This coming weekend I’m going to be in Seattle, Washington, for Emerald City Comicon! Come find me at booth 110 with Hijinks Ensue and Cyanide & Happiness! I’ll have books and posters and things!
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This coming weekend I’m going to be in Seattle, Washington, for Emerald City Comicon! Come find me at booth 110 with Hijinks Ensue and Cyanide & Happiness! I’ll have books and posters and things!
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‘I asked an important question. Not because I care about you, but because I care about myself getting better at caring about you.’
You know, this reminds me of some people, and they’re all horrible ones. They ask questions not because they care about you, but because they care about themselves. Injured someone by mistake? Well, thank god it was minor, because then *they* won’t have to live that down!
Huh, I actually didn’t quite interpret Jason being selfish, but I also kinda forgot she actually gave Jason insight into why he couldn’t be of better assistance.
Jason’s comment about the crowded dorm life has got me thinking about how educational institutions may be better run in the UK and in Europe.
As a once Chem tutor I can say that my tutees, like Sal, were by no means dumb. Thanks to circumstance and a degrading education system, they usually had trouble discerning what they have and what they need from word problems, yet slipped by without someone giving the attention they needed and/or didn’t get.
Point is, I feel that Jason can’t conceive systematic failure due to him not experiencing it, so he blamed Sal for her failures and wrote her off as ignorant or lazy until he saw that the other tutor picked her grade up.
Now he still doesn’t see how “understanding” helped Sal out due to not understanding how someone so uneducated could get into an institution of higher learning.
I don’t think he doesn’t care about Sal or only cares about himself, as he seemed pretty genuinely concerned about tutoring his tutees and instead of letting his competition get fired for fraternizing with fellow students, or actively getting her fired, he tried to talk to her about it.
Sal’s had enough to not able to walk under her own power right now, and it’s magnifying her misanthropy; Jason has had at least one, and whether because of that or something else he can’t tell he’s trying to win an argument with a drunk.
They’re both expecting something out of the other, that they can’t possibly deliver at the moment.
True that, I wasn’t really pondering as to why they’re argueing right now, but as to what Jason’s intentions were when he asked Sal what he did.
_Probably_ genuine concern for self-improvement, I thought. (Which is still a stupid question, at the moment he asks it.) He’s trying to care for her as either a peer or a friend or a lover or a student – and maybe some others – but has interaction issues and is unable to give her the help she wants or needs.
Penny had the same issue with him, it seems.
I actually think living with someone is a good thing. For your Joyce’s you’ve got someone who can protect you from things you naively throw yourself into .
I watched the MLP episode yesterday where Twilight tries to help Rainbow Dash study for an upcoming test, and was really reminded about this. It’s wasn’t that Rainbow was stupid (although she felt that way when Twilight’s study methods failed her); it was that she learned things in a very different way from traditional methods like flash cards and reviewing texts and things that were Twilight’s go-to methods.
Once Twilight figured out Rainbow Dash’s learning methods she was able to help her retain the knowledge pretty much immediately.
Jason should probably watch it.
Aw, what did I screw up? >< Alt text should have read "Season 4 episode 21, "Testing, Testing, 123". It's online at Dailymotion if anyone cares."
My guess is the use of quotation marks within another set of quotation marks. Personally, I switch to single quotation marks when quoting or referencing titles within tags to avoid messing up said tags.
Ah, Dailymotion. That used to be my go-to site several years ago for all Japanese MMA, because in no other country will a fighter be allowed to spend several minutes doing a tribute to Buckethead right before a fight.
Actually, I thought this was all showing that he does care since it was explicitly stated that he does not need to be a good teacher – but he cares enough anyway to think about the question of if he is a bad one, get other opinions, and even try to find out what he could do to be better (asking what worked for her). Sadly he and Sal have been so up in arms, making snide comments at each other, that it’s reasonable that he would misinterpret her honest answer as just another insult towards him (as she has been doing all night) instead of the answer he needs. 🙁
Is sal vibrating in that last panel?
Yup, the pre-puke shudders.
…oh damn.
It’s Sal’s final form, Other Jacob.
Great, now I’m shipping Sarah/Sal thanks to you.
Are you sure that’s her final form?
There are rumours of a shiney form…
wobbling, more like.
I read the first panel as “Don’t get pussy with me”.
I just wanted to thank you for your gravatar yesterday—I spent all of yesterday archive binging “The Gamer,” and I felt so happy when I recognized today’s gravatar!
