possible I missed something, but I had interpreted the whole event as the mob deciding that Blaine using their resources to abduct college kids for his personal agenda was too high profile and out of pocket so they decided to permanently stop that whole mess right there. I was of the mind that Asher was still being looked at as a mob ‘resource’ Blaine was using rather than an active player in the plan, and even without Asher being involved the mob might verywell have been the same level of done with Blaine and his personal vendetta. I might be too charitable to Asher’s innocence though.
OR…. Blaine’s not really dead and is in Witness Protection (with Mike, maybe) and the gunshot was just window dressing. Asher was in on it, and will be ratting out his grandfather and associates, with Blaine, when the time is ripe.
Just mentioning the possibility, as Blaine’s alleged shooting was off-screen. And having him and Mike living together as father and son would be amusing.
A lot of commenters take it the Asher ordered the hit on Blaine. I don’t that he has enough standing in the mob to do that, but I think it possible that the could have informed old Family contacts that Blaine was trying to get him to assist with a criminal scheme, knowing and intending that that would lead to them killing Blaine and solving Asher’s blackmail problem.
The comic didn’t come out show anything of either sort happening. It makes sense, but it’s just conjecture.
“could have informed old Family contacts that Blaine was trying to get him to assist with a criminal scheme”
or just reminded the cops and/or his family that Blaine knew which cops were on the take (plus other financial records) and would tell the feds to get a better plea bargain.
I don’t think he actually ordered or caused the hit to happen. All we really know is he was involved in it somehow. There were many good reasons for the mob to order a hit on Blaine at that point, they’d honestly be fools not to. Blaine probably would have squealed.
Or he was doing his old business associates a solid, so he could leave on a high note. That it was to his personal benefit is just gravy. Blaine had become a loose cannon and was growing looser by the minute.
I think Asher is genuinely fond of who Jennifer was, but lately she’s working hard to be inexplicable and he’s finding that unlovely. He wants “real Jennifer” back.
Ok, so Jennifer has a lot she needs to think over and decide what she wants from her life and why she tends to do things out of spite instead of because she wants to.
And Asher needs to run and find himself a partner who actually cares about him. And no, not Ethan, Ethan is spiraling too much right now and only seems to see Asher as someone that he can self-destruct next to, and Asher doesn’t deserve that again.
I get the impression that Walky’s mom (Linda?) stabbed at her gnawing insecurities:
“Gosh, you’re so great! I bet you see YOUR parents all the time, RIGHT?
…What, you mean your parents AREN’T the best parents in the world?
Why wouldn’t a perfect person like you see their parents regularly?
What’s wrong with you? There must be something wrong with you if your OWN PARENTS don’t even want to SEE you, right?
What kind of a screw-up are you? And what are you doing with that hoodlum with whom our little Sally used to hang around?”
I’m just guessing how Linda’s words sounded, while echoing around and around inside Jennifer’s head. Magnified in the funhouse mirrors of her own self-doubt and the judging gaze that she assumes all those round her must be directing at her.
Nothing more to be said
Write me a letter instead
I don’t mean to be cruel
But I’m finished with you
(She won’t even miss me when she’s gone
But that’s OK with me, I’ll cry later on)
I’ll Talk To Ya Later
Don’t wanna hear it again tonight
I’ll Talk To Ya Later
Just save it for another guy
I’ll Talk To Ya Later
Don’t wanna hear it again tonight
I’ll just see you around–another classic from 40 years ago
I gotta preface this by saying I’m not trying to defend Jennifer at all here. I too think she is an ass.
That being said I think her attitude here is major fallout from Ruth breaking up with her in the most terrible way possible. It broke Jen’s trust in partners I think. By keeping Asher questioning she never has to be vulnerable with him. “Jennifer” as a whole is a response to Ruth hurting her I think. We should be more pissed about that than we are.
Yeah. She loved Ruth. She felt loved by Ruth. Ruth shattered her trust in allowing herself to be vulnerable with someone, and this is her reaction to that. She shouldn’t be in a relationship at all til she works through it, but, teenagers.
That’s too surface level for me to believe. Asher being a dork might annoy Jennifer, but he immediately changed when she told him too and it clearly still isn’t enough. I don’t think she even wants to date, she just wants to prove to Ruth she’s doing better than her and Asher is a good tool for that until he starts getting too comfortable.
Also being empathetic to Joyce is common for Jen. The way she treats Asher shouldn’t indicate a lack of empathy to friends.
I do agree that Jennifer’s influenced in large part by a *lot* of denial about her attraction to Walky. Possibly in part because Walky reminds her of Billie?
Sirksome’s analysis of Ruth’s impact seems to be the other part. And those points make a lot of sense.
Yeah. And I could see being dismissive of someone with Walky’s typical behavior, but this visceral reaction against it is something she should interrogate.
I mean maybe I shouldn’t judge how fictional people break up, but breaking up immediately after making out with your partner, leaving some nerd to tell your partner “yes, this time is real” because you habitually push each other away, then barricading yourself away from your partner and assumedly breaking all contact with no explanation for months until you randomly meet because you signed up for the same gender studies class seems pretty bad to me.
at a time chosen because neither of them were suicidal, barricading because of a history of failing to break up, knowing how bad they were for each other.
I’m not saying it was amicable, but “most terrible way possible” is too hyperbolic. The most hyperbolic possible even.
I mean if I’m going to get called out for it then yes there are obviously worse ways to break up than that. I was just trying to mention that Ruth did a poor job and broke Billie’s trust in the process. I didn’t think I’d be scrutinized on my vocabulary to that extent when it was meant more as turn of phrase than the actual literal meaning. Such as saying “I’d kill for a slice of pizza.” But I wouldn’t actually kill for pizza. I just really want pizza.
Honestly, it threw me off too. Part of looking back at past strips was seeing if the break up was worse than I remembered. “I’d kill for x” is a much more established hyperbolic statement than “most terrible way possible.”
Did the Billingsworths defend Sal after Amber stabbed her? Is that how he would have “technically” met them?
…given what happened to Sal afterward, I wonder whether being sent to the boarding school was part of her bail or probation conditions which they negotiated for her. Ouch.
i don’t think walky’s emotional constipation about everything would let him admit he was bi/gay for one guy, let alone a three way but that would be hilarious XD
Walky’s talked p casually about being with/into dudes quite a bit since the timeskip. Some of it’s prolly jokes, or performative progressiveness for the sake of his brand, but Walky’d prolly have the easiest time admitting he was bi of the whole cast.
This makes me wonder if Jennifer’s just, like, dealing with extremely undiagnosed and unexamined BPD. She gets close to someone, then something gets in her head and suddenly she can’t stand them. She probably doesn’t even understand consciously what this is about. The girl is allergic to self-examination.
BPD makes a lot of sense. Looking at risk factors, her distant, neglectful parents do kinda sound like the common risk factor (not that that in itself is in any way definitive). As Sirksome and others pointed out above, Ruth abandoning her and breaking up with her in an admittedly really shitty, stonewall-y way could’ve a major factor here too, but then that sounds like another risk factor, unstable relationships (though I don’t know if that would be too late in life to actually cause BPD, but certainly it’s a reason why she would not trust people, and maybe that’d be enough to lead to BPD-like behaviors?).
Full disclosure, I am not a dentist. Do not take investment advice from me.
I would say that during some lower parts of the relationship both Ruth and Billie would try to push each other away, for ‘their own good’, like the first one I remember is this one https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/refusing/ In those cases, it’s definitely not playfighting and moreso just… Ruth and Billie/Jennifer not really seeming to know how healthy relationships should go I guess.
I should also explain by ‘first one’ I mean merely the first instance I remember namely due to those last two panels. The first instance of Ruth or Jennifer pushing each other away is probably Ruth pushing Jennifer away when they were at risk of Mary outting them, including taking back her room key and telling Jennifer to delete their pics together. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/delete/
well she dated asher after hanging around raidah’s ‘clique’ so i imagine she didn’t act the same way around her as she did around ruth/asher prolly doesn’t know all teh details about ruth (idk if he even knows she’s an ex) so i’d imagine he’d back off otherwise
Also, I’m not reading Jennifer as dumping Asher here at all. She’s doing that thing that exhausting people do sometimes (really we all do it, but she’s been pretty exhausting the past few times she’s shown up) where she’s not even listening fully to him. I read the “Try Again” as a response to him implying her parents are actually her parents. I also might have misread it, but she doesn’t even respond to the outright vicious shade he threw her way.
