No, that’s beaching. A teaching is someone who is the monarch of a beverage commonly prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis.
I was in a parking lot the other day, and saw a scarlet capital A on the back of a car, and was like, “Wha–why would you label yourself like that?! Or did someone else stick it on there?!”
And then I looked more closely at the font and figured it probably was symbolic of some local sports team or other. I kind of doubt whoever designed their logo got the historical implications of it; but as someone with a strong interest in history who does historical recreation for fun, yeah, it took me a bit to realize that what I was reading was probably not what it was saying, ha ha.
–Whoa, deja vu! Did I tell you guys this before? O.o
It’s a style thing. Some people pull off the look, some don’t, and some seriously can’t no matter how hard you try and OH GOD TAKE IT OFF YOU LOOK LIKE A TOOL
Yeah… too bad Angel’s don’t actually have those parts. (Not that this has ever stop folks from shipping Aziraphale with Crowley, which might be taking the idea of ‘angel/devil shipping too literally.)
I think Walky’s just assuming most guys aren’t going to turn down a BJ. Single guys, anyway. Which he probably doesn’t see as an unreasonable assumption with Jason.
I think it’s a safe bet. His comment today implies that he’s actively looking for a relationship, one-night stands, or both (as in, “whatever he can get,” not “simultaneously”).
I was more looking at it in the frame that drunk!Sal’s conversations were clearly inappropriate and awkward, which might mean not many are interested in Jason beacuse she unintentionally drove them off. At least, those not already pushed away by his personality.
follow-up from a friend:
“It is not inconceivable that there is at least one authentic Mexican and one authentic Englishman, but, this being America, the Mexican is probably running the pub and the Englishman is running the restaurant.”
Going in the pubs. I don’t know why, but there’s something about the not-quite-needed article there that feels either very British or very affectational to me.
I mean it sounds completely un-British to me; the only way I can reconcile it is to assume that he’s too posh to speak like a human being. But if he was THAT posh he’d be getting his beej from a dead pig (UP TOP)
Summer’s probably half over before she’ll accept it’s Sal’s real grade.
Walky’s has to be a mistake though. By the teacher, and of course, Sal should’ve been guiding and supporting her brother more, I mean she IS the oldest.
(Yeah, I know David can’t read them for legal CYA reasons, but I am egotistical enough to think some of the others here might. Well, that, and because I am as obsessed with Whateley Academy as Walky is with Dexter & Monkey Master, and I want to spread the contagion.)
And while I am here: Frist! No, wait, I mean ‘Furst’. No… Forced! Forrest! Faust! Fast! Oh, never mind, I’m way too late anyway…
My money says Jason will see helping Walky as redemption for being a shitheel to Sal and hope to rub it in to her that he’s a gear tutor and the only problem was *she* didn’t make an effort.
I’m hoping Jason actually will be able to help Walky. He’s not a GREAT guy and he’s done some unprofessional and inappropriate things but he’s not a completely awful person. He did notice Walky’s grades had dropped drastically from the start of the semester and offered help unsolicited before, so that’s a sign he’s willing to try to be better at his job. It’s not going to be something he achieves overnight.
I think the fact that Danny wasn’t an authority figure or trying to act remotely authoritatively with Sal helped a LOT as far as her willingness to work with him and ability to learn from him. She also taught him how to play Mariokart better, so it was a trade. I had a classmate who had issues with authority figures similar to how Sal does once, and she tended to do better when a classmate was helping her learn the course material rather than the teacher because she was already predisposed toward disliking the teacher. Jason is a stuffy stick in the mud who is very by the book and takes pride in his position to the point of being a condescending prick to those who don’t give him the respect he feels entitled to.
No, he’s not, but it’s a time commitment he’s already obligated by his job to make to his students. He’s not offering time outside those allotted hours, so I’m not seeing this as anything laud worthy.
We’ve seen on Patreon that he doesn’t get much attendance at his office hours, so I doubt he’s forcing room for Walky (which would still be a dick move and bad teacher move, tbh, it just wouldn’t be one aimed at Walky).
True, he already has to be at office hours, but when students don’t show up, you can use those hours for your own work. With grad school, this is no small thing. So it is actually a time commitment for him, since the work he would have accomplished will have to be done at some other time.
Considering, again, that using those hours to help students is part of his job description, him actually using those hours for their intended purpose is still laud worthy to me. Yeah, extra time to do work is awesome, but he is being paid (and, considering his TA work is part of his requirements, graded on) doing this, I don’t feel bad for him that he has to actually do his job. That’s not a ‘time commitment’ if students are taking advantage of hours he is obligated to be there for them. That’s him not getting extra work hours.
I’m guessing IU doesn’t require TAs to take appointments, as Jason’s never mentioned them.
Not an actual condemnation this time, just something I’ve noticed. My school had set office hours, but our profs and TAs were also supposed to be willing to make appointments outside those hours (obviously they couldn’t be obligated to do so at a specific time, but the idea was that office hours aren’t always perfect, so they had to be willing to be at least a little flexible).
I know everybody’s commenting on the joke, but I wanna be that person and bring up, once again, that Jason is so goddamn awful at TAing. I’m a third-time TA in a technical course in a program which is fortunate enough to hire and train TAs that care instead of GSIs that are obligated to teach for some requirement or other, and like… gahhhh I am so frustrated with him, right now and forever.
Like I’m not so much worried about Walky as, like, ANY students that need help. There are a lot of students who come from less privileged backgrounds, who have been fighting uphill to get into this college and to this class, who have been told all their lives that their gender or race or both means that they probably aren’t going to be good at math and should consider trade school or something. Who have been told all their lives that people like “them” aren’t engineers for an intrinsic reason, without acknowledging the SYSTEM that decides which kids go to which K-12 schools.
Like, who the HECK does Jason think he’s supposed to be working with here? Does he just want to teach a bunch of people who understand everything already?