You’re welcome, it’s nice when I can introduce people to appealing/interesting content in the same way I sometimes discover new content in a similar fashion. ^_^
Oh and yes. Been reading “the gamer” all day thanks to you, too!
Thanks from me as well. I had run across that one, then forgot to bookmark it and forgot the name, then couldn’t find it again.
I started The Gamer as well, all due to you. I’m on Chapter 4.
Yeah, found that Gamer thing interesting. Daniel the Human liked it too, got his brain going tho, scary when that happens tho…
Up to Chapter 32. Noticed a little bit of non-English (Korean I’m guessing) got past the editor on 1 or 2 pages, but still pretty good, definite like…
I must also thank you. This is the first manhwa I’ve read. I started it two days ago and I’m now at chapter 48(I’m a fast reader).
Right? I saw that comment too and caught up entirely from binging.
I curse you and all you hold dear for piquing my curiosity on a new manga series ┻━┻ ヘ╰( •̀ε•́ ╰)
I’ll be back in a week 乁[ᓀ˵▾˵ᓂ]ㄏ
That’s, like, the opposite of what Jason wants, though.
Poor hapless Jason… 😛
*plays “Help Me Make It Through The Night” on the Muzak*
I feel like the only other person who took this as a request for sex.
Well, that isn’t a good sign.
’cause I’m about to FALL for you…
…and puke on your shoes.
lel
It worked for Ruth.
Ugh, Jason, stop making an ass out of yourself.
Yeah, “he tried to understand” is a “sappy rubbish” answer? Wotta deek.
It is. It’s not even really an answer so much as it is a jab at Jason’s failure to tutor her effectively.
Except that’s exactly what Danny did, he paid attention to Sal’s work, tried to understand why she was doing it wrong, and actually tried to help her. Jason regurgitated the same boring lesson at her and informed her she was stupid when it didn’t work, then told her that the world of academia doesn’t give a damn about her no matter how hard she tries. I fail to see where at any point Jason “tried to understand”
Jason definitely did not try to understand, and seeing it from Sal’s pov makes 100% to me. But if I was in Jason’s shoes and someone told me the other tutor “tried to understand,” I’d really be like “wtf does that mean??”
Not only that, he’s failing right now. Jason asked Sal why Danny’s tutoring was better than his, and she told him pretty plainly, and rather than trying to understand her answer, he dismissed it as “sappy rubbish”.
Well, to be fair, while Sal’s answer makes perfect sense to us, who are outside viewers who were also privy to Danny’s realization that her style of gameplay matched how she was making errors with math (which broke down to “No, here, the rules DO matter and you DO have to do each step, or it’ll fuck up”), so far as someone with only Jason’s knowledge of her is concerned, “He tried to understand” probably isn’t going to parse out as “He took an opportunity to look at outside activities and my strengths there to figure out how to communicate to me where precisely I was going wrong with math, and how my perceptions of how things worked generally were leading me astray when I applied my own experiences to math”; it’s more likely to parse out as “I’m drunk and you just don’t understaaaand me!”
It might be a two-fold statement. Danny identified Sal’s problem and tailored his tutoring to what she needed, rather than what everyone thought she needed. Likewise, refusing to see Sal’s perspective is a recurring problem for the people in her life.
Be my crutch Jason….Then get the hell out JACKASS!
At least unlike some other characters in this comic Sal needs to be Drunk to have mood changes like these.
Hovertext would only work if Sal used starch instead of conditioner.
Or she gets a bad grade and it floofs up again, allowing her to use it like a beanbag chair.
*pictures a stoner version of Bayonetta doing this*
Man, a stoner Bayonetta would be hilarious. I’m picturing John Lennon glasses in place of her normal ones, the guns on her shoes replaced with lighters (the kind that still look like guns), and her hair dyed different colors so that when she wears it it looks like tie-dye.
Now I hope they have that in a future sequel. I imagine her getting high while battling in a pot field.
Wasn’t there a few artists on here? We need at least 1 of them to draw this… 😛
Another good year of growing and this mad dream of a hair tripod may become reality. Live the dream Sal!….live..the..dream.
Then gt something like a pet ferret & teach it to live in there…
..but poop outside…
Jason’s not very good with this empathy thing, it seems.
His bowtie is so tightly tied, it’s constricting his empathy.
Met many upper class Brits? I have. They’re motto seems to be, “For empathy, get a dog.”
Is Jason upper-class? Come to think of it, who rates highest and lowest in SE status among the DoA cast?
His father was super wealthy and powerful in the other universe.
His father was also part of a dimension-hopping secret organization in that universe…
So… a Jacobite, then?