In complete and excessive generosity to Jennifer, I think anyone would have a negative reaction to being (accurately) told that they’ve become “allergic to basic humanity”. Honestly, I’m hoping we get to see a bit more inside her head soon. She seems to be in a complete self-destructive deathspiral. She wants to be doing badly so Ruth can see the breakup was awful for her and that Ruth was wrong. She wants to be dating a toxic fuckboy because it made her feel cool and sexy again. She wants to date someone toxic because she doesn’t want to feel like her partner is better than her; she wants to feel like she’s fixing someone. She wants to be doing well so Ruth can see she’s doing fine, but she doesn’t actually reciprocate the relationship so Asher’s attempts at closeness make her pull away anxiously. She never liked Billie, and dating a normal guy on Walky’s level makes her feel like Billie again.
She hates herself and wants the stability and awe she felt back in high school as a head cheerleader and problem solver, back when she “had it together.” Walky reflects the part of herself she’s running from, and Asher wearing Butt-Taco and brocloning it up with Walky makes her hate him so she’s pushing him away.
Interesting, my working theory was that she actually hates stability because it looked like that as soon as she was somewhat settled into a comfortable and respecting space with Asher, she suddenly didn’t like anything about him.
The second theory was that she was disappointed that Asher is not “bad to the bone” because he can quit smoking and put on a goofy shirt and be like any other dork (namely Walky). Which is the worse theory for her, because then it seems that she wants her romantic/sexual partners to be toxic and abusive. I mean, a certain baseline was established with Ruth on this; but for a while it seemed that they were trying to work through it into a healthier space (or at least Ruth was).
Do you want a relationship with the Your-Age version of Blaine, Billie?
No, you don’t.
I honestly could see the stability being the problem, but she *was* really happy with Ruth while she was stable, she wasn’t actively sabotaging it once people knew she was in love with her and they were trying to quit alcohol and go to therapy. Maybe Billie just was happy because she knew it wouldn’t last and she’d get the rush of validation again soon when something toppled, which is why Ruth had to break up with her before it happened.
The reason I think it’s the Broclone event was because she was trying to break away from Walky pretty hard this whole few story arcs, and then it turns out Walky and Asher have *fantastic* chemistry and resemble each other and suddenly “Billie” is haunting Jennifer again, as much as she tries to run away from her.
And obviously, she doesn’t want to be vulnerable because she doesn’t like admitting she has issues. So now that she has problems with Asher, she’s just ignoring and neglecting him until he leaves her, which is “normal” to her. Like she told Walky, make them your enemy and thrive without them.
LINDA PUSHED HER ABOUT HER ABSENT PARENTS THREE STRIPS AGO IT JUST HAPPENED AND THEN ASHER DID IT IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS TREE LAW
Ruth was consistent. They had a routine. Ruth broke her heart by breaking that routine and the doorknob. Asher is inconsistent, constantly flitting back and forth between distant and pushy, and worst of all, he’s doing this because she asked. To please her. Which only fuels the self-loathing of course.
Ruth was consistent?! Ruth and Jennifer broke up and got back together over and over, to the point where Jennifer barely even reacted to Ruth going from “fun Halloween date” to “we’re breaking up.” How is that consistent? That relationship fluctuated constantly until Ruth broke up with her permanently.
More importantly, the fact that Jennifer is treating him badly because of her own self-loathing does not make it okay that she’s treating him badly. In a non-romantic context, Amber got violent with Sal because of her own self-loathing, but it was still unprovoked assault, multiple times, regardless of her reasoning.
In my experience, “you unintentionally triggered my trauma/self-loathing with a comment” is frequently used as an excuse when abusive partners lash out. If you’re treating your partner like shit because something they said or did triggered your self-loathing, it’s still fucking abuse.
It was consistent in that the yo-yo was a consistent pattern. A known part of the deal going in. Until Ruth broke the pattern by breaking up with her for real.
they just passed the ‘center desk’ so i assume it’s just a main part of campus ground a lot of ppl would pass through every now and then even if they didnt livein whatever teh closest hall ot thati s
Reading this strip, I’m a little sad that this story’s timeline is generally so tight, because a version of this story that spans years could do an arc from Jenn’s perspective about starting college with a close group of friends, then realizing over time that they’ve gotten farther and farther away from her, and eventually grappling with the idea that there’s some fundamental piece of her personality that’s pushed them all away.
i feel that.
on the one hand, he nearly got them all killed with that whole blaine thing.
on the other hand…billie is friggin aweful. i mean, cheese and rice, i wouldn’t wish that kind of relationship on anyone.
“Be more self-destructive, but not because I told you to, but do it, but fight me on it, but make sure you do it.”
Know what, time for asher to have a quick redemption arc. there’s a depressed boy that could use some hugs and kisses, maybe asher could go help him.
Arguments from when any of these characters were 13 are invalid. Every 13 year old is a PoS automatically and inherently. Some worse than others, but no 13 year old is a good person
Honestly a tossup. I get the feeling Jennifer might spring at the chance to make some friction for herself, but she also might still be pissed about broclone Walky.
Did Jennier break-up with him? It not sounds like this. My guess is she is just being acid to Asher.
I’m feeling today’s a very difficult reading strip (sorry, Willis).
Parents who everybody wants to meet (because they’re super rich and powerful, supposedly), but could have both been dead for 6 years and no one would notice for all the presence they’ve had her entire childhood…
A surrogate self-proclaimed “mother of the year” whose peak parenting AND prospective knowledge amounts to kissing the butt of the most affluent party in the room whether they notice or not, complete with a husband whom is basically her glorified yes man…
A boyfriend whom, while stylish, has been a professional fair weather friend his whole life, good reasons for being so notwithstanding….
Jennifer Billingsworth and her amazing support system….At least she’s aware she has such problems by this point. This arc is has been kind of a breath of fresh air given the flood of fiction falling into an escapist-ass habit of depicting having a staunchly loving, dependable network of friends and family as a given in the past decade and a half. Having to deal with being a ‘blah’ level of a friend/family member only close to equally self-involved ducks with baseline levels or character and empathy. More relatable…
So now we have Asher who doesn’t know if he’s with Jennifer or not and Lucy who doesn’t know if she wants to continue being with Walky… The attraction between Asher and Lucy will be unstoppable!
“To maintain homeostasis, the human body employs many physiological adaptations. One of these is maintaining an acid-base balance. In the absence of pathological states, the pH of the human body ranges between 7.35 to 7.45, with the average at 7.40.”
So yeah, uh please let this die Asher? Everyone deserves better than this.
I have realised I am possibly unusual in finding (the sexuality aspect) of Jennifer’s behaviour depressingly real. I happen to know two women who are entirely attracted to women but for various reasons will not be with a woman.
So one had a miserable straight marriage that made them both worse people and now is a single mother, and the other keeps on getting into relationships with women then torpedoing them because she’s unwilling to be out. It’s frustrating and sad, and very strange to observe up close.
Anyway, regardless of whether Jennifer is bi, she is clearly just not that into Asher, and it’s sad even apart from all the other shit going on with her.
Jennifer is definitely bi (that’s Word of God), but there’s plenty of reason to find her struggles relatable to what you’ve seen those ladies go through. After all, Jennifer has also been closeted in the past.
Jennifer just wants the entire school to line up to show her love and respect, like back in her small town high school, and a boyfriend who doesn’t show her any love or respect, like her daddy did. Is that so bad? (Yes.) Is that so much to ask? (Also yes.)
I’m rooting for her to calm down and realize it’s fine to love Kit Fisto and the kind of people who judge her for having tastes and interests do not have worthwhile opinions. Ideally before she gets so used to hating herself she thinks that’s a good way to live.
Yeah I’m increasingly sure that Raidah et al sometimes say mean things to Jennifer, but that that meanness is something she thinks she needs; something she doesn’t feel safe without.
No the “technically you have” bit is why I had the same thought.
But Asher’s response is what tells us no, that’s not it: because he is agreeing he’s met her parents “technically”, but he is asserting that he wants to do it as her boyfriend.
So he’s met the Billingsworths, but it was prior to when they started dating. Probably an extremely brief meeting with them, maybe many years ago.
