Well it seems ‘cute’ but based on hre reactin the last panel i think she might back out or think “oh this is going too well” and such and try to mess it up versus “having coffee and immediately running off” with the combined anxiety + caffeeine/any snacks there
One of Sarah’s hang-ups is that she thinks boyfriends should be taller than their girlfriends. Like it was one of the reasons she was into Jacob; she’s a tall girl and he’s one of the few people in the cast who are taller than her.
So she’s now trying to shrink herself to be shorter than Tony. It’s ridiculous and weird, but she has to realize the reason she’s doing that is even more so.
well she did state she preferred ‘taller’ guys but it’s not as if he’s half her height versus a few inches diff (tho i do half- expect her to freak out and like ‘things are going too well’)
The Netherlands has democratic socialism (sorta… it’s a fuzzy category) plus a famously permissive stance towards cannabis use, and its territory includes several islands with a significant variety of therapod dinosaur species.
I don’t know about people being sent there for shower-clogging, but Netherlands is one of the places I think of when i think of clogs.
The Netherlands are social democratic, not democratic socialism.
The former seeks to reform capitalism through varying degrees of government intervention and strong welfare state as an ends to itself.
By contrast, the goal of democratic socialism long-term is to see to it that capitalism is abolished, specifically by having a mixed economy of government-owned industries to provide for citizen’s most basic living necessities and worker cooperatives to provide for things in the market.
As much as the Netherlands aren’t technically socialist, something tells me they may be inclined to steer that way rather soon after watching a much imminent failure of capitalism unfold across the pond…
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed
The hands acquire shakes
The shakes become a warning
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
From what I have gathered, most people would be fine with their height relative to their partner if it wasn’t for the side comments from the peanut gallary (aka the general public). A taller woman dating a shorter man is statistically rare enough that I think some people just can’t hold it in. People can also be really bad at telling how old someone is (speaking from personal experience, as I once had a doctor forget that wasn’t a teenager but instead in my 30s). I don’t think either person in a relationship appreciates comments about them taking their son to dinner, etc. People just need to stop with the assumptions.
Yeah, people are weird. My sister (who was still forced to present as a guy at the time)’s first 2 girlfriends were like half a foot taller than her–same age, just… she had a Type, lol–and most people were *so* weird about it. Like at least have the decency to keep unsolicited opinions of strangers’ harmless relationships to yourselves, y’know? Even to my sister, who *liked* the height difference, the constant comments got grating af.
Heck, I am not tall at all. But I went out with 2 guys who were roughly my height (only) and they both had to *talk* about it. Like, one of them talked about it the whole time we had coffee. And walked to the cafe. And on the way back. He talked about how his height clearly didn’t bother him and was not problem at all and the fact that I was the same height (literally the same, it must have been hard for him to find someone smaller tbh) was great.
No, there was no 2nd coffee.
So I hope Sarah quickly gets over it cause these kinds of things are not.. cute.
This is a real procedure actually. It’s very painful and you have to spend basically a year in grueling physical therapy to re-learn to walk but it is possible.
I actually discussed this with my pediatrician. He said wait until after puberty. then he had a heart attack and died, and I came back around to the realization I had been cosplaying as a guy the whole time, and wanted to be taller to make it more believable. Went from short for a guy to average height for a woman, and all it required was ego death.
Same procedure is used when teens or adults have legs that mismatch. The platform shoe will help a little, but the surgery is needed to prevent problems (hip, knee, etc) later. Get some leg breaking, some metal pins, some therapy, and you’re set.
Kinda feel Tony may be low key offended this means so much to Sarah. Or maybe he will take it in stride and go if that’s what makes you comfortable I’ll do it but..mmm.
No shit, there I was…
When I was in US Navy boot camp the other guys were commenting that I never smiled. So I convinced them that I had a medical condition that prevented me from smiling because the muscles were atrophied. And many of them bought it. We were doing “cleaning” duty once, and I overheard an officer asking one of the other recruits and he trotted out my BS story. I had to try so hard to keep from busting up laughing.
Ah, time to rant about group projects, a classic tradition…
I’m taking classes again (grad school) after being out of school for a while, so I’m getting reacquainted with this experience. Last semester, we had a group project that was research+ slide show+ video presenting it, and I did more than my share in the first two, and then I was like, hey, could literally anyone else do the narration for this, I have a speech impediment and should not be our top choice. And then no one responded and it was due, so I just ended up doing that too.
I once had a project partner who didn’t show up for a single group meeting or do a single thing for our prep work and then still got full credit because she read off the slides and answered questions during the presentation. Like, I asked the prof about it and that was the answer I got, even though this wasn’t prearranged with the group, it was just one girl piggybacking and then talking over the rest of us. It’s been a decade and tbh I’m still salty.