“It is obvious to me that you will require more than one session” — Meh. Walky’s time would be better spent with a compassionate and competent tutor. And I don’t care how good Jason thinks he is at math; the half a sentence we saw him exchange with Sal about it (“[dx] is the derivative of –“)
sounds like it’s going to lead to a real sh-tty explanation.
/endrant basically Jason is not fictional but I wish he was
Agreed. THE FIRST thing you should do when interacting with students is trying to lift them up. “Good thing you identified something you have problems with. That’s the first step. Now let’s get to work and solve it.”
THE FIRST thing Jason does is putting his students down.
I have hopes for him, because he really wants to be a good teacher, and if he manage to find someone at his good-awful department to tutor him he might improve drastically. But he has a long way there.
Much like Walky with his studies. Best case scenario – they will help each other.
Well, this strip is much more positive than the last one, at least as far as Jason goes. Walky’s not exactly shining.
I doubt Jason’s actually intended as a villain , so I do think that’s basically what his arc is going to be – learning to be a competent teacher. And maybe not quite so much of a prat.
What I fear Jason hears: *I hear you accept sex for grades. Do I REEEEEALLY have to study, or will my grades get better just for me not telling people about you boffing my sister?*
Hopefully I’m wrong, but if Jason connects the dots the wrong way this can be really ugly.
I’ve realized the one thing that really annoys me about Walky is that he only does this to make other people happy. That’s a shitty reason to do something
It’s a bit more complicated than that. His self worth relies on him being smart. This is a desperate attempt to salvage that image.
One primary reason why his self worth relies on him being smart is that that keeps him in mommy’s good graces (and he has seen what she did to the kid that WASN’T smart). With his grades crumbling he fears his relationship with his mother will crumble too (he might be right).
When he started dating Dorothy he projected the same attitude on her, thinking that she dated him because “he’s smart”, despite of the fact that she didn’t know that when they started to date, and all she knew about him was that he was a smartass monkey-flinging buffoon who nevertheless commits to his friends. As seen when he finally came clean to her about his math score he a) genuinely thought she was going to break up with him there and then, and b) he was completely wrong.
Being honest, I think breaking away a little bit from his mother might be the best thing for Walky at this point.
It seems to be working for other characters.
Jason strikes me as somebody who doesn’t realize how shitty he is at his job. He WANTS to help, but he does it in the worse fucking way and needs to realize that before he hurts more students.
Yup. He made progress when he tried to get Sal to explain how Danny helped her she wasn’t feeling particularly charitable towards him, compounded by not being sober enough to even try to look at it from a perspective other than her own even if she’d wanted to – an amusing parallel to Jason’s inability to consider different people’s mindsets and learning methods, and getting frustrated when going through the material the way he learned it doesn’t help them.
I’m not sure if it’s really different in the US, but in the UK PhDs recieve maybe 3-6 hours training before we’re allowed to tutor/teach. It’s total luck whether you have a knack for teaching or not. I can’t hold Jason responsible for the university’s lack of training (which seems standard in all universities).
As far as I know, it really is different in the US. Jason’s neither a tutor nor a teacher, he’s a TA: teacher’s assistant. A lot of the TAs for university professors, especially in state universities like this, are just grad students in the subject being taught – mathematics in this case. They grade assignments and quizzes, have office hours for students (the professor also has office hours, but as a class like this might have a couple hundred students, that’s not enough) to ask questions and receive help, but they don’t teach the class, they don’t make the lesson plans, and they may not have any intention of being teachers in their future post-school lives.
To be fair, we haven’t seen any other TA use their office hours to help a student at all. Mostly because we haven’t focused on what he or other TAs do with their office hours, except when it’s come to the main characters.
We have no idea what he’ll be like with David Walkerton. Both could learn from their mistakes. It’s more than likely they may not, this being the Dumbing of Age.
We only see Jason and the rest though the lens of the story; trying to make value judgments about entire characters’ lives seems a little silly.
For all we know, Jason may be up to his neck in students plaguing his office hours.
1) Jason isn’t actually teaching Joyce and the others. The professor is. He has is been described as regurgitating his lesson plan. Not high praise.
The others have likely been making it by on doing the homework and mostly teaching themselves. I certainly did that in some classes in college.
2)We only see them through the lens of the story, but on the other hand, the story is shaped to show us the characters. What we see isn’t random. If the story is emphasizing how lousy Jason is at teaching, it’s doing so for a reason.
3) As for him teaching Walky, what he’s not likely to realize is that Walky doesn’t really need specific help with the parts of Calculus he’s struggling with. He needs more general help on how to study: How to take good notes, study habits & the like.
He is smart. If he can get those basics down, he’s likely to do very well. Mind you, those basics are hard to learn quickly, when you’ve never had to do them before.
Essentially, he didn’t realize that being tutored would require actual effort and not have immediate results. So, now, seeking instant gratification like he always does, he’s offering a bj to just get the grade via no effort.
Well, arguably less effort rather than no effort. I’m told that a blow job is fairly hard to learn to do adequately, let alone well, for various reasons. This being Walky, however, he’s probably expecting to be able get away with a sloppy, half-assed job.
Sooner or later Someone will say ‘yes’ to Walky’s oddly tangential ( for a supposed Hetero ) offers of cocksuckery.
“Straight” Guys don’t gay tease this much, without sooner or llater , throwing down. He’s Bi.
Absolutely he’s Bi.
Willis has dropped more “Ho-yay” hints for this character than all others combined. ( From the first week , foreskin sighting ) .
I bet someone will complain again he’s homophobic. But this is what it sounds like when a Questioning Young Man beats on the closest door.
It’s more likely that he’s just desperate. Nothing breaks down barriers like terror, and nothing instills more terror in a college student than having to explain bad grades to doting parents.
Yes Jason, Sal has spread it around that you exchange sex for grades. I do hope that you enjoyed your professional reputation because it isn’t going to last!
This is a lie. He very pointedly DIDN’T exchange sex for grades (there was a strip about it). For all the flaws Jason has as an educator, this isn’t one of them.
