I’m an occasional binge reader and normally don’t post, but I do recall that exact trait being a thing in the old Walkyverse. At one point Joyce had to order him to stop pretending to be a clueless goof and boss up.
Yeah, it’s mostly an act to deflect responsibility. As long as he isn’t responsible, then he isn’t failing to live up to his mother’s expectations: he can postpone her disappointment in him as long as he’s perceived as a child. But, as with most such masks, when you do a good job wearing it, it bleeds into the rest of your life, too, and you start to forget that it’s a mask.
I am going to say he doesn’t either but the audience knows both making the dramatic irorny even more funny or sad depending on your deposition and feelings towards the characters involved.
yeah, youd think college everyone would be too old for the ‘secretly hates you friend group’ if not just being ‘practice’ for putting up with difficult coworkers in an office or so
It’s actually useful to have a friend like that. Someone who’ll tell you to your face what the rumor mill is saying when your other friends try to hide it from you.
Unfortunately Jennifer has no compression of how hard it is to get into university without money and still thinks Sarah possibly losing her scholarship to enable her roommate was a perfectly reasonable expectation to place on her. I almost want her to get financially cut off for a time just to gain some freaking empathy for Sarah’s situation.
Which we normally call lying in case where we’re parsing words for technicalities.
If someone believed this, then found out what really happened later, they wouldn’t even remember the phrasing that led them to be deceived, they’d just be mad about being lied to.
I think she’s not quite up to speed on how brutally transactional Raidah’s world is, as she wasn’t there for the conversation with Walky.
It’d be interesting to see how the social group she was part of in high school functioned, because I wondering how much of this new “Jennifer” break is her seeking comfort in a new spin on old habits.
It is always fun when that predisposition is re-enforced in high school by your best friend saying that everybody hates you. -1000/10 do not recommend a best friend like that.
I lived with that “best friend” for a year several years after we were both out of high school and I’m still suicidal. Growing up is bullshit, I’d only wish such a horrible fate on my worst enemies.
I don’t necessarily jump to “hates me,” but I do have a really hard time believing anyone likes me. Even if someone flat out says to me, “I like you,” there is a part of me going, “What have I done that this person does not feel they can be honest with me?”
Our minds can suck sometimes!
Sometimes it helps me to remember that this is, in a way, a judgment I’m putting on people I care about. Shouldn’t they get to be believed about their own feelings? And you know what? If someone did hate me, okay, that’s their right. I would expect them to put distance/boundaries between us. If they kept me around because they got a kick out of hating me or something… that’s fucked up! And that’d be on them. And, idk, I don’t really believe the people I care about would do that? It’s a lot to sort through, admittedly.
oh yeah, overthinking this can lead to some dark, dark places. it’s this paradox, it’s probably been named somewhere on the internet, that goes something like:
person says they like you. this creates a contradiction:
a- you like the person, and believe they have great taste
b- you believe it’s impossible for anyone to like you
something’s got to give. either they’re lying, or deluded, or their taste is not that great after all (and you maybe need to cut them loose for their own good??); or you can in fact be liked, which can be so hard to conceive of.
i will say i’ve puzzled over this for many, many fruitless sleepless hours (chronically depressed over here how y’all doing). i’ve tried therapy, many many hours of it, but i guess what seems to have done the trick (for now? gulp) is, well, antidepressants. not saying that’ll do it for everyone, obviously. it just appears to be what i needed. unless it was just time and some sort of maturity? i don’t know for sure. (but i’m in no hurry to answer that, i’ll just keep popping my pills every night.)
anyway, fwiw worth, and from the tiny amount that i know of you Yumi, i like you.
Oh man. I can’t tell you how many times I believed I needed to disappear due to the thought people were being polite about having me around. But that same mindset is what prevented me from learning from my mistakes and maintaining good relationships with, well, anyone that wasn’t family. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. It wasn’t until the last few years that I realized I needed to play catch-up on a lot of social skills. (Like, I took a questionaire on Asperger’s and my social score was 2 out of 10.)
It’s important to remember other people can *and will* care about you, even when they’re angry/criticizing you. If you believe everyone secretly hates you, how can you assure you can love yourself?
To reemphasize, no I did not take your words as an insult. Good juxtaposition is worth acknowledging, and I appreciate you got something even if it wasn’t intentional.
For years I had Joyce’s $20 glare (you know the one) as my gravatar and it worked so well for my caustic comments.
It essentially sounds like that if you cut out a whole bunch of details. If Dotty still wants to be a poltican maybe she should take notes from Jenifer.
Jennifer WOULD make a better politician than Dorothy. Like not “knowing politics” wise but she definitely has the nature of a cutthroat politician. She schmoozes, throws her parents money around, stretches the truth with impunity and is only loyal to the people who can further her goals.
Sounds like most politicians I suppose Jenifer can run for congress if this whole( I want say she is a journalism major) journalism career doesn’t work out.
Dorothy has the makings of a solid policy wonk. If she becomes a politician, it shoudl be the Elizabeth Warren route. She’s not made to do what needs to be done without having done something else first.
Certain parts were the same, like Dana not coping one bit with having her mother die and ending up at home. Everything else was complexity different though, like a flat line and a mile-high cone both being drawn from two points. Poor Lucy is getting sucked right in to this fantasy and this pit of vipers probably has no use for her at all.
I feel like this comment section is going to contain stories of “how I found out my friends hated me” and you know what? I’m just going to add to that.
For me it was 8th grade, when my main friend group (three “best friends,” two close friends) literally ran away from me one day. We were supposed to work on a project after school (off school grounds), and they said they went one place… I walked all the way there (calling them at several points for reassurance they were still there), and no one. Then they turned off their phones. Then I walked back to the school and saw them in the park next to it. When they saw me, they screamed out and took off running.
Fuckin’ shitty day. Haunted me for years. By the end of that summer, I had made up with the two close friends, who I remained friends with through high school. But I never hung out with the people who I thought were my best friends again. Only every talked to them incidentally.
I’ve had several goes at it. Once was in 3/4th grade where one friend had divorcing parents that ended up in her having a nervous breakdown and then deciding to become a “popular” kid instead, thus ditching me. The other friend at the time was a boy, and due to harassment from other boys for being friends with a girl, he didn’t want to be friends anymore and actually physically bullied me some after that. I got a new friend group in 6th grade, but then the group got divided up by 9th grade due to some moving, one skipping a grade, and all the rest but one being put on different teams (sort of like Harry Potter houses in our high school). That final one wrote me a note at the end of 9th grade saying that people asked if she was friends with me, and she had to debate saying yes or no, ending with how everyone else hated me. This sort of isolated me from every else while making me think that she was the only one who wanted to be my friend (which she did but only to her benefit, not mine). Kids can be cruel man.
it would make it a pain to bother new ppl/approach anyone, i was fine with my friend group, i didn’t outright hate/dislike anyone though sometimes friends of friends I was like “rly? you’re friends with them?”/didn’t esp care for them but just thinking it/didn’t antagonize anyone. def sucks at a younger age when ppl decide they just don’t wanna be friends anymore versus naturally distancing because you make new friends/busy with classes or so
Hard to say it was natural distancing since we couldn’t pick what team to be on and they wanted the teams to be “balanced” with an equal amount of smart students. All the core classes (unless you took AP or were ahead in math) were taken together with the kids on your team (all having the same teachers and staying together through high school). This was supposedly so they could do interdisciplinary units during core blocks but that doesn’t work well when you are “off team” during a core block for something like an AP class.
My counterpoint to these was the time when the depression meant I wrote letters to three of my best friends basically telling them I understood if they secretly hated me and didn’t want to be my friends and it was fine they didn’t need to be. They were mainly puzzled but reassuring because this was not based in reality and they were nice people who actually liked me despite my brain being awful to me at that point in time…
Then there was the other girl from that friend group, who had already fallen out with most of them, who a year or so later tried to get me bottled. Still not quite sure why… Basically, we’d had a bit of a falling out over not much. My first boyfriend broke up with me. I also fell out with one of my still-over-20-years-later best friends… And I gave up, tried to kill myself, failed, we hadn’t really gotten back to talking again but it had been less than a month… Play-fought with a friend over a drink, his girlfriend was a bit put out coz I scratched his neck – and instead of trying to calm her down, my so-called friend talked her into the sort of rage that meant a bouncer plucked a glass bottle out of her hand just before she brought it down over my head. It was odd and definitely cemented our friendship as over.
(My behaviour wasn’t perfect. I was a mess. But the guy in question and I were friends, never had any animosity over it… When I’d asked if I could have a sip of a drink he told me to fight him for it so I did but we were both playing, no subtext, just being silly. If I’d realised I’d hurt him I would have apologised and offered to buy him another drink to say sorry? And honestly most of my anger over this has always been directed towards the person who was supposed to be my friend who nearly worked somebody up into homicidal rage towards me. Coz that wasn’t fair to either of us…)
To be honest I don’t see why anyone would be so desperate to join up with these guys and it’s not just that Raidahs manipulation tricks are transparent for even a person who didn’t already knew she was being two-faced but it’s that….They’re kind of dull, besides Asher Jennifer’s new friend group has zero charisma.
Right? Jennifer acts like she’s regained her popular status but how exactly? Jennifer certainly hasn’t made any gains with her journalism network if she has to resort to pimping out her ex for work and the only people who seem to notice her are from her old friend group.
I can only assume what she is perceiving as popularity in her current situation is status based off their familial relationships.
I say that because this group definitely seems less fun.
This group definitely seems to do less stuff.
And Jennifer misses the drama.
So this clearly doesn’t match her idea of popularity from high school.
But all their parents being lawyers and businessmen implies they run in the same fancy circles and that “fanciness” trickles down onto the kids by association
Also, that’s the one thing none of her old friends have, the closest being Walky and Sal.
Of course, there’s Carla, but there’s no way they’d hang out with Carla; she’d destroy Carl just from having similar names and she’d never be controlled by Raidah.
Of course I could be wrong and Jennifer just thinks they’re popular due to a lack of nerd interests, being still in denial that she is a Star Wars nerd.
Aside from Radiah who has a causal but put together look the rest dress normally for college kids. though Jennifer has also got a new top this time Carl and Asher are just wearing hobbies and caps. I honestly think it’s the slight snobbish mean girl energy Jennifer mistakes for popularity.
Carla would absolutely use the money her folks’ have to destroy Raidah, and then go back to just skating around being awesome. I get the sense that for her it’s a nice perk to have, but it’s not who she is.
yeah i don’t think walky rly needs a ‘friend group’ anyways, because it’s not like he’s completely antisocial but even if sarah’s honest i don’t think she needs to go outta the way to tell him if his behavior/decisions is sabotaging his own life or whatever but i imagine there’d be plenty else to keep him busy with college
I don’t think she would. She might with Joyce, due to their whole quasi-sibling relationship, but with Walky she’d just make an offhand snarky comment. I read Walky’s point as more being about who he sees Sarah as versus how he sees this group. I would imagine he’ll stay friendly with them (although notice how his countenance shifted when they started to snark on Sal — more of that and it may shift) but he’s not going to be friends with any of them.
Fun Yoto Fact!
When I was in my freshman year of high school I had a crush on a girl named Roxanne. Now I was the worst version of myself so I was definitely annoying and obnoxious and I don’t blame her for not liking me. Still we ate lunch together every day with her friends. However one day she moved away (she didn’t tell me I found out from her friend). The kicker is she wrote me a letter about how she never liked me and how her friends didn’t like me.
I kept that note in my room for years until my mom found it. So yeah, I can relate to what Walky said there.
Oh it was freshman year of high school so there was a lotta reasons for me to feel awful.
-that happened
-Wasn’t allowed to march in band and forced to go into a beginner class cuz I sucked so much at trombone. (an instrument I’d played for 3 years prior.)
-Almost failed math cuz I was dumb
-Mom was on crutches due to an accident she’d had a year earlier
-My Dog got run over by my school bus.
The good news is, thus far, it’s the worst year I’ve had. 2020 wasn’t even close.
