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Somewhere, Walky is UNBEARABLY horny and he does not know why
For Dorothy, sure, but Jennifer is basically like a sister. There’s no chemistry there.
Now, if Dorothy, Amber, and Lucy were fighting, he’d probably pass out.
Bah, Jennifer is like his sister in a Cruel Intentions sort of way.
“Hot.”
Walky and Jennifer, are brother/sister, in a Japanese Eroge; given the chance, those two would be getting tangled in the sheets.
Why Lucy? there’s no chemistry there either.
Actually, there kinda was. Though to be fair, those women all would have more amazing chemistry!
Panel 5:
Jennifer: “…Are we gonna kiss?”
Dorothy: “I want to say no, but with the way my day’s been going so far I honestly couldn’t swear to it.”
lol That’s about right.
You have no idea how badly I want them to bang each other, just for them to both moan the wrong name mid climax.
Well darn, now I also want that
even better because Dorothy moans “Joyce!” ~<3
It would be better, if she came out to Joyce, but Dorothy is so worked up, she’ll probably make out with any girl that gets in front of her.
Panel 5:
J: …Are we gonna kiss?
D: Sorry, no. I wanna, but I’m faithful to her. I mean, to him.
J: …Oh really!
Jennifer runs a photo of Sal and Dorothy labeled “Amazi-Girl (left) and girlfriend.”
… or she notices who Dorothy was sexting and now thinks it’s Joyce.
Or, one step stupider, she goes downstairs and realizes Joyce has a tall clone, whom nobody ever sees. “The Prestige!”
Jennifer DOES seem to go for people being really angry, so…
Look out. Keener’s on the edge!
She has a dragon and she’s not afraid to use it!
To be fair, if you had a dragon would you be afraid to use it?
Provided it wasn’t a metaphorical dragon, then yes. It’s a free creature, entitled agency beyond my command!
You’re thinking of wild dragons, not domesticated ones. I have to recommend this three-part documentary series, made by the cryptozoologists at Dreamworks, that extensively teaches you how to train your dragon.
Fuckin’ SJWs are ruining the iconic dragon guarding the captive’s tower, smfh.
May I offer you this finely crafted comic?
(be sure to click all the way through to the epilogues)
(tch, I should have scrolled down a bit further – here’s a link to the original post and artist.)
to be fair, Billie has made an art out of pretending not to care, so of course that’s what she thinks other people are doing
I kinda live for this strange conflict Dorothy and Jennifer seem to have. It’s interesting, it’s like interacting with Jennifer brings the worse out of Dorothy somehow.
Jennifer actively seeks personal pleasure and drama out with no consequences or thought to anyone but herself. It makes her a disaster queen but it’s oddly liberating.
Dorothy lives every second of every day caring about others and planning her world to the minute.
Jennifer is her antithesis.
Counter-argument: Jennifer is NOT completely selfish. She seeks personal pleasure and drama, not merely for herself, but for EVERYBODY. On a very fundamental level, she wants to help everybody be like her, because she assumes that that is the most desirable way to be. She could just spend all her time being a disaster bisexual insecure party girl herself, but INSTEAD she’s constantly doing everything in her power to help people learn to be disaster bisexual insecure party girls THEMSELVES. This can actually be really beneficial at times – e.g. helping Ruth because party girls aren’t allowed to get depressed and commit suicide, helping Joyce because party girls aren’t allowed to be wimps about going to the doctor – but obviously, it also comes with the drawbacks that have totaled all of her close friendships and romantic relationships up to this point.
And THAT is what actually makes her even MORE of an antithesis to Dorothy than you claim. Dorothy wants everybody to be as responsible as her. Jennifer wants everybody to be as irresponsible as her. They’re fundamentally in conflict, but also kinda speak to each others’ most repressed desires (or not so repressed, as of the last couple of arcs)!
Imo Dorothy seeming so put together, supportive, kind and generally likeable without being insincere is a threat to Billie’s sense of superiority. Outside of highschool she isn’t top of the social food chain, so she needs to drag others down to feel bigger, especially those who’ve seen her at her lowest.
Interacting with Jennifer bring out the worst out of everybody actually
It saved Ruth’s life.
Carla may have helped.
someone trying to start shit will do that to many people
Yep, but no one seems to take the bait quite like Dorothy does. …Except maybe Ruth but for those two that’s a weird foreplay.
Um, there’s more ways to show you care about people than by seeking position of president, Dotty?
also WTF Jennifer, at this rate you gonna be less cut out for real journalism, more cut out for fuckin TMZ (-_-)
Dorothy was seeking power because she believed she could fix everything for everyone.
Raidah somehow managed in a single sentence to point out the President doesn’t do that. Its a position with a huge party to answer to as well as violent military responsibilities.
Which I suspect Dorothy had been suppressing for awhile.
I still don’t get what the big deal is. If we assume, for sake of argument, that somebody *has* to press the “murder innocents” button, I would think somebody that really doesn’t enjoy that particular part of the job and is always looking for alternative methods would be an ideal candidate!
an ideal candidate would need to have that attitude, and be able to accurately represent the interests of 300+ million people AND be an effective leader
That is to say, they do not exist. Hoping for an ideal president, a single person that’s the ideal package for handling all that power responsibly and effectively, in the long run is no more futile than centuries’ old hoping for a perfect king as was venerated by monarchies of centuries past.
oh kind of The Divine to arrange matters such that, no matter where on earth or when in history you (royal) happen to be born, the nation and traditions into which you were born at random just so happen to be the ones most likely to keep you on the One True Path To Happiness™
I think the problem is that the system a caring president would have to run in rewards false bravado and reassure over carefully thought out answers that don’t always have a feel good answer. Dorothy in particular struggles to clap back at opposition or pretend to be reassured when in reality she has doubts which in American politics is considered a win for the other side.
