195

Billie
Posted on April 17, 2022 by David M Willis

195 thoughts on “Billie”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Billie: *feels old*

    1. PirateTawnee

      867-5309? Of course I know her, she’s me.

      1. Clif

        Yeah, I’m going to apparently be the first to ask what is in her hand in the last panel and is it alcoholic?

        1. Clif

          Or on closer look, a vibratory?

        2. Clif

          And if that’s a shoulder strap why is there a ruffle on her wrist?

        3. Clif

          And why would spell correct mangle a perfectly good word into one I think isn’t? Though maybe it should be. Step into my vibratory.

        4. milu

          the ruffle looks like a scrunchie. As Willis himself may have recently discovered, owing to his foray into hairy territory, long-haired people tend to wear hair ties around their wrists a lot. not that it’s especially good for your circulation but sometimes you just forget it there and then go, “why does my hand itch like that”

        5. Fuzzy

          She doesn’t have hair long enough any more, but it looks like it miiiight be the same scrunchie from the first panel and the car wreck panel? That might be diving too deep though.

        6. milu

          ooooh woooow i love it. you’re right, her hair is too short to tie, especially with this sort of loose scrunchie, so i vote she sleeps with it as an old-timey comfort thing she can’t let go of =D beautiful. We are nailing the fan theories today

        7. Greebs

          It’s the cover/duvet. She’s in bed, and the pillow has the same purple-with-blue-highlights/edging look.

        8. Ed Callahan

          More importantly, she’s clutching the cover because she’s finding the dream not enjoyable, because she’s actually a Billie and not this Jennifer person she’s adopted.

        9. thejeff

          If she’s not enjoying the dream about being Billie wouldn’t that imply it’s Billie she doesn’t want to be?

        10. Needfuldoer

          This one strip lets us see her establish her identity and keep climbing until she’s on top of the world, then that world comes crashing down because of her own actions (the DUI). The first semester isn’t really covered, but it doesn’t have to be because we watched it happen over the last 11 years.

        11. Needfuldoer

          Looks like a fistful of blanket to me.

        12. Clif

          You guys are undoubtedly right.

        13. br44n5m

          Do you mean her blanket?

        14. Shadowsnail

          Some dance to remember; some dance to Jenniforget.

    2. Amós Batista

      Shit, meme generator is down. Now, I have to using Photoshop

      1. Clif

        Are memes invented or discovered?

  2. The Wellerman

    Awe that’s too bad, I was rather much looking forward to watching kid Billie trade Pokémon cards. ?

    In other news….

    A Blood Moon is rising…. ?

    On EASTER!!!

    Hope all you lovable demonic screwballs around here CHILLY DOWN with some devilishly delightful activities!!!

    ??? ??? ???

    *plays “Chilly Down” by David Bowie on Hacked Muzak*

    1. Geneseepaws

      I was gonna suggest Creedence Clearwater Revival, cause from where I’m sitting “there’s a bad moon in the right.”

    2. King Daniel

      Pretty sure you’re a whole month early with waiting for the lunar eclipse, there

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2022_lunar_eclipse

      1. The Wellerman

        Oops! I forgot the flower in Blood Flower!!! ? Neurodivergence!

    3. True Survivor

      Thanks, Happy Easter!

      I loved pokemon cards as a kid. I thought I was pretty responsible with them, but I guess they fad got out of hand at my school because they outlawed them halfway through kindergarten. I feel that was overkill, though to be fair I think a lot of the kids were taking them out when they weren’t supposed to and there might have been a small scale civil war brewing the in class over pokemon trading mishaps.

      1. Clif

        I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a pokémon today.

        – Diary of a Wimpy kid

        1. cbwroses

          Nice.

        2. Ed Callahan

          A triple play pop culture reference! Good one.

  3. Sirksome

    We gonna have to go back to calling her Billie soon?

    1. Sirksome

      Also I totally forgot Alice was a character. Jeez that drunk driving incident must have been rough! Good think Jennifer’s family is rich! Probably swept that one away real easy!

      1. Thomas

        Hey look, it’s Alice!

        1. Needfuldoer

          Yup! Her ghosting Billiefer at college makes a lot more sense now.

          (Check her tag for background.)

        2. thejeff

          More sense now?

          Haven’t we known for awhile that Alice was in the wreck with Jennifer? Or is there something new I’m missing?

        3. milu

          yeah she made it pretty clear herself.

        4. Needfuldoer

          Now we have hard confirmation.

          Alice seemed a bit over the top when her first appearance originally aired, but off-hand comments, Billiefer being herself over the run of the comic, and now today’s panels add up to show she was more than justified.

        5. thejeff

          Dug around and found drove my SUV into a tree with my best friend in it.

        6. Clif

          Why Alice was in the tree, we’ll never know.

        7. milu

          regardless, crashing into the tree she was in was uncool. any other tree would’ve done just as well.

      2. Pilgrim

        Who says they had to sweep the consequences of that accident away? As long as it was a one vehicle accident with no major injuries the consequences probably would have been loss of insurance and a suspended license, neither would have had any bearing on the story. It looks like “Billie” has come to represent the toxic aspects she wants to purge from her life. Joyce isn’t the only seeking to reinvent her self in college.