Typed up a long comment about Jennifer’s history and how she was on the verge of really being “out” as bi (in “This Was Halloween”, she tells Ruth she wants to introduce her to her parents), and how it seems like since the timeskip she’s backslid on that because she described dating Ruth as going through a “phase”, before acknowledging that she wasn’t specific about what she meant and that Willis might have been misdirecting us on purpose…
And I was starting to say, “Maybe Jennifer meant a ‘phase’ of being attracted to toxic people or something,” before realizing the much much sadder option: that she might have meant a phase of wanting your S.O. to meet your parents and believing in serious long-term relationships and believing in happiness. All of which, of course, track real well with this comic.
That said, of course Asher deserves better. I hope we get to see him get it.
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“Yeah, if *I* can’t meet my parents, I don’t know how YOU would”
Jennifer’s parents show up in the area for business related reasons. Asher happens to run into them. Mentions he knows Jennifer. They’re like, “Oh, tell her we said hi, would you?” Asher’s like, “Actually, we’re meeting up right here, she’ll be hee in two minutes.” Jennifer’s parents: “Byeee!”
given the kinda ‘bad boy’ jen supposedly wants i don’t think she’d want him to meet her parents if asher was still ‘malicious’
Jesus Christ.
Text her that the two of you are done and then mack on Ethan, Asher.
See I don’t know if Ethan’s going to be better long term, since you know, Asher is kinda complicit in Mike’s death.
Knowing how bad of a place Ethan is in right now, he’d probably relish fucking the guy who had Blaine assassinated
The thing is I think there’s like a 50/50 shot that the Mob also made sure that Mike didn’t wake up, and even if that’s not true it wouldn’t be hard for Ethan to assume that.
But how would Asher be implicated in that?
I have to say that I have never understood how Mike was a threat to the mob, how they knew he was a threat to the mob, and why he was perfectly safe from them until he jumped off that staircase and then suddenly had to hide from them afterwards. Maybe Asher was involved somehow. If so, I’d like someone to explain.
Implication I got was that Mike had dirt on Amber’s Dad, and so had access to a lot of very important information through this. Amber’s Dad didn’t go broadcasting this, because if people found out he was getting blackmailed by a high school/ first year college student (Pretty sure Mike started fucking with Amber’s Dad before the start of the comic), he would have been dealt with a whole lot sooner. But once Amber’s Dad started kidnapping people and put Mike in the hospital it became clear what a massive liability he was and so the mob suddenly had a lot of tidying up to do.
That’s the situation as I understood it at least, could be wrong about some details.
Blaine didn’t start kidnapping people until after Amazi-Girl stashed Mike in a hospital with no ID. Which was after Mike suddenly went from tooling around campus without precautions to “No cops!”
And none of that adds up to Asher being complicit in Mike’s death anyway.
The “no cops” wasn’t so much that the mob was after Mike as that he knew Blaine had mob connections to corrupt cops.
I don’t see any reason for the mob to be after Mike now that Blaine’s out of the way. Unless Blaine told Lester, before getting killed, that he’d let Mike get evidence of mob activity. Which seems unlikely.
No, Asher has some problems on account of his “””past””” “I could make some calls” mob connections, but he isn’t complicit in Mike’s death. Just Blaine’s and maybe Ross’s. He is going to get crap for Mike just by association when people find out, though.
Complicit in the kidnappings though.
mike blackmailed ambers dad (who seemed to be ripping off a Korean mafia thing) into taking them on a school trip and they stopped at the gas/convenience store that Sal tried to rob
Asher and Sal were robbing stores to pay for Marcie’s operation that she never received and can’t talk because of it well that’s why sal did it asher seemed to be just a hood ….
He wasn’t, actually
How do you figure Asher as complicit in Mike’s suicide? I’ll grant that he was complicit in the miraculous kidnapping and in the murder of Blaine, but Mike picking a fight with Blaine and Ross wasn’t even part of that plan.
Mike didn’t die by suicide ;;
I don’t know about that. He tackled Blaine off a fire escape from two stories up. The only reason it wasn’t a murder-suicide was because Blaine got lucky grabbing that rope.
Was he sacrificing himself to save Amber? Mostly. Did he regret his “be an asshole for the right reasons” path after drawing parallels with Blaine’s explanation of his own motives to Amazi-Girl? Maybe a little. We may never know definitively.
He tried to take Blaine with him, but yes, he killed himself by intentionally diving off a fire escape.
Even if he did it in an attempt to murder Blaine. Even if he did it to atone for having bullied Amber. Even if Blaine and Ross were trying to kill him at the time. He did it to himself and he died of it.
I’ll have to study that passage again. I thought it was more of an “Uh-oh, well, if I’m going to die I’m taking you to hell with me.” Which failed.
I’d rather call it unintentional death by misadventure. If he wanted to die and take Blaine with him there was much more street to aim for than car, to me it seemed much more a “this might kill me but I’m out of better choices” move than “here comes sweet death.”
Two stories up is a fall where you expect to wish you were dead because of the pain from the numerous broken bones. If you land badly like Mike did (as I recall he went over head first and landed square on his head) then yeah you die but it’s not a “this is certain death” fall.
It’s also a fall where you’re likely to have some spinal damage, and maybe some internal bleeding and organ damage, but the kind where you survive and might have to be in a wheel chair if you’re unlucky as long as you get to a good hospital quickly.
Asher may have done some bad shit in his life, but even he doesn’t deserve THIS. Get outta there ASAP dude.
imagine if he talked to ruth for advicelol
Did…did she just break up with him? Jesus, Billie, what the shit?
Did she? Technically to break up you’d have to be in a relationship first which is apparently still up for debate.
I sure hope Walky doesn’t end up in the same position, people are saying maybe Lucy didn’t break up with him. They both have equal grounds to have assumed their girls are done with them.
and we end up with Walky/Asher sticking their tongues out collectively at Billie/Lucy
–Dave, the slashes are intentional
Plus, no doorknobs got sawed off.
Nothing so direct, I think
i think it’s more so a ‘test’ to make him act a certain way
“Breaking up” is a straightforward thing. This is more of the same “we’re in a relationship, but we can’t actually be in a relationship because that would make me vulnerable, and so I’m just going to tell you everything you do is wrong, but I don’t even care” nonsense she’s been on ever since she noticed he dressed like Walky.
Another sign that Jennifer just wants Ruth.
Also evidence that Jennifer deserves to be Ruth-less.
No.
Why is everyone so surprised and acting like this is weird or uncalled for? She has explicitly said, out loud, for our benefit, what she currently needs in a relationship – aloof and distant.
Which is of course the Love she received from her parents.
As we were just reminded like three fricking days ago DID YOU ALL FORGET ABOUT TREE LAW SO QUICKLY
Did y’all already forget that Jennifer JUST lost some of her cool towards AN AUTHORITY FIGURE SHE HAS STAYED ON THE POSITIVE SIDE OF FOR DECADES as a coping mechanism for not receiving the same good girl points from her actual parents? Specifically because Linda was pushing ABOUT the absence and aloofness of her parents?
And in one of her most recent strips, Jennifer said “finally, this relationship’s on track” when Asher was giving her the aloof, distant, barely-recognizable-affection that she craves, but now he ruined it by PUSHING ABOUT HER PARENTS RIGHT AFTER LINDA DID.
Billie can’t afford to break up with Linda and Charles. She’s known Asher for a couple months, and he’s crossing her lines. See ya, fuckboy
Whaaaaaaaat the fuck. “I need my boyfriend to be aloof and distant, and if he starts expressing emotions I get to treat him badly until he gets back in line” is not like, an acceptable boundary. Yeah, Jennifer has a lot of reasons for why she is acting this way, many of which are or stem from childhood neglect. So fucking what? That does not make it okay to treat someone this way, at all.
This is not about Asher bringing up her parents. “I need you to give me more space” would be a fine boundary, saying “You need to continue embracing unhealthy habits and suppressing your emotions” is not a boundary. A relationship in which one of the participants is not allowed to express emotions or be anything other than aloof and distant is unhealthy, and saying “Finally this relationship is back on track” when your boyfriend seems aloof, distant, and UNHAPPY, it’s emotional abuse.
Jennifer’s “needs” cannot be “Asher isn’t allowed to have needs.” If him expressing a desire for closeness is “ruining” it or crossing her lines, then she needs to break up with him because that is emotional abuse, not setting healthy boundaries.
