Dang! Billy, er, Jennifer, is 30 years old now! She sure doesn’t look it! 😀
Needfuldoer
Her blessing, her curse.
RassilonTDavros
This strip right here! Which was a bongo to find, since Jennifer’s the only named character in it– the one real weakness of an otherwise easy-to-search archive.
Said strip also has her give a specific (albeit fake) birth date of October 19, 1993, which is just going to get more and more hilarious as the timescale slides on. Alt-text says that October 19 may not be her actual birthday either.
Daibhid C
2015: Jennifer uses a fake ID that claims she’s 21, and is offended when the clerk implies she looks it.
2023: A few months ago, Jennifer used a fake ID that claims she’s 29, and was offended when the clerk implied she looks it.
2030: Last year, Jennifer used a fake ID that claims she’s 35 and…
Sol
In the walkyverse iirc she’s fully white but enough people thought she was asian that willis made her half-asian for the dumbingverse
Way back when, Jennifer uses a fake ID, and it has her real name, “Yunru”. She tells the liquor store guy that it’s Chinese, as is her mom, and her dad is English.
Hard Up Climber-Lady need to squeeze all her fat-cat connections for all they’re worth (MUCH less than she expected) and that includes her surrogate daughter’s parents, ’cause that karen-assed lawsuit against the broke fringe church and the ex-family of the dead gangster cost her more than expected?
I don’t think so, but I don’t read as much of the social climber thing in her as others do. Not sure how this would really tie into that. She knows Jennifer’s parents are basically absent.
Of course that make wrapping this supposed praise of Jennifer with mentions of her parent worse, she knows it’s a sore spot.
We didn’t really see Chef in the last episode of Enterprise. We saw Will Riker deciding that the best thing to do in the middle of the Pegasus crisis was to cosplay as him, because Will Riker makes very poor decisions.
Needfuldoer
Maybe he was replaying Chef’s holonovel of the Pegasus crisis, and it puts the viewer in his shoes with some Wonder Years style voiceover commentary.
i wouldn’t mind seeing carlas parents. XD; tho idk how jen would react given that they’re seemingly not around, either aloof or desperate for their attention
tho i imagine at this point i imagine she’d want ‘distance’ like she said (or, maximum drama of them showing up on campus and running into ruth first XD)
Yep whoever the child is it’s always about how they make Linda look and Linda wants to look like the caring mother in a safely white passing biracial family, the minute the cast in her mind looks too dark she searches for a replacement.
This. Also because she’s a Billingsworth….For which Fair Lady Linda took a back-to-back pregnancy for…..Linda did act as Jennifer’s surrogate mother, correct?
Archieve
Definitely. Linda wishes she had a title like ‘Lady’ shes a wannabe social elite who can’t get into their social circles so instead takes in an emotionally neglected child of said elite instead.
thejeff
Not surrogate in that sense. Just someone who was around when Jennifer’s parents weren’t. They met when the kids were first getting a bus to school.
Holy shit, Linda. (Also, I’m very curious about the extent to which she doesn’t know Billie’s issues. Did she hear about the drunk driving thing and excuse it? Did that information never reach her?)
Walky mentioned it at the very beggining of the comic, and it’s well known enough that it’s mentioned in her file, so I’m thinking that Linda’s excusing it as a “youthful indiscretion.”
Linda continues her path of not understanding the people around her, or at least she doesn’t understand “her”* children.
What would it take for Linda to learn to be kind?
I’d ask what it would take to make her a good person, but I think we should go for reasonable wishes.
*I know Billie/Jennifer isn’t actually Linda’s kid, but she sure acts that way sometimes.
given how she once called herself their ‘white passing daughter’ i can imagine a younger jen maybe going to their house often when she was lonely/basically spent more time with the walkertons versus her own house
Which makes Linda pushing on her parents visiting here worse.
She knows.
Needfuldoer
Linda knows, so she could be fishing for Jen to fall over herself adulating her for the positive attention. It’s a narcissist’s passive-aggressive power move.
Disclaimer: I’m not qualified to offer a real diagnosis. But in basic psychology terms Linda has a lot of signs of anti-social or narcissistic disorders, meaning she looks at other people as means to access resources for her own benefit; financial security, social standing, political influence, whatever they’ve got. It’s possible she wants these things for her kids and this unofficial ward of hers out of a genuine wish for their wellbeing, limited to these terms she understands, or just because she wants for them to reflect well on her, but it would be a mistake to take her approach to her relationships with her kids as any indication for her approach to human relationships in general anyway.
In so far as it’s possible for her to learn kindness, learn to value other people’s lives beyond their usefulness to her, it depends on having motivation to do so. Which is not very likely to happen with the very financially secure high status life she has. A long, long period of being without human contact while also needing to rely on other people’s kindness to survive on a day to day basis might help.
Jesus, Linda let her take the wad of cash her dad gives her as his emotionally constipated way of saying ‘I love you’. It’s bad enough you’ll ditch your own recently disabled kid in another state when she disappoints you without turning up to the rich family friend with adoption papers.