        1. thejeff

          Most importantly of course – no more cheerleading.

        2. Sirksome

          Even the lightest punishments for a DUI can still come with thousands of dollars in fines. Not to mention “trashing” a car can be devastating to a normal or especially low-income family. Billie could also have served some jail time depending on what kind of person the judge was the day of her court hearing, (Although chances are it was a first-time offense so the judge would have to be pretty heartless to do that). These are tangible consequences that get swept away by Jennifer being rich. Jennifer gets to walk around and attend college, if that were Sarah chances are her scholarship would’ve gotten revoked and she wouldn’t even be in this comic.

        3. thejeff

          She was also underage. Not having been in that situation, I don’t know if that would have led to more consequences.

          Regardless, even without active sweeping away, all the potential consequences are less for a rich white girl.

        4. Fuzzy

          Billie’s only half white. (Or maybe zero white? But I feel like I remember her calling herself white-passing at some point.)

        5. Fuzzy

          *Jennifer, mb.

        6. zee

          She’s biracial, Chinese mom, English dad

        7. thejeff

          Fair.
          “reasonably white-passing” then, as she described herself.

        8. Stephen Nedland

          But that’s the catch; “Billie”, is not just wrecking an SUV, with an underage DUI, it is also her friendship with Walky, and her being a Cheerleader. Those are neither toxic, nor negative. Jennifer is finding out that she needs to reconcile her time as Billie, because she cannot just throw out the baby with the bath water.

      3. CianM1301

        Oh, I was wondering what that white thing her face was in was in the 9th panel, it’s an airbag.

      4. Beau Kirin Maysey

        everything except the Traaaauuummaaaaa

    2. Clif

      Not according to the tags.

      1. Clif

        Which is a weird comment out of context. It was to Sirksome’s suggestion that we’d be back to calling her Billie soon. Though of course tags can be changed as appropriate.

  4. Yotomoe

    Not much to say so I’m just gonna say
    Jennifer/Billie is hot as fuck.
    Love her.

    1. Sirksome

      Yeah, but who’s hotter? Jennifer or Billie?! Impossible to answer, isn’t it?

      1. PirateTawnee

        Both? Both. Both is good.

        (I should probably learn to actually post links rather than just typing out memes)

        1. Yotomoe

          Both you say?(NSFW)

        2. The Wellerman

          Like I said, you should really go full Porn Lord. ?

          ’cause this is AWESOME!!! ?

          *plays “New Clown in Town” by Infected Mushroom on Hacked Muzak*

        3. The Wellerman

          *followed by “Abracadabra” by Steve Miller’s Band*

        4. RowenMorland

          That last line was hilarious.

        5. cbwroses

          You’re doing the (porn) lord’s work, Yotomoe.

        6. Dara

          oh god the last panel, genius xD

        7. milu

          ahahaha!/*gulp*

        8. Keulen

          Very nice.

      2. Yotomoe

        So Billie’s got the ponytail and I like her personality. But Jennifer has achieved the alpha b***h status that Billie’s always boasted about having. Plus I like short bobs. But all in all I gotta say Billie. I’ve known her longer.

        Speaking of Billie I’ve got another one of those huge comics I’m gonna do with her. I dunno when but ever since I got the idea I’ve really wanted to do it.

  5. C.T. Phipps

    COMPLETELY MISINTERPRETS IT:

    Ah, Jennifer has at last accepted she doesn’t need anyone else’s approval and can just be herself.

    I’m so proud of her.

    1. Clif

      I must admit, I never considered that interpretation.

  6. Thag Simmons

    Wow. This is really good.

    1. Thag Simmons

      Like this might actually be my new favourite individual strip of this comic, that’s such a clever and impactful montage.

      1. True Survivor

        I agree. Very well done.

    2. Jenniffniff

      Definitely one of my new favs. Billie is one of my favorite characters and this finally reveals more of her backstory.

  7. BBCC

    Yeah, adjusting with names is hard. Godspeed, kid. And oooooh that’s a lotta memories.

  8. thakoru

    Pretty sure we haven’t seen that second-to-last panel before. Halloween sneak peak?!

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Assuming they’re chronological, I don’t think we’ve seen any of these panels before, possibly barring the third-to-last since that one would’ve happened at some point during the last semester, though the events of the panels with Alice have definitely been referenced.

      I’m with you on that second-to-last panel being Halloween, though for the life of me I have absolutely no idea who that line could belong to. The only person I can think of who would be that horrified by Ruth and Billie kissing is Becky, and she’s definitely never expressed those sentiments to their faces.

      or maybe it’s guns, ya never know

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Come to think of it, I also have no idea who’s saying “Jennifer” in the final non-flashback panel. Like, I initially thought it was Lucy, but she’s not tagged, sooo…

        1. King Daniel

          Bloodrose?

        2. Regalli

          Or possibly Asher.