France and the US both make the mistake of investing too much power in the hands of the president. Of course the US is now going fully off the rails with no safeguards, so it will be so much worse.
A good one would. This clip from the American President still holds up, it’s a clip that puts fire in my heart and could still put the fire back in Dorothy’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qqa0w_qXEI
Even if you believe that, are you willing to become the sort of person who exploits and causes the suffering of innocents for the sake of your own power? Are you willing to become the sort of person who could become president?
Would you rather leave the Presidency to people who have absolutely zero compunctions about slamming the murder innocents button a bunch of times in a row just because they’re bored?
I, personally, at the very least, would rather it be a GROUP of people sharing those same powers and responsibilities, and for terms to either be much shorter considering that in this post-industrial, information age era, orders of magnitude more tumultuous change could happen in the span of 4 years today than what was all possible 200 years ago when the US’s plan for government was first written down.
Let alone what could happen in the span of a LIFE-TIME of an appointed Supreme Court Justice. Life-time terms made sense at the time of the Constitution being written because back in the colonial era, people just didn’t live as long as they do now. In the colonial era, sudden death by diseases like smallpox and typhoid was very common and accepted as a fact of life.
Implements for removing corrupt officials simply were not designed to be as powerful as they should be today because back 200 years ago we could literally depend on death and disease to do it for us.
To say the least our government needs some MAJOR overhauls to actually be able to accurately represent us and accommodate our needs as a massive, diverse population living in 21st century circumstances.
“people who have absolutely zero compunctions about slamming the murder innocents button a bunch of times in a row just because they’re bored?”
When did we start talking about Robin?
Or?
Or we decide the humans have no business running things and that the thing to do is turn it all over to an AI.
And then we fight a brutal war over which AI to use.
or at the very least have more powerful ways of removing corrupt officials
It’s fun to fantasize about restructuring the entire political system, though I suspect less fun to actually try to do so beyond broad strokes like “let’s have a group!”. With any complex system the devil is in the details and those are much less fun and probably more important than the broad strokes.
With a group of co-presidents, how do you prevent the kind of gridlock we’ve seen in Congress? Congress, which essentially is the group you’re looking for. Part of the reason the President has taken on more power in recent decades is that Congress hasn’t been able to agree, but things still need to get done. Whether that’s the rise in the use of executive orders or of the administrative state.
One of the Project 2025 proposals, for example, is to take regulatory rule making power out of the hands of executive agencies and return it to Congress. Sounds good, right? Less executive power. More control by groups of elected officials. But it means that to regulate every new potentially dangerous chemical or to modify such regulations when new evidence comes up, Congress has to pass a law.
And Congresscritters, unlike bureaucrats, need campaign contributions.
it’s better to have a group with all that power and “never get stuff done”, than it is to bestow all that power and responsibility to a single person for 4 years and just pray they won’t use it to make things worse
concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good will of those who allow it to be. a king who is liable for being replaced but every 4 years is still a king
It isn’t though, because stuff actually has to get done. People die when government stops.
The rhetoric about “a king who is liable for being replaced but every 4 years” sounds good, but isn’t true. The President is the most powerful single person in government, but is still limited in many ways. There are many things he can’t do without Congressional support. The Supreme Court can block basically anything he tries that’s outside of specified Constitutional limits.
Trump is a threat, not just because he’s willing to push those limits harder, but because he’s already got a sympathetic Supreme Court and will likely have the backing of both houses of Congress – though there are signs they’ll block some of the more extreme moves. Not enough to prevent a ton of damage though.
people also die when bad government doesn’t stop, if RFK Junior pushes his anti-vaccine shit or SSI gets gutted, disabled people like me gonna die. If the US starts yet another war with no exit strategy, that’s HELLA DEATH happening when government can carry along with the nebulous category of “getting stuff done”
indeed a house divided cannot withstand, it’s gotten to the point to which the “United” States might as well be two countries pretending to be one
it is demonstrably clear that the Confederacy and what it stood for being abolished in Law did not make it so in life. It’s no coincidence that of the Supreme Court Justices who ruled in favor of the segregation being Constitutional™ in Plessy v. Ferguson, three of them were former slave-owners.
all over BlueSky I see trans and queer folk in the southern US setting up go-fund-me to move to CA and escape persecution, yet another Great Migration happening, as we speak we are witnessing history in the making
vulnerable minorities and our allies and organizations over here are going to do absolutely EVERYTHING in our power to prevent any goals of Project 2025 from being fulfilled — even if/when that comes down to drawing a line in the sand
as history demonstrates, it is wise for us not to mistake our nation and it’s traditions and territories and status quo which we are used to being this way since being randomly born here, as that which will necessarily go on forever.
Yeah, I don’t dispute any of that, but the answer isn’t some pseudo-libertarian “Stop the government from doing anything.”
Hell, half the bad shit they want to do is just stopping the government from doing things. Like vaccine requirements or running SSI.
I think people who actually have compunctions about it don’t get to be President. Either they beat it out of you compromise-by-compromise, or you stick to your principles and lose.
Yup. In our current system, the way you get those powers in an election is by appealing to the militarism and nationalism-venerating white people who have the power to get you there.
You’ll never win them over, because you can only really do so by going by THEIR standards of Politeness and Respectability™, and those standards are designed to stripe away any actual anti-establishment parts of discourse. If you engage them in a way THEY deem acceptable, you water down the message, and eventually if you want to stay in the picture you’ll become a nationalist yourself.
That’s just simply not true. If Biden had no compunctions about it, a LOT more people would be dead than if Trump had been there.
What in the last year has given you the impression that Biden has any compunctions about the blood on his hands.
I’m not sure what you mean by that?