There’s a thing to consider in what BenRG said, specifically “Sal has spread it around</b? that you exchange sex for grades." Even if it's not true, and even if that rumor is proven patently false now, Jason would always be considered somewhat suspect forever after the point it got around. His professional reputation would be destroyed by such a rumor and even if he is top notch at what he does he'd never get any significant advancement beyond postdoc.
Really? Maybe times have changed. Such rumors were common when I was in school and never seemed to destroy anyones career. Actual proof and evidence might, if it’s not hushed up because the school doesn’t want the rep either.
Mind you, I’ve no idea if any of the rumours were true and rumors in the student body don’t easily spread into the faculty or to parents.
OTOH, if we take Penny at face value, such rumours might well destroy Jason, because he’s a stuffed shirt and nobody likes him. She’ll be fine, despite being far worse on the sleeping with students front, because she is liked. Office politics.
FWIW, I suddenly wonder if it would even be Sal; it isn’t the sort of thing she’d want to make public. However, what about Penny? She certainly didn’t like Jason’s critique of her own behaviour and it wouldn’t be entirely out-of-character for her to choose this means to have her revenge.
I know we will likely find out that Penny is indeed exchanging grades for sex but its possible she makes it clear to the students that the only benefit of sleeping with her is sleeping with her. Jason might not have known that was what Sal had in mind but she showed no sign of interest in him that way before throwing herself at him.
Pfft, you think anyone will believe that of him? Especially considering it’s Jason? Stuffy, uptight, bowtie-wearing, stick-up-his-ass Jason?
Man, you can’t even get actual rape victims to be believed that something untoward went down. 🙁 Someone goes and says Jason is exchanging sex for better grades, and whoever is listening is gonna look the person up and down and say, “Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with?”
Jason not giving Sal an A for sex actually makes him worse in my opinion. If you’re confused by that, hear me out. It means he’s so unobservant that he thinks Sal had sex with him because she liked him (meaning he paid no attention at all to her behaver) or he didn’t care enough to give her what she asked after he got what he wanted.
Yeah, either he was REALLY not paying attention since Sal very strongly implied it, or that was a case of ‘Fuck you, kid, I got mine.’
Considering he acted like not giving her a grade for it made him morally better than if he had, I’m leaning towards the latter. Jason’s neither bad at reading emotions nor is he stupid.
OTOH, she did jump* him again afterwards, when it was perfectly clear there was no “sex for grades” happening. Evidence strongly suggests some kind of attraction. Even if there was also dislike.
*Technically, we didn’t see how the second bout started. We cut from them yelling at each other to making out. Given their two personalities, it’s hard for me to see Jason as the initiator there.
Actually, we DO know how that started. They were yelling at each other, paused, and then Jason kissed her. Jason was definitely the initiator there. There was no jumping by Sal the second time.
But yes, their relationship is basically hatred and lust.
Not how I read it, but OK. It goes straight from yelling to a full on wrapped around each other snogging. She’s down on something with a leg wrapped around his waist. It’s certainly possible – though out of character for both, imo – for him to have made the first move, but that panel is well past the first move.
I don’t think that was supposed to be a cut to later, I think that was a beat. Especially since Willis made a crack on tumblr about curly hair not breaking JASON’S stride. If Sal made the first move, there’s no reason to say that.
I do think Jason thinks his relationship with Sal is a kind of slap-slap-kiss romantic comedy sort of deal. The thing is, Sal really feels cheapened and disgusted by Jason–not to mention degraded. That can sometimes lead to sex as I’m sorry to report but it’s actual hatred on Sal’s part. The fact Jason didn’t give her the grades is just icing on the cake.
Scene 1: Walky runs into Sal. “Hey sis, what up?” “Can’t talk, gotta go get my booty on.” Exit Sal.
Scene 2: Walky runs into Sal ten minutes later, outside Jason’s office. “Oh, hi sis.” “Walky! What are you doing here?” “Oh, well, um … say, what are you doing here?” “I asked you first!”
Jason wouldn’t give the grades anyway. Which is part of what makes him awful. Always pay your prostitutes, people. To do otherwise is about the worst cheapskate act you can do.
Wow, how did Walky get this scared of math? i got the “take your clothes off and run” part, but for a guy as self-conscious of “manliness” to say this?
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“look, you want the beej or not”
“put on this wig first”
“you’ll also need this finite math book for conversation”
*Walky freezes up and faints*
Yep, he wants the same deal his sister wanted.
I dinjo, I think Sal actually wanted to learn?
This was just what I thought. XD
Walky wants to learn. He just wants it to be effortless.
Walky no
I know, right?
Walky is in a committed relationship; he should ask Dorothy if she’s cool with it first.
or if it was accepted as a deal…… blackmail maybe?
Stop touching me, you weird little man
I will make you fun size… Back off!
*plays Hall & Oates’ “Adult Education” on the hacked Muzak*
“Oh yeah, oh yeah!”
*cues up Garfunkel & Oates’ “Handjob, Bland Job I Don’t Understand Job”*
wtf, david walkerton?!
Far more eloquent than I’m capable of being right now.
No need to debased yourself, Duke of Thingly.
Walky’s game. He’s an adult! Let it happen. Jason would probably be in a better mood as a result.
Sal and Walky have more in common than they know.
They both have terrible Taste in men, tsk tsk.
god dammit walky, you can’t just seduce the TA into giving you an A
Yeah, if the TA gives you an A, then he’s just a T
Wait what’s a T
A Teaching, an exceptionally rare elf-like creatufe.
No, that’s a tiefling. A teaching is when you minorly adjust something.
(an Imgurian would know where this is going)
No, that’s a tweaking. A tiefling is when you use your fingers to make someone laugh uncontrollably
No, that’s a tweaking. A teaching is what the British call molasses.
No, that’s treacle. Teaching is when you poke fun at someone.
No, that’s torquing. Tweaking is the brand name of an English tea company.