          I think the general rule is that they have to physically appear in the strip in some form to be tagged, but that can be a very partial portion of them (the original reveal of the Convenience Store Knife Memory obscured the fact that it was actually Amber holding the knife by having Sal’s hair in the corner of the panel, so that Sal could be tagged, which Willis explicitly called out as an obscuring method when the full flashback was revealed) or a technicality (Ryan’s final tagged strip is the one where we only see Dorothy, Amber’s arm, and Ryan’s blood.) So word balloons may not count. Or it’s Walky (or possibly Ruth, Sal, or Alice, though I doubt it.) Or they’ll be tagged in tomorrow, the way Faz was only added in tags to the silhouette strip AFTER his full reveal in the kidnapping storyline.

        3. Regalli

          There’s also no indication who’s speaking in the couch panel, though presumably it’s either Nina or one of the elusive Parentsworths.

        4. Needfuldoer

          Of all the tags currently present on the comic, I’d suspect Walky.

          Sal rarely uses names.
          Ruth has no reason to be there.
          Alice wants nothing to do with her.

          For currently un-tagged characters, it’s probably either Asher (surprising his girlfriend) or Lucy (it’s her room too).

        5. milu

          did Walky ever call her Jennifer though?
          but perhaps that explains the face. Maybe she affected to be annoyed at Walky for sticking to her childhood nickname but secretly treasured his refusing to let go of that other life.

          we’ll find out tomorrow!

        6. thejeff

          He has. I don’t think he’s called her Billie since she told him about the change. Maybe talking to someone else, but not to her face.

        7. milu

          oh ok! thanks =)

      2. Thag Simmons

        Doesn’t really have to be horror. Could just be surprise

      3. Fay

        The person speaking in the second-to-last panel could also be Alice. We know she goes to the same school as them, and she’s basically Billie’s ex. But also, the last time we saw her, Billie downplayed their relationship and just called her a friend, due to her unwillingness to accept her own sexuality. I could honestly see Alice reacting with surprise and anger to see Billie kissing another girl in public after the way she treated her.

        1. cbwroses

          While the way their relationship ended wasn’t good, let alone when they saw each other in the cafeteria, I never got the sense that Billie specifically treated Alice badly as a friend or a lover.
          Billie was toxic, but Alice was so as well, presumably, given they were best friends, she couldn’t get Walky’s name right in the cafeteria (despite going to hs with him), and the way she blew up on Billie in the cafeteria at the time (can say she doesn’t want to see her without acting like she did).
          And it wasn’t exactly a secret that they were messing around with each other considering Walky knew and he wasn’t in their circle of friends.

        2. thejeff

          My impression was that Billie treated Alice horribly and that Alice didn’t realize it due to her massive crush on Billie. The horrible wasn’t intentionally being mean or anything, but tied up in Billie’s need to play the popular cheerleader role which in her mind involved lots of partying and drunken sex with boys. Dragging Alice along with her to her bad decisions was a regular event, not just the night she crashed the SUV.

  9. Mr D

    Well well well.
    Look at that.

  10. Taffy

    So she’s definitely changing her name to Martha, right?

    1. Vukodlak

      HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT NAME!?

  11. JessWitt

    Oh crap, that panel with Alice.

    1. Rose by Any Other Name

      Two. There are two panels with Alice.

      1. Mr D

        I think they are three, actually

        1. milu

          i see panels 8 and 9? i think all the other dark-haired girls we see are Billie herself? except for panel 4, might be Sal but honestly it’s just because she’s tagged. it doesn’t even look especially like her (did Sal ever have that sort of haircut that we know of?)

        2. milu

          SO a quick archive trawl tells me that ok, yes Sal’s hair used to look that way back when she straightened it, EXCEPT it seems her bangs swept consistently left to right (our pov) not right to left as in panel 4. so… not Sal? if so who’s this? or am i being a silly nitpicker and no one cares which way her hair points

        3. Needfuldoer

          Here’s who I see:

          1 – Jennifer
          2 – Jennifer
          3 – Walky
          4 – Sal
          5 – Jennifer
          6 – Jennifer
          7 – Jennifer
          8 – Alice
          9 – Alice and Jennifer
          10 – Ruth
          11 – Jennifer and Ruth
          12 – Jennifer and currently-a-mystery-voice

        4. milu

          yeah, on second thoughts it’s got to be Sal. It immediately follows Walky, and it makes sense that the memory of Sal that stands out is one where she’s mad at her haha

        5. zee

          That’s what sal’s hair looked like in the ambulance ride after Marcie’s attack

        6. milu

          oh ok. thanks. that entire tangent of mine was nonsense anyway, of course panel 4 is Sal *facepalming while rolling eyes, redundantly*

  12. Bagge

    Ouch

  13. anon

    wasn’t expecting to see alice again , tho makes sense in a flashback

    calling yourself by a diff nickname in younger grades is fine, tho i wonder if it messed up any paperwork or so (tho i had an asian name that got printed wrong or so and was that way for years/never got fixed til way later in high school for some reason)

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I wish Alice was a part of the main cast.

      1. Sirksome

        I know right? Especially since she has history with Jennifer, but I guess the cast is already so big, you can’t give everyone a main role.