Not really? I think she just thought it was upsetting that I was holding on to it. I think she tried to tell me I’m better than that but I dunno. Just didn’t feel it.
Also, recommending the movie Adaptation if you’ve never seen it – there’s a moment at the end of the movie that really resonates a lot with your story.
Are there any kids at that age that aren’t cringe at some point or another? If I remember right, human brains aren’t fully developed until they are 21. I wouldn’t hate on your younger self too much. You can see your growth from then, but I don’t see anything wrong with anime nerd Yoto, even if she was immature. I would take that even now any day over the 14 year old classmate that wanted to burn a poster in a classroom because he couldn’t read it (and the other destructive, bullying former classmates I had). Young Yoto sounds cute in comparison.
I’ve thankfully forgotten a lot of my most specific cringe behaviors/moments from my teenage years. Though not to long ago I discovered archived livejournal posts/comments etc from that era and I almost died from the sheer amount of cringe I experienced just browsing through them. It made me really grateful RE: the amount of growing up I did since then, 20 years removed.
The one thing I envy about earlier generations is that they don’t have an online catalogue of what they were like as teens. Some of my deviantart stuff is ROUGH ROUGH.
I often think about that in regard to people who are even younger than you, who have smartphones as children and/or icloud accounts since day one. Like, imagine being able to scroll back through your camera roll and it’s literally your entire life? It feels like there’s something bizarre about having that sort of continuity vs. abandoning childhood trappings & taking on adult tools/behaviors/etc.
Think about all the kids growing up with Millennial and Gen Z parents. A significant percentage of them will end up resenting how much of their early childhood was posted online.
At least our kompromat was just a box of prints and 35mm negatives (and maybe VHS tapes) in a box in a closet at your parents’ house.
It’ll be an interesting mix of things, like, some will resent having their childhood posted online (particularly with the overt sarcastic mockery people often pair with presenting children amongst other adults,) but I’m sure in contrast other people will feel jealous of those whose childhoods were so well-archived, as there will likely be just as many parents who never really bothered to document their child’s life, despite it being easy to do so.
My mother did a fair amount of disposable film photography when I was a kid and has tons of photo albums – there’s definitely something I appreciate about those things as these sort of little artifacts that require a mission to archive/digitize. Still, in contrast to how easy/casual it is to photograph things now with smartphones, they’re still moments few and far between. I think it’s also somewhat strange to think of all of these photos of you as a kid not being in some place you can access but on like…your parents’ phones/cloud accounts. Imagine being like “hey mom can you airdrop me every photo of me from the last ten years?” This also brings up the prospect of people never having access to these photos, say, in the event of a parent passing away unexpectedly. Will people revise their wills to give their children access to their cloud accounts (probably not given what other things probably lurk on them.) Just some interesting possibilities to consider.
My dad’s family had old videos of him (1960s) where they would rile him up as a kid and then video his temper tantrum (his Dad wasn’t a great guy). He never wanted us to see those videos. My niece, on the other hand, loves seeing videos of herself playing and laughing (2 years old). I do tend to consider sharing with family and friends vs sharing with the public differently. I am definitely of the stance that nothing embarrassing should be posted online without the permission of the kid when they are old enough to understand consent and the repercussions.
Posting pictures or videos of anyone online has gotten really lax nowadays in my opinion. It used to be that stuff would have to be blurred if you didn’t give your permission to be on TV (funniest home videos TV show for example). Now people post videos of strangers online without a care in the world. Not sure that is a good thing.
That feeling of wanting to explain, but not wanting to come off as an asshole… Basically, as someone who was given the hijinks all the way into high school because of my Czech name, I would wonder if perhaps the nickname would have a worse connotation for her if she were Jewish.
Unintended consequences, a bad luck all around, sort of thing.
Hitting F for respect for you Yoto, that’s some heavy stuff to absorb in high school. I had a somewhat similar experience in high school – I had a friend freshman year who was also an artist, but she was much better than me. We were both illustrators but she had a much more defined style that was “hers.” I was still mostly copying anime-style images, but didn’t really have much footing as an illustrator yet. I had a lot of admiration for her & her character as a person – hard to describe as these things are, she just had a sense of poise and resilience that I found really admirable. I don’t even really remember how it started but in sophomore year we started a ritual of writing long notes to each other back and forth that we’d usually trade off at the end of the day – just very blog-like, slice of life “what we’re going through” kind of stuff. That summer, we hung out a lot, like a few times a week. We both really liked gaming and anime/manga, all of that. Like you, I was also pretty much starting to grapple with my worst qualities at the time. I very much had the feeling of being in love with her then, but I had a lot of internal conflict & a massive fear of rejection / ruining this great friendship that I let that feeling eat away at me at the inside, which turned me from a likable/charismatic person into an obnoxious, moody person who didn’t really explain himself, or any of that. So me “confessing” how I was feeling to her in our junior year was wrapped up in a lot of self-bashing/self-incrimination that made her uncomfortable and drove us apart as friends, with her telling me more or less that “I used to like who you were and I don’t like who you’ve turned into.” At the time, my mother was going through fighting cancer, I was working a weekend shift at McDonalds that more or less with school had me getting up at 6am to go somewhere for 8 hours (school or work) every single day with no break, and my verbally abusive stepfather had become unemployed, so he was always home. So basically, everywhere sucked for me to be at the time. In our senior year, the two of us were in the same Art IV class with two other people, which felt very uncomfortable (totally a “me problem” though.) As a teenager I just really wasn’t well equipped to have any meaningful reflection on my experiences and I just turned into a very sullen/withdrawn/moody person, which was fortunately alleviated a lot for me in going away to college.
Funny enough, she went on to do a long-running webcomic that she still does, and I even get advertisements for it on this page sometimes because it gets published on Hiveworks. I haven’t communicated with her in any way in a really long time. I mostly feel bad about the person I was back then, particularly because before I was grappling with my painful, confusing teenage feelings, we had a really great/authentic friendship. I’m really happy that she went on to go so far with her art though, she’s a really fantastic illustrator with such a defined style.
Wow damn! Yeah that sucks sorry to hear. Definitely worse than my situation but I can definitely relate to having a crush on someone but not being able to express it through self loathing. I hope you can, in some way, reconnect with them. Even if it’s just to say “Hey, remember me?” Though I also get if you don’t wanna do that.
I think I already had that moment once or twice already in the past, but I can’t quite recall because my username is pretty indicative of my ability to retain a lot of specific memories besides the biggest ones. I just feel like there’s not much to say and I probably already said it at some point in the past, maybe 10 years ago or so. All I really feel like I have to say again is “sorry I made you uncomfortable” but I think they’re so far beyond that in their life that when I think about it, it’s probably only likely to just make them feel more uncomfortable to even say that, so it’s like “well, why even say anything at all?” The whole experience was a hard thing to learn for me, but it showed me things that I had to learn. In the end, I have to be content with finding value in my past discomfort, and holding warm regard for her as a person and what she’s achieved – but that’s for me to sit with, you know? Honestly I think it probably in the long run probably mattered a lot less to her than it did to me.
There was a girl i was into who did not reciprocate. That’s fine. She was polite and friendly to my face, but 20 years later her best friend tells me that behind my back she ridiculed me mercilessly.
That bothered me to find out, but more because I have no idea what I could have said or done to make her hate me enough that she needed to cut me down to other people.
One of those “either I did something horrendous and have never realized what it was, or I was crushing on a vile human being” dichotomies where I’m not sure which answer would feel better.
I think human beings are in general vile creatures, and the fact that so many people commenting have had various stories all to the effect of “A group of people singled me out to treat me like subhuman garbage” gives me more evidence for that school of thought.
Stuff like this reminds me of those studies examining why Homo sapiens ended up as the dominant species with evidence pointing to our ancestors winning by being the most violent and aggressive and driving other early humans to extinction. The garbage is bone-deep in the species.
We don’t know what caused the extinction of other human species, could’ve been war, partly, sure, but there are dozens of hypotheses out there and this isjust one of them, andit does not seem to have much direct evidence going for it.
Also, you’re one to make grand pronouncements about humans being garbage. You’re not being a particularly stellar human yourself around here lately, what with driving another commenter off by relentlessly attacking a strawman of their perfectly innocuous and civil comments.
I wish you would go touch grass for a bit, rather than ignoring people asking you to self-reflect, apologize, and just chill a wee bit.
it’s not the not being sure i’m bothered by, it’s the not really caring.
like, deep history is fascinating. it tells us a lot, if we care to learn.
what it won’t ever do is answer questions about “human nature”, whatever that means. the sad thing is so many people want it to, and they will latch on to some discovery plausibly supporting one hypothesis, that the popular media goes on to report as proof of some widely held prejudice. i just think it’s sad.
anyway, you said humans are vile. i said you’re being a jerk. big difference.
Sometimes people being into you when you don’t feel the same toward them can be uncomfortable. Sometimes people– especially young people– don’t know how to handle interpersonal discomfort in a healthy way. Just to offer something into the mix of that dichotomy.
Some of it is they haven’t had good examples too. Like ordering 10 year old Johnny to accept his grandma’s kisses and pinching on the cheeks when he hates both of those things happening to him. Not exactly a good lesson for consent there.
I think it just happens. I definitely got made fun of behind my back and to my face by groups of girls in high school too. 😛 My fault for being so desperate tbh.
oof that’s rough and unecessarily cruel, unless someone was acting like a straight up ‘incel’ as they call it these days i would’ve simply moved and not left any letters, tho i don’t exactly hide my expressions well so most ppl would be able to tell if i looked upset/angry or so
God, I hope so. It’d be the cherry on top if in addition to Walky just torpedoing Raidah’s intricate scheme, Lucy just sees right through it or at least finds it super suspect.
i’m sure there are kindhearted/well-adjusted adults, but going to 4-8 years of college surrounded by other 20 year olds it’d be hard to not be a little bit of a jerk, just gotta release the inner jerkiness to your advantage
I don’t think Jennifer’s a bad person in the way Raidah is. Honestly, I think she’s trying to be a good person and I like her.
But I also don’t think she’s…In a good place. Or correct. Or making good decisions like 90% of the time. She has a view of the world that is shaped by a lot of completely unresolved damage, and the damage has layers like the epochs of the Earth.
I think she sometimes tries to be a good person but finds being a bad person is easier. There’s a lot of layers of damage like you said and she does not want to put in the work to peeling them all back and repairing it, which is part of why she’s so keen on either going back to an old “safe” facade like head cheerleader or adopting a new one.
A lot of her shittiness is deliberate, but so far she hasn’t gone quite to “sustained harassment campaign,” no.
It’s also why Ruth left her. She did it in a horrible way, but Ruth is ready to at least try to fix herself. Jennifer isn’t, and could sabotague said repairs.
Outstanding shade from Walky.
Got to agree about the being explicit about not really being a people person thing but I think, for example, Dina is pulling it off in a significantly chiller way than Sarah most of the time.
Either way I usually prefer to know when I am and am not bothering someone rather than letting it fester.
How much of Sarah being less chill than Dina is due to people not normally noticing that Dina is there? It also does seem like Dina has been better taught how to handle stress and possibly better support from her family than what Sarah has.
Considering I have been told that I might be on the spectrum, I am horrible at knowing when I am being a pest and when I am not.
Dina is basically free to interact or not interact when and where she chooses. Sarah doesn’t have that because she’s in the apex of an anthill of angst and extroverts.
Walky is right, and Walky should leave, taking anyone worth a damn with him. This brunch is only getting worse and there is no redeeming Raidah and company, at least not at this moment.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think he exists when he’s not on screen. He ceases to exist and his parents retroactively never met until he has a line of dialogue.
What were their plans on the rest of the day anyways? depending on how the burger ended up he could easily be like “yeah sorry that burger didn’t agree with me, i’m gonna go to the dorm room toilets for the rest of the afternoon” as an excuse as opposed to bluntly being like “i’m not sure i wanna be in your friend group” to prevent any future confrontation/hostility from them
“Raidah merely adopted the clout. I was born in it, molded by it; I didn’t see how the unpopular kids lived until I was already a woman, and by then it was nothing to me but cringe!”