No that’s Twinnings. A teaching is when a whale gets too close to shore and the receding tide leaves it stranded on land.
No, that’s a beaching. Teaching is when you post a message or image on Twitter.
no that’s a beaching. A teaching is when you take gross worm like creatures and let them suck all the bad blood out
No, that’s beaching. A teaching is someone who is the monarch of a beverage commonly prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis.
@ Noiob: No that’s a Tea King, a teaching is when a whale or porpoise leaps out of the water.
No, that’s a breaching.
The Tea-ching is an ancient Chinese divination method.
Too much is never enough .
A comic writer.
That’s Mr. T to you
AH PITY THA FOOL
It only works for lit classes, and then it’s not a grade, they just give you a letter ‘A’ cut from scarlet fabric for some reason. Dunno why.
Still the easiest A you’re going to earn.
And the hardest A to get rid of. 😛
I was in a parking lot the other day, and saw a scarlet capital A on the back of a car, and was like, “Wha–why would you label yourself like that?! Or did someone else stick it on there?!”
And then I looked more closely at the font and figured it probably was symbolic of some local sports team or other. I kind of doubt whoever designed their logo got the historical implications of it; but as someone with a strong interest in history who does historical recreation for fun, yeah, it took me a bit to realize that what I was reading was probably not what it was saying, ha ha.
–Whoa, deja vu! Did I tell you guys this before? O.o
Of course not, you seduce him into giving you the D.
Jason, you wear a bowtie. Unless you’re Bill Nye that’s a turn off to most people.
You shut your mouth. Bowties are cool.
Only if they’re the spinning kind.
I prefer ties. they look more aesthetically pleasing
It’s a style thing. Some people pull off the look, some don’t, and some seriously can’t no matter how hard you try and OH GOD TAKE IT OFF YOU LOOK LIKE A TOOL
I will also accept Matthew Smith.
Well, he IS British.
He is [i]extremely[/i] British.
Depends on the crowd. I also think he needs to go full on dapper with a mustache and maybe a bowler hat and a nice jacket :p
I’m sure you meant to say a turn-off to people who are wrong.
The floppier the better, thankyou.
So, did Walky just immediately assume Jason was gay, or something?
Because I can see people assuming that.
I believe Walky’s been established as pizzaflexible.
In TheenD comic’s alt text adventure, there is a cult devoted to the perfect crust.
And blade-high heals
And gratuitous female gaze (as opposed to male gaze)
And turkey strippers.
There’s a character in Good Omens whom everyone assumes is ‘gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide’.
Yeah… too bad Angel’s don’t actually have those parts. (Not that this has ever stop folks from shipping Aziraphale with Crowley, which might be taking the idea of ‘angel/devil shipping too literally.)
I think I remember the qualifier that angels were sexless “unless they really wanted to make an effort”? So hey, you never know ;D
shipping doesn’t always require genitals.
Just ak all the Transformers shipper! I’m pretty sure Cyclonus and Tailgate can’t interface that way :p
Or the Undertale fanbase.
Poor Frisk.
Heh. That reminds me very strongly of this scene from Pika la Cynique’s “Girls Next Door” webcomic (which you guys would probably greatly enjoy).
“Get thee behind me, demon,” indeed. XD
Awesome comic, I’ve been reading for ages.
I think Walky’s just assuming most guys aren’t going to turn down a BJ. Single guys, anyway. Which he probably doesn’t see as an unreasonable assumption with Jason.
It’s also a true assumption – unless things have recently changed, Jason doesn’t have a girlfriend.
I think it’s a safe bet. His comment today implies that he’s actively looking for a relationship, one-night stands, or both (as in, “whatever he can get,” not “simultaneously”).
Yeah, seems that way. I repeat – maybe if he acted like someone people might want to bang, and not like such an ASS.
Because people see the suspenders and bow-tie and think you’re the bartender.
…. er, wait, would that make it MORE likely? …. I don’t actually know if it does.
It is because you are more sexy when doing math instead of drinking, obviously.
Well, Jason, have you tried acting like someone people might WANT to sleep with?
You know, as opposed to an asswad people will fuck for a favour?
Jason, you need to act EXACTLY like George Clooney in order to get laid. The fate of the world rests on this.
One one hand morals, on the otherhand, who else could say they were 2for2 on the Walkerton twins.
The only other person to fuck them both is life! Heyo!
A charter member of the Double W club…
I mean, we all kind of wanted it to happen. But I’ll take a joke about it as a consolation prize.
You never know, we will see tomorrow.
Pretentious British suitors just aren’t all that attractive. And Sal probably scared off most everyone interested by saying far too much. 😛
And I so want to change that first sentence, but it’s grammar vs. there being no country named Pretentious Britian.
That’s it, I’m annexing Pretentious Britain to my empire.
It seems like a hard country to control, but you’ll never run out of sticks.
Pretensious Britain is the name of my new string-Ska band.
She had nothing but good things to say about him when she was drunk.
She said he was a large dick. That’s not much of comment on him as a person.
He *HAD a large dick, not he was one.
Well, I mean, he WAS one, but that’s not what Sal said in the bar.
True, but it’s not the kind of thing that’s likely to scare off people looking for casual sex either.
I was more looking at it in the frame that drunk!Sal’s conversations were clearly inappropriate and awkward, which might mean not many are interested in Jason beacuse she unintentionally drove them off. At least, those not already pushed away by his personality.
Nah, but it’s also hardly an objectively good thing about Jason, any more so than ‘this guy is blonde’ or ‘this guy is scrawny’ is.
Some people are size queens, some people aren’t; the horse should be with the stallion, but the field-mouse with a field-mouse.
It’s because you’re going to fucking pubs, Jason
I wasn’t aware there were “pubs” in Indiana.
There’s probably at least one So and So’s Authentic English Pub.
Two blocks down from the Authentic Mexican Restaurant.
follow-up from a friend:
“It is not inconceivable that there is at least one authentic Mexican and one authentic Englishman, but, this being America, the Mexican is probably running the pub and the Englishman is running the restaurant.”