        1. Regalli

          She has however explicitly said she DOESN’T want anything to do with Jennifer again. Honestly I support her in that given the DUI thing and the hints of how otherwise toxic their relationship was. And the only people from her town in the cast are Jennifer, Jennifer’s surrogate siblings, and Asher, who is now Jennifer’s boyfriend, so there’s not a clear outlet there. Maybe she could hang out with Booster, I’m not sure they’ve actually shared a strip with Jennifer yet so it wouldn’t have the same potential awkwardness as someone who is at least casual friends with her. (There are definitely also a few characters like Danny or Amber who haven’t interacted with her a TON, but their connections to the Walkertons might still make things distinctly awkward for Alice if she found out. Again, I really don’t blame her for wanting to stay completely out of Jennifer’s orbit.)

        2. Thag Simmons

          Jennifer’s “hook Daisy up with my ex-GF” plan succeeds in a way it really wasn’t supposed to.

        3. Needfuldoer

          Take your well-deserved pretend upvote.

          +1

  14. Darkoneko

    a 94 ?

    1. RowenMorland

      Yeah that one is out of my frame of reference too.

      1. milu

        The frame of reference is a time-keeping system used by most members of a highly social animal species named “humans” in the Milky Way galaxy. The figure represents the number of times their planet has revolved around its star (“years”), starting at an arbitrary point in time in that species’s cultural history.

        Humans will typically wrap their bodies in thin layers of intertwined organic fibres, and that practice, called “clothing”, is subject to a high degree of cultural coding. This type of clothing covering the anterior half of the body is known as a “shirt”. This one bears the number “94” (which actually stands for 1994), which typically serves to commemorate some sort of group ritual that took place in that year. Here, it probably has something to do with education, an activity by which social cues are transferred to groups of younger humans by designated adults. This practice too is very codified and takes place in yearly cycles with rites of passage between each. The place and time a human receives that education often forms an important part of their adult identity and group affiliations, so the specific years and other data pertaining to it may be inscribed upon clothing which they are encouraged to go on wearing.

        However, in this case, the point of that detail seems to be to distinguish that shirt from one seen later on in the narrative. I do not remember which, or what the significance of that other shirt might be, and now that i’ve reached that point in my explanation i realize that is probably the frame of reference you were asking about. Oh well.

        1. milu

          (j/k i did vaguely remember something about a shirt and i found this followed by this and the following few strips, and uh… i guess Billie later gets it back and goes on wearing it. look maybe it doesn’t mean anything special, it’s just a shirt that looks like that other shirt, but it’s not the same shirt, idk

        2. milu

          further trawling reveals that Billifer wore that yellow “97” shirt a whole lot throughout the first semester.

          Unrelatedly, i’ve also learned a whole lot about seahorses, did you know that some males basically gestate the eggs in pretty much exactly the way female fish of other genera do, to the point where they receive the female’s gametes and fertilize them inside their body, then even have a pseudo-placenta that takes care of oxygenation, waste disposal and nutrition??? wild. typically “male” behaviour such as competition for mates has also been observed in the females of these species.

          Further unrelatedly i have a massive to-do list today and i barely got started.

        3. RowenMorland

          I see. I did remember she had a number shirt but didn’t remember when she had it and was ultimately too lazy to go looking for it. I guess I also assumed the numbers were a sportball shirt-thing and the numbers represented a player number or position, but apparently people wear shirts that just have the decade on it in a big font without additional info like “Team building exercise shirt 99”, just 99 and you see another being in a 99 shirt and share a secret team building nod.

          I am passingly familiar with mating and male seahorses. I also recommend cuttlefish as an excellent sauce of marine trivia and sharks for greedily having every different type of reproduction method. If there is one they haven’t been seen doing it probably just means we are due to discover a new species of shark that does.

    2. Needfuldoer

      So we know it’s an older shirt.

      1. RowenMorland

        S it is like her 94th shirt and when it fell out of use she went onto 95?

        1. thejeff

          I like this theory. We saw her in 97 last semester. A little more data and we’ll be able to date flashbacks by shirt.

        2. RowenMorland

          Could be times she’s reinvented herself.

  15. Yumi

    Oh, I love young Billie with her new name here.
    Also, very good strip in general.

    1. The Wellerman

      Time flies when you’re having fun! ?

      The Full Moon shines on Easter bright!

      What do you plan on doing tonight?

      1. Yumi

        Well, since you asked, I’ll plug my new Owl House fan video, which was much of what I did tonight (spoilers for the newest episode if you watch The Owl House but havent gotten to the that one): https://youtu.be/qd9WfuKPnFw

        It’s not exactly what I would like, in part because I need to find better video editing software (preferably free), but it came out okay.

        And now I plan to sleep.

        1. The Wellerman

          Awe! How adorable! ?

          Sweet dreams, Good Demon! ?

    2. powerpowerpow

      This is one of those strips that remind me why I love comics as an art form. Willis really outdid himself, hot damn.

  16. Roe

    oh yeah….that…?

    1. C.T. Phipps

      There’s way too large a cast already but Alice is a character I wish we had more strips with.

  17. Opus the Poet

    I’ve only been “Opus” since 1999 so I don’t have a lot of people who knew me from before I was killed calling me by my dead name. I’m not trans, but I did get killed so it’s still appropriate to use “dead name”.

  18. C.T. Phipps

    Jennifer chose her name and is no longer having it thrust on her.