More like the only life she wants to acknowledge because everything else seems like a step down from her high-school days and she doesn’t know how to work hard to make things happen because she banks of throwing money at her issues.
I’m not sure that I would trust the “essentially sounding like that”, even without this group being questionable in the first place. It just sounds more like Jennifer saying that is how she interpreted it than the facts of the matter. Like the phrase “maybe soon”, it just sounds wishy-washy to me. Even just saying “that’s what it sounded like to me” sounds more firm than this. The “essentially” hints at other details that could be important to the interpretation. Even saying “That’s how it sounded to me when she explained it to me” or something of that sort. I am not the most socially competent person, but that phrasing just sends warning signs to me.
Yeah, she would have heard about it like 6 months ago or something. I think that it’s as much Jennifer having cliff’s notes ages ago rather than Jennifer trying to willfully paint Sarah in a bad light.
Hmm maybe Billie is struggling here. Having just had a shock that Raidah does was mean to her for the first time, she is now wondering if she dares to contradict the Head Mean Girl to her face. Fingers crossed some brain cells are working behind the scenes.
Sadly, I don’t think Lucy will pick up on how Jennifer didn’t really confirm anything because she looks up to her so much. Might be a set up for a fight if Lucy ends up telling Jennifer she agrees with Sarah and Carla for not just going along.
Is this accidentally going to be the impetus that causes Walky and Lucy to talk about the love thing and break up? Because I feel like it’s gonna come up now in that context. Like, yeah, he definitely targeted this towards Jennifer (especially because he could clearly see from this brunch that they’re kind of jerks to her), but I get vibes that the “being genuine and honest and not having to find out later that it was a lie” is gonna come back later.
Or not break up. I forgot to add that there, they don’t have to break up. Lucy Has Done Nothing Wrong right now (though she’s definitely buying into Raidah’s bit). But the love thing feels like it’s gonna relate to this somehow later.
This is a point I hadn’t considered. Walky sees Billie as a second sister, and we already saw how he prickled up when Sal was their target. I don’t think it would take much for him to do so for Billie either.
well walky’s getting better but i doubt he really cared about his snark pissing off ppl before, like with ethan in the cafeteria and the dig at his black outfits
I am loving how Walky is going to bat for people. Like, Sal was more overt and obviously going to be the case, but pleasantly surprised he’s offering a defense of Sarah here, even if it’s not as full-throated as with Sal.
I do also get the impression he’s, yeah, directing this at Jennifer out of a growing distaste for this atmosphere, like a “are you sure this is a good place for you?” unspoken question.
I love the sort of wisdom of Walky as a character to be cognizant of more or less exactly what’s going on in real time and respond to it subtly and immediately in the way he does. I always appreciate the way he’s written in this comic, where he bounces between childlike naiveté and kung-fu master levels of wisdom/poise. I feel like he really captures well the duality of being “naturally gifted kid” in those two extremes.
I went back and reread the strips from 2012 where Sarah told the story. She definitely told Joyce and Billie much more than what Raidah said. However, Billie was rather dismissive of the story and said Sarah and Raidah should just get it over with and make out, as that’s how such rivalries end up. As she put it, such relationships always end in Bone City.
Joyce took that as an indication that she wants to bone Walky, based on her simultaneous hostility and dependence on Walky. I imagine that is the part of the conversation that Jennifer best remembers.
Fucking hell, going back to that just made me realize how Willis framed it to echo Raidah’s first appearance, only with Sarah better standing up for herself the second time.
He told Radiah he would still rather be friends with Sarah than her while telling Jennifer to gtfo without giving Radiah anything to fuel her holier than thou mindset. Pleasantly surprised.
So Jennifer has gone from being silent (leaving it ambiguous whether she agrees with the assessment of Sarah by Raidah) to actually confirming what Raidah says (without adding any information, like “Sarah said she was getting worse” or attempting any sort of defense).
Not surprising, but still not a good look for her.
I *did* expect somebody at that table to ask how on Earth Sarah has the power to just – poof! – have people removed from the school because they inconvenience her.
Because Raidah’s framing only works if Sarah is in the wrong, and *that* only works if no responsible adult-er adults saw the situation once it was called to their attention and agreed with her judgment. Sarah isn’t buddies with the Dean.
I am not defending Raidah (I do think she and Jennifer are definitely in the wrong here)…
But, even if Sarah didn’t have any actual authority, a false accusation could certainly play a part in having someone removed from school (even if others would have to make the ultimate decision.)
I mean, if I called the cops and said “my neighbor is running a crack house” and the police came and arrested them (even if it was a false allegation), the cops would certainly be to blame for arresting someone on such flimsy evidence, but I would have been the one that started the ball rolling.
I mean it’s pretty easy to surface-level read the story as “Sarah snitched to an authority figure about drug use” which, if this group are like most college kids, means she was both in the wrong and that the “adult-er adults” took her side.
Except that the drug use wasn’t mentioned, so if you don’t already know the story, you can’t surface read it that way.
All we’ve got here is “Dana went through some difficult times.” “Sarah had her sent home.”
I’m not surprised by Billifer’s response (and didn’t have enough hope to be disappointed) considering her own experience with addiction and codependency with Ruth. I disagree with the omission basically throwing Sarah under the bus, but she’s not exactly the most reliable judge of how-to-handle-addiction-issues.
Also big agree with walky. One of the big things I look for in a friend/partner is that they won’t hesitate to call me in on my bullshit. Like, assume I’m doing the best with what I’ve got but don’t shy away from potential conflict. I’m not good enough at social stuff to play neurotypical guessing games.
Walky really chose violence when he woke up, didn’t he? XD it’s becoming pretty clear that he isn’t at this breakfast by accident; he wanted to check in on B’Jennifer, and try to let her know that he’s disappointed with her friend group choices…m
He’s always been “gay pizza smart,” he just doesn’t like responsibility, and he recognizes that the more people recognize him as smart the more responsibilities he’ll be given.
Dang, that’s another point I’d forgotten. Raidah really is doing a crap job of trying to convince the guy whose “power” she covets that she’s a good bet. All it would take is for her to crap on Lucy to really send it home.
I have to say, of all the characters in the comic (at least the non-villain ones), Jennifer seems to have had the least amount of growth.
Joyce is turning away from her fundamentalist upbringing, Sarah seems to have developed at least a few personal attachments, Dorothy is changing priorities in her life, Joe is interested in a real relationship, etc.
Jennifer has gone from self-desctructive drama queen to… self destructive drama queen. There was a brief moment (when she met a former girlfriend in the cafeteria) where she MIGHT have started to show some growth but the moment seems to have been lost.
Yeah, her relapse is like global warming — it happens so slowly that it could potentially trick you into thinking it’s not happening or even happening in reverse. But in both cases, it IS happening, and it does NOT look pretty. 🙁
no we are not all gonna die, and there is SO MUCH we can do. some global warming is unavoidable but the amount matters. the fossil barons are counting on our defeatism, don’t give them the satisfaction ✊
Ehh…I don’t agree, though I want to stress I disagree non-confrontationally. 😮 Because Ethan *has* developed, he’s just…gotten worse! He used to be a shy, kindly, semi-closeted Transformers nerd himbo! Now he’s…a bitter shell consumed by grief! There’s development there, but it’s the BAD kind.
Jason, on the other hand, I think has developed positively. His relationship with Sal, inasmuch as it could be called one, seemed…combative and transactional, whereas he actually seems to have positive feelings for Ruth, and she’s trying, in her own special hot mess idiot way, to reciprocate.
Eh, to quote Raidah, “When someone close to you dies, I think we should allow additional understanding.”
Ethan regressed because someone really close to him died in a horrible fashion and he never really got closure on it.
That said, I think Raidah hasn’t accepted that Sarah really did offer a whole lot of understanding, and ultimately had to admit that the situation was over her (and Raidah’s) paygrade. Same with Ruth, really. Ethan doesn’t seem quite at that point yet.
Just to make sure I don’t come off as sarcastic, I am not. Ethan got FUCKED up by grief, which is a totally human and understandable response. His situation is rough as hell.
she had better growth while she was dating Ruth, while their entire relationship started as a dumpster fire, they eventually got to a really good place where they both started growing as people
until both of their self destructiveness reared it’s ugly head and ruined everything lol, mostly for Billie and less so for Ruth
Yeah, I’d say that last semester, Jennifer had as much growth as anyone in the cast.
Most of it regressed during the time skip for reasons that were mysterious at first. Now I’d reading it mostly as Raidah playing on her vulnerability after Ruth dumped her.
The only thing she kept – and it’s a huge thing – is that she’s still sober.
Stay tuned to find out… she never fully learned from the Carla Ruth incident so im prepared for her to shrug it off and not learn until Radiah and her interets clash again.
Ooh, this sounds like it has a lot of truth to it. Along with terror at the thought over just HOW BADLY she would need to mess up for her dad to actually step in and intervene in her life in that sort of way and refusal to accept it could ever happen and therefore that Sarah’s actions could ever be justified…
Really this scenario is an absolute win for anyone who doesn’t like Jennifer, because despite Walky being the one who made Raidah’s revenge plan eat shit with a couple sentences, there’s no socially acceptable way to take it out on him and if Raidah tries she will look like a buffoon.
So probably Jennifer will reap the consequences for Walky wrecking her shit!
For the record I like Jennifer well enough, but she, uh, chose this. She applied for it in writing.
Wondering if radiah is going to finally lose her temper, she let her fake friendly smile slip back when Sal tried to have s conversation with Jennifer that wasn’t even directly about her.
Here is a good time to make a reminder that Sarah has almost systematically and quite arbitrarily hated Jennifer and treated her like crap while jenny rarely did anything to Sarah to cater such attitude.
Put a bit of context on how Jennifer perceive Sarah.
Sarah’s hatred of Jennifer isn’t arbitrary at all, Jennifer gave her the vibe of a party girl who didn’t care about consequences. Because she, uh, was, kind of. And let’s not play like Jenn didn’t throw mud right back at Sarah. No one is innocent in that feud, or the victim.
I said “quite”. I don’t consider seeing someone as carefree a very good reason to dislike someone. It doesn’t help that her attitude didn’t change much toward Jennifer despite getting to know her better.
I think Sarah recognized Billie-as she was then- as someone with an addiction problem. That it was „just” alcohol doesn’t make that much of a difference when both are illegal in dorms.
And taking someone as clueless as Joyce to a frat party without keeping an eye on them is irresponsible.
I don’t think Bilie or Jennifer have ever been carefree in their lives. Just coping with abandonment and loneliness with different means.
Jennifer isn’t a good person. Why would Sarah, who categorically is an introvert who just wants people to take care of their business and then get on with their lives, like Jennifer, who has been a toxic presence to everyone around her and deliberately so (“inject it into my veins”)?
But it’s…not arbitrary. Also, it’s not that Jennifer was “carefree”, it’s that she was, very specifically, a *party girl who doesn’t care about consequences*.
Like Dana used to be. So she reminded Sarah of her tormentors (whose friend group she later joined!) and then did…sweet heck-all to dispel that notion.
Also, when she “got to know Jennifer better”, it was in the context of:
-Jennifer encouraging Joyce to go to a party where Joyce was sexually assaulted.
-Jennifer spiraling into alcoholism in public.
-Jennifer enabling Ruth’s suicidal ideations.
-Jennifer literally joining the friend group that has tormented Sarah.
Now, is there more going on behind the scenes? Sure. Yeah. But is it also completely reasonable to dislike someone who reminds you, constantly, of one of the worst times/aspects of your life? Also yes. Sarah did nothing wrong by disliking Jennifer, and continues to do nothing wrong in that regard.
I think that had something to do with Joyce shoving a glass in Not-Ryan’s face when his “pastor’s son” mask slipped, then Sarah slamming him round the head with a baseball bat before he could retaliate, actually? Think her warnings horrified Dorothy, and largely went over Joyce’s head.