Billie seems to be the one with the most cash on hand.
Billie has the most disposable income, so I’m guessing she’s got the most well-off family.
Speculation-wise, I want to say Amber’s family has it slightly rougher, since she has a single parent and has to rely on her jerkward dad to pay through college. Joe’s only got a single parent as well, but I’m guessing he doesn’t have it as bad.
Joyce and Dorothy and Walky are all upper middle, right?
Presumably the Browns at least, since they have four kids. I don’t know about the Walkertons.
I like to think Dorothy’s one of those ‘humble beginnings background and getting there through hard work’ stories.
“If you’re looking for sympathy, it’s in the dictionary”
I’ve learnt the British have the nicname “Whingey Poms” Down Under. Or just “Poms”. Seems to be an old thing. Haven’t met too many so haven’t seen much reason behind it, so can’t comment either way personally…
He’s aware she’s hella drunk, right? Not gonna express herself terribly well. By the sounds of it would enjoy some quiet.
She hates him when she’s sober so I don’t know why he thought this was the opportune moment to have this conversation. Little bit weird to get his knickers in a twist because she failed to give him a polite and detailed performance evaluation right here and now.
It’s not that she’s poor at expressing herself, it’s that she refuses to do it. There’s obvious repression, and for the record, most drunks lose inhibition with drink. The fact that she’s still this secretive is a little disconcerting. Those secrets seems big (spoiler, they probably are).
She answered his question just fine. It just wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
Plus, people are under no obligation to spill their secrets, even when drunk.
I’m not really seeing that here. He asked what the other tutor did differently, she said the other tutor tried to understand. Sounds like she’s telling him exactly what went down but she’s just not in a state to be giving a detailed account of how Dan figured the roadblocks she was coming up against and explained the attitudinal adjustments required to tackle the subject matter.
Can’t imagine what she could be repressing in that story. She played Mario Kart with a dude while talking math. Not like it was a terribly intimate moment with a lot of deep emotional crevices to it.
I think that’s the crux, though: Jason tried to force an ‘attitudinal adjustment’, but Danny went along with her thinking about things differently (at least, that’s what the little bit we heard of Danny tutoring Sal made it sound like).
Sal is literally telling him the gist of why Danny was able to help when Jason wasn’t. She may be drunk and not have as much patience, but I think this is more a case of Jason not hearing what he wants to hear than Sal not communicating. Which, y’know, is exactly what she says his problem is.
Danny only figured out why she was having issues with following the correct mathematical procedures so quickly because he was playing Mario Kart with her, though. Jason probably also realized she wasn’t following the correct steps and does seem to have tried to drum the bloody steps to take into her (meeting with resistance and with little success), whereas Danny had an opportunity (that he recognized and took, good on him) to see that, in general, Sal didn’t really follow every explicit step in things and it usually wasn’t an issue. She beat him in Mario Kart because she didn’t stick to the marked road. She refused to follow the exact steps with Jason because he didn’t have that game to contrast with how she did math and probably just hung up on repeating “No, you do it like THIS!” over and over, but without being able to successfully communicate that, in this one instance (math), no, it really did matter that each step was followed in order or it wouldn’t work.
I’d probably have gone crazy myself with repeating “No you just do it like this aargh fuck JUST DO WHAT I’M TELLING YOU IT’S NOT COMPLICATED JUST FUCKING SO IT” while she was thinking to her self “Yadda yadda do something like this then I guess do something like that fuck just shut up already god I’m DOING IT.” On the one side, the precise info was provided; on the other side, the precise info was simply not used because she hadn’t made the connection that it did matter that much.
Without the game, though, Danny may not have made that intuitive leap that she didn’t realize that you couldn’t do math the way she played games, or at least not as quickly.
Jason had a few drinks too. Obv he hold his liquor a lot better, but still.
I hate to criticize artwork, but panel three is a disaster. I feel like if the camera was rotated down and only captured their torsos we would have a salvageable shot but at that range we can barely see anything on the character’s faces.
You could make the case that it wasn’t the right choice, but calling this a “disaster” and un-“salvageable” is pretty harsh language for ‘hating’ to criticize artwork, isn’t it?
In retrospect I agree, honestly the language was way too strong and I didn’t even mention what really bothered me I just said it was bad. It was a pretty terrible comment and I’m glad that Willis handled it like a professional and didn’t take it personally.
I don’t think panel three is a “failure” in any sense because it can’t /fail/ to “see anything on the character’s faces” if it doesn’t /intend/ to. If I understand correctly, it’s not the artwork which you disagree with, but Willis’ choice to zoom out. You wanted a strip of expressions; Willis wanted a different perspective.