What in the last ten has given you the impression there aren’t people far, far worse than Biden?
If Biden had no compunctions about murdering innocents, there would be a lot more people dead. It doesn’t even matter which issue you’re referring to – there are many, much bloodier, ways he could have handled things if he truly had no compunctions about it.
You can make the argument that Biden was less destructive on the matter of Gaza than a Trump presidency would have been. This does not absolve him of anything. He is still stained with blood from a war of extermination that he supplied and supported.
Trump’s talked repeatedly about turning Gaza into a parking lot and building hotels on whatever is left. Biden has been working on a ceasefire since November of last year. No, I wouldn’t say that’s ‘having no compunctions about slamming the murder innocents button’. It’s true, there’s lots of times where the President is stuck in a position where they end up stained with blood. That doesn’t change that someone’s gotta do it and it’s better to have someone who’s not going to pick the worst option possible.
“someone’s gotta do it”
says WHO exactly?
if it’s always a person who’s hands gonna be stained with blood in that position, isn’t the least convoluted solution to recognize that the problem is fundamentally with the position itself?
according to current rules there has to be a president with all that power, but as citizens of a democracy we gotta ask ourselves — does it REALLY need to be that way?
If you believe Biden was genuinely working on a ceasefire and it wasn’t just a lie trotted out to placate people rightfully enraged that the USA was bankrolling a genocide you’re a fucking mark, I don’t know what to tell you.
@ NGPZ – It doesn’t HAVE to, but I’m talking about the existing position, system and geopolitical state of the world that the US is currently working with.
@ Thag Simmons – Biden’s administration was a key negotiator in the temporary ceasefire last year and they’ve put forward at least five or six different offers for deals this last year off the top of my head, including at least two that Qatar encouraged Gaza to accept. Whether or not you think the deals were good enough, yes, they were real. We also know Biden’s been trying because Trump’s admitted he’s been encouraging Netanyahu to ignore him.
yeah, the election of the president, of a single person with all that power, is a game which is inevitably going to favor the Everyman.
For people in the US to romanticize this system in which being the Everyman confer power upon you is still systemic bigotry by very definition, and is inevitably still part of the problem.
The thing is that Dorothy has already seen violence personally up close with the stabbing of Rapist DudeTM and the death of Toedad. Dorothy doesn’t want any job that will involve committing or being complicit in violence.
Which is fine. It’s perfectly justified given her experiences and morality.
I couldn’t become that person if I tried, because I have neither the charisma, nor the money, nor the political connections. But if some genie said “I guarantee you will magically come across as presidential in public appearances, and that your party will support you the same way they support all their presidents even though you are literally just some guy. But do you really want to become president knowing all the hard decisions they make? Don’t you want to just let Trump be the president instead?” then it may well be the easiest decision on earth.
Yes, any halfway decent and normal person in place of Trump might actually save the American Republic. We are living through critical times regarding both the climate crisis and nature loss / extinction event. Humanity and the whole biosphere of Earth can’t really afford Uncle Sam descending into senility and madness, but here we are.
That’s not the question though. Would you be willing to try to become the sort of person who could come across as presidential and be supported by your party
It’s not just that you need to make hard decisions as president, it’s that you need to sell your soul to the institutions of the american empire to even have a shot at it
She was fooling herself by denying the unpleasant aspects of the job.
Raidah didn’t just point it out; she took what, at first glance, looks like the morally superior route: that, no, she’d never take THAT job, can you imagine the atrocities you would have to commit?
Except. She’s studying law? To be a lawyer, right? Which is, to be clear, a job that never requires you to do any morally questionable actions? Raidah has already chosen a career that will end with her either condemning innocents or freeing murderers and rapists, from a statistical view.
Raidah’s point was just to put Dorothy down and make her question herself.
Dorothy’s stuck on the fact that the future she was focusing her entire life on wasn’t as wonderful and amazing as she had thought. However – she’s missing the fact that *there still needs to be a leader* of the country, and an amazing amount of good can be done by that person. They can’t be perfect, but even if all they do is a mediocre job, they still fulfilled the role of keeping a tyrant out of power.
I hope that Dorothy’s arc leads her to a *real* reason for wanting to go into politics – to help people who the system either ignores or harms and to make positive change – and not a childish “I’m going to be the President and make everything better because I’ll be so awesome!” view.
Is Raidah studying criminal law? Because otherwise, there are lots of areas where she doesn’t “condemn innocents or free murderers and rapists”.
Well, we know Raidah’s a social climber of the worst kind, the sort that sees everyone around her as a stepping stone on her way to the top. The likeliest idea is that she’s eyeing a cushy job at a law firm that works directly for the rich and powerful (like, say, the one that has Ruttech as a client).
In those sorts of law firms, you may end up getting your clients out of heinous stuff like sweeping the opioid crisis under the rug, throwing the rug that a CEO’s kid wrapped his dead hooker into the river, and getting rid of the parking ticket from the truck used to drive her to said river.
Arguably, corporate counsel does worse, like allowing companies to get away with poisoning the water supply or subjugating people in the developing world. Or she could work for giant lobbying groups doing shit like Prop 8, also massively harmful. By virtue of scale, representing individual criminals is small potatoes.
No, I admit, that’s only one possibility. But unless she runs her own firm, I don’t see it likely that she’s doing something that isn’t immoral on one level or another, to the same degree that Dorothy can’t imagine a President who isn’t a war criminal.
What I’m saying is, this is a situation that was extremely transparent that Raidah didn’t really believe what she was saying; she was using it to assert herself as superior to Dorothy and telling her that her dream wasn’t worth persuing.
Also not really fond of the idea that a lawyer defending criminals is inherently immoral.
Like, if you’re a mob lawyer that’s one thing, but a standard defense attorney is doing an important and necessary job.