Yes
I think Joyce was able to put two and two together fast enough to do that in part because she was warned ahead of time about taking drinks which she didn’t see opened.
That “advice” was an offhand comment about keeping her hand over her own drink to not get roofied. Not exactlly “warning Joyce about what to look out for. And Joyce didn’t even take that warning. She fought back after Ryan began angrily threatening her. And then Sarah came in for the dramatic rescue. I’d argue that Jennifer went in without any concern for Joyce’s safety at all.
Ignoring the ongoing argument here… I think we have an interesting linguistics-based miscommunication here, based on the choice of the word ‘quite.’
Depending on the dialect of English one uses, ‘quite’ has literally opposite meanings; I would read “… and quite arbitrarily hated…” to mean “…and very arbitrarily hated…” (Adding emphasis), but it can also have the meaning “…and almost arbitrarily hated…” (Reducing emphasis)
Hard agree, I think Sarah’s opinion of Jennifer hit its nadir when Jennifer had the gall to walk up to Sarah eating lunch and say “I think Raidah was right about you,” and Sarah really should have smacked the tray out of Jennifer’s hands instead of ruining her own lunch.
What are you on? Billie was a flaming hot mess that shacked up with the RA from hell before she moved. What was Sarah, an older, serious student supposed to like about her again?
When I was in 8th grade, I sat with a group of popular kids at their table everyday, but I hardly added to the conversation. I was the quiet kid who wanted to observe people from a distance. Even if that distance was 4 feet.
One day they were talking about hairstyles and cornrows came up. Someone asked me (I’m white) if I wanted cornrows, and I misheard it as “pornos,” to which I immediately responded without thinking, “No! I do not wanna masterbate!”
A brief moment of silence, followed by thunderous laughter. It was embarrassing for sure, but easy to move on from. Then later that day after a class, I overheard one of the girls from that table say within earshot, “I actually like [mrnoidea] now!”
It felt less like a compliment because I realized they were tolerating me up to this point. I *was* aware that I was on the spectrum at the time, but knowing it wasn’t enough to help me socialize. I just felt bad for not knowing whether anyone’s good gestures toward me were genuine or out of politeness. Made me wanna socialize *less.*
Yeah, I do think he’s maturing. It helps he, at this point, has had his loyalties tested a number of times, so he’s keeping his cool while still being firm and unambiguous in his loyalties.
Like, no, he didn’t take a swing at Asher again for Sal, or end something like he did with Amber over her having stabbed Sal, but he still spelled out exactly how he felt. I do bet Dorothy’s pep talk helped, though I do feel like he’s also been in a better head space this semester, too, for planting his feet firmly.
Real weak, Jennifer. Actually she seems barely awake. I wonder if this is an act. If she was pretending to be unaffected by the rapidly piling horseshit so she can gather a more full picture of everything Raidah isn’t saying, so she can maybe then get back to Sarah – and why not Dana – and gather information for a juicy expose about the wealthy clique’s year long harassment and slander campaign against a poor lonely student. . .
Yes I’m grasping at straws. Hoping Jennifer has any interest in journalism, or truth.
With the possible exception of Danny, Walky is pretty much the most drama adverse character in the strip, so trying to stir up shit with him was always going to be a disaster.
Yeah, I feel like the only time someone has really provoked an energetic anger out of him (outside of Asher where that almost doesn’t count due to their history prior to the events of the strip) is Ruth due to how betrayed he felt about an authority figure lying to him about an untoward relationship with someone who is family to him, after he was trying to rely on them to do right by Billie/Jennifer.
I guess this isn’t much different, given his main issue here is again people surrounding Jennifer. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see Raidah spinning her own yarns about her, too, after all.
Sarah, on first meetup – You’re stupid and I want nothing to do with you.
Raidah, on first meetup – Your ex-girlfriend sucks, your other friend sucks, you might be useful, so you’re cool.
This arc is giving great satisfaction. Walky, who is often point as childish, is showing signs of great maturity and reflective ability while Raidah, who is a self- proclaimed above-average person and is regarded as such by too many in that college, is displaying all her childishness in her manipulating others and wanting revenge for something she didn’t even plenty understood. I’m only sorry for Lucy being dragged into this charade. I don’t feel sorry for Jennifer at all
I mean, when did they talk about that, like 6 months ago? Meanwhile, she’s been around someone who is much more eager to talk about those events, while shifting them the most unflattering way. Even journalists aren’t immune to propaganda.
Oh wow, Jennifer missing the social context and judging people! Even worse, she´s buying into the herd mentality of gossip and destructive criticism.
I guess they won´t give any details on what support they give to struggling friends…
This comic struck me DEEP, I had authentic friendships with people that accepts their defects while righteous people just wasted my time and left me down when i needed them most.
One of the up-sides of having practically nonexistent social needs. You don’t care if someone secretly hates you if you are secretly indifferent to their friendship.
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shade thrown
(will Jennifer catch it?)
(actually, does Walky even know, that would be funny if he didn’t)
He doesn’t often show that much self awareness so probably not?
Walky’s not as clueless as he usually acts. It’s a defense mechanism.
I’m an occasional binge reader and normally don’t post, but I do recall that exact trait being a thing in the old Walkyverse. At one point Joyce had to order him to stop pretending to be a clueless goof and boss up.
Probably holds true in DoA-verse, as well.
Funny enough I just reached that point in my reading of Its Walky. It’s my first time.
Yeah, it’s mostly an act to deflect responsibility. As long as he isn’t responsible, then he isn’t failing to live up to his mother’s expectations: he can postpone her disappointment in him as long as he’s perceived as a child. But, as with most such masks, when you do a good job wearing it, it bleeds into the rest of your life, too, and you start to forget that it’s a mask.
“he’s thinking… ALL THE TIME!”
Walky picks up on lots of things. He just doesn’t act on them often.
This subtle hint, directed vaguely in Jennifer’s direction, is his version of stepping up and taking rather direct and decisive action.
Some defense mechanism.
If I were the killer, I would kill him next.
But what if Night Guy intervenes!?
Was that a Clue reference?
Yes.
Yes it was.
(And that is a Phinias and Ferb reference.)
I think he might be more self aware than people give him credit for.
I think he’s definitely more self-aware than people give him credit for here.
Walky also thinks he is more self-aware than people give him credit for. That’s how self-aware he is.
He’s been getting some super good character development.
Based on the alt-text, I’d say Walky’s comment is very intentional.
I am going to say he doesn’t either but the audience knows both making the dramatic irorny even more funny or sad depending on your deposition and feelings towards the characters involved.
yeah i’m with Walky on this one
yeah, youd think college everyone would be too old for the ‘secretly hates you friend group’ if not just being ‘practice’ for putting up with difficult coworkers in an office or so
I think Jennifer she really does fit in but Radiahs dismissivnes has got her feeling like an outsider which makes Walkys comment sting.
*Really thinks she fits in*
College is where most people encounter such groups for the first time. Consider fraternities/sororities and hazing.
Unfortunately, it’s one of those things you’re never too old for.
It’s actually useful to have a friend like that. Someone who’ll tell you to your face what the rumor mill is saying when your other friends try to hide it from you.
Same, I’d rather if someone doesn’t like me they let me know directly, rather than pretend to like me when they actually don’t.
Oh shut the FUCK up, Jennifer. That is not what Sarah said and you know it. Well, no, you don’t, but I hate that. 😛
Good for Walky!
Unfortunately Jennifer has no compression of how hard it is to get into university without money and still thinks Sarah possibly losing her scholarship to enable her roommate was a perfectly reasonable expectation to place on her. I almost want her to get financially cut off for a time just to gain some freaking empathy for Sarah’s situation.
*Comprehension*
Even without that factor, Carl left out what the difficult times looked like and that Sarah first tried to get them to help, but they blew her off.
He’s not lying, but leaving out enough to make it look as bad as possible for Sarah.
Ye, it’s not lying, but it IS deceiving.
Which we normally call lying in case where we’re parsing words for technicalities.
If someone believed this, then found out what really happened later, they wouldn’t even remember the phrasing that led them to be deceived, they’d just be mad about being lied to.
it feels so long ago, well years for us but how much time has passed since jen heard that story, 6 months?
About 3 months. It’s early January now and that was early September.
Close enough, 5 months by my count.
Give her a break, she can’t risk an ounce of social capital by not following Raidah’s lead.
/s
I think she’s not quite up to speed on how brutally transactional Raidah’s world is, as she wasn’t there for the conversation with Walky.
It’d be interesting to see how the social group she was part of in high school functioned, because I wondering how much of this new “Jennifer” break is her seeking comfort in a new spin on old habits.
Yeah, I was going to say, ‘essentially’ is doing some heavy lifting in that statement.
Walky has a point. A brutally honest point. (:o)
Unfortunately, in the last panel, we observe Jennifer as watches that point fly right over her head.
This is the woman who somehow still thinks Sal was Amazi-Girl.
Wait, still?
Yes.
Even after Walky told her straight up.
It’s because Jennifer has to make herself the focal point of every story so ofcourse Sal is Amazi girl, shes her roomate! whose even heard of Amber!?.
It doesn’t matter if they secretly hate me or not! I’ll always be thoroughly convinced that secretly they all hate me.
🥺
mood
It is always fun when that predisposition is re-enforced in high school by your best friend saying that everybody hates you. -1000/10 do not recommend a best friend like that.
I lived with that “best friend” for a year several years after we were both out of high school and I’m still suicidal. Growing up is bullshit, I’d only wish such a horrible fate on my worst enemies.
I had my *mother* tell me that everyone secretly hates me if they don’t overtly avoid me.
… I don’t talk to her anymore.
I don’t necessarily jump to “hates me,” but I do have a really hard time believing anyone likes me. Even if someone flat out says to me, “I like you,” there is a part of me going, “What have I done that this person does not feel they can be honest with me?”
Our minds can suck sometimes!
Sometimes it helps me to remember that this is, in a way, a judgment I’m putting on people I care about. Shouldn’t they get to be believed about their own feelings? And you know what? If someone did hate me, okay, that’s their right. I would expect them to put distance/boundaries between us. If they kept me around because they got a kick out of hating me or something… that’s fucked up! And that’d be on them. And, idk, I don’t really believe the people I care about would do that? It’s a lot to sort through, admittedly.
oh yeah, overthinking this can lead to some dark, dark places. it’s this paradox, it’s probably been named somewhere on the internet, that goes something like:
person says they like you. this creates a contradiction:
a- you like the person, and believe they have great taste
b- you believe it’s impossible for anyone to like you
something’s got to give. either they’re lying, or deluded, or their taste is not that great after all (and you maybe need to cut them loose for their own good??); or you can in fact be liked, which can be so hard to conceive of.
i will say i’ve puzzled over this for many, many fruitless sleepless hours (chronically depressed over here how y’all doing). i’ve tried therapy, many many hours of it, but i guess what seems to have done the trick (for now? gulp) is, well, antidepressants. not saying that’ll do it for everyone, obviously. it just appears to be what i needed. unless it was just time and some sort of maturity? i don’t know for sure. (but i’m in no hurry to answer that, i’ll just keep popping my pills every night.)
anyway, fwiw worth, and from the tiny amount that i know of you Yumi, i like you.
after a while you get unapologetically annoying/being yourself, nothing wrong with that as long as you’re not being hostile about it lol.
i’m usually the one messaging first but idon’t mind that in internet friendships lol
Oh man. I can’t tell you how many times I believed I needed to disappear due to the thought people were being polite about having me around. But that same mindset is what prevented me from learning from my mistakes and maintaining good relationships with, well, anyone that wasn’t family. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. It wasn’t until the last few years that I realized I needed to play catch-up on a lot of social skills. (Like, I took a questionaire on Asperger’s and my social score was 2 out of 10.)
It’s important to remember other people can *and will* care about you, even when they’re angry/criticizing you. If you believe everyone secretly hates you, how can you assure you can love yourself?
Is it really playing catch up on your social skills if you actually have Asperger’s or just how you naturally are?