Fuuuuuck offff.
I wonder if Asher passes the boyfriend test – he’s from a rich, probably influential family.
176 thoughts on “Much longer”
Ana Chronistic
If you were them, you’d be FUCKING LOADED
what is she even basing that “incredible, put-together” part on, the fact they’ve spent two minutes together?
MisterJinKC
They’ve known each other since she was a kid at least.
Ana Chronistic
but I mean “today” after not seeing her for a while
Ryan
Well, she iiiiiis white.
Laura
-ish. Passably.
StClair
and she’s pretty good at presenting / passing as “put together”, at least in short bursts.
Shade
Also her family is wealthy and influential which certainly doesn’t hurt how Linda evaluates people.
Leorale
Biracial. But white-passing.
Nicoleandmaggie
Some racist white people consider East Asian to be the “master race”. Because they’re “smarter”. Source: live in the south.
True Survivor
Huh, all this time I thought she was at least half-Asian. Shows what I know.
Jo_Cubstar
Pretty sure she is, yeah. But white-passing.
Dana
Chinese on her mom’s side, British on her dad’s.
NGPZ
She actually confirms her mom is Chinese in an early strip, can’t remember which one…
tim gueguen
And used her Chinese middle name Yunru on her fake ID.
NGPZ
Sauce?
Tan
I do not blame you for forgetting. It was almost 9 years ago.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/bigred/
Steamweed
Dang! Billy, er, Jennifer, is 30 years old now! She sure doesn’t look it! 😀
Needfuldoer
Her blessing, her curse.
RassilonTDavros
This strip right here! Which was a bongo to find, since Jennifer’s the only named character in it– the one real weakness of an otherwise easy-to-search archive.
Said strip also has her give a specific (albeit fake) birth date of October 19, 1993, which is just going to get more and more hilarious as the timescale slides on. Alt-text says that October 19 may not be her actual birthday either.
Daibhid C
2015: Jennifer uses a fake ID that claims she’s 21, and is offended when the clerk implies she looks it.
2023: A few months ago, Jennifer used a fake ID that claims she’s 29, and was offended when the clerk implied she looks it.
2030: Last year, Jennifer used a fake ID that claims she’s 35 and…
Sol
In the walkyverse iirc she’s fully white but enough people thought she was asian that willis made her half-asian for the dumbingverse
ValdVin
Way back when, Jennifer uses a fake ID, and it has her real name, “Yunru”. She tells the liquor store guy that it’s Chinese, as is her mom, and her dad is English.
ValdVin
(This is in the Dumbiverse, as Adam already mentioned.)
thejeff
She mentions there that her middle name is Chinese, but doesn’t say anything about her dad being English. Is that somewhere else?
Tan
ValdVin is confusing it for the time she shows her fake ID to Jason, where it also comes up.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/backpacked/
(final panel: “My dad’s an English immigrant. Your powers have no effect on me.”)
Tan
Also even earlier, Jennifer just straight-up tells Joyce “Dad’s from England, mom’s Chinese”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/mixed/
Adam Black
Half Chinese in dumbiverse.
anon
wonder if we’ll get to meet them. or linda sucking up to them or whatever lol
DudeMyDadOwnsADealership
Hard Up Climber-Lady need to squeeze all her fat-cat connections for all they’re worth (MUCH less than she expected) and that includes her surrogate daughter’s parents, ’cause that karen-assed lawsuit against the broke fringe church and the ex-family of the dead gangster cost her more than expected?
thejeff
I don’t think so, but I don’t read as much of the social climber thing in her as others do. Not sure how this would really tie into that. She knows Jennifer’s parents are basically absent.
Of course that make wrapping this supposed praise of Jennifer with mentions of her parent worse, she knows it’s a sore spot.
NGPZ
You don’t think… we’ll actually get to see Jennifer’s parents this arc? ?
Nono
We’ll actually get to see their cardboard cut-out stand-ins.
Cholma
Or maybe their stunt doubles!
John Campbell
I think Charles and Linda are their stunt doubles.
True Survivor
Maybe? Or maybe they shall remain like Maris Crane in Frasier or (until the last episode) the Cook in Enterprise – often discussed, yet never seen.
Daibhid C
We didn’t really see Chef in the last episode of Enterprise. We saw Will Riker deciding that the best thing to do in the middle of the Pegasus crisis was to cosplay as him, because Will Riker makes very poor decisions.
Needfuldoer
Maybe he was replaying Chef’s holonovel of the Pegasus crisis, and it puts the viewer in his shoes with some Wonder Years style voiceover commentary.
Jon
I don’t think we’re ever going to see them. Their value to the story is in their absence — so showing up would likely devalue/confuse that role.
anon
i wouldn’t mind seeing carlas parents. XD; tho idk how jen would react given that they’re seemingly not around, either aloof or desperate for their attention
tho i imagine at this point i imagine she’d want ‘distance’ like she said (or, maximum drama of them showing up on campus and running into ruth first XD)
thejeff
Maybe Nina will visit.