Hell, Raidah didn’t even take her down as much as she thinks she did. While she meant to cause damage–and make no mistake, she’d probably rehearsed this conversation some before she brought up Dorothy’s ambitions out of nowhere–it was probably more in the sense of cleaving Walky from his existing friend group.
If she knew how shaken Dorothy is now, she’d probably take the credit for it. But she didn’t see the cracks that were already there: she unintentionally took the doubts swirling in Dorothy’s head, that had already made her reconsider changing schools, and gave them reality.
Raidah’s story is one of the things I’m curious about; Sarah’s flashbacks show her more insecure and open with her feelings, while the proto-lawyer she’s shaped herself into is more heartless and nakedly ambitious
I could honestly do without one further second of Raidah. Every interaction pushes her ever further into self-righteous hypocritical ladder-climbing asshole territory.
If we get development out of her, a bit of depth like we saw in Flashback Raidah? Maybe. But if she’s gonna just be more of her current self she can fuck right the hell off.
Yeah, not sure why everyone’s blaming Raidah for this. Dorothy already decided not to go to Yale, before that incident. She had the acceptance letter already and hadn’t accepted the spot at the start of the semester.
She’s being hypocritical, but I think Raidah probably came by her position honestly. She’s muslim, there’s a million ways her family could have been directly wronged by united states policy.
Dorothy is also the person who agrees with Raidah.
Dorothy isn’t arguing the position because she believes Raidah is right. She doesn’t want to be the kind of person who orders SEAL Team Six to kill people let alone push the button or declare war.
Yeah, Raidah being hypocritical or insincere doesn’t matter if she was right.
It’s worth remembering that even when Raidah is telling the truth about something, she’s also full of shit. The best liars and manipulators are. In this case, her reasoning falls apart immediately because in spite of some truth, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: if no good person can become or should even want to become President, then only awful people will attain it, meaning no good person could become or should want to become…etc.
Yes. There’s value in being the least-bad choice for a role in dealing with situations where there are only varying degrees of unwelcome options.
Yeah but part of Dorothy’s arc is realizing she can do things for herself. She doesn’t want to be President and make those compromises.
She needs to get the fuck over it.
This sounds harsh so please allow me to elaborate – I understand why Dorothy is in this position but I think it’s a wrong answer. Since that orange fuck got elected this year, I’ve pretty much lost all patience with cynical ‘abandon all politics’ takes. If we’re going to address the world wide right wing surge, we need people who care to be MORE engaged, not less. I think Dorothy’s in a good starting point to grow into a very capable president one day and for a lot of reasons I hope she goes back to that.
Very much this.
My policy goals are still very much left wing, but I’m completely disgusted with the online anti-Democratic left.
Just wanna thank you both (BBCC and thejeff) for all your responses to this incredible waive of conspiratorial nihilism? (I don’t know what else to call it.) Some SERIOUS “both sides are equally bad and thinking that makes me very smart” going on in the comments on this strip, so much of it from people who obviously haven’t actually been paying enough attention to the events of the last eight years to justify their smug certainty.
I get it, everyone is burned out and exhausted. It’s hard to care when the same orange dick bag has been threatening to upend the world for ten years. I don’t have hard feelings towards anyone feeling that way but I am out of patience with it as an argument and I think it’s important to push back a little on the idea there’s no hope.
Well-said.
Prolonged eye contact!
When you want to be mean but you still have that annoying conscience.
Dorothy’s hot when she’s being aggressive. She should be at somebody up.
No, no, you were so close Dorothy!
You needed to flip her off while roller skating away!
Learn from Carla!
I didn’t know I wanted these two to kiss until today.
perfect gravatar LOL
I’ve been shipping Dorothy and Joyce, but… damn! Kiss, you two. You both need it.
I mean Jennifer did start this by talking about Dotty’s tits so XD
Dorothy can enter a toxic situationship with Jennifer, as a treat
The Most Epic of Hate Fucks Two – Jennifer and Dorothy
Well there was that last strip where she yelled at billiefer and she was like “Feel vaguely turned on” XD
There’s some Raidah in Jennifer, today. I wonder why…
Jennifer has nothing on Raidah. Raidah is Dorothy’s Khan.
I can’t wait to see how she destroys her in their next conversation.
” I’ve done far worse than kill you. I’ve hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you.”
I can’t wait for the “whaaa…why are the shields collapsing” scene.
Nah, but if she plays her cards right, she might get some Dorothy in her.
my brain, ambermoding: kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss
The trash goblin in me recognizes the trash goblin in you.
If Jennifer actually tries to kiss her, I hope Dorothy gives her a really hard slap.
It’s Thursday, and they went to karaoke on Sunday. easy to forget, I only remembered from looking for a strip where Jennifer says Dorothy’s checking her boxes.
vaguely turned on
Sudden Dorothy!
In addition, there were many details that we do not know about what happened that day, we only saw that Dorothy sang.
That was Ruth.
Indeed.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/03-joementum/designated-2/
This isn’t better Dotty, now you are staring at those tits. … She probably feels the pull to crawl up inside, and be safe and warm forever.
She’s staring away, behind herself.
on one hand i have wanted dorothy and walky to get back together for years and i would prefer if nothing happened to mess that up. on the other hand itd be very funny if dorothy and jennifer kissed right now. lets see what kind of problems they can cause for everyone around them by doing that.
Don’t forget that Raidah gave Jennifer the order to keep her “friend” Asher in her “distinguished group of influences.”
It’s obvious that Jennifer couldn’t contradict her.