Nah, if Jason was going to fucking pubs, he wouldn’t have this “problem”.
Yeah if he wants blowjob he should go to the sucking pubs not the fucking pubs! D’uh!
The problem with sucking pubs is they keep going down …
This lends a whole new interpretation to hearing about Englishmen going to the pub for a swift half…
Going in the pubs. I don’t know why, but there’s something about the not-quite-needed article there that feels either very British or very affectational to me.
I mean it sounds completely un-British to me; the only way I can reconcile it is to assume that he’s too posh to speak like a human being. But if he was THAT posh he’d be getting his beej from a dead pig (UP TOP)
Very affectational it is, then! 🙂 I didn’t know enough about British dialects to be sure which it was.
There are pubs for fucking? Why am I just learning this now?
Well, Jason hasn’t yet said yes, so maybe… Nope probably won’t really teach Walky. I thought we were making a breakthrough
there are no breakthroughs with walky.
and there are no walkthroughs with breaky.
there are no walk breaks with through
Walk through and there, break with no.
that sounds like work
I’m pretty sure telling someone your office hours and telling them they have to go continuesly means yes.
Well at least they haven’t fought, yet…
Walky, I really don’t think that’s gonna help any
walky appears to be oblivious to the fact that what hes saying is inappropriate.
as usual.
It wouldn’t be Walky if he wasn’t aware.
*was. Damn double negatives.
Apparently Walky and Sal have more in common than I previously thought.
That guy is like a magnet to Walkertons
So it would seem. At least people can actually tell them apart in this world, unlike in some stories in It’s Walky!.
I keep thinking of the Avalon crossover, m’self.
I can see that, yeah. Walkie was pretty quick to worry about how she looked in front of Joe and Jason.
Just wait until their parents call him to figure out what is up with their children’s grades.
“Davids grade is not perfect. Something must be amiss.”
“Sally’s grade is not shit. Something must be amiss.”
“Somebody must have made a mistake and gotten their grades mixed up.”
Obviously.
I remember seeing that get thrown around in the comments for a while, so I can definitely see Linda or Charles getting it in their head
And won’t THAT be fun when she calls the Dean to help her “fix that little mistake”.
Summer’s probably half over before she’ll accept it’s Sal’s real grade.
Walky’s has to be a mistake though. By the teacher, and of course, Sal should’ve been guiding and supporting her brother more, I mean she IS the oldest.
For those who missed it last night:
Quake with fear, puny fools! I have once again committed a DoA/Whateley Academy fanfic,
even while I have yet to be punished
for
my
earlier
crimes! Bwhahahaha!
(Yeah, I know David can’t read them for legal CYA reasons, but I am egotistical enough to think some of the others here might. Well, that, and because I am as obsessed with Whateley Academy as Walky is with Dexter & Monkey Master, and I want to spread the contagion.)
And while I am here: Frist! No, wait, I mean ‘Furst’. No… Forced! Forrest! Faust! Fast! Oh, never mind, I’m way too late anyway…
Walky naturally assumes that accepts bribery
Those siblings think alike.
More alike than we thought they were.
Eh. Sal thought that fixing her grade was an added bonus to the nookie, she didn’t set out to bribe Jason with sex.
Fittingly, there’s an ad on top for British rock – but in Japanese?
“How dare you! How dare you even suggest that I would do any such thing with one of my own-”
::Sal glares from across the room::
“….no. The answer is no. Now good day!”
I predict that once we switch characters, the comic strip will have Dina in it
Either Fina or Mike
*Dina* Damn autocorrect
Wait, it autocorrected to Fina? Fina isn’t a word! Google says FINA is the international governing body of swimming (?!?) for what that’s worth…
Oh look! Another Chris. Yay 🙂
Yay! 😀
Fina is Swedish for “Nice/beautiful” (in plural for whatever reason), so yeah, Becky agrees with your autocorrect.
Fina is in plural because Dina is “too” beautiful, obviously.
So… nobody’s predicting that a Skies of Arcadia character is going to be in this comic?
My money says Jason will see helping Walky as redemption for being a shitheel to Sal and hope to rub it in to her that he’s a gear tutor and the only problem was *she* didn’t make an effort.
*great, dammit. Autocorrect knows Jason is not a great tutor.
Even your autocorrect won’t buy that Jason’s a great tutor
Isn’t autocorrect just grinding your *gears
Been there, done that.
Things might be mending from last night. Thank you for the kind words and assistance.
Just do your best and move forward, but still remember to look back. I’m glad your situation is better
Does Jason realize that Sal and Walky are sibs?
They look similar and share an uncommon surname, surely Jason must at least have suspicions. He’s not that oblivious.
I looked up dumbing of age on a website worth calculator and this feels innacurate
http://www.worthofweb.com/website-value/Dumbingofage.com/
If it’s not, I think Willis’ advertisers need to start paying more.
Willis, how such do you make?!??
Jeph Jaques apparently makes 39 million
Donate some of that money to the poor and needy for God’s sake
That’s how much they estimate if he sold the Dumbing of Age business. Not something we want to see happen.
But it also said how much he makes on this site in money
yes, of course, i live in a skycastle and dine nightly on goldplated orphans
It’s the gold plating that makes them crunchy.
Well you don’t want SOFT orphans, you’ll be brushing them out of your teeth all the next week!
what design is the skycastle? Is it Japanese, Scottish, English, French, etc.
Also, what car do you own Willis?
My Brain’s Answer: An 18-wheeler, for all those Transformers
Those “site worth” sites are basically scams and lies, Chris.
I agree. But pretty much everything is a scam nowadays, so we just trust the most reliable scam
Since his first protest was not Walky’s gender, I’m going to assume Jason is bi. Because it amuses me to do so
Wait–gender matters when you’re receiving oral?! Since when?!
I find your comment confusing….
So Walky’s sexuality is best described as opportunistic?