One of the benefits of google slides for presentations and assigning people a set amount of slides. They can do their own slides whenever they want (without having to send it to someone to have it added into the presentation, which can be a pain for everyone), and have a better set division of work. Of course, they could still probably try to work around that by trying to claim someone else’s slides and talking over people, but maybe that could be cut off beforehand with an email to or chat with the professor right before class with the fact that the person didn’t do their assigned slides. That requires the professor to care, which I know isn’t always the case.
I am surprised that happened in grad school. I went from having to do all the work in high school, to having to fight to do my part (instead of someone taking it over) in undergrad, to people being control freaks in grad (where I had to do my part the style that they wanted rather than how I wanted to do it, not really anything about substance). Undergrad I blame on it being biology, and the people aiming for med school are cut-throat. They will duel a professor over a single point on a quiz, and trust absolutely no one to do a project the way they want it to be. I was more on the ecology side, which is grouped together with the med side for the required biology major classes (aka biochem, microbiology vs applied ecology). The ecology side is way more laid back until you are applying to grad school.
It is an interesting balance that you have to maintain on group projects. I have had a class of people in high school, seniors even, that couldn’t read 2 pages of Hamlet (theater script) over 2 days. I have also had group partners in grad school that don’t like how I worded things, and so wanted to redo everything into their tone instead of my own, and it was my own slides. I was only called colloquial once back in undergrad freshman year in a 1 credit non-biology class that I loathed, so it wasn’t that my work was poor. I have always been a proponent of not having other people’s work relect on your grades, as in, any group work that counts towards your GPA should be distinct enough to be able to grade each person separately on their own work. As long as GPA matters for getting scholarships, getting into graduate/med schools, and other things, I believe that it should be based on the individual’s capability, not whichever random people they got paired with. It wasn’t even random at my high school, as the teachers would purposefully put one excel/AP student with people who were doing poorly (normally from refusing outright to do any work). Excel students were supposedly supposed to benefit from being able to teach their fellow classmates (teaching without pay anyone?), which might have some truth in theory. The problem is when you are paired with someone who absolutely refuses to learn and would much rather try to burn down posters or other sorts of destruction. You realize how much of a joke it is at that point, and I would sincerely hope that anyone that is attempting to do something similar, rather than doing their job at their workplace, would be fired.
Also, sympathies on the speech impediment. As someone who had speech therapy starting around 3yrs old through some of elementary, and still have trouble with s and sh sounds, I fully understand the hate of being recorded. It feels like the video just highlights all of the flaws in my voice.
In undergrad, I had to do a boom report presentation with a girl who wasn’t known for being a great student. I took the intro, conclusion, and several main chapters in the book, and gave her the more minor parts. When it came time to present, I had to correct several mistakes in her presentation and answer several questions from the class about her section of the boom. The prof was a good one, so he figured out exactly what was happening. I’m still friends with him and he talks about that as one of the worst group projects to this day. Anytime somebody on fb complains about group projects, he tags me and tells them I had it worse than them and still managed a A on the project
I hated group projects more because I always had to be in the worst group. I mean I liked most of the people, but everyone else in my class divided smoothly into (mono-gendered) friend groups with established dynamics and balanced skillsets, and we were the leftovers with no leadership or public speaking or social skills, and we’d spend hours trying to divide up tasks of which no one wanted to do any until the two girls who were friends would overrule each of the others to decide who did what, and then we’d not collaborate in any way that would suggest it was a group project. Worst of all, I realized the whole point was to learn to work in groups, but there was no teaching going on – our teachers didn’t have to do anything once they assigned a group project – and ultimately all I learned was that I didn’t know anything about working in groups and should avoid it.
Retired HS teacher here. I learned this problem in college. So I made my kids split up equally all the work tasks, track who got what task, and when it got done. Every group project was 70% grade per the individual’s work and 30% grade per the group’s overall work. Smaller projects earlier in the year, to show the coasting kids that coasting doesn’t work, train them slowly into stepping up. Worked most of the time, but not with all.
You sounds like you were so much better than the hs teachers I had that would grade us during a mock trial project on how well our “witnesses” did with knowing the information. There was one group who had a student witness recall information from the movie rather than the book (“Of Mice and Men”), which was inaccurate. I believe the book was considered to be the police report, if I am remembering correctly. It was an odd book to do a mock trial on anyway, as the murder wasn’t exactly in doubt, and then they also included a lot of limitations on what the defense lawyers could do (adding new things that they couldn’t do after each year to the list, so it got longer). It wouldn’t have been much of a problem, except you were graded on the outcome of the trial along with how your witnesses did. It felt very biased to one side and everyone who got a lawyer position absolutely hated it. I would hear people younger than me complaining about it on the bus ride to school and how frustrating it was. The mock World Health Organization conference we did was better, because the parts were more separate and graded separately.