  19. King Daniel

    Fourth-to-last panel: we finally get our first look at The Crash™.

  20. Spencer

    I don’t know how to feel about Ruth’s memory being a raised fist.

    I know what it is making me feel, that is a separate topic.

    1. BBCC

      There’s two Ruth memories.

      1. Spencer

        I swear to god that last panel was not there on Patreon yesterday, but my mind may be playing tricks on me.

        Now I gotta know why making out with Ruth leads to a “Billie?!”

    2. RassilonTDavros

      It’s not Billie’s fault if Ruth made a plane that can’t fly.

    3. Joyfulldreams

      Wait, what raised fist?

      1. Regalli

        She’s definitely making a fist in the not-making-out panel, but given the position and Ruth’s expression (eyebrows furrowed but not necessarily angry and what looks like an awkward smile more than Ruth’s Actual Anger faces,) I’m not certain if it’s actually a fist as in potential threat or if it’s possibly clenched out of stress or something. Could easily be the former, could be the latter from the thin slice we see, and could well be her saying something that’s not actually ABOUT Jennifer. (As in, ‘Billie, drop this, I’m not talking my grandfather out of a visit even though I want to’ or something.) The hints about their relationship getting even more dysfunctional since the time skip and them both saying Ruth was primarily at fault mean I could totally buy it as ‘fight that potentially got Serious and physical (as opposed to their standard fighting, which neither of them really seemed to take seriously or intend to harm the other,)’ but the art doesn’t look quite like that for me. At least from, again, the limited amount we see.

        1. Joyfulldreams

          Oh I FINALLY see it, wow, I thought that was her shirt.

  21. Josh Spicer

    Billie: But my name’s Billie–

    Jennifer: IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!

    1. Taffy

      “Heed my warning! For I am your dad, and am therefore the smartest person who will ever talk down to you. Because I created you with my bodily fluids.”

      1. cbwroses

        I prefer Josh’s Rock reference, mainly cuz I get that reference.

    2. Spencer

      Billie: But name’s Billie-

      Jack Garland: “I don’t give a FUCK who you are!” *leaps 20ft into the air and punches her in the face*

  22. drs

    She took to ‘Billie’ readily enough!

    So Walky *named* her. Wow.

  23. Kyrik Michalowski

    Who is Alice and why are there so many posts about her?

    1. Thag Simmons

      She hasn’t appeared much in the comics, but her and Billie’s history has come up a few times.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      Remember Alice?  There’s a song about Alice….

    3. Needfuldoer

      A poor little darling with a chip out of her heart.

  24. Andy

    That first panel with Alice, 4th blue one from the right, does anyone else get the sense Alice was a bit more than Billie’s friend even if neither of them was willing to reconsider their relationship or their sexualities (assuming Alice is straight, which I definitely shouldn’t do)?

    1. Yumi

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/dramahurricane/

    2. Thag Simmons

      Well, Alice says she loved Billie, and Walky pretty much outright says they fucked, so yeah, it’s a safe assumption.

      1. Andy

        The problem with this comic is that it’s gone on so long that even when I reread strips before I comment, I don’t always remember the context. For instance, I reread that strip and assumed Walky’s comment about sexually-transmitted drama hurricanacity to be a comment on Billie’s relationship with Ruth.

        1. cbwroses

          Nope, cuz it’s Alice calling Billie a drama hurricane from their past time together and we have no idea if she even knows Ruth exists, let alone that Billie was with her.
          Walky is just building off that, so it must also be regarding the past.

        2. Holly

          Meanwhile here I am not even remembering Alice!

        3. milu

          @Andy: I also keep forgetting key parts of the narrative, but that’s what King D, Regalli, thejeff and other DOA buffs are here for =P

          also re: that specific strip, consider the alt-text, it references another of Billie’s lines where she’s dismissive of bisexuality as “a thing everyone gets curious about”, not a proper orientation, certainly not one that applies to her.

      2. Needfuldoer

        It was strongly hinted at in a bonus strip she appeared in, too.

  25. AGV

    Yoda frowns and shakes his head, knowing that the youngling hasn’t passed the trial

  26. DailyBrad

    Ah hey, more Alice. Been wondering if/when we’d see her again.

  27. Mr. Random

    What’s interesting is that her memory of that night isn’t… red.

    Normally that’s what’s used to highlight a deeply traumatic memory. But I guess she just thinks about it as…. a thing that happened?

    1. King Daniel

      Remember, the whole reason Alice cut contact with Jennifer was because she didn’t think getting into a drunken car crash with her “best friend” in the car was a super huge deal.

      1. Mr. Random

        Yep. And this confirms that, in a way.
        It wasn’t something that had to healed from.
        It was just a mistake to her. Like skipping school or shoplifting a bag of chips.

  28. ADLegend21

    Identity crisis and…..Go!

  29. Regalli

    It took me way too long to parse that in the second Alice panel, that’s an AIRBAG covering Jennifer’s face. For a moment there I thought it could be some totally unrelated moment where Alice was bleeding and Jennifer was passed out drunk with her face in a pillow or something. (It’s two AM, my brain’s not making sense.)