Oh right, now you mention it Jennifer very directly expresses the old therapist saying “until we heal, we seek intimate relationships that remind us of the parents that hurt us.”
Why on Earth can’t Jennifer’s needs as a character be for Asher to not have needs? I don’t even agree with your read that that is what is happening here, but what a wild thing to say! Characters are allowed to have needs and drives that are not healthy. That’s how drama happens.
Please remember that these are fictional characters and representation of bad actions is not endorsement of bad actions. We need to be able to make messy art about messy humans making messes.
Yes, because being emotionally abusive is okay as long as… You call the shot first, I guess???
I am curious what she means on the technically meeting them, like has he met the Billingsworths?
Also, I know she’s going to get a ton of shit here in the comment section, and understandably so, but I am not even really finding it in me to get mad at her. Their relationship seems to have reached its expiration point. Pull the plug, both of you, for both your sakes.
I thought she meant that the Walkertons are technically her parents. But he might have met the Billingsworths at some point but before meeting/dating Jennifer herself?
They went to school together, so he might have met them once on some occasion.
And they both come from families with some level of power from the same town. It’s possible they’ve met either at a “networking” type of event or a visit to one of their homes to discuss business.
They didn’t necessarily go to school together. We’re never shown how Sal knew Asher in the first place, so it could have been from outside school.
Like at prom. Assuming (hoping!) they showed up when she crashed her SUV into a tree.
gonna make a wild assumption and say they did not
Yeah, but was Asher present when Billie crashed her car?
If he went to the same high school and went to prom, then maybe.
Well, there’s no reason to suppose the he did go to the same high school (there are half a dozen or more in Evansville). Even if he did, I don’t believe that everyone at prom would go along with Billie when she left in her car, or called on her afterwards, let alone necessarily while her parents were with her.
Yeah, as much as it’s shitty that Jennifer finds “anything that reminds her even a little bit of Walky” to be an immediate and complete turnoff, and as much as she’s being unreasonable with all of this, the former point is not necessarily her fault, and the latter point is a good reason for her boyfriend (and while people are free to define their relationships however they want, this here feels either like gaslighting or breaking up) to break up with her. Which I think is actually what she’s trying to get him to do, maybe? Possibly so she doesn’t have to be the one to do it, and possibly so she can reinforce her previous beliefs about herself as being unlovable and undeserving of love.
As the audience, we have more appreciation for her toxic behavior and where it comes from. I kind of doubt Asher does. But unless the guy really, really likes her, or is aware of her trauma and doesn’t want her to be self-destructive, or is aware of her trauma and is invested in her finding redemption because he too cares about finding that himself… this is a lot of BS for a relationship to deal with.
i thin kshe did mention ‘i was always on teh other side of the playground’ so i imagine they prolly at least saw him while he was hanging around with sal?
Tbh I find it hard to get truly mad at any of the characters except like, amber sometimes. Not even billifer here. This did make me wince though. I home homeboy has it in him to just cut the cord when hes being disrespected like this
literally what the fuck, jennifer
Exactly
WHY IS THIS PEOPLE’S REACTION I DON’T GET IT
WHY IS THIS SURPRISING OR EVEN BAD
FIGURES WHO GIVE HER AFFECTION KEEP PUSHING ABOUT HER PARENTS AND THEIR LACK OF AFFECTION DURING A TIME SHE KEEPS TALKING OUT LOUD ABOUT HOW SHE NEEDS HER AFFECTION TO COME VIA COLD ALOOF DISTANCE
SHE CAN’T AFFORD TO BREAK UP WITH CHARLES AND LINDA BUT SHE’S KNOWN ASHER FOR A COUPLE MONTHS AND HE PRESSED DOWN HARD ON HER TRAUMA TRIGGERS RIGHT AFTER LINDA DID THAT WAS THREE DAYS AGO Y’ALL TREE LAW TREE LAW TREE LAW
Gesundheit.
Jennifer needs therapy. But on the other hand, she’s probably driven so many therapists to drinking that I bet there’s enough of them to reboot the cast of Cheers. or at the very least cash in on their current predicament and start a brewery together?
“I can fix her!” No, you can’t.
“I can co-destruct with her.”
Jennifer needs to stop getting into relationships that are like that.
Problem is, that’s the EXACT Kind of relationship she seems to keep seeking out.
I think Jennifer needs to stop getting into relationships full stop. At least for a while. She’s not good for anyone in a relationship right now, including herself.
Ruth tried it, would not recommend
See, I don’t really feel like that’s Asher’s wish, though. He seems almost disproportionately well-adjusted. I could see him seeking redemption, but not destruction. He’s not clinging to Billie like she’s his one ticket to redemption, though, as far as I can tell; he’s in the process of escaping from his family’s influence, and other than getting blackmailed last semester into getting the fire alarm pulled, and then admittedly having Blaine murdered for being a threat (to both him personally but also to his family) (…but it’s also Blaine, and as much as I am not pro-murder even of people who have done deeply evil things, I also recognize that this was at worst a fairly grey use of Asher’s mob contacts…), he doesn’t feel like he’s at particular risk of backsliding on his own. Meaning, unlike Ruth and Billie’s dynamic, Asher is much more free to leave Jennifer.
So yeah, other than a little light murder, well-adjusted. Which maybe doesn’t sound as convincing as I’d hoped. But yeah. Point is, he doesn’t seem the self-destructive type.
I… didn’t mean to suggest that was Asher’s wish or thoughts or any.
Next Book [*] Title: Other Than A Little Light Murder, Well-Adjusted
–Dave, [*] honestly, I can’t keep up, damnyouWillis for putting out such a consistent stream of high-quality product so well
Maybe once he gets his veterinary license.
Good one. I too was just about to say “if it’ll prevent her reproducing, I’ll support“ or something similar.
for a second there I read that like Bob The Builder’s catch-phrase
What happened? Did Asher just get dumped?
I don’t think he knows.
I’m not sure she knows.
You know.
This made me realize something. Not only was Jennifer’s reaction to Ruth dating a man due to her internalized homophobia, but…. she also knows Asher kissed a guy. So it’s gotta be frying her wires a little bit.
Nah cuz that would require Billie to be straightforward about something
This is a great relationship I truly believe in.
And it’s so much more amusing when you remember that Jennifer is really Mike pretending to be Billie.
we ned a Pantomime version of DoA touring the UK, soonest
–Dave, they’re beHIIIND you!
bruh
I think Willis is going through great effort to make me hate Jennifer.
Well good news, you don’t have to keep digging. I hate her.
She still hot though, right?
So hot.
SMOKING.
No amount of physical attractiveness can overcome THAT Personality. Not even if she was the last women on earth. And Squishy girls with Glasses are my Jam.
Same. (Glasses optional, but reviewing my dating history… well, I can’t speak to causation, but there’s definitely a correlation.) On the bright side, I can confirm there are squishy girls with glasses out there who are NOT deeply toxic to be around. Which seems like a plus?
Honestly, given Willis art style, which girls aren’t squishy in the strip these days?
Conquest has been in like 2 strips, and only Sarah & Lucy have avoided the Freshman 15…
hate fucks are apparently a thing but other than being drunk or at a party i can’t imagine the lead up/right after to where ppl would tolerate each other 5 mins before or after it lol
You don’t have to tolerate someone to negotiate with them any more than you have to tolerate them in order to argue with them.
i don’t think tolerating in an ‘argument’ is the same as stripping naked and jumping in bed together unless you also just always have sex without ‘intimacy’ or also have some self hatred but i imagine asher doesn’t think of it that way even if his original intention was more of a hookup
Me @ JJK with Mei Mei
She was so fun until…that
Not strickly on topic, but for those of your still suffering from the fallout of a terrible, traumatic X-mas, just here to let you know, you’re not alone.
😭😭😭
Yeah, I feel ya.
<3
Mine wasn't even traumatic, I'm just driven to distraction worrying about a friend.
That sound horrible. Is your friend ok? If you don’t mind me asking.
Thanks, hon’.
No, they’re not OK, and I’ve been in a slow-motion train wreck with them since I was a very small child. And now that the train cars are (metaphorically) piling up on them, I don’t know how to deal with it.
I can’t talk about the specifics of it. I just need to find a way to go robot-style and stop hurting so I can function.