The best group interdisciplinary project that I have ever done was one on Lewis and Clark back in 7th grade. You would do activities together in a group, such as the hiking trip up a mountain, the calculation of a tree’s height, plant ID, and figuring out a budget for a trip like that. The grade came from the journal you personally submitted at the end though, so while you could help people find the answer during the activity, everyone would still have to sum it up nicely and submit it later. Since they would use the same plan every year, it would cut down a bit on some of the work, though I am sure it was still a fair amount of work for the teachers. I remember both teachers and students looking forward to it every year though.
tony’s a normal guy who tries to be down to earth and patient but is constantly surrounded by people who test that patience. and mike who refused to have any and chose to test the patience of others. love ’em both with my big stupid gay heart but this is like apples to oranges.
shoes/clothes don’t need to be begendered buti wouldn’t be surprised if there were steel toed boots/high heels ‘ for men’ or so lol. tho wouldn’t matter on the bed ;P unless sarah likes to do it standing up for some reason XD
“Elevator shoes” look flat but have little wedges inside to give you an inch or two. “Lifts” are wedge-shaped insoles that you can put into any shoe (also useful for people with one leg longer than the other). Or you can just wear boots with thick soles, such as workboots, cowboy boots, hiking shoes, etc.
Tony seems pretty comfy with his height, though. Sarah may have to get over her idea that she needs to be shorter than the fellow.
I gotta say I don’t feel like Tony is even that short. Shorter than Sarah, sure but she’s likely tall for a woman. Also Walky and Danny both exist as fellow short princes and I think Tony could steal their lunches easy.
Yeah, I was a member of a college group (back in the early college days). Only women I met of my height or taller were from the college lady’s basketball team.
Does she like them tall? She seems to like Tony plenty so far. I get the feeling that she usually avoids dating shorter men because the guys have been weirded out by having a taller girlfriend and it ends up spoiling the relationship. I think she’s trying to avoid making him feel small, rather than trying to feel small herself out of enjoyment.
Sarah would look wrong short. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a short gal with some wideness (is there a term for that?), but tall gals are where it’s at.
Heh, that’s the thing about having a type: it almost certainly WILL be challenged by developing an attraction to someone who doesn’t entirely fit it. This is fine, and doesn’t mean you don’t still have preferences, obviously, but it just kind of showcases the amount of variables in how people look, dress, etc.
It is specifically that Sarah has expressed a few times that she like men taller that her. Tony now being the exception due to their great chemistry buts he still like more is he was taller, hence the crouching.
Think you and Jeremiah are taking this a bit too literally. It’s not that Tony hasn’t noticed Sera is taller than him. It’s that there’s a difference between shorter men not being Sera’s type, and Sera being afraid that her being taller than him will make him or others decide she’s not feminine enough to be with him.
I don’t see how talking about a specific thing that has come up a few times about Sarah’s taste in men that is relevant to this moment is taking things “too literally”.
The island isn’t a punishment, it’s just somewhere out of your misery, that’s difficult to get back from. Tahiti is fine.
I have a plan for when I rule the world, to put all the billionaires on an island. It’s a nice island. Humane. There is going to be reality TV coverage, but it’s public places and otherwise opt-in.
Billionaires aren’t animals, either. Animals have vital parts to play in their ecosystem, billionaires are fully devoid of value. Cremate them on the spot and use their ashes to grit your driveway, it’s best for everyone.
at that rate it’s better off going and staying IN Nintendos and other consoles, given it’s usefulness as a conductor
interesting fact, over 90% of the gold ever mined on earth is still in use today, you can have gold that was mined thousands of years ago in your Game Boy LOL
Um actually, I watched Game of Thrones and they just tossed a couple gold chains in a cauldron for like ten seconds and it was liquid enough to pour over a man’s head. No way a horseman’s campfire is 5300°, and those actors weren’t evaporated at all.
The great part about exiling billionaires is nobody has to go. You just have to give away some surplus money…it’s not like you won’t still have more than you’ll ever need. So everyone on the island deserves it.
Did not see this whole Tony thing coming, back when the “Sarah smiles” arc began! Willis, you’re rewarding her for her efforts!! And I think she just realized it . . .
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found
I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
I swear Willis, if you make them break up or whatever because Sarah can’t handle the height difference, I will track you down and break a Transformer collectible in front of your face.