That’s a question I’m processing to this day. I dunno.
Eat shit, Jennifer.
The juxtaposition of your scathing comment and ecstatic avatar is fantastically, hilariously disjoint.
I meant that as a complement – I realize now without the benefit of voice tone my words could have accidentally come across as cruel.
To reemphasize, no I did not take your words as an insult. Good juxtaposition is worth acknowledging, and I appreciate you got something even if it wasn’t intentional.
For years I had Joyce’s $20 glare (you know the one) as my gravatar and it worked so well for my caustic comments.
Thank you.
Damn, this restaurant really does serve everything.
Something something “Make it French.”
Stop trying to be fake fancy!
Eh, I could care less for brie, and honestly caramelized onions really aren’t that sophisticated I think? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It essentially sounds like that if you cut out a whole bunch of details. If Dotty still wants to be a poltican maybe she should take notes from Jenifer.
Jennifer WOULD make a better politician than Dorothy. Like not “knowing politics” wise but she definitely has the nature of a cutthroat politician. She schmoozes, throws her parents money around, stretches the truth with impunity and is only loyal to the people who can further her goals.
Sure hope she doesn’t go into that kind of business, the last thing the cast needs is a functional Michelle Malkin in their lives. 🤮
Sounds like most politicians I suppose Jenifer can run for congress if this whole( I want say she is a journalism major) journalism career doesn’t work out.
depends on how much paperwork she’d have to fill out if she’s not working with someone/a puppet master
or like parks&rec lol “How about you quit running, then I win, but then I let you do all the work”
Maybe her and Dorothy go into business together. She is the politician and Dorothy does all the actual…work.
Somehow I feel she would be even less okay with that than an identical set-up with Becky.
Jennifer is also super good at cognitive dissonance! That’s…legitimately concerning!
Dorothy has the makings of a solid policy wonk. If she becomes a politician, it shoudl be the Elizabeth Warren route. She’s not made to do what needs to be done without having done something else first.
Certain parts were the same, like Dana not coping one bit with having her mother die and ending up at home. Everything else was complexity different though, like a flat line and a mile-high cone both being drawn from two points. Poor Lucy is getting sucked right in to this fantasy and this pit of vipers probably has no use for her at all.
They have a use for her, as long as she’s going out with Walky.
Pretty much everyone in this comic is currently in a state that they’d be a better politican than Dorothy, except maybe Agatha.
The feeling of finding out your friend group hates you can be devastating. Hopefully Jennifer isn’t that attached to everyone in this group…
I feel like this comment section is going to contain stories of “how I found out my friends hated me” and you know what? I’m just going to add to that.
For me it was 8th grade, when my main friend group (three “best friends,” two close friends) literally ran away from me one day. We were supposed to work on a project after school (off school grounds), and they said they went one place… I walked all the way there (calling them at several points for reassurance they were still there), and no one. Then they turned off their phones. Then I walked back to the school and saw them in the park next to it. When they saw me, they screamed out and took off running.
Fuckin’ shitty day. Haunted me for years. By the end of that summer, I had made up with the two close friends, who I remained friends with through high school. But I never hung out with the people who I thought were my best friends again. Only every talked to them incidentally.
I’ve had several goes at it. Once was in 3/4th grade where one friend had divorcing parents that ended up in her having a nervous breakdown and then deciding to become a “popular” kid instead, thus ditching me. The other friend at the time was a boy, and due to harassment from other boys for being friends with a girl, he didn’t want to be friends anymore and actually physically bullied me some after that. I got a new friend group in 6th grade, but then the group got divided up by 9th grade due to some moving, one skipping a grade, and all the rest but one being put on different teams (sort of like Harry Potter houses in our high school). That final one wrote me a note at the end of 9th grade saying that people asked if she was friends with me, and she had to debate saying yes or no, ending with how everyone else hated me. This sort of isolated me from every else while making me think that she was the only one who wanted to be my friend (which she did but only to her benefit, not mine). Kids can be cruel man.
it would make it a pain to bother new ppl/approach anyone, i was fine with my friend group, i didn’t outright hate/dislike anyone though sometimes friends of friends I was like “rly? you’re friends with them?”/didn’t esp care for them but just thinking it/didn’t antagonize anyone. def sucks at a younger age when ppl decide they just don’t wanna be friends anymore versus naturally distancing because you make new friends/busy with classes or so
Hard to say it was natural distancing since we couldn’t pick what team to be on and they wanted the teams to be “balanced” with an equal amount of smart students. All the core classes (unless you took AP or were ahead in math) were taken together with the kids on your team (all having the same teachers and staying together through high school). This was supposedly so they could do interdisciplinary units during core blocks but that doesn’t work well when you are “off team” during a core block for something like an AP class.
My counterpoint to these was the time when the depression meant I wrote letters to three of my best friends basically telling them I understood if they secretly hated me and didn’t want to be my friends and it was fine they didn’t need to be. They were mainly puzzled but reassuring because this was not based in reality and they were nice people who actually liked me despite my brain being awful to me at that point in time…
Then there was the other girl from that friend group, who had already fallen out with most of them, who a year or so later tried to get me bottled. Still not quite sure why… Basically, we’d had a bit of a falling out over not much. My first boyfriend broke up with me. I also fell out with one of my still-over-20-years-later best friends… And I gave up, tried to kill myself, failed, we hadn’t really gotten back to talking again but it had been less than a month… Play-fought with a friend over a drink, his girlfriend was a bit put out coz I scratched his neck – and instead of trying to calm her down, my so-called friend talked her into the sort of rage that meant a bouncer plucked a glass bottle out of her hand just before she brought it down over my head. It was odd and definitely cemented our friendship as over.
(My behaviour wasn’t perfect. I was a mess. But the guy in question and I were friends, never had any animosity over it… When I’d asked if I could have a sip of a drink he told me to fight him for it so I did but we were both playing, no subtext, just being silly. If I’d realised I’d hurt him I would have apologised and offered to buy him another drink to say sorry? And honestly most of my anger over this has always been directed towards the person who was supposed to be my friend who nearly worked somebody up into homicidal rage towards me. Coz that wasn’t fair to either of us…)
Good on that bouncer, not so on the friends.
And with that you already know this particular new friend isn’t for Walky and he appreciates Sarah for being genuine.
Fingers crossed he won’t let Lucy guilt him into this Mean Girl gang. I like Walky more and more.
To be honest I don’t see why anyone would be so desperate to join up with these guys and it’s not just that Raidahs manipulation tricks are transparent for even a person who didn’t already knew she was being two-faced but it’s that….They’re kind of dull, besides Asher Jennifer’s new friend group has zero charisma.
Right? Jennifer acts like she’s regained her popular status but how exactly? Jennifer certainly hasn’t made any gains with her journalism network if she has to resort to pimping out her ex for work and the only people who seem to notice her are from her old friend group.
I can only assume what she is perceiving as popularity in her current situation is status based off their familial relationships.
I say that because this group definitely seems less fun.
This group definitely seems to do less stuff.
And Jennifer misses the drama.
So this clearly doesn’t match her idea of popularity from high school.
But all their parents being lawyers and businessmen implies they run in the same fancy circles and that “fanciness” trickles down onto the kids by association
Also, that’s the one thing none of her old friends have, the closest being Walky and Sal.
Of course, there’s Carla, but there’s no way they’d hang out with Carla; she’d destroy Carl just from having similar names and she’d never be controlled by Raidah.
Of course I could be wrong and Jennifer just thinks they’re popular due to a lack of nerd interests, being still in denial that she is a Star Wars nerd.
I think its that they wear nice cloths and have an air of exclusivity.
Aside from Radiah who has a causal but put together look the rest dress normally for college kids. though Jennifer has also got a new top this time Carl and Asher are just wearing hobbies and caps. I honestly think it’s the slight snobbish mean girl energy Jennifer mistakes for popularity.
Carla would absolutely use the money her folks’ have to destroy Raidah, and then go back to just skating around being awesome. I get the sense that for her it’s a nice perk to have, but it’s not who she is.
I get the sense Asher can take or leave the lot of them, too. I’m not quite sure what to make of him.
I mean, she just flat-out asked someone else if Raidah is lying, directly in front of her. She’s clearly having some Doubts.
Eh. I don’t find that as clear. It reads to me more like Lucy doesn’t want to believe ill of someone she knows, so is asking for confirmation.
Not saying Lucy buys it, necessarily, but I don’t think this is indicative of real doubt yet.
yeah i don’t think walky rly needs a ‘friend group’ anyways, because it’s not like he’s completely antisocial but even if sarah’s honest i don’t think she needs to go outta the way to tell him if his behavior/decisions is sabotaging his own life or whatever but i imagine there’d be plenty else to keep him busy with college
And he’s already got stable friend group he trusts, he’s not going to ditch them for the blandest self-described “adults” on campus
I don’t think she would. She might with Joyce, due to their whole quasi-sibling relationship, but with Walky she’d just make an offhand snarky comment. I read Walky’s point as more being about who he sees Sarah as versus how he sees this group. I would imagine he’ll stay friendly with them (although notice how his countenance shifted when they started to snark on Sal — more of that and it may shift) but he’s not going to be friends with any of them.
I usually do not care for Walky but he is on point right now, well said
Fun Yoto Fact!
When I was in my freshman year of high school I had a crush on a girl named Roxanne. Now I was the worst version of myself so I was definitely annoying and obnoxious and I don’t blame her for not liking me. Still we ate lunch together every day with her friends. However one day she moved away (she didn’t tell me I found out from her friend). The kicker is she wrote me a letter about how she never liked me and how her friends didn’t like me.
I kept that note in my room for years until my mom found it. So yeah, I can relate to what Walky said there.
🥺 So sorry to hear that Yoto, you must have felt AWFUL. 😭
Oh it was freshman year of high school so there was a lotta reasons for me to feel awful.
-that happened
-Wasn’t allowed to march in band and forced to go into a beginner class cuz I sucked so much at trombone. (an instrument I’d played for 3 years prior.)
-Almost failed math cuz I was dumb
-Mom was on crutches due to an accident she’d had a year earlier
-My Dog got run over by my school bus.
The good news is, thus far, it’s the worst year I’ve had. 2020 wasn’t even close.
Do you think that girl understands what she did now?
I assume she has not thought about me once in the last 15 years. And I don’t blame her 😛
You say that and yet I’m discovering everyone looks back on their younger years to cringe now we can’t do anything about it now.
😭😭😭 That all sounds so awful.
That is terrible. I hope your mom made you feel better about it.
Not really? I think she just thought it was upsetting that I was holding on to it. I think she tried to tell me I’m better than that but I dunno. Just didn’t feel it.
Oh, I’m sorry.
No worries. It’s far enough in the past that I’m not sad about it. Moreso I just cringe thinking about it now 😛
Also, recommending the movie Adaptation if you’ve never seen it – there’s a moment at the end of the movie that really resonates a lot with your story.
You’ve got me flashing back to middle school. Minus the crush on a girl part. I hadn’t discovered girls yet.
Yuck that’s just awful! Both cowardly AND mean.
Just had to be Roxxanne, the name of a girl that probably sounds cool as hell and she does you dirty.
If you want a taste of how Cringe 14 year old Yoto was, I called her “Roxxy” and pronounced it with an “L” sound cuz I was an anime nerd.
And I cannot…stress…the sheer amount of cringe I feel even remembering that that was once a thing I did.
Are there any kids at that age that aren’t cringe at some point or another? If I remember right, human brains aren’t fully developed until they are 21. I wouldn’t hate on your younger self too much. You can see your growth from then, but I don’t see anything wrong with anime nerd Yoto, even if she was immature. I would take that even now any day over the 14 year old classmate that wanted to burn a poster in a classroom because he couldn’t read it (and the other destructive, bullying former classmates I had). Young Yoto sounds cute in comparison.
I’ve thankfully forgotten a lot of my most specific cringe behaviors/moments from my teenage years. Though not to long ago I discovered archived livejournal posts/comments etc from that era and I almost died from the sheer amount of cringe I experienced just browsing through them. It made me really grateful RE: the amount of growing up I did since then, 20 years removed.