Maybe like what Jennifer’s doing right now. How she’s trying to do the “I’m a confident, put-together young woman” act that Walky’s mom expects from her. Maybe she’s just sick of having empathy for others and has decided that “turning off” her emotions is easier.
I just went through that slow-motion decades-long train wreck thing coming to a head. It ended them.
The important thing is to talk with someone who understands loss. You have to process it. You can’t dull it, hold onto it. You need to experience it and come out the other side. Try to take some time to get away from your daily routine to take care of yourself.
Hey, thank you, Stanislaus. I am grateful to you for saying that. I really appreciate you for reaching out to share those kind words of wisdom.
*Stanistani. Sorry! Dang autocorrect!
I’m afraid I’m still in that “Only I can rescue them” state of paralysis, which keeps me spinning wildly off-center. Need to find my center again so I can at least sleep.
🥺
Meltdown on the 25th and Ive been cycling through sleeping and panic attacks since (10hr sleeping, 4hrs crying, rinse repeat).
Do you have a comfort food or a soothing music or video or a soft fabric to snuggle with, or something to help take the edge off and create a little wiggle room for yourself in that cycle?
I am so sorry you are dealing with that, friend.
<3
Same here, you ain’t alone 😭😭😭 🫂🫂🫂
Plays “You ain’t gotta go through it all alone” on the hacked car stereo, driving all night…
https://youtu.be/kCnG5OtQJ4M?si=Lk5NCeYovQa_Dpbx
🥺 awe thanks Laura, this mean so much
trying so hard to stay sober until New Years, at least I got friends who also in the depression boat this holiday season 😭
Hey, good for you for trying to stay sober! That takes real courage! I admire you for trying it. Even for holding that intention. Even just stating that preference. Regardless of outcome. You have the right to feel very proud of yourself for making that choice. I am impressed.
My favorite line from that song: “We marchin’ like tomorrow can’t wait. We can’t make it all alone. You ain’t gotta go through it all alone.”
Just… what do you do when you feel like you missed a big holiday, a big chance for serotonin release? 😭
Is there an exercise or dance or game that could help you experience the same kind of catharsis and full exertion and warm dopamine bath? Sometimes that can help.
I used to run, back when my body wasn’t so brittle and achy all the time. That soothed my mind a lot.
I walked a mile yesterday to get some Chinese food. Orange chicken and chow mein, which i had actually intended to get on Christmas. It was great, but i still feel terrible.
I will try my best to keep myself comfortably numb, but like, be it a game, movie, i can’t seem to find joy in anything right now. Just a little flicker of joy or two when my friend was streaming a zombie game yesterday, but not much else. My mood seems endless greyness under a grey sky. 😞😭
That’s good you walked and got Chinese food. Good self-care.
I hear ya’. As the song goes, “Sometimes the only way to go is to just go on…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qq0tzCaFp8
That… certainly is a song 😮
Wouldn’t be out of place in zombie apocalypse media, that’s for sure.
The world we live in ain’t quite that ruined but has gotten quite fucked up in the last few years, the message of that song I guess holds value,
“Sometimes the only way to go is to just go on…”
I had a pretty great Christmas! But unfortunately my sister did NOT. She and my Mom had a row over a plunger (lmao) and then she broke up with her 1st boyfriend on Christmas Eve. She didn’t want Mom or I to drop in and she didn’t go to Christmas, so we’ve just been anxiously waiting.
Sending New Year hopes for her!
Jennifer! Stop being shitty!
Well it’s nice to see these two are doing fine.
can’t wait for asher to leave this dumpster fire
Yes, he deserves to be in the much hotter (not in a heat way) dumpster fire that is Ethan. Emphesis on the “In” part lol.
I gotta say.
Billie…Jennifer. This character genuinely scares me. She’s disinterested so much by any concept of actual…commitment? Affection? Like she craves toxicity in a relationship but she’s aware of it? Or she’s not? I don’t know.
Maybe on a subconscious level she craves it?
I feel like her attraction to Ruth and Asher are very different and toxic for different reasons. Ruth was comfort for her when she was going through a tough time and toxic in that, at least at first, was an excuse for them both to indulge in their worst behaviors. Asher seems to have been chosen because he is cool and sexy and Jennifer wanted to be those things again. This relationship is toxic because she wants Asher to remain what in her mind is (or at least what in her mind society concludes is) cool and hot: namely, grim, brooding, and distant. Therefore, she is actively sabotaging his personal growth and trying to force distance between them.
Is one of the Billingsworths the Walkertons’ lawyer, is she implying?
I think the Billingsworths are old money of some sort?
Real estate developers.
Oof, the WORST flavor of Bourgeoisie. No wonder She’s a Dumpster Fire of a person.
Billingsworth Real Estate down in Evansville.
@Everyone: Asher hasn’t been dumped, oh no. Jennifer intends to continue banging him and spending time with him, while rejecting any labels or attempts from him to give or receive affection with her. And she wants to pretend that’s always been the deal and he’s wrong for expecting anything else, so that if they do separate, she can blame him for that.
It’s really bad when her previous alcohol-fueled suicide pact was less toxic.
I don’t know that it was less toxic, but it was more mutual.
At least then the toxicity went both ways and there was some chance of improvement.
And that the guy who called in a hit last semester is the calm, reasonable one, who it sounds like people might be less afraid of, and is if anything a bit of a woobie here.
Oh this is spot on. I do hope Asher cuts this off at the pass here, because no one deserves that nonsense.
Asher: *calls in mob favor on Jennifer*
mob: “ooOOH no, we ain’t touchin’ that situation, we’ve heard about her”
*confused Asher noises*
Billie/Jennifer just keeps giving me reasons not to like her, and she used to be one of my fav characters when she was with Ruth, she felt like a real person. Now she is just tanking any relationship she has that doesn’t involve people who worship her like Walky’s parents.
Jennifer still fell like a real person. Just one of the many ones that you do NOT want to be in a relationship with.
Jennifer’s the only main character who’s become less likeable over the course of the comic and it’s sad. I would hope that after she alienates everyone she cares about she’ll hit rock bottom, have a realization and start really trying to become a more pleasant person – but I feel like she’s already hit what should be rock bottom multiple times so idk
Sometimes people gotta bounce three or four times before they realize that.
If and when she does take a permanent turn for the best I think calling out the Walkerton parents for only valuing her as the elite connected white passing daugther they wish they had will be one sign of said change. Right now she’s choosing pretend approval (Linda) over real care (Asher).
Maybe. When the twins are in a better position to cut their parents off probably. She kinda acts like their lawyer/professional Linda pacifier sometimes, or keeps her distracted and off their backs
Does she normally act like a Linda go between for them? I know there was the one time she tried to talk Linda out of going after Amber but aside from that I don’t recall. She certainly hasn’t tried to smooth the issues the twins have had this week.
Sometimes, people get worse, not better. It’s sad but it’s true. Not all character development is positive.
I’m still convinced that Asher has grown up to be a nice young man who’s grown beyond the mistakes he made in the past. If you set aside his edgy teen delinquent days, he seems to just be a sweet dork with a shitty family who’s getting played by Raidah.
And who either ordered a mob hit on Blaine, or else deliberately manipulated mob figures so that they would order a hit on Blaine.
Apart from that, though, top bloke.
It was Blaine. Tell me you wouldn’t have done it too.
Fair point.
I would not have done it. no punisher skull decal for me
*backing away slowly*
That’s in the Plus column, TBH. Using dark powers for good.
cops doing an extrajudicial execution is not good
True, but Blaine needed to die badly enough that it’s still a net positive. Guy was an unrepentant monster that actively made the lives of everyone around him worse.
Look, he murdered toe dad. He was going to get put away regardless.
it’s bad that anyone’s solution to perceived offenses is murder.
Dude it’s fiction, let us indulge in the bad abusive man getting comeuppance. No one’s saying murder cop good. In this completely fictional scenario, just this once, it was awesome.
no.
Agemegos, is that something that was explicit in the text or just implied? I just reread the Asher and Blaine panels from that portion of the story, and it’s very possible I missed something, but I had interpreted the whole event as the mob deciding that Blaine using their resources to abduct college kids for his personal agenda was too high profile and out of pocket so they decided to permanently stop that whole mess right there. I was of the mind that Asher was still being looked at as a mob ‘resource’ Blaine was using rather than an active player in the plan, and even without Asher being involved the mob might verywell have been the same level of done with Blaine and his personal vendetta. I might be too charitable to Asher’s innocence though.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/blammo/ heavily implied. I don’t think that’s a text saying his take-out order is ready.