Slurp your way to sucksess.
i’m choosing this song because you chose that gravatar
You kinda did, Jason. you kinda did.
Sal’s already beaten you to the beej first, Walky.
.
.
.
That sounds so wrong.
… *No comment* …
I’m hoping Jason actually will be able to help Walky. He’s not a GREAT guy and he’s done some unprofessional and inappropriate things but he’s not a completely awful person. He did notice Walky’s grades had dropped drastically from the start of the semester and offered help unsolicited before, so that’s a sign he’s willing to try to be better at his job. It’s not going to be something he achieves overnight.
I think the fact that Danny wasn’t an authority figure or trying to act remotely authoritatively with Sal helped a LOT as far as her willingness to work with him and ability to learn from him. She also taught him how to play Mariokart better, so it was a trade. I had a classmate who had issues with authority figures similar to how Sal does once, and she tended to do better when a classmate was helping her learn the course material rather than the teacher because she was already predisposed toward disliking the teacher. Jason is a stuffy stick in the mud who is very by the book and takes pride in his position to the point of being a condescending prick to those who don’t give him the respect he feels entitled to.
That’s a pretty massive time commitment he’s volunteering to give Walky, too.
I’d be more impressed if he weren’t obligated to give Walky that commitment, as part of his office hours.
He’s not obligated to give it to Walky specifically, though.
Which means he’s got nobody else asking for his help, or that he’s bumping other people to make room for Walky. Probably the first, really.
No, he’s not, but it’s a time commitment he’s already obligated by his job to make to his students. He’s not offering time outside those allotted hours, so I’m not seeing this as anything laud worthy.
We’ve seen on Patreon that he doesn’t get much attendance at his office hours, so I doubt he’s forcing room for Walky (which would still be a dick move and bad teacher move, tbh, it just wouldn’t be one aimed at Walky).
True, he already has to be at office hours, but when students don’t show up, you can use those hours for your own work. With grad school, this is no small thing. So it is actually a time commitment for him, since the work he would have accomplished will have to be done at some other time.
Considering, again, that using those hours to help students is part of his job description, him actually using those hours for their intended purpose is still laud worthy to me. Yeah, extra time to do work is awesome, but he is being paid (and, considering his TA work is part of his requirements, graded on) doing this, I don’t feel bad for him that he has to actually do his job. That’s not a ‘time commitment’ if students are taking advantage of hours he is obligated to be there for them. That’s him not getting extra work hours.
*still NOT laud worthy, dammit me
No, he just told him his office hours. Those are the hours he is already paid to tutor students. This is just him doing his job.
With SAL it was a time commitment because he agreed to do it outside those hours.
And by “agreed” you mean he got dragged there bodily, against his will, objecting all the way.
I’m obiously not concerned that he is visibly being transported against his will.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/bloke/
I’m guessing IU doesn’t require TAs to take appointments, as Jason’s never mentioned them.
Not an actual condemnation this time, just something I’ve noticed. My school had set office hours, but our profs and TAs were also supposed to be willing to make appointments outside those hours (obviously they couldn’t be obligated to do so at a specific time, but the idea was that office hours aren’t always perfect, so they had to be willing to be at least a little flexible).
Help people? On their own time? For FREE? That sounds like socialism!
It’s not free if it’s in your job description, for which you receive a cheque at the end of every week.
I know everybody’s commenting on the joke, but I wanna be that person and bring up, once again, that Jason is so goddamn awful at TAing. I’m a third-time TA in a technical course in a program which is fortunate enough to hire and train TAs that care instead of GSIs that are obligated to teach for some requirement or other, and like… gahhhh I am so frustrated with him, right now and forever.
Like I’m not so much worried about Walky as, like, ANY students that need help. There are a lot of students who come from less privileged backgrounds, who have been fighting uphill to get into this college and to this class, who have been told all their lives that their gender or race or both means that they probably aren’t going to be good at math and should consider trade school or something. Who have been told all their lives that people like “them” aren’t engineers for an intrinsic reason, without acknowledging the SYSTEM that decides which kids go to which K-12 schools.
Like, who the HECK does Jason think he’s supposed to be working with here? Does he just want to teach a bunch of people who understand everything already?
“It is obvious to me that you will require more than one session” — Meh. Walky’s time would be better spent with a compassionate and competent tutor. And I don’t care how good Jason thinks he is at math; the half a sentence we saw him exchange with Sal about it (“[dx] is the derivative of –“)
sounds like it’s going to lead to a real sh-tty explanation.
/endrant basically Jason is not fictional but I wish he was
Agreed. THE FIRST thing you should do when interacting with students is trying to lift them up. “Good thing you identified something you have problems with. That’s the first step. Now let’s get to work and solve it.”
THE FIRST thing Jason does is putting his students down.
I have hopes for him, because he really wants to be a good teacher, and if he manage to find someone at his good-awful department to tutor him he might improve drastically. But he has a long way there.
Much like Walky with his studies. Best case scenario – they will help each other.
Well, this strip is much more positive than the last one, at least as far as Jason goes. Walky’s not exactly shining.
I doubt Jason’s actually intended as a villain , so I do think that’s basically what his arc is going to be – learning to be a competent teacher. And maybe not quite so much of a prat.
Suddenly I am reminded of Wesley and Cordelia’s exchange when he first showed up in Angel:
“I am a rogue demon hunter.”
“Cool. What’s a rogue demon?”
XD <3 Alexis Denisof forever. I kind of picture him playing Jason, tbh.
What Walky says: *random smartassery*
What I fear Jason hears: *I hear you accept sex for grades. Do I REEEEEALLY have to study, or will my grades get better just for me not telling people about you boffing my sister?*
Hopefully I’m wrong, but if Jason connects the dots the wrong way this can be really ugly.
Yep. I’m worried Jason’s going to ask Walky why he offered and say something like, “What did Sal tell you?”
Man, aside from the offers of sexual favors, this is giving me deja vu something fierce.