    Also, that one panel with her on the couch – is that a black Wii remote on the coffee table? I always forget they did black Wiimotes. (It could also be a remote control, but 1: she appears to be holding something in the hand that doesn’t have a phone, which is probably a remote from positioning… though obviously that doesn’t rule out having multiple because they’re rich and it’s a fancy TV, and more importantly 2: there’s a line off it that looks like a wrist strap, down to appearing to actually bend to connect to it, and at a totally different angle than the Clearly Surface of the Coffee Table line nearby. It’s 2 AM and I zoomed way too far in to examine this complete irrelevancy. My priorities are perfecf.)

    1. milu

      oh yeah it also took me a minute to identify the airbag.

      and i too have perfecf priorities (i have so much work to do right now, like So Much) and i disagree with your “wrist strap” reading: i think the coffee table has a glass surface and what we are seeing next to the black object is the outline of the supporting structure beneath. Notice how it lines up with the foot. It doesn’t fully connect to it and is somewhat blurry either b/c the table isn’t fully transparent (polished or tinted glass) or as a drawing convention to convey the meaning of Thing being seen /through/ other Thing

      1. Regalli

        That is a reasonable interpretation! However, zooming DEEPLY into that section shows that second, much smaller line, and while it doesn’t connect PRECISELY it does attach to about the point where you would put a Wii wrist strap to a remote. The shape of the black object itself is also about consistent with what you’d expect of the Wii Remote with the Motion Plus peripheral and one of the attendant Weird Fancy Grips, so I could be reading the line as a wrist strap with that bias in mind.

        The most compelling argument, though, is this. The Nintendo Switch came out five years ago, when Jennifer would have been thirteen or fourteen. The Wii, whose deeply unsuccessful replacement was released ten years ago, would be older still. Why would she have a Wii Remote? Especially with the sliding timescale? Simple, really. Because Jennifer is the kind of COLOSSAL NERD who plays retro consoles, and is one of the few people on this earth who bought the Wii U (which uses Wii controllers as well due to the tablet Gamepad being expensive enough Nintendo didn’t want to have to sell them for multiplayer separately and deal with the price costs, and which came in both black and white but was primarily associated with the black color scheme, so a black Wii Remote – rarer than the white ones as the Wii was only available in white from a year or two – would match.) Jennifer Billingsworth will never admit to owning the utter failure of a console that was the Wii U, but it is clearly the most in-character idea possible. She was deeply into Splatoon in middle school (itself a forerunner to her Kit Fisto character shrine,) and fears the knowledge coming out because its bright classic Nickelodeon-esque charm is clearly irreconcilable with her Alpha Bongo Head Cheerleader persona. But we know. We know. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!

        (… This is deeply facetious but the more I thought about it, the funnier it got and the more I could stretch the known ‘Jennifer is a closet nerd’ to apply to ‘Jennifer owned a Wii U and hides this deep in her heart.’)

        1. milu

          bahaha i have no idea what any of this means but i love how enthusiastic you are about this theory. i reverse my opinion to whatever Regalli is saying, sorry thejeff, you’re outvoted, it’s that vintage Wii thingy now, and it constitutes massive albeit subtle character development instead of a boring detail =D

        2. Regalli

          *Bows in Nintendo Nerd*

          It’s absolutely ridiculous, but one of the most notable games for the Wii U (One of Nintendo’s biggest failures ever) was Splatoon, a game about anthropomorphized squid children playing… I’d call it paintball, but really the actual point is covering the arena with brightly-colored paint (well, ink, they’re squids). It’s aggressively neon. It’s beautiful. A teenager going through a Cool Phase would never admit to liking it.

          By sheer coincidence, the EXTREMELY niche background Star Wars character Jennifer’s been established to have a secret fanfiction blog for, Kit Fisto, ALSO happens to look like an anthropomorphized Cephalopod Person (but less neon and more serious.) So I posit that clearly, Star Wars is not Jennifer’s only Secret Nerd Property. Kit Fisto fanfic was where she put her Splatoon ‘sonas in an attempt to give them dignity (as perceived by a 14-year-old, obviously.) Not because there NEEDS to be another layer of Secret Nerdery – frankly I think Splatoon may be slightly more mainstream than a Star Wars character from the prequel trilogy who ONLY shows personality in the expanded universe, though obviously this is arguing over minutia – but it’s funny, because the aesthetics of Splatoon are SO far removed from anything Jennifer would admit to now. Or at least it’s funny to me specifically.

      2. thejeff

        I’m with milu here. I’m not even sure what Wii Remote looks like, but we’re clearly seeing the table leg through the glass table. And the cross piece as well, parallel to the remote.

        1. Regalli

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Remote#Jacket

          I bring you, Peak Facetious Nerdery. Given the timescale it’s most likely a standard remote, but imagining middle school Billie as a Splatoon fan is just too funny to pass up, so.

  30. hazel

    This is a very sweet comic strip. I identify with this a lot. Sometimes you want something that’s yours. And sometimes you really don’t.

    I keep thinking and thinking about this and you know, it’s gonna be someone who cares about Billie’s behavior in the last snippet, to single out her with such shock. They didn’t say like “what!” or “Ruth!” We also see “Billie” used within her own house.. I feel like it’s not unlikely that someone Billie is related to or that is close to her family who found them.