Fair enough. I guess I just hadn’t read that as evidence Asher had made that happen, just him being informed that it had.
The spur on the speech-bubble points to the right. So that is probably a message that Asher sent.
Sorry, my mistake. I was looking at the previous message on Asher’s phone.
OR…. Blaine’s not really dead and is in Witness Protection (with Mike, maybe) and the gunshot was just window dressing. Asher was in on it, and will be ratting out his grandfather and associates, with Blaine, when the time is ripe.
Just mentioning the possibility, as Blaine’s alleged shooting was off-screen. And having him and Mike living together as father and son would be amusing.
Let’s be honest, they were gonna “fire” him either way, he was a shit ass grunt
Just implied.
A lot of commenters take it the Asher ordered the hit on Blaine. I don’t that he has enough standing in the mob to do that, but I think it possible that the could have informed old Family contacts that Blaine was trying to get him to assist with a criminal scheme, knowing and intending that that would lead to them killing Blaine and solving Asher’s blackmail problem.
The comic didn’t come out show anything of either sort happening. It makes sense, but it’s just conjecture.
The Family takes care of it’s own.
The Family also doesn’t really let you leave the family.
My assumption is that he told them and they had him arrange the hit. Dragging him back in and making one more thing they have over him.
And frankly, even if he was only involved enough to have informed Gramps and to be contacted when it was done, that’s still moral culpability.
“could have informed old Family contacts that Blaine was trying to get him to assist with a criminal scheme”
or just reminded the cops and/or his family that Blaine knew which cops were on the take (plus other financial records) and would tell the feds to get a better plea bargain.
I don’t think he actually ordered or caused the hit to happen. All we really know is he was involved in it somehow. There were many good reasons for the mob to order a hit on Blaine at that point, they’d honestly be fools not to. Blaine probably would have squealed.
Or he was doing his old business associates a solid, so he could leave on a high note. That it was to his personal benefit is just gravy. Blaine had become a loose cannon and was growing looser by the minute.
having the cops kill Blaine before he could rat him out is edgy
We’re yet to see that it was a mistake, though!
So maybe Jennifer knows this and that’s why she can blackmail him into being in this horrible relationship with her?
I think Asher is genuinely fond of who Jennifer was, but lately she’s working hard to be inexplicable and he’s finding that unlovely. He wants “real Jennifer” back.
Ok, so Jennifer has a lot she needs to think over and decide what she wants from her life and why she tends to do things out of spite instead of because she wants to.
And Asher needs to run and find himself a partner who actually cares about him. And no, not Ethan, Ethan is spiraling too much right now and only seems to see Asher as someone that he can self-destruct next to, and Asher doesn’t deserve that again.
Ethan can be one no strings attached, extremely hot night. Get all that out of his system
Jennifer: human connections? Empathy? Haha gross.
Wonder if she ever gets the epiphany that she’s turning into her cold, emotionless parents.
I think that’s the point. That’s what “success” means, right?
I get the impression that Walky’s mom (Linda?) stabbed at her gnawing insecurities:
“Gosh, you’re so great! I bet you see YOUR parents all the time, RIGHT?
…What, you mean your parents AREN’T the best parents in the world?
Why wouldn’t a perfect person like you see their parents regularly?
What’s wrong with you? There must be something wrong with you if your OWN PARENTS don’t even want to SEE you, right?
What kind of a screw-up are you? And what are you doing with that hoodlum with whom our little Sally used to hang around?”
I’m just guessing how Linda’s words sounded, while echoing around and around inside Jennifer’s head. Magnified in the funhouse mirrors of her own self-doubt and the judging gaze that she assumes all those round her must be directing at her.
Nothing more to be said
Write me a letter instead
I don’t mean to be cruel
But I’m finished with you
(She won’t even miss me when she’s gone
But that’s OK with me, I’ll cry later on)
I’ll Talk To Ya Later
Don’t wanna hear it again tonight
I’ll Talk To Ya Later
Just save it for another guy
I’ll Talk To Ya Later
Don’t wanna hear it again tonight
I’ll just see you around–another classic from 40 years ago
tfw you realize “40 years ago” is now the ’80s
–Dave, we are now further away from WWII than it was from the Civil War
I gotta preface this by saying I’m not trying to defend Jennifer at all here. I too think she is an ass.
That being said I think her attitude here is major fallout from Ruth breaking up with her in the most terrible way possible. It broke Jen’s trust in partners I think. By keeping Asher questioning she never has to be vulnerable with him. “Jennifer” as a whole is a response to Ruth hurting her I think. We should be more pissed about that than we are.
You know, this made me look back at their Halloween appearances, and… first panel here:https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/premeditated/
She asked Ruth to meet her parents.
Yeah. She loved Ruth. She felt loved by Ruth. Ruth shattered her trust in allowing herself to be vulnerable with someone, and this is her reaction to that. She shouldn’t be in a relationship at all til she works through it, but, teenagers.
Oh, ofc! :O
Good catch.
Nah, they were seemingly fine, even affectionate, at the start of the semester. Jennifer was still showing empathy to people like Joyce.
It was after she found out Asher was a Walky-level dork that she just… shut off her empathy valves.
That’s too surface level for me to believe. Asher being a dork might annoy Jennifer, but he immediately changed when she told him too and it clearly still isn’t enough. I don’t think she even wants to date, she just wants to prove to Ruth she’s doing better than her and Asher is a good tool for that until he starts getting too comfortable.
Also being empathetic to Joyce is common for Jen. The way she treats Asher shouldn’t indicate a lack of empathy to friends.
I mean, she panicked because she realized her pseudo brother was hot and that made the aggravation worse.
I do agree that Jennifer’s influenced in large part by a *lot* of denial about her attraction to Walky. Possibly in part because Walky reminds her of Billie?
Sirksome’s analysis of Ruth’s impact seems to be the other part. And those points make a lot of sense.
Yeah. And I could see being dismissive of someone with Walky’s typical behavior, but this visceral reaction against it is something she should interrogate.
most terrible way possible?
I mean maybe I shouldn’t judge how fictional people break up, but breaking up immediately after making out with your partner, leaving some nerd to tell your partner “yes, this time is real” because you habitually push each other away, then barricading yourself away from your partner and assumedly breaking all contact with no explanation for months until you randomly meet because you signed up for the same gender studies class seems pretty bad to me.
at a time chosen because neither of them were suicidal, barricading because of a history of failing to break up, knowing how bad they were for each other.
I’m not saying it was amicable, but “most terrible way possible” is too hyperbolic. The most hyperbolic possible even.
I mean if I’m going to get called out for it then yes there are obviously worse ways to break up than that. I was just trying to mention that Ruth did a poor job and broke Billie’s trust in the process. I didn’t think I’d be scrutinized on my vocabulary to that extent when it was meant more as turn of phrase than the actual literal meaning. Such as saying “I’d kill for a slice of pizza.” But I wouldn’t actually kill for pizza. I just really want pizza.
Honestly, it threw me off too. Part of looking back at past strips was seeing if the break up was worse than I remembered. “I’d kill for x” is a much more established hyperbolic statement than “most terrible way possible.”
I did ask for clarification.
I fail at proper communication through text often even as I try and to stay vigilant and sincere it is still slow progress.
Did the Billingsworths defend Sal after Amber stabbed her? Is that how he would have “technically” met them?
…given what happened to Sal afterward, I wonder whether being sent to the boarding school was part of her bail or probation conditions which they negotiated for her. Ouch.
Two things:
(1) Jennifer’s parents are wealthy real estate tycoons. There is no indication that they are lawyers.
(2) There is no indication that Asher got involved in any way in the proceedings that followed Sal’s arrest.
I’m pretty sure it’s just because they grew up in the same area. Probably saw them once or twice
Ohmygawd y’all, the Asher/Walky/Ethan trio might be happening (/j)
i don’t think walky’s emotional constipation about everything would let him admit he was bi/gay for one guy, let alone a three way but that would be hilarious XD
Walky’s talked p casually about being with/into dudes quite a bit since the timeskip. Some of it’s prolly jokes, or performative progressiveness for the sake of his brand, but Walky’d prolly have the easiest time admitting he was bi of the whole cast.