The one thing I envy about earlier generations is that they don’t have an online catalogue of what they were like as teens. Some of my deviantart stuff is ROUGH ROUGH.
I often think about that in regard to people who are even younger than you, who have smartphones as children and/or icloud accounts since day one. Like, imagine being able to scroll back through your camera roll and it’s literally your entire life? It feels like there’s something bizarre about having that sort of continuity vs. abandoning childhood trappings & taking on adult tools/behaviors/etc.
Think about all the kids growing up with Millennial and Gen Z parents. A significant percentage of them will end up resenting how much of their early childhood was posted online.
At least our kompromat was just a box of prints and 35mm negatives (and maybe VHS tapes) in a box in a closet at your parents’ house.
It’ll be an interesting mix of things, like, some will resent having their childhood posted online (particularly with the overt sarcastic mockery people often pair with presenting children amongst other adults,) but I’m sure in contrast other people will feel jealous of those whose childhoods were so well-archived, as there will likely be just as many parents who never really bothered to document their child’s life, despite it being easy to do so.
My mother did a fair amount of disposable film photography when I was a kid and has tons of photo albums – there’s definitely something I appreciate about those things as these sort of little artifacts that require a mission to archive/digitize. Still, in contrast to how easy/casual it is to photograph things now with smartphones, they’re still moments few and far between. I think it’s also somewhat strange to think of all of these photos of you as a kid not being in some place you can access but on like…your parents’ phones/cloud accounts. Imagine being like “hey mom can you airdrop me every photo of me from the last ten years?” This also brings up the prospect of people never having access to these photos, say, in the event of a parent passing away unexpectedly. Will people revise their wills to give their children access to their cloud accounts (probably not given what other things probably lurk on them.) Just some interesting possibilities to consider.
My dad’s family had old videos of him (1960s) where they would rile him up as a kid and then video his temper tantrum (his Dad wasn’t a great guy). He never wanted us to see those videos. My niece, on the other hand, loves seeing videos of herself playing and laughing (2 years old). I do tend to consider sharing with family and friends vs sharing with the public differently. I am definitely of the stance that nothing embarrassing should be posted online without the permission of the kid when they are old enough to understand consent and the repercussions.
Posting pictures or videos of anyone online has gotten really lax nowadays in my opinion. It used to be that stuff would have to be blurred if you didn’t give your permission to be on TV (funniest home videos TV show for example). Now people post videos of strangers online without a care in the world. Not sure that is a good thing.
Hey now, I really like your Pajama Sam art from back then! 🙂
Oh that was done in college. My REAL cringe stuff is the high school stuff. The further back you go the cringier it is.
Loxxy? Oh goodness. That could have some unintended consequences that might have added to her dislike depending on … things.
I dunno what it says about me that I don’t even know what that’d mean now, but I assume I don’t wanna.
I once asked fellow students in high school to explain a bad word they were using to me. Funniest game of hot potato I have ever personally seen.
That feeling of wanting to explain, but not wanting to come off as an asshole… Basically, as someone who was given the hijinks all the way into high school because of my Czech name, I would wonder if perhaps the nickname would have a worse connotation for her if she were Jewish.
Unintended consequences, a bad luck all around, sort of thing.
14 year old me was at least 80% cringe.
Hitting F for respect for you Yoto, that’s some heavy stuff to absorb in high school. I had a somewhat similar experience in high school – I had a friend freshman year who was also an artist, but she was much better than me. We were both illustrators but she had a much more defined style that was “hers.” I was still mostly copying anime-style images, but didn’t really have much footing as an illustrator yet. I had a lot of admiration for her & her character as a person – hard to describe as these things are, she just had a sense of poise and resilience that I found really admirable. I don’t even really remember how it started but in sophomore year we started a ritual of writing long notes to each other back and forth that we’d usually trade off at the end of the day – just very blog-like, slice of life “what we’re going through” kind of stuff. That summer, we hung out a lot, like a few times a week. We both really liked gaming and anime/manga, all of that. Like you, I was also pretty much starting to grapple with my worst qualities at the time. I very much had the feeling of being in love with her then, but I had a lot of internal conflict & a massive fear of rejection / ruining this great friendship that I let that feeling eat away at me at the inside, which turned me from a likable/charismatic person into an obnoxious, moody person who didn’t really explain himself, or any of that. So me “confessing” how I was feeling to her in our junior year was wrapped up in a lot of self-bashing/self-incrimination that made her uncomfortable and drove us apart as friends, with her telling me more or less that “I used to like who you were and I don’t like who you’ve turned into.” At the time, my mother was going through fighting cancer, I was working a weekend shift at McDonalds that more or less with school had me getting up at 6am to go somewhere for 8 hours (school or work) every single day with no break, and my verbally abusive stepfather had become unemployed, so he was always home. So basically, everywhere sucked for me to be at the time. In our senior year, the two of us were in the same Art IV class with two other people, which felt very uncomfortable (totally a “me problem” though.) As a teenager I just really wasn’t well equipped to have any meaningful reflection on my experiences and I just turned into a very sullen/withdrawn/moody person, which was fortunately alleviated a lot for me in going away to college.
Funny enough, she went on to do a long-running webcomic that she still does, and I even get advertisements for it on this page sometimes because it gets published on Hiveworks. I haven’t communicated with her in any way in a really long time. I mostly feel bad about the person I was back then, particularly because before I was grappling with my painful, confusing teenage feelings, we had a really great/authentic friendship. I’m really happy that she went on to go so far with her art though, she’s a really fantastic illustrator with such a defined style.
Wow damn! Yeah that sucks sorry to hear. Definitely worse than my situation but I can definitely relate to having a crush on someone but not being able to express it through self loathing. I hope you can, in some way, reconnect with them. Even if it’s just to say “Hey, remember me?” Though I also get if you don’t wanna do that.
I think I already had that moment once or twice already in the past, but I can’t quite recall because my username is pretty indicative of my ability to retain a lot of specific memories besides the biggest ones. I just feel like there’s not much to say and I probably already said it at some point in the past, maybe 10 years ago or so. All I really feel like I have to say again is “sorry I made you uncomfortable” but I think they’re so far beyond that in their life that when I think about it, it’s probably only likely to just make them feel more uncomfortable to even say that, so it’s like “well, why even say anything at all?” The whole experience was a hard thing to learn for me, but it showed me things that I had to learn. In the end, I have to be content with finding value in my past discomfort, and holding warm regard for her as a person and what she’s achieved – but that’s for me to sit with, you know? Honestly I think it probably in the long run probably mattered a lot less to her than it did to me.
There was a girl i was into who did not reciprocate. That’s fine. She was polite and friendly to my face, but 20 years later her best friend tells me that behind my back she ridiculed me mercilessly.
That bothered me to find out, but more because I have no idea what I could have said or done to make her hate me enough that she needed to cut me down to other people.
One of those “either I did something horrendous and have never realized what it was, or I was crushing on a vile human being” dichotomies where I’m not sure which answer would feel better.
I think human beings are in general vile creatures, and the fact that so many people commenting have had various stories all to the effect of “A group of people singled me out to treat me like subhuman garbage” gives me more evidence for that school of thought.
Stuff like this reminds me of those studies examining why Homo sapiens ended up as the dominant species with evidence pointing to our ancestors winning by being the most violent and aggressive and driving other early humans to extinction. The garbage is bone-deep in the species.
Re: that last bit: ugh, no, please stop.
We don’t know what caused the extinction of other human species, could’ve been war, partly, sure, but there are dozens of hypotheses out there and this isjust one of them, andit does not seem to have much direct evidence going for it.
Also, you’re one to make grand pronouncements about humans being garbage. You’re not being a particularly stellar human yourself around here lately, what with driving another commenter off by relentlessly attacking a strawman of their perfectly innocuous and civil comments.
I wish you would go touch grass for a bit, rather than ignoring people asking you to self-reflect, apologize, and just chill a wee bit.
I include myself in all these statements. And I didn’t do the research myself, so you’re right I can’t be sure.
And no.
it’s not the not being sure i’m bothered by, it’s the not really caring.
like, deep history is fascinating. it tells us a lot, if we care to learn.
what it won’t ever do is answer questions about “human nature”, whatever that means. the sad thing is so many people want it to, and they will latch on to some discovery plausibly supporting one hypothesis, that the popular media goes on to report as proof of some widely held prejudice. i just think it’s sad.
anyway, you said humans are vile. i said you’re being a jerk. big difference.
No, you’re a good person.
Hah, take that!
Sometimes people being into you when you don’t feel the same toward them can be uncomfortable. Sometimes people– especially young people– don’t know how to handle interpersonal discomfort in a healthy way. Just to offer something into the mix of that dichotomy.
Some of it is they haven’t had good examples too. Like ordering 10 year old Johnny to accept his grandma’s kisses and pinching on the cheeks when he hates both of those things happening to him. Not exactly a good lesson for consent there.
I think it just happens. I definitely got made fun of behind my back and to my face by groups of girls in high school too. 😛 My fault for being so desperate tbh.
oof that’s rough and unecessarily cruel, unless someone was acting like a straight up ‘incel’ as they call it these days i would’ve simply moved and not left any letters, tho i don’t exactly hide my expressions well so most ppl would be able to tell if i looked upset/angry or so
Raidah’s Internal Monologue: Yes. YESSS. At LAST. My SPEAR OF VENGEANCE HAS A NAME, AND IT IS WALKERTON!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Walky: So…Sarah‘s kinda a jerk? Eh. I don’t mind that! 🙂
Raidah’s Internal Monologue: *RECORD SCRATCH*
Lucy: So she’s just lying, right?
God, I hope so. It’d be the cherry on top if in addition to Walky just torpedoing Raidah’s intricate scheme, Lucy just sees right through it or at least finds it super suspect.
It’s more that she’s omitting certain truths that don’t fit the narrative she’s crafting.
i’m sure there are kindhearted/well-adjusted adults, but going to 4-8 years of college surrounded by other 20 year olds it’d be hard to not be a little bit of a jerk, just gotta release the inner jerkiness to your advantage
I guess she didn’t bother remembering that story. Can’t really blame her.
Her reaction at the time was: “Now kiss! Sarah and Raidah are clearly meant for each other!” Haha, I don’t think Billie was listening.
God, she’s awful.
I … don’t believe that. But I also don’t really remember the relevant strips.
Nevermind. Apparently I have too much faith in Jennifer.
I get when people find Jennifer hot or like her as a plot device.
I cannot fathom people who genuinely take her side in 99% of the conflicts she
startsfinds herself.I don’t think Jennifer’s a bad person in the way Raidah is. Honestly, I think she’s trying to be a good person and I like her.
But I also don’t think she’s…In a good place. Or correct. Or making good decisions like 90% of the time. She has a view of the world that is shaped by a lot of completely unresolved damage, and the damage has layers like the epochs of the Earth.
Jennifer’s trying to be a good person via the lens of an Alpha Bongo.
I think she sometimes tries to be a good person but finds being a bad person is easier. There’s a lot of layers of damage like you said and she does not want to put in the work to peeling them all back and repairing it, which is part of why she’s so keen on either going back to an old “safe” facade like head cheerleader or adopting a new one.
A lot of her shittiness is deliberate, but so far she hasn’t gone quite to “sustained harassment campaign,” no.
It’s also why Ruth left her. She did it in a horrible way, but Ruth is ready to at least try to fix herself. Jennifer isn’t, and could sabotague said repairs.
That it at the very least not why Ruth said she left her.
She’s a good kid, she’s just a little confused.
Outstanding shade from Walky.
Got to agree about the being explicit about not really being a people person thing but I think, for example, Dina is pulling it off in a significantly chiller way than Sarah most of the time.
Either way I usually prefer to know when I am and am not bothering someone rather than letting it fester.
How much of Sarah being less chill than Dina is due to people not normally noticing that Dina is there? It also does seem like Dina has been better taught how to handle stress and possibly better support from her family than what Sarah has.