    If so, Billie gets like no attention, so it would be BAD for her that this is how their attention was “wasted.” No telling the kind of fallout that makes someone not only change how they chose to go by, but assert it to everyone. Both being Billie and being called Billie would seem like the same mistake. I mean, look at the montage! Terrible memories over time with it.

    So back to Jennifer.. and dating a popular Guy with a prominent family. If the problem is being an individual, and not her choices themselves, the good and the bad ones, well, she can paper maché that right over.

    All so the next time they take a glance, Jennifer will be doing exactly what she is supposed to be doing, acting like a person worth something… measured in all of her “verifiable” value.

    Or I could be creative writing, but hey, lemme know.

    1. Fay

      Well, Billie’s housekeeper (who she spent more time with growing up than her parents)still called her Jennifer, so I doubt that’s a family member calling her Billie in that panel. Her family probably didn’t even interact with her enough to know that was what she went by with her friends.
      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/nina/

      I feel like it might just more likely be a friend that just arrived at her house or something. Or maybe it’s Walky trying to talk to her while she talks to her “cooler” friends on the phone and ignores him.

    2. cbwroses

      Seems to me that most of the memories were good.
      Billie saying her name is Billie (smile).
      Her saying Billie (smile).
      Walky saying it (smile).
      Sal saying it (no smile).
      Billie saying it (smile).
      Someone saying it at what I assume is her home while she’s on the phone.
      Someone saying it while she’s cheering (smile).
      Her friend/girlfriend/lover saying it while (I think) naked (smile).
      Her friend/girlfriend/lover saying it immediately after the car accident (no smile).
      Ruth saying it (smile, but it’s Ruth so who knows since we don’t know when during the relationship it happened).
      Someone off panel saying it with an interrobang while Billie and Ruth are kissing.
      Out of 11 blue panels, we have 7 smiles (including Ruth’s), so definitely more good memories than “bad” (though the bad are more often in the later panels).

      1. milu

        i interpret the montage as describing a “it’s complicated” relationship to her ex-nickname. there’s good memories and bad. what i think we’re seeing is mixed feelings regarding Billifer’s “clean slate” attitude. She wants to appear aloof and above it all but there’s clearly a lot more conflict going on. That’s how i understand her face in that last panel. “Oh god, yeah i’m Jennifer now, back to this reality, ugh”

  31. Reltzik

    … so she got into clubbing at a young age?

    1. milu

      you mean panel 7? she’s cheerleading?

      1. milu

        (though knowing what we know, it’s plausible that she went clubbing back then also)

      2. Reltzik

        Pun on “billie club”. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if she had a baton as a cheerleader.

  32. Steelbright

    So is the second-to-last frame something that’s gonna finally tell us what happened between them?

  33. Laura

    I always wondered why Sal didn’t ask her brother’s “surrogate sister” Billie for help to pay for Marcie’s operation. And why Billie hardly even seemed to know Sal when they roomed together, referring to her only as “my roommate”, despite Billie’s treating Walky as a foster brother. Maybe this confrontation explains some of that distance.

    Sorry I haven’t been around. I kept getting these absolutely horrifying popups immediately, whenever I visited the site, from any device. It’s tolerable once you turn off all cookies and JavaScript. No alt-text but also no popups.

    I still won’t visit much — I am creeped out that the site would even host those kinds of terrifying ads, and I don’t want to become a target (you know how the same ad will sometimes follow you from site to site and from device to device, even after you delete your browser history). But the question of Sal and Billie has been bothering me.

    Good night, fellow travelers.

    1. milu

      ugh, so sorry to hear that Laura. Did you try using an adblocker? as i said last time, i use Firefox on Android and laptop, on mobile i have the uBlock addon which works perfectly (hardly any ads anywhere) and on laptop i use the AdBlockPlus addon plus a few other addons that block trackers and unwanted cookies (the things that follow you from site to site and remember you and your data on any given site). Some of them are probably redundant but here’s my list: Privacy Badger, Disconnect, Google Analytics Opt-Out, Forget Me Not. Occasionally these might interfere with some sites, but i’m happy with the cost-benefit ratio.

      I hope you find a way of protecting yourself online. I whitelist some sites to afford them the ad revenue, but i keep this one triple-locked because I agree, Willis and/or his webmaster don’t meet my standard for safe and friendly browsing. Once they take care of it and only have the regular sfw, non-invasive banners, i will consider whitelisting them.

      1. Taffy

        Huh. Firefox on mobile also has a universal dark mode plugin. Well, ain’t that handy. Most of my ads here have been more or less benign (aside from those wretched body-horror clickbait ones) but they’re sure plentiful. The other day, I had like 6 of the exact same ad stacked on top of each other, a bottom banner with a tiny X that took 4 tries to hit, some kind of autoplay video ad about some political site, and one of those ads that literally covers your screen with an unskippable animation before you can hit the X. Reporting it hasn’t seemed to help, so idk what else can be done aside from installing a browser that lets me block the hateful little things in their entirety.