Man, Jennifer was REALLY turned off by the butt-taco shirt.
I have absolutely no idea what Asher sees in her, personally.
Whatever it was at first, I don’t think he can see it anymore.
This makes me wonder if Jennifer’s just, like, dealing with extremely undiagnosed and unexamined BPD. She gets close to someone, then something gets in her head and suddenly she can’t stand them. She probably doesn’t even understand consciously what this is about. The girl is allergic to self-examination.
BPD makes a lot of sense. Looking at risk factors, her distant, neglectful parents do kinda sound like the common risk factor (not that that in itself is in any way definitive). As Sirksome and others pointed out above, Ruth abandoning her and breaking up with her in an admittedly really shitty, stonewall-y way could’ve a major factor here too, but then that sounds like another risk factor, unstable relationships (though I don’t know if that would be too late in life to actually cause BPD, but certainly it’s a reason why she would not trust people, and maybe that’d be enough to lead to BPD-like behaviors?).
Full disclosure, I am not a dentist. Do not take investment advice from me.
For those interested in learning more about BPD:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder#:~:text=Environmental%2C%20cultural%2C%20and%20social%20factors,%2C%20or%20hardship%2C%20during%20childhood.
She loved Ruth, and even when they were bickering it was play fighting to her, she never disliked her or actually wanted to push her away.
I would say that during some lower parts of the relationship both Ruth and Billie would try to push each other away, for ‘their own good’, like the first one I remember is this one https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/refusing/ In those cases, it’s definitely not playfighting and moreso just… Ruth and Billie/Jennifer not really seeming to know how healthy relationships should go I guess.
I should also explain by ‘first one’ I mean merely the first instance I remember namely due to those last two panels. The first instance of Ruth or Jennifer pushing each other away is probably Ruth pushing Jennifer away when they were at risk of Mary outting them, including taking back her room key and telling Jennifer to delete their pics together. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/delete/
well she dated asher after hanging around raidah’s ‘clique’ so i imagine she didn’t act the same way around her as she did around ruth/asher prolly doesn’t know all teh details about ruth (idk if he even knows she’s an ex) so i’d imagine he’d back off otherwise
God. She’s such a dumpster fire. How she manages to keep spiraling downwards is fascinating to watch. I honestly love it.
Yaaaas, queen, keep it up! I can’t wait to see what happens when you hit absolute rock bottom and then keep falling!!!
Jennifer….. you can’t spend even five seconds without ruining everything, right?
Also, I’m not reading Jennifer as dumping Asher here at all. She’s doing that thing that exhausting people do sometimes (really we all do it, but she’s been pretty exhausting the past few times she’s shown up) where she’s not even listening fully to him. I read the “Try Again” as a response to him implying her parents are actually her parents. I also might have misread it, but she doesn’t even respond to the outright vicious shade he threw her way.
Either way, go Asher, run free.
she’s probably waiting to see what he’ll do next to her current behavior as opposed to being like “yeah this is over”
In complete and excessive generosity to Jennifer, I think anyone would have a negative reaction to being (accurately) told that they’ve become “allergic to basic humanity”. Honestly, I’m hoping we get to see a bit more inside her head soon. She seems to be in a complete self-destructive deathspiral. She wants to be doing badly so Ruth can see the breakup was awful for her and that Ruth was wrong. She wants to be dating a toxic fuckboy because it made her feel cool and sexy again. She wants to date someone toxic because she doesn’t want to feel like her partner is better than her; she wants to feel like she’s fixing someone. She wants to be doing well so Ruth can see she’s doing fine, but she doesn’t actually reciprocate the relationship so Asher’s attempts at closeness make her pull away anxiously. She never liked Billie, and dating a normal guy on Walky’s level makes her feel like Billie again.
well it’s not like she just suddenly had a mood swing on him as opposed to a consistent attitude on how he ‘should act’ as a ‘boyfriend’ to her
If you are allergic to basic humanity and think that it’s gross, just wait until you meet acid humanity.
that did make me laugh out loud 🙂
oh, you mean Mike
This strip made me go “oh right, Billie is still somewhat breaking up with Asher, what the hell set her off this time?”
Apparently she’s still on about him looking too much like Walky? Or maybe being friendly to Walky in general was his mortal sin
She hates herself and wants the stability and awe she felt back in high school as a head cheerleader and problem solver, back when she “had it together.” Walky reflects the part of herself she’s running from, and Asher wearing Butt-Taco and brocloning it up with Walky makes her hate him so she’s pushing him away.
Interesting, my working theory was that she actually hates stability because it looked like that as soon as she was somewhat settled into a comfortable and respecting space with Asher, she suddenly didn’t like anything about him.
The second theory was that she was disappointed that Asher is not “bad to the bone” because he can quit smoking and put on a goofy shirt and be like any other dork (namely Walky). Which is the worse theory for her, because then it seems that she wants her romantic/sexual partners to be toxic and abusive. I mean, a certain baseline was established with Ruth on this; but for a while it seemed that they were trying to work through it into a healthier space (or at least Ruth was).
Do you want a relationship with the Your-Age version of Blaine, Billie?
No, you don’t.
I honestly could see the stability being the problem, but she *was* really happy with Ruth while she was stable, she wasn’t actively sabotaging it once people knew she was in love with her and they were trying to quit alcohol and go to therapy. Maybe Billie just was happy because she knew it wouldn’t last and she’d get the rush of validation again soon when something toppled, which is why Ruth had to break up with her before it happened.
The reason I think it’s the Broclone event was because she was trying to break away from Walky pretty hard this whole few story arcs, and then it turns out Walky and Asher have *fantastic* chemistry and resemble each other and suddenly “Billie” is haunting Jennifer again, as much as she tries to run away from her.
And obviously, she doesn’t want to be vulnerable because she doesn’t like admitting she has issues. So now that she has problems with Asher, she’s just ignoring and neglecting him until he leaves her, which is “normal” to her. Like she told Walky, make them your enemy and thrive without them.
LINDA PUSHED HER ABOUT HER ABSENT PARENTS THREE STRIPS AGO IT JUST HAPPENED AND THEN ASHER DID IT IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS TREE LAW
Ruth was consistent. They had a routine. Ruth broke her heart by breaking that routine and the doorknob. Asher is inconsistent, constantly flitting back and forth between distant and pushy, and worst of all, he’s doing this because she asked. To please her. Which only fuels the self-loathing of course.
Ruth was consistent?! Ruth and Jennifer broke up and got back together over and over, to the point where Jennifer barely even reacted to Ruth going from “fun Halloween date” to “we’re breaking up.” How is that consistent? That relationship fluctuated constantly until Ruth broke up with her permanently.
More importantly, the fact that Jennifer is treating him badly because of her own self-loathing does not make it okay that she’s treating him badly. In a non-romantic context, Amber got violent with Sal because of her own self-loathing, but it was still unprovoked assault, multiple times, regardless of her reasoning.
In my experience, “you unintentionally triggered my trauma/self-loathing with a comment” is frequently used as an excuse when abusive partners lash out. If you’re treating your partner like shit because something they said or did triggered your self-loathing, it’s still fucking abuse.
It was consistent in that the yo-yo was a consistent pattern. A known part of the deal going in. Until Ruth broke the pattern by breaking up with her for real.
And so, Jennifer’s black hole of self-loathing draws Asher towards its event horizon.
She looks distracted. Did she see Walky? Neither Jennifer or Asher live in Reed. Why are they even there?
they just passed the ‘center desk’ so i assume it’s just a main part of campus ground a lot of ppl would pass through every now and then even if they didnt livein whatever teh closest hall ot thati s
Never thought I would say this, but Asher deserves better
he should full on dump her and rebound with ethan lol
Reading this strip, I’m a little sad that this story’s timeline is generally so tight, because a version of this story that spans years could do an arc from Jenn’s perspective about starting college with a close group of friends, then realizing over time that they’ve gotten farther and farther away from her, and eventually grappling with the idea that there’s some fundamental piece of her personality that’s pushed them all away.
I mean, that could still happen, it just would be in a much shorter timeframe. Amber is not the only one who can Speedrun.
Re: second panel, oh boy..