Considering I have been told that I might be on the spectrum, I am horrible at knowing when I am being a pest and when I am not.
Dina is basically free to interact or not interact when and where she chooses. Sarah doesn’t have that because she’s in the apex of an anthill of angst and extroverts.
Walky is right, and Walky should leave, taking anyone worth a damn with him. This brunch is only getting worse and there is no redeeming Raidah and company, at least not at this moment.
Guess that leaves Carl out.
Walky’s probably already forgotten he’s even there again.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think he exists when he’s not on screen. He ceases to exist and his parents retroactively never met until he has a line of dialogue.
So he’s Schrodinger’s Dudebro? He’s a quantum object that only appears when you shine light particles on him.
Is Carl a Silence?
Make a mark on your wrist every time you see him!
Who?
I think he owns a fast food chain.
No, that’s his son.
What were their plans on the rest of the day anyways? depending on how the burger ended up he could easily be like “yeah sorry that burger didn’t agree with me, i’m gonna go to the dorm room toilets for the rest of the afternoon” as an excuse as opposed to bluntly being like “i’m not sure i wanna be in your friend group” to prevent any future confrontation/hostility from them
I don’t think he’s leaving until he’s eaten his $20 burger.
Ok that burger sounds real good tho
My thoughts exactly.
Walky is the friend we all need, even if we don’t want to admit it.
She was a cheerleader. This is the only life she truly understands.
“Raidah merely adopted the clout. I was born in it, molded by it; I didn’t see how the unpopular kids lived until I was already a woman, and by then it was nothing to me but cringe!”
Walky about to ruin Jen’s whole day: “I may be cringe, but that makes me free.”
More like the only life she wants to acknowledge because everything else seems like a step down from her high-school days and she doesn’t know how to work hard to make things happen because she banks of throwing money at her issues.
I’m not sure that I would trust the “essentially sounding like that”, even without this group being questionable in the first place. It just sounds more like Jennifer saying that is how she interpreted it than the facts of the matter. Like the phrase “maybe soon”, it just sounds wishy-washy to me. Even just saying “that’s what it sounded like to me” sounds more firm than this. The “essentially” hints at other details that could be important to the interpretation. Even saying “That’s how it sounded to me when she explained it to me” or something of that sort. I am not the most socially competent person, but that phrasing just sends warning signs to me.
Yeah, she would have heard about it like 6 months ago or something. I think that it’s as much Jennifer having cliff’s notes ages ago rather than Jennifer trying to willfully paint Sarah in a bad light.
Hmm maybe Billie is struggling here. Having just had a shock that Raidah does was mean to her for the first time, she is now wondering if she dares to contradict the Head Mean Girl to her face. Fingers crossed some brain cells are working behind the scenes.
The fact that Lucy asked in the first place means she doesn’t trust it. So hopefully she takes note of the wishy-washy answer.
Sadly, I don’t think Lucy will pick up on how Jennifer didn’t really confirm anything because she looks up to her so much. Might be a set up for a fight if Lucy ends up telling Jennifer she agrees with Sarah and Carla for not just going along.
She just had one of her “everyone is Lawful Good” bubbles popped, so she might not pick up on the subtext of that wishy-washy non-answer.
It’s A Thin Line/Between Love And Hate…
Is this accidentally going to be the impetus that causes Walky and Lucy to talk about the love thing and break up? Because I feel like it’s gonna come up now in that context. Like, yeah, he definitely targeted this towards Jennifer (especially because he could clearly see from this brunch that they’re kind of jerks to her), but I get vibes that the “being genuine and honest and not having to find out later that it was a lie” is gonna come back later.
Or not break up. I forgot to add that there, they don’t have to break up. Lucy Has Done Nothing Wrong right now (though she’s definitely buying into Raidah’s bit). But the love thing feels like it’s gonna relate to this somehow later.
Is she buying it, though? She basically just called her a liar.
I feel like we shouldn’t jump to “thinks you’re a liar” if someone tries to ask for corroboration.
This is a point I hadn’t considered. Walky sees Billie as a second sister, and we already saw how he prickled up when Sal was their target. I don’t think it would take much for him to do so for Billie either.
well walky’s getting better but i doubt he really cared about his snark pissing off ppl before, like with ethan in the cafeteria and the dig at his black outfits
Walky is smarter than people think.
He does seem to be keeping his head above water here quite well, these are dangerous social storms he’s navigating.
There’s a nugget of emotional intelligence underneath all the mcnugget diet 8D:
He didn’t need to study (until he did need to)
I FEEL LIKE YOU’RE FORGETTING SOME VERY IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT THE STORY AS SARAH TOLD IT TO YOU, JENNIFER.
ALSO THANK YOU WALKY <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Raidah is higher on the social food chain than Sarah, so therefore she must agree with Raidah’s version of events.
Nah, she just wasn’t listening in the first place.
I am loving how Walky is going to bat for people. Like, Sal was more overt and obviously going to be the case, but pleasantly surprised he’s offering a defense of Sarah here, even if it’s not as full-throated as with Sal.
I do also get the impression he’s, yeah, directing this at Jennifer out of a growing distaste for this atmosphere, like a “are you sure this is a good place for you?” unspoken question.
When Walky is clever, he is very clever indeed. That was exquisite.
I like how his response is basically, “even if Sarah did do what you day she did…so what?” Radiah needs to get out of her echo chamber.
I love the sort of wisdom of Walky as a character to be cognizant of more or less exactly what’s going on in real time and respond to it subtly and immediately in the way he does. I always appreciate the way he’s written in this comic, where he bounces between childlike naiveté and kung-fu master levels of wisdom/poise. I feel like he really captures well the duality of being “naturally gifted kid” in those two extremes.
The childlike naiveté is a mask. A coping mechanism. A way for him to keep the unpleasantries of life at arm’s length.
It’s a skillfully wielded weapon.
OOOH
I went back and reread the strips from 2012 where Sarah told the story. She definitely told Joyce and Billie much more than what Raidah said. However, Billie was rather dismissive of the story and said Sarah and Raidah should just get it over with and make out, as that’s how such rivalries end up. As she put it, such relationships always end in Bone City.
Joyce took that as an indication that she wants to bone Walky, based on her simultaneous hostility and dependence on Walky. I imagine that is the part of the conversation that Jennifer best remembers.
There was also another confrontation between Sarah and Jennifer where Sarah said “Dana might be in a coffin now if it wasn’t for me”.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/coffin/
Fucking hell, going back to that just made me realize how Willis framed it to echo Raidah’s first appearance, only with Sarah better standing up for herself the second time.
No, that pun was not done on purpose.
He told Radiah he would still rather be friends with Sarah than her while telling Jennifer to gtfo without giving Radiah anything to fuel her holier than thou mindset. Pleasantly surprised.
All without actually saying it because she hasn’t given away that fact she’s putting up a two face act.
Hasn’t she? I’m pretty sure even Lucy is starting to pick up on it. And Walky Definitely knows now.
And people were doubting her.
So Jennifer has gone from being silent (leaving it ambiguous whether she agrees with the assessment of Sarah by Raidah) to actually confirming what Raidah says (without adding any information, like “Sarah said she was getting worse” or attempting any sort of defense).
Not surprising, but still not a good look for her.
Did not expect this level of insight from Walky.
I *did* expect somebody at that table to ask how on Earth Sarah has the power to just – poof! – have people removed from the school because they inconvenience her.
Because Raidah’s framing only works if Sarah is in the wrong, and *that* only works if no responsible adult-er adults saw the situation once it was called to their attention and agreed with her judgment. Sarah isn’t buddies with the Dean.
I am not defending Raidah (I do think she and Jennifer are definitely in the wrong here)…
But, even if Sarah didn’t have any actual authority, a false accusation could certainly play a part in having someone removed from school (even if others would have to make the ultimate decision.)
I mean, if I called the cops and said “my neighbor is running a crack house” and the police came and arrested them (even if it was a false allegation), the cops would certainly be to blame for arresting someone on such flimsy evidence, but I would have been the one that started the ball rolling.
Like most conspiracy theories, Raidah needs to add complexity to the situation in order for her take to make sense.
The thing is, if Sarah actually had that power, Raidah would probably be trying to be friends with her in order to have access to that power.
I mean it’s pretty easy to surface-level read the story as “Sarah snitched to an authority figure about drug use” which, if this group are like most college kids, means she was both in the wrong and that the “adult-er adults” took her side.
Except that the drug use wasn’t mentioned, so if you don’t already know the story, you can’t surface read it that way.
All we’ve got here is “Dana went through some difficult times.” “Sarah had her sent home.”
I’m not surprised by Billifer’s response (and didn’t have enough hope to be disappointed) considering her own experience with addiction and codependency with Ruth. I disagree with the omission basically throwing Sarah under the bus, but she’s not exactly the most reliable judge of how-to-handle-addiction-issues.
Also big agree with walky. One of the big things I look for in a friend/partner is that they won’t hesitate to call me in on my bullshit. Like, assume I’m doing the best with what I’ve got but don’t shy away from potential conflict. I’m not good enough at social stuff to play neurotypical guessing games.
Walky really chose violence when he woke up, didn’t he? XD it’s becoming pretty clear that he isn’t at this breakfast by accident; he wanted to check in on B’Jennifer, and try to let her know that he’s disappointed with her friend group choices…m
Wtf since when is walky so reasonable
He’s always been “gay pizza smart,” he just doesn’t like responsibility, and he recognizes that the more people recognize him as smart the more responsibilities he’ll be given.
And with great responsibilities come great consequences.
Gay pizza
What toppings do you get with that
Maybe radiah being a bongo to Dorothy primed him for what was to come? He does have his moments when things get serious.
Dang, that’s another point I’d forgotten. Raidah really is doing a crap job of trying to convince the guy whose “power” she covets that she’s a good bet. All it would take is for her to crap on Lucy to really send it home.
I have to say, of all the characters in the comic (at least the non-villain ones), Jennifer seems to have had the least amount of growth.
Joyce is turning away from her fundamentalist upbringing, Sarah seems to have developed at least a few personal attachments, Dorothy is changing priorities in her life, Joe is interested in a real relationship, etc.
Jennifer has gone from self-desctructive drama queen to… self destructive drama queen. There was a brief moment (when she met a former girlfriend in the cafeteria) where she MIGHT have started to show some growth but the moment seems to have been lost.
That’s Jennifer’s secret, Cap. She’s always relapsing.
Yeah, her relapse is like global warming — it happens so slowly that it could potentially trick you into thinking it’s not happening or even happening in reverse. But in both cases, it IS happening, and it does NOT look pretty. 🙁
Haha, were all gonna die from previously avoidable catastrophes and there’s nothing we can do about it lmao haha fuck.
no we are not all gonna die, and there is SO MUCH we can do. some global warming is unavoidable but the amount matters. the fossil barons are counting on our defeatism, don’t give them the satisfaction ✊
Yeah. Most of the cast has gotten a chance to look into the abyss. Jennifer blinked.
The other character I’d pitch for consideration on this metric is Ethan, though. And possibly Jason.
Ehh…I don’t agree, though I want to stress I disagree non-confrontationally. 😮 Because Ethan *has* developed, he’s just…gotten worse! He used to be a shy, kindly, semi-closeted Transformers nerd himbo! Now he’s…a bitter shell consumed by grief! There’s development there, but it’s the BAD kind.
Jason, on the other hand, I think has developed positively. His relationship with Sal, inasmuch as it could be called one, seemed…combative and transactional, whereas he actually seems to have positive feelings for Ruth, and she’s trying, in her own special hot mess idiot way, to reciprocate.
Eh, to quote Raidah, “When someone close to you dies, I think we should allow additional understanding.”
Ethan regressed because someone really close to him died in a horrible fashion and he never really got closure on it.
That said, I think Raidah hasn’t accepted that Sarah really did offer a whole lot of understanding, and ultimately had to admit that the situation was over her (and Raidah’s) paygrade. Same with Ruth, really. Ethan doesn’t seem quite at that point yet.