Cattleprod
Linda trying to argue that she’s not the worst parent because she’s a supportive parent to someone else’s kid.
Zamperla
There it is. And also still displaying the Refuses To Let Something Go Or Take a Cue even to the ‘good kid’ (who is not actually her kid).
Coatl
She told herself
“Well, if my children do not appreciate my sacrifice, I will place my appreciation on other people’s children.”
Bryy
Linda. A mom who needs to get Angry Drunk in order to hang out with her child.
Nono
Maybe Linda should dare Jennifer and Charles can date Asher.
There, Jennifer gets to be snooty and Asher gets to date Walky-but-older.
AGV
Lol of course
Animedingo
They deserve each other
cmd1095
We knew Linda was kinda racist and an overbearing mother, now we can add “cannot read a room” and “lack of tact” to the list of traits
Bryy
Nah, Linda doesn’t care. She wants to make it painstakingly clear to herself that Billie is her true daughter.
Archieve
Yep whoever the child is it’s always about how they make Linda look and Linda wants to look like the caring mother in a safely white passing biracial family, the minute the cast in her mind looks too dark she searches for a replacement.
DudeMyDadOwnsADealership
This. Also because she’s a Billingsworth….For which Fair Lady Linda took a back-to-back pregnancy for…..Linda did act as Jennifer’s surrogate mother, correct?
Archieve
Definitely. Linda wishes she had a title like ‘Lady’ shes a wannabe social elite who can’t get into their social circles so instead takes in an emotionally neglected child of said elite instead.
thejeff
Not surrogate in that sense. Just someone who was around when Jennifer’s parents weren’t. They met when the kids were first getting a bus to school.
True Survivor
Denial is the first stage of grief.. apparently quickly followed by anger.
Needfuldoer
Then hate, then suffering, then the dark side.
True Survivor
Amazing comment. This really brightened my day. Thank you.
Yumi
Holy shit, Linda. (Also, I’m very curious about the extent to which she doesn’t know Billie’s issues. Did she hear about the drunk driving thing and excuse it? Did that information never reach her?)
Samniel
Walky mentioned it at the very beggining of the comic, and it’s well known enough that it’s mentioned in her file, so I’m thinking that Linda’s excusing it as a “youthful indiscretion.”
Jamie
That’s what it’s called when a rich person does it, yes.
Schpoonman
“Affluenza.”
Yumi
Oh my god, I forgot about affluenza.
Kyrik Michalowski
Linda continues her path of not understanding the people around her, or at least she doesn’t understand “her”* children.
What would it take for Linda to learn to be kind?
I’d ask what it would take to make her a good person, but I think we should go for reasonable wishes.
*I know Billie/Jennifer isn’t actually Linda’s kid, but she sure acts that way sometimes.
anon
given how she once called herself their ‘white passing daughter’ i can imagine a younger jen maybe going to their house often when she was lonely/basically spent more time with the walkertons versus her own house
Kyrik Michalowski
That makes sense; it would also explain why she is touchy about the parent visit thing.
thejeff
Which makes Linda pushing on her parents visiting here worse.
She knows.
Needfuldoer
Linda knows, so she could be fishing for Jen to fall over herself adulating her for the positive attention. It’s a narcissist’s passive-aggressive power move.
BBCC
She said before parents weekend that she sometimes calls the Walkertons ‘mom’ and ‘dad’. Sal remarked that at least they have one daughter they like.
Amelie Wikström
Disclaimer: I’m not qualified to offer a real diagnosis. But in basic psychology terms Linda has a lot of signs of anti-social or narcissistic disorders, meaning she looks at other people as means to access resources for her own benefit; financial security, social standing, political influence, whatever they’ve got. It’s possible she wants these things for her kids and this unofficial ward of hers out of a genuine wish for their wellbeing, limited to these terms she understands, or just because she wants for them to reflect well on her, but it would be a mistake to take her approach to her relationships with her kids as any indication for her approach to human relationships in general anyway.
In so far as it’s possible for her to learn kindness, learn to value other people’s lives beyond their usefulness to her, it depends on having motivation to do so. Which is not very likely to happen with the very financially secure high status life she has. A long, long period of being without human contact while also needing to rely on other people’s kindness to survive on a day to day basis might help.
BBCC
Jesus, Linda let her take the wad of cash her dad gives her as his emotionally constipated way of saying ‘I love you’. It’s bad enough you’ll ditch your own recently disabled kid in another state when she disappoints you without turning up to the rich family friend with adoption papers.
Fuuuuuck offff.
I wonder if Asher passes the boyfriend test – he’s from a rich, probably influential family.
Regalli
His family’s SO INVOLVED in local businesses, of COURSE she approves! Probably for the same reasons Raidah does.
Bryy
I’m super expecting Linda to approve of Asher doing the same shit Walky does.
DudeMyDadOwnsADealership