I’ve realized the one thing that really annoys me about Walky is that he only does this to make other people happy. That’s a shitty reason to do something
It’s a bit more complicated than that. His self worth relies on him being smart. This is a desperate attempt to salvage that image.
One primary reason why his self worth relies on him being smart is that that keeps him in mommy’s good graces (and he has seen what she did to the kid that WASN’T smart). With his grades crumbling he fears his relationship with his mother will crumble too (he might be right).
When he started dating Dorothy he projected the same attitude on her, thinking that she dated him because “he’s smart”, despite of the fact that she didn’t know that when they started to date, and all she knew about him was that he was a smartass monkey-flinging buffoon who nevertheless commits to his friends. As seen when he finally came clean to her about his math score he a) genuinely thought she was going to break up with him there and then, and b) he was completely wrong.
Being honest, I think breaking away a little bit from his mother might be the best thing for Walky at this point.
It seems to be working for other characters.
It’s long overdue.
It will still be ugly, especially since his mother has no intention of breaking away from him.
I ship it. I really do.
Jason strikes me as somebody who doesn’t realize how shitty he is at his job. He WANTS to help, but he does it in the worse fucking way and needs to realize that before he hurts more students.
Yup. He made progress when he tried to get Sal to explain how Danny helped her she wasn’t feeling particularly charitable towards him, compounded by not being sober enough to even try to look at it from a perspective other than her own even if she’d wanted to – an amusing parallel to Jason’s inability to consider different people’s mindsets and learning methods, and getting frustrated when going through the material the way he learned it doesn’t help them.
Now I kinda wanna sit him down for that MLP:FIM episode where Twilight Sparkle is trying to help Rainbow Dash study. Seems apt, somehow. 😀
That was a great episode.
I’m not sure if it’s really different in the US, but in the UK PhDs recieve maybe 3-6 hours training before we’re allowed to tutor/teach. It’s total luck whether you have a knack for teaching or not. I can’t hold Jason responsible for the university’s lack of training (which seems standard in all universities).
As far as I know, it really is different in the US. Jason’s neither a tutor nor a teacher, he’s a TA: teacher’s assistant. A lot of the TAs for university professors, especially in state universities like this, are just grad students in the subject being taught – mathematics in this case. They grade assignments and quizzes, have office hours for students (the professor also has office hours, but as a class like this might have a couple hundred students, that’s not enough) to ask questions and receive help, but they don’t teach the class, they don’t make the lesson plans, and they may not have any intention of being teachers in their future post-school lives.
We’ve only seen him using his office hours to try and help a student once so far. That is pretty bad.
To be fair, we haven’t seen any other TA use their office hours to help a student at all. Mostly because we haven’t focused on what he or other TAs do with their office hours, except when it’s come to the main characters.
Joyce – and others – seem OK with his teaching.
We have no idea what he’ll be like with David Walkerton. Both could learn from their mistakes. It’s more than likely they may not, this being the Dumbing of Age.
We only see Jason and the rest though the lens of the story; trying to make value judgments about entire characters’ lives seems a little silly.
For all we know, Jason may be up to his neck in students plaguing his office hours.
1) Jason isn’t actually teaching Joyce and the others. The professor is. He has is been described as regurgitating his lesson plan. Not high praise.
The others have likely been making it by on doing the homework and mostly teaching themselves. I certainly did that in some classes in college.
2)We only see them through the lens of the story, but on the other hand, the story is shaped to show us the characters. What we see isn’t random. If the story is emphasizing how lousy Jason is at teaching, it’s doing so for a reason.
3) As for him teaching Walky, what he’s not likely to realize is that Walky doesn’t really need specific help with the parts of Calculus he’s struggling with. He needs more general help on how to study: How to take good notes, study habits & the like.
He is smart. If he can get those basics down, he’s likely to do very well. Mind you, those basics are hard to learn quickly, when you’ve never had to do them before.
I’m confused – is he offering oral sex in exchange for grades, or in exchange for being tutored right now instead of during office hours?
Essentially, he didn’t realize that being tutored would require actual effort and not have immediate results. So, now, seeking instant gratification like he always does, he’s offering a bj to just get the grade via no effort.
Well, arguably less effort rather than no effort. I’m told that a blow job is fairly hard to learn to do adequately, let alone well, for various reasons. This being Walky, however, he’s probably expecting to be able get away with a sloppy, half-assed job.
i resent that implication, but only because Walky is me with more confidence and it’s entirely true.
For years, my half-assed last-minute jobs still got As
wow that came out wrong
Sooner or later Someone will say ‘yes’ to Walky’s oddly tangential ( for a supposed Hetero ) offers of cocksuckery.
“Straight” Guys don’t gay tease this much, without sooner or llater , throwing down. He’s Bi.
Absolutely he’s Bi.
Willis has dropped more “Ho-yay” hints for this character than all others combined. ( From the first week , foreskin sighting ) .
I bet someone will complain again he’s homophobic. But this is what it sounds like when a Questioning Young Man beats on the closest door.
It’s more likely that he’s just desperate. Nothing breaks down barriers like terror, and nothing instills more terror in a college student than having to explain bad grades to doting parents.
Walky also expressed sexual interest in Jacob, though.
my dear commenter, a paramecium would express sexual interest in Jacob.
He’s Jacob
doting and controlling
He didn’t look so terrified when he made the same offer at the questioning meeting
Yes Jason, Sal has spread it around that you exchange sex for grades. I do hope that you enjoyed your professional reputation because it isn’t going to last!
This is a lie. He very pointedly DIDN’T exchange sex for grades (there was a strip about it). For all the flaws Jason has as an educator, this isn’t one of them.
There’s a thing to consider in what BenRG said, specifically “Sal has spread it around</b? that you exchange sex for grades." Even if it's not true, and even if that rumor is proven patently false now, Jason would always be considered somewhat suspect forever after the point it got around. His professional reputation would be destroyed by such a rumor and even if he is top notch at what he does he'd never get any significant advancement beyond postdoc.