Oh, absolutely, Ethan’s character development in the wrong direction isn’t his fault at all.
Just to make sure I don’t come off as sarcastic, I am not. Ethan got FUCKED up by grief, which is a totally human and understandable response. His situation is rough as hell.
she had better growth while she was dating Ruth, while their entire relationship started as a dumpster fire, they eventually got to a really good place where they both started growing as people
until both of their self destructiveness reared it’s ugly head and ruined everything lol, mostly for Billie and less so for Ruth
Yeah, I’d say that last semester, Jennifer had as much growth as anyone in the cast.
Most of it regressed during the time skip for reasons that were mysterious at first. Now I’d reading it mostly as Raidah playing on her vulnerability after Ruth dumped her.
The only thing she kept – and it’s a huge thing – is that she’s still sober.
Are we sure about that?
We’ve seen no reason to think otherwise. I’d wondered a lot about it at first, but at this point it would be poor narrative to keep hiding it from us.
and Jennifer learned a very important lesson that day
(maybe)
Stay tuned to find out… she never fully learned from the Carla Ruth incident so im prepared for her to shrug it off and not learn until Radiah and her interets clash again.
Not convinced that Jennifer has learned anything since Walky gave her a nickname beyond how to get a fake id.
50% says she’s going to go looking for another beating from Ruth to validate her nonsense.
J E N N I F E R
please i am begging you to listen when people talk
Jennifer: “I don’t understand the implications, and I won’t respond to them.”
Also possible: “I think there’s implications there, but I’d rather not pay attention to them.”
Dana’s story is too close to Jennifer’s own behavior for her to accept that Sarah was right.
Ooh, this sounds like it has a lot of truth to it. Along with terror at the thought over just HOW BADLY she would need to mess up for her dad to actually step in and intervene in her life in that sort of way and refusal to accept it could ever happen and therefore that Sarah’s actions could ever be justified…
It also brings up echoes of Clint being called in when Ruth was reported to the campus authorities.
Really this scenario is an absolute win for anyone who doesn’t like Jennifer, because despite Walky being the one who made Raidah’s revenge plan eat shit with a couple sentences, there’s no socially acceptable way to take it out on him and if Raidah tries she will look like a buffoon.
So probably Jennifer will reap the consequences for Walky wrecking her shit!
For the record I like Jennifer well enough, but she, uh, chose this. She applied for it in writing.
Wondering if radiah is going to finally lose her temper, she let her fake friendly smile slip back when Sal tried to have s conversation with Jennifer that wasn’t even directly about her.
Here is a good time to make a reminder that Sarah has almost systematically and quite arbitrarily hated Jennifer and treated her like crap while jenny rarely did anything to Sarah to cater such attitude.
Put a bit of context on how Jennifer perceive Sarah.
Sarah’s hatred of Jennifer isn’t arbitrary at all, Jennifer gave her the vibe of a party girl who didn’t care about consequences. Because she, uh, was, kind of. And let’s not play like Jenn didn’t throw mud right back at Sarah. No one is innocent in that feud, or the victim.
I said “quite”. I don’t consider seeing someone as carefree a very good reason to dislike someone. It doesn’t help that her attitude didn’t change much toward Jennifer despite getting to know her better.
I think Sarah recognized Billie-as she was then- as someone with an addiction problem. That it was „just” alcohol doesn’t make that much of a difference when both are illegal in dorms.
And taking someone as clueless as Joyce to a frat party without keeping an eye on them is irresponsible.
I don’t think Bilie or Jennifer have ever been carefree in their lives. Just coping with abandonment and loneliness with different means.
Jennifer isn’t a good person. Why would Sarah, who categorically is an introvert who just wants people to take care of their business and then get on with their lives, like Jennifer, who has been a toxic presence to everyone around her and deliberately so (“inject it into my veins”)?
But it’s…not arbitrary. Also, it’s not that Jennifer was “carefree”, it’s that she was, very specifically, a *party girl who doesn’t care about consequences*.
Like Dana used to be. So she reminded Sarah of her tormentors (whose friend group she later joined!) and then did…sweet heck-all to dispel that notion.
Also, when she “got to know Jennifer better”, it was in the context of:
-Jennifer encouraging Joyce to go to a party where Joyce was sexually assaulted.
-Jennifer spiraling into alcoholism in public.
-Jennifer enabling Ruth’s suicidal ideations.
-Jennifer literally joining the friend group that has tormented Sarah.
Now, is there more going on behind the scenes? Sure. Yeah. But is it also completely reasonable to dislike someone who reminds you, constantly, of one of the worst times/aspects of your life? Also yes. Sarah did nothing wrong by disliking Jennifer, and continues to do nothing wrong in that regard.
Jennefer warning Joyce about what to look out for.
Likely why her sexual assault didn’t end in her being raped in the bathroom.
I think that had something to do with Joyce shoving a glass in Not-Ryan’s face when his “pastor’s son” mask slipped, then Sarah slamming him round the head with a baseball bat before he could retaliate, actually? Think her warnings horrified Dorothy, and largely went over Joyce’s head.
Yes
I think Joyce was able to put two and two together fast enough to do that in part because she was warned ahead of time about taking drinks which she didn’t see opened.
Fair point I hadn’t really considered before.
That “advice” was an offhand comment about keeping her hand over her own drink to not get roofied. Not exactlly “warning Joyce about what to look out for. And Joyce didn’t even take that warning. She fought back after Ryan began angrily threatening her. And then Sarah came in for the dramatic rescue. I’d argue that Jennifer went in without any concern for Joyce’s safety at all.
That’s all true, but without that offhand warning, Joyce might not have made the connection, even at the last moment.
He yelled, she looked at the glass and seemed to realize something, then glassed him.
Ignoring the ongoing argument here… I think we have an interesting linguistics-based miscommunication here, based on the choice of the word ‘quite.’
Depending on the dialect of English one uses, ‘quite’ has literally opposite meanings; I would read “… and quite arbitrarily hated…” to mean “…and very arbitrarily hated…” (Adding emphasis), but it can also have the meaning “…and almost arbitrarily hated…” (Reducing emphasis)
XD
Second one was what I meant.
Ah, Definition 2, my old nemesis.
Hard agree, I think Sarah’s opinion of Jennifer hit its nadir when Jennifer had the gall to walk up to Sarah eating lunch and say “I think Raidah was right about you,” and Sarah really should have smacked the tray out of Jennifer’s hands instead of ruining her own lunch.
What are you on? Billie was a flaming hot mess that shacked up with the RA from hell before she moved. What was Sarah, an older, serious student supposed to like about her again?
I don’t usually see this kind of bad-faith character assassination outside of discussions of Joyce.
Parry, thrust!
I love that Walky has not backed down.
Got a story to add relevant to today’s strip.
When I was in 8th grade, I sat with a group of popular kids at their table everyday, but I hardly added to the conversation. I was the quiet kid who wanted to observe people from a distance. Even if that distance was 4 feet.
One day they were talking about hairstyles and cornrows came up. Someone asked me (I’m white) if I wanted cornrows, and I misheard it as “pornos,” to which I immediately responded without thinking, “No! I do not wanna masterbate!”
A brief moment of silence, followed by thunderous laughter. It was embarrassing for sure, but easy to move on from. Then later that day after a class, I overheard one of the girls from that table say within earshot, “I actually like [mrnoidea] now!”
It felt less like a compliment because I realized they were tolerating me up to this point. I *was* aware that I was on the spectrum at the time, but knowing it wasn’t enough to help me socialize. I just felt bad for not knowing whether anyone’s good gestures toward me were genuine or out of politeness. Made me wanna socialize *less.*
Damn Walky is on a roll
Yeah, I do think he’s maturing. It helps he, at this point, has had his loyalties tested a number of times, so he’s keeping his cool while still being firm and unambiguous in his loyalties.
Like, no, he didn’t take a swing at Asher again for Sal, or end something like he did with Amber over her having stabbed Sal, but he still spelled out exactly how he felt. I do bet Dorothy’s pep talk helped, though I do feel like he’s also been in a better head space this semester, too, for planting his feet firmly.
I don’t get the poll…
There isn’t much to get. Willis is being silly
(The correct answer is Carl)
is it though? (.gif)
No, it’s Kevin obviously.
Dang, I’m actually really liking Walky this arc. A pleasant change.
So this is “Saving Private Billie” and poor Lucy might be caught in the crossfire. I hope she escapes unscathed, I like Lucy.
Real weak, Jennifer. Actually she seems barely awake. I wonder if this is an act. If she was pretending to be unaffected by the rapidly piling horseshit so she can gather a more full picture of everything Raidah isn’t saying, so she can maybe then get back to Sarah – and why not Dana – and gather information for a juicy expose about the wealthy clique’s year long harassment and slander campaign against a poor lonely student. . .
Yes I’m grasping at straws. Hoping Jennifer has any interest in journalism, or truth.
that twist would be hilarious
me barely awake “who the hell is Hatecha ?”
and then after coffee “oh”
With the possible exception of Danny, Walky is pretty much the most drama adverse character in the strip, so trying to stir up shit with him was always going to be a disaster.
Yeah, I feel like the only time someone has really provoked an energetic anger out of him (outside of Asher where that almost doesn’t count due to their history prior to the events of the strip) is Ruth due to how betrayed he felt about an authority figure lying to him about an untoward relationship with someone who is family to him, after he was trying to rely on them to do right by Billie/Jennifer.
I guess this isn’t much different, given his main issue here is again people surrounding Jennifer. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see Raidah spinning her own yarns about her, too, after all.
Carl is so utterly bland that even Lucy immediately forgets that is was him – not Raidah – who told her what happened between Sarah and Dana.
Sarah, on first meetup – You’re stupid and I want nothing to do with you.
Raidah, on first meetup – Your ex-girlfriend sucks, your other friend sucks, you might be useful, so you’re cool.
that’s a fair point I hadn’t thought about
Walky dropping truthbombs.
For someone who grew up with undiagnosed autism, this hits close to home.
100% same
I’m glad Walky has some solidarity with the person he was tied up in a basement with.
I am pretty sure Walky knows EXACTLY what is happening here and EXACTLY what he’s saying <3
He’s genuinely smarter than people give him credit for. He may also be growing up a little.
That last panel is the point where a character with less ego would be having an epiphany. Jennifer looks oblivious.
ha get fucked Raidah, that shit don’t work on Walky.
This arc is giving great satisfaction. Walky, who is often point as childish, is showing signs of great maturity and reflective ability while Raidah, who is a self- proclaimed above-average person and is regarded as such by too many in that college, is displaying all her childishness in her manipulating others and wanting revenge for something she didn’t even plenty understood. I’m only sorry for Lucy being dragged into this charade. I don’t feel sorry for Jennifer at all
“yea they told me their side and it was basically the same” GIRL YOURE A JOURNALIST
Is she, though?
The worst journalist ever. Pretty sure she still thinks Sal is Amazigirl
She has still thought that since Halloween.
I mean, when did they talk about that, like 6 months ago? Meanwhile, she’s been around someone who is much more eager to talk about those events, while shifting them the most unflattering way. Even journalists aren’t immune to propaganda.
Well yeah, especially incurious journalists who had already decided that Sarah had done wrong wrt Dana even before linking up with Raidah’s clique.
yeah everyone imagine that garfield picture now
Well, she’s on track for a stellar career at the New York Times.
They’d pass her over when they realize she thinks Carla’s a person and not some bogeyman.
aannnddd Jennifer disappoints
Oh wow, Jennifer missing the social context and judging people! Even worse, she´s buying into the herd mentality of gossip and destructive criticism.
I guess they won´t give any details on what support they give to struggling friends…
This comic struck me DEEP, I had authentic friendships with people that accepts their defects while righteous people just wasted my time and left me down when i needed them most.
Honestly, I bet Raidah’s group all trash talks whichever one isn’t present.
One of the up-sides of having practically nonexistent social needs. You don’t care if someone secretly hates you if you are secretly indifferent to their friendship.