And yes, I’m also a fan of the Walky and Dorothy ship, and I really hope it comes to the end of this story.
i wonder if they’re still gonna have group brunches/lunches, b/c even if it had been a more ‘amicable’ break up i think things would still be a bit awkward to where they’d keep their distance from each other
I hope Dorothy and Walky break up again and stay broken up!
do you wanna walk me through the kind of interaction you were hoping to get from this reply?
Finally, at least someone told Jennifer off.
Dorothy really needs to learn to show more fierceness, there seems to be something there. But it’s gratifying that she dared to call her by her old nickname.
She’s had arguments and been told off plenty of times before, it’s not like it’d really be that effective
Huh.
Kind of interesting that Jennifer has been the only one consistently noticing how bothered Dorothy has been lately. Joyce might be starting to catch it, but Jen has just locked in on that observation for a while now.
She’s just got great intuition
Her bidar is beeping too loudly to ignore it.
Which is strange since she doesn’t think bisexuality is a real thing.
She indeed doesn’t, while banging both gals and guys. Billie is a little special.
I think Joyce has been noticing alot hence the bar trip but actually wants Dorothy to open up to her where as Jennifer wants to make her mad and is poking where she’s gets a reaction.
Possibly the fact she doesn’t live there any longer and therefore sees Dorothy less often means she has the distance to notice?
ending the argument by deadnaming her then thanking her for the boob pic
Just because Billie was born Horatio, that doesn’t automatically make it deadnaming to say that near her.
Maybe it’s Star Wars.
“Billie is your true name, you have only forgotten it!”
Something has changed. I feel it in the earth, i feel it in the water. A top student, wrecked by burnout. She drinks, and gets angry, and in her anger a sincere wish to help people gives way to authority.
She’s skinny, bespectacled, light-haired. The student must overcome her master. In her place, Billy’s putting a dark queen.
Ugh no don’t back down Dorothy. That’s just gonna feed into her superiority complex.
It really is incredible that she doesn’t want to let herself be trampled by Jennifer.
To be fair Jennifer is acting like a drama seeking Billie here. Dorothy isn’t unraveling, like Joyce she has always been bad a lies and well she can admit she unsure if presidency is something she still wants it still hurts having it pointed out that that politics might always been a career she would be genuinely bad at.
Why does Jennifer care so much about whether Dorothy is composed or not? Like every time she says something that gets under her skin, she must immediately go “Oh I got you! I got you to lose your cool. Better try harder next time lmao!”
What’s her point? That people can try to be polite despite disagreeing with you, but might lose the ability to maintain such politeness when you insult them on a personal level?
To be honest, Jennifer believes that she has the moral superiority and the absolute word (more contaminated by Raidah’s influence), but we know that the opposite is true.
And I can just tell that she’s just a bully towards Dorothy.
she’s also craving drama and conflict because her now ex not a boyfriend peaced out without giving her any direct drama like she expected. I suspect part of why she’s gone back to the amazi girl story is to anger Sal again like the first time she accused her of being amazi girl to her face.
Wait…it’s true!
Asher ended things calmly and Jennifer really didn’t expect that, it could be that this is his Achilles heel…not following her ridiculous drama game.
Asher didn’t end things at all.
The last time they interacted on screen together, he was talking about wanting to meet her parents.
She replied that she kind of did, implying that meeting Linda and Charles was essentially meeting her parents.
But he either missed that or ignored it as he said he wanted to meet her parents as her boyfriend and then changed to someone who thought he was her boyfriend until she got on her bs (the bs part being my words, not his), while she walked away from him.
She apparently does know they’re on the outs, as she told Sal that he’s been kind of a geek, and if it’s meant to be, he’ll fix himself and come back to her (which was immediately followed by Asher and Ethan having sex for the first time, so that coming back to her part is unlikely).
But since there’s no interaction between them where he tells her he’s with Ethan now, or even that he’s simply dumping her (unless there’s some Patreon with them together or a strip where he called or texted), we can’t say he ended things, calmly or otherwise. It’s more just a mutual understanding.
To be fair, if a girl tells you you’re not her boyfriend and you describe yourself as “someone who thought he was a boyfriend” and she agrees with that, it’s not unreasonable to see that as you being dumped.
Jennifer agreed he wasn’t her boyfriend, so why keep thinking that way?
I honestly don’t think Jennifer ever really liked Asher. She seemed to be dating him because it proved she was doing well and Raidah likely encouraged it. She broke it off because he was getting too comfortable, showing his real self, getting a little serious. Post Ruth she’ll never let that happen again as long she continues to value having all the power and being superficially better.
She liked Asher’s image.
Oh I agree.
I’m just pointing out that he didn’t have the clear decision making and agency that the statement “Asher ended things calmly…” implies.
Because it makes her feel better in comparison
It’s trolling. “Ha! I have power over you, and there’s nothing you can do about it, even though you know it full well!”
It isn’t cool to deadname someone, whether they’re trans or not OR whether they’re an ass or not. (Something that this comment section needs to learn, tbh. Being called by the correct name is a right, not a privilege to be taken away.) At least Dorothy apologized.
While I agree we should use preferred names, Billie is not a deadname. It’s a nickname she doesn’t wanna go by anymore.
Yeah, using it is at worst kind of shitty , definitely not on the same realm as actual dead naming.
i agree that self-identification should be respected, but to be clear: the term “deadname” came about because that name would often be what would appear on the gravestones of transgender people after they died, instead of the name they would actually go by. as jennifer is her legal name, i don’t believe that she’s at risk of billie appearing on her gravestone – “deadname” isn’t really applicable here.
Important comment. Very informative. Thank you.