*pa$$ the time by Bronze plays on hacked muzak*
*looks at gravitar*
I remember Celibi as the one that remembers less traumatic times, to heal.
When Asher leaves her, Billie will not learn a lesson from this.
Sorry, Jennifer, but I don’t think you’re getting the toxic but stable relationship ya want out of this boy. He kinda just has feelings that get hurt.
Asher…. you also probably aint gonna pull this one up.
Dumbing of Age 14: I’ve got errands to do.
good thing Lucy saved this relationship for him.
I bet he is real grateful.
Well now you’ve suggested a Lucy x Asher rebound pairing to my brain and I am not sure I am ok with it.
Oh I’m TOTALLY for Lucy x Asher. C’mon, rebounds!
That’d be hot. Total Wattpad bad boy x reader indulgence
Oh jeebus this is how to replace Raidah’s entire support network with people who know who Kit Fisto is I think I have to love it.
Ok, this take has converted me, now I want to see it!
Last panel Asher is…. dying to get a hug. 🙁
Fuck it, may as well become a slut.
[Frank Zappa intensifies]
I a really trying to no empathise with Asher, but it’s becoming really hard.
*not
i feel that.
on the one hand, he nearly got them all killed with that whole blaine thing.
on the other hand…billie is friggin aweful. i mean, cheese and rice, i wouldn’t wish that kind of relationship on anyone.
“Be more self-destructive, but not because I told you to, but do it, but fight me on it, but make sure you do it.”
Know what, time for asher to have a quick redemption arc. there’s a depressed boy that could use some hugs and kisses, maybe asher could go help him.
Blaine blackmailed him into pulling the fire alarm.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/gramps-2/
Beyond that, he snitched on sal, just because she dared do things on her own.
I thought his motivation was 70% throw the cops off their own robbery and 30% haha Sal gets in trouble. My ratio might be off though
Arguments from when any of these characters were 13 are invalid. Every 13 year old is a PoS automatically and inherently. Some worse than others, but no 13 year old is a good person
he had a mobbed up cop execute blaine to hide his own crimes
*probably
Oh Jesus Fucking Christ.
Biffifer, can you just go die alone somewhere? That’d be great.
Does Jennifer need to return some videotapes?
Well Ethan, your chance to make a mistake has come.
Break it off.
BREAK. IT. OFF. 😡
Do you think that if Asher told Jennifer that he wants to break up she’d get it or she’d register that as an upgrade to the relationship?
Considering she refused to accept Ruth breaking up with her, I could see her doing the same with Asher.
She might, but it’s very different.
As far as we know, this relationship didn’t start with “Don’t leave me, even if I try to make you.”
Honestly a tossup. I get the feeling Jennifer might spring at the chance to make some friction for herself, but she also might still be pissed about broclone Walky.
Jesus christ Jennifer
Aww she misses her super toxic gf
That’s cute… Kinda?
If you squint
…
Oh Jennifer.
I can’t say Billie was the better person. But I sure can think it.
Did Jennier break-up with him? It not sounds like this. My guess is she is just being acid to Asher.
I’m feeling today’s a very difficult reading strip (sorry, Willis).
Yeah Asher, sure, “suddenly”
Girl get it together
I think Asher is a NPC in Jennifer’s world. She would keep him in hammer space if she could and only bring him out when needed.
“Suddenly,” huh.
Well I guess Asher ain’t the observant sort.
Good lord. Please break up with her Asher. She won’t care but you’ll have your closure. then you can go smooch a cute boy if you still wanna
Parents who everybody wants to meet (because they’re super rich and powerful, supposedly), but could have both been dead for 6 years and no one would notice for all the presence they’ve had her entire childhood…
A surrogate self-proclaimed “mother of the year” whose peak parenting AND prospective knowledge amounts to kissing the butt of the most affluent party in the room whether they notice or not, complete with a husband whom is basically her glorified yes man…
A boyfriend whom, while stylish, has been a professional fair weather friend his whole life, good reasons for being so notwithstanding….
Jennifer Billingsworth and her amazing support system….At least she’s aware she has such problems by this point. This arc is has been kind of a breath of fresh air given the flood of fiction falling into an escapist-ass habit of depicting having a staunchly loving, dependable network of friends and family as a given in the past decade and a half. Having to deal with being a ‘blah’ level of a friend/family member only close to equally self-involved ducks with baseline levels or character and empathy. More relatable…
“Fiction has too many supportive friends and families” it’s kind of a weird take, can’t say I had ever heard it.
Jennifer “Billie” Billingsworth: Not Billings-Worth Dating
ahh, well-adjusted, knows-what-she’s-doing Jennifer.
I’m all about extended arcs, but the “let’s make Billie into an ever bigger asshole” has been going for how long now?
Like three years?
And that’s in-comic time, too
It is so weird to me that Asher is a marshmallow. He truly is the anti-Sal.
beigest strip
not every character can handle
being plaid or paisley
So now we have Asher who doesn’t know if he’s with Jennifer or not and Lucy who doesn’t know if she wants to continue being with Walky… The attraction between Asher and Lucy will be unstoppable!
Like an electron and a proton.
I feel like Asher is being whiny. You just aren’t meant to be so emotionally available.
I assume you are being sarcastic? I literally cannot tell.
Emotional availability detracts from him being a cool icon of position!
Stop being human!
Ah, okay, good to know. It’s kind of hard to notice. I had seen people here with worse and weirder takes.
All healthy humans are basic:
“To maintain homeostasis, the human body employs many physiological adaptations. One of these is maintaining an acid-base balance. In the absence of pathological states, the pH of the human body ranges between 7.35 to 7.45, with the average at 7.40.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507807/
So yeah, uh please let this die Asher? Everyone deserves better than this.
I have realised I am possibly unusual in finding (the sexuality aspect) of Jennifer’s behaviour depressingly real. I happen to know two women who are entirely attracted to women but for various reasons will not be with a woman.
So one had a miserable straight marriage that made them both worse people and now is a single mother, and the other keeps on getting into relationships with women then torpedoing them because she’s unwilling to be out. It’s frustrating and sad, and very strange to observe up close.
Anyway, regardless of whether Jennifer is bi, she is clearly just not that into Asher, and it’s sad even apart from all the other shit going on with her.
I mean she seemed perfectly into Asher until he started showing he was a jokey fun guy like Walky.
Jennifer is definitely bi (that’s Word of God), but there’s plenty of reason to find her struggles relatable to what you’ve seen those ladies go through. After all, Jennifer has also been closeted in the past.
Jennifer just wants the entire school to line up to show her love and respect, like back in her small town high school, and a boyfriend who doesn’t show her any love or respect, like her daddy did. Is that so bad? (Yes.) Is that so much to ask? (Also yes.)
I’m rooting for her to calm down and realize it’s fine to love Kit Fisto and the kind of people who judge her for having tastes and interests do not have worthwhile opinions. Ideally before she gets so used to hating herself she thinks that’s a good way to live.
Yeah I’m increasingly sure that Raidah et al sometimes say mean things to Jennifer, but that that meanness is something she thinks she needs; something she doesn’t feel safe without.
Jennifer is not ok
Has Jennifer ever been okay?
Jenny are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay, Jenny?
Agreed, but am I right that she looks worried in the last panel?
I wonder if Jennifer meant that the Walkertons basically were her real parents.
Nah, she wouldn’t have used the word “technically” I guess then
No the “technically you have” bit is why I had the same thought.
But Asher’s response is what tells us no, that’s not it: because he is agreeing he’s met her parents “technically”, but he is asserting that he wants to do it as her boyfriend.
So he’s met the Billingsworths, but it was prior to when they started dating. Probably an extremely brief meeting with them, maybe many years ago.
Typed up a long comment about Jennifer’s history and how she was on the verge of really being “out” as bi (in “This Was Halloween”, she tells Ruth she wants to introduce her to her parents), and how it seems like since the timeskip she’s backslid on that because she described dating Ruth as going through a “phase”, before acknowledging that she wasn’t specific about what she meant and that Willis might have been misdirecting us on purpose…
And I was starting to say, “Maybe Jennifer meant a ‘phase’ of being attracted to toxic people or something,” before realizing the much much sadder option: that she might have meant a phase of wanting your S.O. to meet your parents and believing in serious long-term relationships and believing in happiness. All of which, of course, track real well with this comic.
That said, of course Asher deserves better. I hope we get to see him get it.