The irony is that’s exactly what England was thinking over 300 years ago when they sent volatile cultists and violent criminals they were desperate to get rid of to the North American continent.
“Let’s take our problems and push them elsewhere! Who cares if they gonna come back to bite our descendants in the butt? By then we’ll be long dead and sipping champagne in heaven so white!”
Now we’re a country of people with issues with authority whose prime minister’s frequently get nicknamed shit like “milky bar kid”, “Scummo” “Scotty from Sales” “Turncoat Turnbull” and “Budget Morrison”
These two are great together, and I hope Sarah doesn’t worry too much about the fact that she’s taller than Tony. Also, I always hated group projects in school, I usually ended up doing most of the work.
Do not do it Sarah your back will thank you for your good posture. also thinking about how Tony might stand on his tippy toes to get a kiss and that would be so cute
OH Sarah, you poor gel. I know that feeling, oh mandy’s tits do I know it. That same feeling hit me at 22…and getting married was HER idea. And yes meeting SWMBO was almost exactly like this without the 3rd wheel getting jelly… oh and we weren’t talking islands. I just offered to run with with her for a couple miles. 30+ years, surprised she hasn’t fired me or given me the old “Arsenic and Old Lace” treatment.
Oh, no, Sarah, no. He saw you were tall immediately and responded positively immediately. Please listen to your own rationality and not the stupid societal beauty standard of “man tall/woman short”.
no, it’s been established that sarah just has a preference for tall guys. waaaaaay earlier in the comic, smth about ‘i’m the protagonist, i climb him he doesnt climb me’, but also more recently, earlier in book 15 when she’s remarking on lucy hooking up with jacob- “thats why they make boys who are [short], for the tiny little lucies of the world”. it’s not that she thinks he won’t like her, she’s trying to reconcile it w/her own preexissting preferences
Sarah, just be content you won’t ever attract the police because they think a man is dating a minor in broad daylight. (Yes it happened to someone I know)
obligatory overanalysis comment: this is a good sign. she’s spent her whole screentime looking for a physical relationship, something superficial short and sexually satisfying, and the most important element of it to her was the guy being taller than her. just happens to be her preference. this emotional connection is enough that she’s willing to go out of her comfort zone a little to pursue it, even though most of her is used to The Usual Criteria and is trying to reconcile it with this new approach. it COULD definitely lead to this being nothing- whether it’s a classic sarah angry backpedal or a canon-atypically-normal ‘hey i dont know if this is going to work out im sorry- but it could ALSO lead to her building a good new relationship bc she took a chance. i really like this
I find it interesting that this is how Tony becomes relevant to the story, having only really having quick cameos and single lines of dialogue at best considering his importance in “It’s Walky!”
Looking at the first panel, it looks like Sarah had her own idea with “on an . . .”, and just agreed with Tony after he said “an island”.
I wonder what she could have originally intended?
” put on an . . .”
” . . . electronic ankle bracelet system, so you can see where she is and avoid her?”
” . . . early warning system?”
” . . . intercontinental one-way flight to anywhere?”
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Scoliosis might help you there, Sarah /s
As someone born with it, it does not. It just gives you back pain.
I prefer to present my medical conditions as superpowers.
As a childhood epileptic, I can claim I used to have prophetic visions.
My spouse has PNES… I should remind him of this… or maybe not since its often traumatic memories.
Honestly, some of these medieval saints really read as undiagnosed PNES seeking theology as help.
As a religious person still, SUPER-liberal, I believe God can work through mysterious ways but I think he’d probably not need my seizures to help.
Same as my autism doesn’t give me superpowers.
I’m smart AND autistic. Not smart because of it.
Just like Dina. 🙂
And yes, I am directly contradicting myself.
Which I can do.
Because I’d have no standards at all if not for double. 😀
Same. Got it all fixed as a kid, but, yay lifetime of slowly increasing shoulder and neck pains.
If you want to have a good time, flick your eyes quickly between panels 4 and 5 while listening to this sound effect.
I knew what this was before I clicked it.
Really? I thought it was going to be one of those slide whistles.
yeah I thought it was going to be an accordion noise
I’m disappointed it’s not a rickroll
Perfect; it’s like one of those flip-o-rama pages from DogMan!
(giggles at ad before sound effect) From cool techno to mario brothers. As my goddess MANDY says “Perfect”.
long aways from the Island,
SaraTonyn ship runs full steam ahead!!! ^^ <3
YIPPEE!!!
Well it seems ‘cute’ but based on hre reactin the last panel i think she might back out or think “oh this is going too well” and such and try to mess it up versus “having coffee and immediately running off” with the combined anxiety + caffeeine/any snacks there
Maybe it’s a “Guys don’t like girls taller than them/gals don’t like guys shorter than them” thing?