I will always respect what people want to be called, in any situation. But applying lingo from the trans community, especially lingo with this much history and baggage, to people who choose to go by a nickname then change their mind, is absurd, not to mention overdramatic.
copy/pasting from my comment below: I’M TRANS. I’m fresh off several interactions irl where people acted like deadnaming someone (in the trans sense) was okay just bc they were shitty people. So I was ranting about that concept but using this as a springing-off point. Please don’t lecture me about my own marginalization, thx
copy/pasting from my comment below: I’M TRANS. I’m fresh off several interactions irl where people acted like deadnaming someone (in the trans sense) was okay just bc they were shitty people. So I was ranting about that concept but using this as a springing-off point. Please don’t lecture me about my own marginalization, thx
(It posted again at a delay? I was having weird connectivity issues but now I just look like an ass, lol)
Basically, comparing Jennifer and Billie to deadnaming involves removing a lot of the huge amount of cultural implications as well as psychological abuse.
It’s still a shitty thing to do because Jennifer seems genuinely to be suffering trauma from her childhood regarding it.
I’m trans and I get it. I’ve had several interactions irl very recently where people acted like deadnaming someone (in the trans sense) was okay just bc they were shitty people. So I was really just ranting about that concept but using this as a springing-off point.
Still, thank you for acknowledging that Jennifer seems to have genuine trauma around being called her old nickname. A lot of people just don’t care; they go “well, she’s acting like a jerk, so we can call her whatever we want” and that’s what got my hackles up about the irl stuff mentioned above. Like, it wouldn’t be good even if she didn’t have trauma around it. But while it’s not the same thing as calling a trans person by their deadname, it’s still triggering and so it’s still extra fucked up to do it and then dig in their heels about it.
Okay, I agree that using someone’s nickname they dislike isn’t nice but on the scale of bad, that’s like a 2 and it does NOT come close to deadnaming and is NOT the same as deadnaming.
Deadnaming is MUCH more malicious, much more hurtful and much more impactful because it ties so deeply with a transperson’s identity.
Using a nickname someone doesn’t like any more is just annoying and meanspirited. It isn’t anywhere near the same level of rejection or level of active cruelty.
I’m trans. I get it. I’m fresh off several interactions irl where people acted like deadnaming someone (in the trans sense) was okay just bc they were shitty people. So I was ranting about that concept but using this as a springing-off point.
(Also, you’d say “trans person” with a space between, not “transperson.” It’s an adjective, like “tall person” or “blonde person.” I hate unnecessary pedantry–it’s just that saying it without the space is something that right-wing weirdos have done to Other us, and I wouldn’t want someone accidentally using dogwhistles when they’re clearly not a transphobic ass
Sorry about that, I’d considered using a space as correct, doubted myself, didn’t use one. My brain scrambles the grammar rules I remember at any one time.
Sorry you’ve been having a tough time with irl people recently. I do agree with you that even if someone trans is being an ass, they still deserve basic human respect. It’s not their identity that’s the problem and it is one of those things that should always be considered off the table to attack.
Deadnaming isn’t necessarily malicious or active cruelty. I don’t mean to say it doesn’t suck, just that it’s not only used that way– and it doesn’t only suck when it’s used that way! I’ve been deadnamed a lot in my life, and I’m not sure it’s ever been done with the intention to hurt me, but it still hurts.
(Side story: Earlier today I was getting my fingerprinting done as part of the process of a legal name change (soon!), and the person who was working there kept referring to me by my deadname. And I had said, in a previous bit of conversation, that I was changing my first name. But he didn’t seem to process things that far.)
Important context: I’M TRANS. Calling people a name they do not go by–and doubling down–is cruel. “Deadnaming” maybe isn’t the right term in this case, but I’m fresh off several interactions irl where people acted like deadnaming someone (in the trans sense) was okay just bc they were shitty people. So I was ranting about that concept but using this as a springing-off point. Now stop lecturing me about my own fucking marginalization
Blech, sonunds like a shitty time of things. I’m sorry you were stuck dealing with that.
I deserve a medal for not throwing hands tbh. like they weren’t people I *expected* to have good takes, but
*gives medal*
It sounds like it! Again, I’m sorry you were stuck with that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Billie still part of her name? As in, Jennifer BILLIngsworth?
I don’t think there’d be reason to criticize Dorothy if she had used her full last name (i.e. calling her “Billingsworth”), so really, the only question is whether it is acceptable to truncate/shorten people’s names (i.e. calling someone named Jonathan “Jon”) when they prefer that you don’t. I’d say that probably qualifies as “not nice”, but I don’t think it’s particularly offensive either, unless you shorten it to make it sound insulting in some way. After all, it’s still a part of their actual, currently-in-use name.
Using a part of someone’s name to refer to them when you know they don’t go by it and have asked you not to is definitely rude.
There are no technicalities here. “It’s part of your name, so I’m free to call you it, whether you like it or not” is a bullshit argument. I mean, you can do it, but you’re being a jerk.
To be fair though, it’s not any ruder than “You can fuck all the way off”, so I think we can accept the rudeness here as intentional.
It’s Bart calling his dad “Homer” vibes.
Dorothy is very relatable.
Are we sure Dorothy’s not secretly Canadian?
They call me hell
They call me Billie
They call me Her
They call me Jane
That’s not my name
That’s not my name
That’s not my name
That’s not my name
Is she sorry for using the wrong name, sorry for not caring anymore, or sorry for saying she doesn’t care when she does?
That’s a pretty sorry lookin WAGON you got there…
I’m inclined to think it’s for using the wrong name and being shitty about it. I don’t think she’s sorry for not caring, per se, more that she at least recognizes that’s uncalled for, even if she otherwise thinks Jennifer needs to lay off of her.
Sorry before burying her face in cleavage and blowing a raspberry.
Sorry for chickening out of kissing her.
I was not expecting the Jennifer-Walky-Dorothy polycule to be arranged this way.