        1. milu

          Another thing i should mention is that i’m outside the US. this might partly explain why i get so few (basically zero) ads, many advertisers might be specific about targeting US users. this is a case where a VPN might be handy

        2. Taffy

          VPN? Those are for rich people.

        3. milu

          fair enough (i’m extremely not rich, but let’s just say a vpn costs less than a netflix subscription), and anyway to test my hypothesis i set my vpn to the US and i’m still not getting any ads. so i guess the adblocker is what’s doing it then, and that’s free =)

    2. BorkBorkBork

      My ads just advertise for H&R Block, Unicef, Staples, and some game show called Million Dollar Wheels. I don’t know how much control Willis has over what ads appear on the site, but “policing the ad content” could be something that takes way, way too much work.

      However, AdChoices (who runs the ads) generally pairs people up with ads that they think people will find interesting. Chances are, there’s something in your data that triggered it – something as simple as accidently stumbling onto a website once, typing in the wrong search term, or frequenting “junk sites” that have lots of clicks and ads all over them. I once got a full year’s worth of Mormon ads across several websites due to a research paper. Spent another year hounded by GOP ads because I dared to check the “news articles” that a friend linked me.

      If you can’t get the bad ads to stop by clearing your cookies (not just your history) then maybe click the little blue arrow to see if you can get it to stop matching you with ads it thinks you want to see.

      1. milu

        …hence the tracker blocking addons. we’re in that phase of internet history where regulation is lax (and that’s mostly good imo) but tracking technology have gotten creepily good at glomming on to you. Protect yourselves against tracking, folks.

        Use Brave (as Wellerman suggests), open Private Browsing tabs for sensitive searches that you don’t want following you around, use Tor for extra-extra sensitive searches, and if you have the resources (~5$/month) and your country isn’t some scary dictatorship that criminalizes it, use a VPN.

        It all sounds like a lot of hassle and geekery, but 1) actually not really, all of these are free (except the VPN but that’s really not essential) and very easy to find and install (google DuckDuckGo is your friend) and 2) please please let’s all educate ourselves and each other about the technology we use and rely on for hours a day and so many essential tasks. Google is… very much NOT your friend.

    3. The Wellerman

      Try Brave Browser for your phone or PC. Since I started using it, I never got any ads! ?

      Hope this helps!

    4. Laura

      Thank you for the advice, fellow travelers!

  34. Wishwater

    Good page…a lot of commenters here were very harsh on Billie/Jennifer for changing her name/seemingly cutting off her old friends but I think it’s always been hinted as a little deeper than that. Billie/Jennifer clearly has a lot of identity issues and whatever happened on Halloween with Ruth did NOT help her. Hoping we see more explanation about that soon…

    1. Reaver

      It’s the nature of the comments, someone’s got to be the worst worst that ever worsted cause they made character sad.

  35. milu

    second most-panelled strip?

    Also, did anyone identify the original strip panel 10 is taken from? (it may well be original though)

    1. Needfuldoer

      I think they’re all original.

      1. milu

        i’m asking bc panel 10 is the only one that might not be

        1. Needfuldoer

          I think it’s a callback to when they were “fighting” in public, but the art has evolved considerably since then.

          You’re right though, the line art could have been reused from the recent past.

  36. Rabisch

    Finally her body and mind begin to reject the name her parents gave her and starts asking to go back to having the name she chose to have?

  37. Amós Batista

    Smaller panels, and still Willis could make Alice hotter. Nice.

  38. Keulen

    I still think she was better when she was calling herself Billie.

  39. milu

    oooh i know what the hacked Muzak needs to be playing today,

    “Billie”
    what do you want from me?
    why don’t you run from me?
    what are you wondering?
    what do you know?

    why aren’t you scared of me?
    why do you care for me?
    when we all fall asleep
    where do we go?

    =D

    that song has massive Billie x Ruth energy

    1. milu

      plus i hadn’t watched that amazing video for far too many weeks

  40. Stephen Nedland

    Looks like Jennifer is beginning to have an identity crisis. Her entire life has been wrapped up as Billie, both good and bad. She cannot just suddenly be Jennifer; even if she no longer wants to go be that moniker, she still needs to recognize that, “Billie”, is a part of her. Looks like she is struggling with that.

  41. Raen

    ♩ There’s magic in her name. ♩

    (Calling it now, in the last arc of the book she kills everyone with magic snakes.)

  42. zee

    So she’s totally going back to Billie soon right?

    1. milu

      tomorrow’s strip:
      Jennifer: “goddammit, that was a stupid idea. HEY EVERYONE! Start calling me Billie again, OK?”
      Everyone: “sure”
      Billie: “cool thx”

      *tags switch back to Billie*
      *storyline over*

  43. Cyrus Draegur

    Even though “Jennifer” is her “real” name, I will never NOT feel like she’s being fake as hell by switching to it after a lifetime of precedent. Whatever Ruthless did on Halloween, “Jennifer” is being a huge dumb baby about it and however much I was starting to like her character is being ground away to dust by every time she uses the name “Jennifer”.

  44. seregiel

    The new version of duck duck goose: Billy Billy Jennifer! Only instead of tapping heads and running around in a circle, you tap nerves and do mental gymnastics!

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