It works, imo. Shows Jason’s clenched fists and indignant posture as he storms off and Sal lurches into the hall to…tell him to gtfo while he’s gtfoing, but that’s drunk logic for you. Unless she was drunkenly chasing him out while telling him off, but what I’m saying is the blocking in the panel is just fine for conveying the actions and emotions taking place within it.
Woulda been hard to establish that Jason left her dorm with all the text and a tighter angle.
Comprise.
The characters’ faces were relatively unimportant compared to needing to show that Jason was leaving down the hallway — especially since there were no different expressions to show. Good composition is about deciding what’s most important, rather than always choosing the same aspect (facial expressions) over and over again.
If anything’s off, I think it’s the first panel. I feel like there’s a lot of empty space in the bottom left. I considered putting the top of Sal’s head there, but then it’d kinda look like she was blowin’ him, so.
Decided against that Slipshine idea then, huh?
These comics were drawn last year.
So what you’re saying is, you’re regretting deciding against the Slipshine blowjob then, now?
I gotcha.
The slipshine could always be of Sal/Jason in the office or the storage closet. They don’t have to align with the strip.
I actually think panel 1 works really well to lead to panel 2, since it creates the movement of Sal going from sitting down from the last strip to abruptly popping up in Jason’s face in this strip’s panel 2.
For some reason I’m having Understanding Comics flashbacks, the one with the Drawing Comics the Marvel Way example (where both examples worked the same way, but one had a flashier angle) contrasted to an example from the Finder comic, where relationships were displayed.
… I think it was Understanding Comics, anyway.
Hey, I’m sorry about my comment. It was way too aggressive and not very constructive.
Thanks for the reply though, it’s always interesting to get insight into your methods.
Oh come on, Jason, don’t glare. That’s a reasonable request.
Sal, you’re a bit paranoid when you’re drunk oh just kidding that’s also when you’re not drunk.
But if Jason is British, he already knew Sal was pissed…
Pissy and pissed are different things.
The term ‘piss’ generally connotes alcohol in Britain.
Down Under too, but pissy is used for when someone gets snappy & so on. Guess some of the language made it to Australia & hung around a bit…
Cite for this being a common usage.
Because, IME, outside of the specific uses of ‘being pissed’ or ‘piss-drunk’, and the phrase ‘piss-up’, ‘piss’ in British English means nothing but piss.
Calling somebody ‘pissy’, outside of the American usage of ‘fairly irritable’, would imply that they smell of pee. Which they might when they’re piss drunk, but it’s possible to get pissed without end up being pissy. Calling alcohol ‘piss’ is a good way to offend the person serving you.
either having trouble standing or doing some really bland innuendo
Given the shaking, I think we can safely assume the former.
I’m having a bit of a time trying to figure out who the third part of this interaction is, going with the “three’s a crowd” theme. I guess with these two, two’s a crowd, but…
The alchohol?
but that’s Billie/Ruth/booze.
That’s entirely up to the alchohol. I don’t see no ring on boozes finger. You can’t expect alchohol to be tied down to one couple without a commitment. Alchohol’s popular. It has options.
So that’s why the drunk was wandering down the street yelling about someone being an ungrateful whore to no one in particular – he was yelling at the bottle in his hand!
Hey, he still gave it oral after, so he can’t have been too pissed off about it.
Not entirely. I’ve noticed some people have rather unhealthy relationships they keep going back to, despite knowing how bad it is. Not much difference that I can see…
Sal’s previously unrevealed boarding school boyfriend is hiding in the dorm room bathroom.
You mean that all-girl catholic boarding school?
Is the boyfriend trans, or from a different school? 😛
Different school. After all we’re talking about Sal, who has extensive experience sneaking out of places via the window. I’m sure a lot of her boarding school sneaking out involved some boy she was into.
It’s catholic school, after all. We’re assuming she got it on with SOMEONE, even if it was just within the same school-
I mean, look at what happened to Becky and her church school.
Danny, perhaps? He isn’t present, but his actual effectiveness as a tutor is certainly getting between Sal and Jason atm.
Heh. “Danny uses ‘try to understand.’ It’s ACTUALLY EFFECTIVE.”
Or maybe Dina got turned around somehow and we’ll find her standing behind Sal’s door if she ever manages to get it closed.
There should be hidden Dinas everywhere.
Perhaps she’ll turn out to have powers a la Jamie Madrox.