Tables probably aren’t enabled in comments, but testing:this is cell 1this is cell 2this cell is wide
For being so vocal about having become so grown-up and adult, Jennifer sure has just remained a shitty high school bully with a revolting personality.
That is kind of Jennifer’s arc, isn’t it?
She desperately wants to be a high school mean girl forever and has aged out of it. Becoming Jennifer was her first step to doing so–and she couldn’t help but revert.
And she’s destroyed all the progress she’s made.
I’m not even sure it’s a whole she can drag herself out of at this point. She’s essentially firebombed every relationship and friendship she’d had and just refuses to reflect.
It’s wild how averse she is to character growth that isn’t just her vocalizing ‘Look at how mature and wise I’ve become.’
It’s an understandable arc, I’ve certainly met people like her, but man does she ever grate.
We’re witnessing how someone turns into a Linda
right? she talked about Dotty’s boobs and took her phone and snapped a picture of her own to intimidate her
is all this supposed to be some kind of invitation, now that she’s decided she’s done with Asher? (-_-)
wait, when did that happen? i don’t remember it /gen
Ignore this, it was literally a couple strips ago. Brain fart, I guess
I think “becoming” Jennifer was actually her first step towards reverting to high school mean girl. She might had said she was maturing but it was never the case.
Yeah, she’s made good decisions like cutting booze out of her life, but like practically EVERY other decision has been a poor one.
-Being “friends” with Raidah.
-Being more distant from Walky, and letting Raidah play her by manipulating her by trying to manipulate Walky.
-Being increasingly antagonistic towards Dorothy (though they’ve always had issues)
-Her and Ruth’s… lots of things, both of them share blame in that one.
-Less that her and Asher broke up, shit happens, but the *how* of it.
I think “Jennifer” has been creaking and splitting at the seams, that the act is rapidly failing, which is probably a good thing, provided it doesn’t coincide with booze.
And just to emphasize, she cut the booze out before the timeskip. Before she reverted to Jennifer. Before Ruth broke up with her.
She was better place right before the timeskip with regard to Walky and other friends. Even the relationship with Ruth was a lot less suicide pacty than it started out. But she’s regressed a lot since, probably due to the breakup and to Raidah manipulating her. Only good thing she’s kept is staying off the booze.
It’ll be really interesting when she hits bottom. Finding out that Raidah’s just using her will be a fun bit.
She reinvents herself constantly but never actually gets better, it’s really something. Good character
(I guess she’s kicked the alcoholism, that’s not nothing)
Yeah, getting off alcohol has been an immense good for Jennifer.
But the problem was she was BORED and decided to do mind games.
“You’re also terrible at flirting with me. Never apologise.”
“I’m not flirting.”
“Clearly.”
I know this is a floating timeline and Dorothy has been feeling this way for months now, but I can’t help but feel this last election was a big demotivator. I know it is for me.
The funny thing is this page was written around a year ago
An investment in the American people’s ability to self-immolate over egg prices never fails to deliver.
Hey. Don’t go messing with my eggs.
In that case I fear Dorothy might be suicidal a year from now or worse turns to the dark side. She could go very far in politics if she gave up caring and just in it for money and power.
When my eyes first parsed this and hadn’t yet fully processed the dialogue, I fully expected them to kiss in the last panel.
I proceeded the dialogue and still expected it because that is how Jennifer rolls.
Even after reading the dialogue, I still expect it. https://www.dumbingofage.com/stability/
So far during this interaction Jennifer had insulted Dorothy (directly or implicitly) seven times.
1. Her dating life (“ugh walky”)
2. Her tittypic taking skills
3. Implied her boobs will be more appreciated than Dorothy’s
4. That Dorothy won’t make a good politician (bad poker face)
5. Her smack talk
6. Her “falling apart”
7. Implying that Dorothy’s care is insincere
Literally the only time she’s opened her mouth without insulting Dorothy was when she’s talking about amazigirl. She’s so close to becoming a “lol triggered” edgey bongo the way she acts like she’s above people while really dragging them down to her subbasement level.
I really don’t like disliking people, so props to DW for so accurately portraying the girls who made highschool a living nightmare for me
I wonder if Jennifer was thinking about kissing her. This reminds me of her first kiss with Ruth.
Ah, memories. That was the newest arc when I started reading this comic – the first comic that I can remember reading was Billie telling Daisy about it
I’m glad to see we’re all united in “okay but Jennifers thinking about it right”, including the Alt Text.
Jennifer is able to make Dorothy angry and it seems like she does it just for fun, she’s the worst! I hope Walky finds out about this and finally decides to stop considering her a sister and stop talking to her. She’s just a bully, she deserves to be completely alone and used by Raidah.
You know, I never realized Bennifer and Dorth were so different in height. If they make out like they’re right about to, Dots will have to get up on her tiptoes like some kinda 50s pinup
No no, Dorothy. She does NOT deserve your apology. She doesn’t even care for it so much as she cares about feeling superior.
I find it interesting that Jennifer doesn’t really look angry in those last two panels. More…disappointed? I can’t quite think of a word for it. Like she expected better of Dorothy, almost.
This could also be my sleep deprevation and tendency for over analysis talking.
Honestly she might be disappointed that she backed off, if we recall she say she found angry Dorothy to be kind of hot
Huh, when you combine that with the random titty pic she just handed over, could be she’s just defaulting into combative courtship mode
Jenn did respond positively most times Ruth was angry and aggressive. Probably a hot button with her. Dorothy backing down is a bit of a turnoff. Means there’s some problem the “alpha bongo” needs to solve.