Really? Maybe times have changed. Such rumors were common when I was in school and never seemed to destroy anyones career. Actual proof and evidence might, if it’s not hushed up because the school doesn’t want the rep either.
Mind you, I’ve no idea if any of the rumours were true and rumors in the student body don’t easily spread into the faculty or to parents.
OTOH, if we take Penny at face value, such rumours might well destroy Jason, because he’s a stuffed shirt and nobody likes him. She’ll be fine, despite being far worse on the sleeping with students front, because she is liked. Office politics.
FWIW, I suddenly wonder if it would even be Sal; it isn’t the sort of thing she’d want to make public. However, what about Penny? She certainly didn’t like Jason’s critique of her own behaviour and it wouldn’t be entirely out-of-character for her to choose this means to have her revenge.
I know we will likely find out that Penny is indeed exchanging grades for sex but its possible she makes it clear to the students that the only benefit of sleeping with her is sleeping with her. Jason might not have known that was what Sal had in mind but she showed no sign of interest in him that way before throwing herself at him.
Even if she isn’t, and she probably is, anyone who notices she is having sex with students will likely assume grades are involved.
Though the double standard may change that.
Pfft, you think anyone will believe that of him? Especially considering it’s Jason? Stuffy, uptight, bowtie-wearing, stick-up-his-ass Jason?
Man, you can’t even get actual rape victims to be believed that something untoward went down. 🙁 Someone goes and says Jason is exchanging sex for better grades, and whoever is listening is gonna look the person up and down and say, “Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with?”
Jason not giving Sal an A for sex actually makes him worse in my opinion. If you’re confused by that, hear me out. It means he’s so unobservant that he thinks Sal had sex with him because she liked him (meaning he paid no attention at all to her behaver) or he didn’t care enough to give her what she asked after he got what he wanted.
Yeah, either he was REALLY not paying attention since Sal very strongly implied it, or that was a case of ‘Fuck you, kid, I got mine.’
Considering he acted like not giving her a grade for it made him morally better than if he had, I’m leaning towards the latter. Jason’s neither bad at reading emotions nor is he stupid.
OTOH, she did jump* him again afterwards, when it was perfectly clear there was no “sex for grades” happening. Evidence strongly suggests some kind of attraction. Even if there was also dislike.
*Technically, we didn’t see how the second bout started. We cut from them yelling at each other to making out. Given their two personalities, it’s hard for me to see Jason as the initiator there.
Actually, we DO know how that started. They were yelling at each other, paused, and then Jason kissed her. Jason was definitely the initiator there. There was no jumping by Sal the second time.
But yes, their relationship is basically hatred and lust.
Not how I read it, but OK. It goes straight from yelling to a full on wrapped around each other snogging. She’s down on something with a leg wrapped around his waist. It’s certainly possible – though out of character for both, imo – for him to have made the first move, but that panel is well past the first move.
I don’t think that was supposed to be a cut to later, I think that was a beat. Especially since Willis made a crack on tumblr about curly hair not breaking JASON’S stride. If Sal made the first move, there’s no reason to say that.
I do think Jason thinks his relationship with Sal is a kind of slap-slap-kiss romantic comedy sort of deal. The thing is, Sal really feels cheapened and disgusted by Jason–not to mention degraded. That can sometimes lead to sex as I’m sorry to report but it’s actual hatred on Sal’s part. The fact Jason didn’t give her the grades is just icing on the cake.
Jason asking the important questions.
+1
Whoa, slow down there, Walky. You haven’t even bought him dinner.
Walky feels a bizarre attraction for Jason. This time, I hope, he gives Walky the grades.
Scene 1: Walky runs into Sal. “Hey sis, what up?” “Can’t talk, gotta go get my booty on.” Exit Sal.
Scene 2: Walky runs into Sal ten minutes later, outside Jason’s office. “Oh, hi sis.” “Walky! What are you doing here?” “Oh, well, um … say, what are you doing here?” “I asked you first!”
the awkward is palpable
Alas for you David, you have to do the work. Nose meet grindstone.
That’s what Sal said!
Danny might take the beej AND give good tutoring. Just sayin’
Huh, forgot who my Gravatar was, I post so seldom. Her expression looks like she’s cool with it. I say go for it, Walky.
The expression looks a bit sarcastic to me, like she’s saying ” *Sarcasm* Goooo for it Walky! I dooon’t miiinnd atttt all”
I am SHOCKED and APPALLED that no one has yet suggested a Walky/Jason Slipshine. What’s wrong with you people? 😛
Actually, Tenn, it has been suggested. A lot.
On this particular page, I meant.
because students boinking teachers for better grades is yucky
Jason wouldn’t give the grades anyway. Which is part of what makes him awful. Always pay your prostitutes, people. To do otherwise is about the worst cheapskate act you can do.
Re TAs, professors and students drawing in class.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C35WDuuVMAEDrft.jpg
BWA HA HA HA HA HA
Wow, how did Walky get this scared of math? i got the “take your clothes off and run” part, but for a guy as self-conscious of “manliness” to say this?
Walky has a very Spartan view of mentorship.
I believe your thinking about the Athenians. The Spartans did it with their fellow soldiers and perhaps some unlucky slaves
Walky has said before he would go down on a dude for pizza if he had to.
Being seen as gay or bi/pan/poly isn’t one of Walky’s ingrained fears in relation to manliness.
I really REALLY hope Jason hasn’t/don’t bang Sal right before the BJ, or this could go down hill in a hurry.
Jason “Oh yeah that’s good…”
Walky “Why dose your dick taste like pussy?”
welp, time for the brain bleach smoothies
Can I thump this fucking nob already? /descended from british lower classes.
He can’t have sex with Walky, he already did it with his sister, it would be weird…
Or hot! Definitely hot. 🙂
It can be both.
nope, just weird
I guess it runs in the Family ?
I wonder if he has made the connection yet?
Just Noticed
*panel 5* looks like Walky’s staring at Jason’s crotch
“I hope you’re at least as good as your sister.”