They’re actually triplets, taking turns to use the bed.
But we’ve never actually seen Dina in her bd.
Now I want like full-sized Dina wall stickers so I can put them behind doors. Awesome.
Yes, this must become reality. Perhaps something for the online store. Wouldn’t imagine they’d be too tall, she was mistaken for a 12 year old by a few people. Hey, maybe someone my Minicon size…
Sal like 15 minutes ago you needed him to kick some random Hobo’s ass.
Sal can do amazing things when fueled with rage. Such as walking when she’s falling-over drunk.
You had a good thing going with the chair, Sal, but you blew it. This one is one you.
Jason, picking a fight with drunk students now, are we? How is that dignity thing going anyway?
Yeah, Sal currently has another meaning for “prop me up against the wall”.
I am officially calling it.
…that was just mean.
Speaking of hair, Jason is soooo much cuter when he’s got post-coital tousled hair. If Sal wants to make a tripod of her hair, she needs to shellac it with some of whatever Jason’s hair is having…
Is it me or does Sal lose part of her accent when she gets drunkunly angry ?
Listen to what she means, not what she says!
She’s still got the accent Darkoneko: more like a lot of contractions though.
I’m a bit of a private person, drunk or sober. Difference is, drunk I’m combative. I do like to argue, about anything.
I don’t make as much sense as Sal does now, I’m pretty sure.
She’s doing really well having a coherent conversation while staggering drunk.
In my copious experience with drunks, dropped words, contractions, and accentations are far more common than loss of actual per-word coherency. “Gone.. go to.. bath’rm. Dun feel so good.”
That being said, Sal is speaking pretty near perfectly [well, for her]-
But that could be explained by the fact that, as drunk as she may feel, she actually hasn’t consumed all that much alcohol [one beer at most, unless she started doing shots off panel at some point].
Would incoherence be a bad sign with a drunk, then? Or just a sign that something else is wrong?
Probably just a sign that they’re starting to doze off from the alcohol- or that they’ve drank WAY too much, and it’s inhibiting not only their ability to maintain long term word connections to form coherent sentences, but actually inhibiting their ability to form actual words.
Which, since words are associated in the mind sort of like snapshots, rather than letter-by-letter registrations, it’s like getting your image on your tv scrambled.
It’s a sign you need to renew your pay-per-view.
Er, or pay for stomach-pumping, whichever.
You like to argue about anything ? You’re becoming french when you drink, be careful 😀
(one of us ! one of us !)
I like Jason, not because he’s likable, but because he’s a character with real issues and a real personality. I hate one-dimensional predictable characters. This guy’s a real dick, and I respect that. I like that.
Mike, on the other hand, is a mythical, legendary dick surpassing the limitations of what is ‘real’.
As far as the hovertext goes, I thought we learned recently that it’s Jason who can form more of a natural tripod.
I thought Sal was bragging about girth, not length. Short and stubby = kickstand, not tripod.
Kickstand is generally not a word best associated with crotches, unless you’re quite angry with the one in question.
Alternate last panel.
“What the hell’s the deal with yer eyebrows?”
You should have learnt not to get your hopes up like that by now Jason. (And it’s pretty stupid to fish for validation from someone who’s too drunk to stand up)
I just realized why Jason/Sal is such a great ship; they’re both tsundere. The Animooz typically have a tsundere and a ‘Danny’ (boring dude), but this is so much better.
It’s not like I like you or anything BAKA! In stereo…and a Texas/British accent.
Also why it’s such a troubled ship.
ROFL
Right, alttext, if only her “hair” could grow long enough to help act as a tripod.
Jason, you’re not helping yourself at all here.
You’re trying to have an in-depth conversation with someone who is pretty drunk, and then taking the results as an insult.
Despite being drunk, she gave you the absolute and succinct truth in response to your question, and you’ve blown it off as “sappy rubbish”.
Sal ♠ Jason OTP
I dunno if I wanna see Sal spay Jason
Spade, not spay. Poker must be really interesting when you’re playing…
The more I look at jason the more I see tintin
Sal’s not grizzled enough to be Captain Haddock. Billie on the other hand….
He’d need the dog Daniel the Human tells me, Snowy or something like that. And he’d need a better clue of what he’s doing…
I don’t know why I dislike Sal so much. I should find her really interesting because she’s been getting plenty of psychological development and is guaranteed to feature in one of my more wanted stories soon enough (her vs. Amber), but sometimes I can’t stand her and I’m not sure why.
Kinda acts like she owes the world nothing while at the same time it has short changed her?
Pfft.