Honestly Billie needs someone to just tell her off, and Dorothy needs an outlet right now, so this might work out
Has being ‘told off’ ever worked for billie? If anything it might be more ‘effective’ for raidah to ‘pressure her into apologizing’ to asher, at the least
I have a cousin who was introduced to me as Jamie. Years later he started going by James, but I still call him Jamie because that’s how I know him. I myself have been called different names by different people. Nicknames in general aren’t usually chosen by the recipient. Which is all just to say that the whole situation with Billie’s nickname – both her railing against it and *everyone* tiptoeing around it – seems completely nonsensical to me.
Does James object to “Jamie” every time you use it to him?
Seems like that would make a difference. If it really bothered him, wouldn’t it be nice to change?
If someone says they don’t want to go by a certain name, you don’t use that name for them. Period.
Def rude but if anything it’s weirder considering Jennifer actually IS her legal name lol tho i’m sure Dorothy associates “billie” with a certain personality/person like how Joyce was like “I want “Billie”” when she was going through her period pan stuff
First learning is last learning.
I had a neighborhood friend who was a few years older than me. Her name was Elizabeth, and that’s what I grew up calling her. Her parents called her a nickname (I think “Lizzie”? She didn’t particularly care for it). At some point in middle school or high school, she started going by a different name at school. When I was in 9th grade and she was in 12th, she told me that me and my mom were the *only* people who called her Elizabeth.
But she didn’t mind it from us. It was kind of cool to have something unique to having known her so long (since I was two), even if that thing was calling her by her legal name. But if she had minded, I definitely would have switched to her school name, and when I was talking to people from school who also knew her, I used the name she generally used.
I think a lot of people are called different things by different people, but if they ask not to be called any of those things (and in Billie’s case, make it evident they feel strongly about it), that should be respected.
This is kinda like how my legal name is Diana Falstaff, but nobody’s called me Diana since like 2011.
I’m not particularly sympathetic to her reasoning behind ditching the nickname but it is rude to call people stuff that they don’t want to be called
I mean yeah but let’s be honest, Jennifer hasn’t particularly amassed good will from most people she interact with, it’s expected some politeness is throw out.
Fair enough, but treating people decently even if you don’t particularly like them is a basic life skill.
Yeah, but never ever ever ever saying anything even mildly rude to someone who constantly acts like a dick to you for no reason isn’t. It just isn’t.
Pffft, Malaya gravatar. For the “acts like a dick for no reason” comment.
Yeah I was about to say exactly that, there is a point where someone simply doesn’t deserve your polite self. I am perfectly happy throwing respectability out the window when is consistently an asshole.
lol i remember a friend of a friend was introduced? to me by a certain name/something not even close so i called him that as a ‘nickname’ but his real name was something completely diff but the fake name was stuck in my head tho he didn’t seem to mind/be bothered by it. tho also had some friends with more or less similar names and ppl having to shorten/nickname-ify some ppl so we can talk to them in the same group or so
Why did Dorothy have to look at them in that last panel? She has a pic on her phone.
Releasing someone’s gaze and looking down is kinda wired in as a gesture of contrition.
She’s not looking down, forward, to Jennifer’s boobs. She’s looking down, backward. The tilt of the eyes.
Get thee behind me, Jennifer’s boobs.
Now see, this is why my sense of humor gets me in trouble.
Well, yeah, I wouldn’t mind having them right behind me. But that would (probably) mean having Jennifer right behind me. :O
She’s saying sorry to the boobs, not to Jennifer.
She’s commiserating with them for having to put up with Jennifer all the time.
@jeff: Based on her eye in the last panel it looks like she’s more looking away tho
In some shadowy corner, Amber is eating popcorn with a goblin grin. “Yes, more fanfic inspiration!”
I really do feel like Jennifer had an upbringing that made it seem like attempted effort was sometimes indistinguishable from pretending to care.
Especially considering how negligent her parents are.
Dorothy has modeled her life on trying to be a helper. But it was always trying to adhere to her principles that made her put in the effort, more than actual care for Jennifer as an individual. But she DID care.
It’s such an odd distinction between the two.
i mean she could’ve been masking it/coping or just posturing but i feel like she told walky’s mom she prefers that her parents aren’t spending too much time with her
although we don’t rly see too much of them at all even in flashbacks so i can imagine them just handing her money/too much freedom and maybe just being even /more/ ‘distant’ after her DUI as opposed to doubling down/overcompensating by trying to restrict her after it happened like how Ssal was sent off to a catholic school
Parental neglect is still damaging, even if you’re now used to it and it feels awkward when they are around. The damage was done.
First, she’s spiraling, now she’s unraveling.
Woahhh, she doesn’t want to be a politician and now she doesn’t care, woe is the future… where’s the pretense in caring and apologizing 11 months earlier
If she’s unraveled then she only needs to find one more princess to get the ending.
I see your slay the princess reference and I respect it. (Btw imagine a DoA encounteri6the princess, what you think the results would be)
I think Joyce ultimately leaves the cabin with the princess.
Carla definitely leaves the construct with the princess.
Mary gets the good ending and decides the game is over.
Is Jennifer just pissed she had to come over to this building and is taking it out on Dorothy?
She’s probably upset Dorothy has someone else to send titty pictures to. Just wait till she finds out who Dorothy wants to send them to.
Jennifer constantly seems to be pissed at something but she’s too busy with crafting cool-sounding lines and displaying what she imagines is her piercing insights in people’s lives to articulate what’s on her mind. I’ve pretty much given up guessing.
Yeah, backing down when facing an intimidating adversary and apologizing shows that Dorothy can never win the presidency. She’s just TOO nice. And the last person who was too nice did horrible as president even though he was practically a saint post-presidency. (Carter.)
Jennifer still thinks Sal is Amazi-Girl, right?
I think so. Sal’s denied it but, IIRC, Jennifer didn’t believe her.
It feels, to me, like Jennifer’s suspicion is part of the untold story behind why she and Asher went to watch roller derby.