I’m not altogether sure what the last panel is indicating.
My first take was that she was shuddering in shock but now I’m reasonably sure it’s Sarah trying to be shorter.
One of Sarah’s hang-ups is that she thinks boyfriends should be taller than their girlfriends. Like it was one of the reasons she was into Jacob; she’s a tall girl and he’s one of the few people in the cast who are taller than her.
So she’s now trying to shrink herself to be shorter than Tony. It’s ridiculous and weird, but she has to realize the reason she’s doing that is even more so.
My sister is taller than her husband. They’ve lasted 48 years.
I view it as Sarah trying to en-shorten herself. Due to self-conscious concern about being taller than him.
well she did state she preferred ‘taller’ guys but it’s not as if he’s half her height versus a few inches diff (tho i do half- expect her to freak out and like ‘things are going too well’)
Enjoy drinking coffee? You’re on the island. The island in question grows coffee beans you’ll enjoy it.
Is there a tea island? Is Admiral Zhao on it? I would like to go to that island please.
is there an island with weed, dinosaurs and democratic socialism?
cuz that my jam for realz
So, definitely not Singapore, lol
The Netherlands has democratic socialism (sorta… it’s a fuzzy category) plus a famously permissive stance towards cannabis use, and its territory includes several islands with a significant variety of therapod dinosaur species.
I don’t know about people being sent there for shower-clogging, but Netherlands is one of the places I think of when i think of clogs.
The Netherlands are social democratic, not democratic socialism.
The former seeks to reform capitalism through varying degrees of government intervention and strong welfare state as an ends to itself.
By contrast, the goal of democratic socialism long-term is to see to it that capitalism is abolished, specifically by having a mixed economy of government-owned industries to provide for citizen’s most basic living necessities and worker cooperatives to provide for things in the market.
As much as the Netherlands aren’t technically socialist, something tells me they may be inclined to steer that way rather soon after watching a much imminent failure of capitalism unfold across the pond…
Wait don’t we not like Admiral Zhao. Wasn’t Admiral Zhao the antagonist of season 1? Don’t you mean uncle Iroh?
I probably got the names mixed up, sorry. What I get for commenting at midnight.
Tea Island sounds nice. If there’s Internet too then I’m all set.
Sara pls you’ve got a good thing here EMBRACE SHORT KINGS, look at this dude. He’s built. He’ll love you as you are kldsjgksld FREE YOUR MIND, GURL
YES. FREE YOUR MIND WITH HOT COFFEE ^^ <3
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed
The hands acquire shakes
The shakes become a warning
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
Dude, this is gorgeous, I kinda wanna embroider it to hang it on my wall.
(I don’t know embroidery. But I do have ADHD.)
Yeah. Tony seems to be comfortable with his height. Unless the team brochure says he is 5’8″ … and 3/4.
From what I have gathered, most people would be fine with their height relative to their partner if it wasn’t for the side comments from the peanut gallary (aka the general public). A taller woman dating a shorter man is statistically rare enough that I think some people just can’t hold it in. People can also be really bad at telling how old someone is (speaking from personal experience, as I once had a doctor forget that wasn’t a teenager but instead in my 30s). I don’t think either person in a relationship appreciates comments about them taking their son to dinner, etc. People just need to stop with the assumptions.
Yeah, people are weird. My sister (who was still forced to present as a guy at the time)’s first 2 girlfriends were like half a foot taller than her–same age, just… she had a Type, lol–and most people were *so* weird about it. Like at least have the decency to keep unsolicited opinions of strangers’ harmless relationships to yourselves, y’know? Even to my sister, who *liked* the height difference, the constant comments got grating af.
Heck, I am not tall at all. But I went out with 2 guys who were roughly my height (only) and they both had to *talk* about it. Like, one of them talked about it the whole time we had coffee. And walked to the cafe. And on the way back. He talked about how his height clearly didn’t bother him and was not problem at all and the fact that I was the same height (literally the same, it must have been hard for him to find someone smaller tbh) was great.
No, there was no 2nd coffee.
So I hope Sarah quickly gets over it cause these kinds of things are not.. cute.
Agreed. Not cute.
Its not even like Tony’s short, Sarah’s just tall.
Tony isn’t a short king?
But she’s also not unreasonable to want someone closer to her height. What’s silly here is Tony is very close to her height.
Yeah, no, the sport he plays requires him to be tall, right? We… kinda don’t have it here, so I’m basing myself on pop culture, lmaooo
That said, TO SARAH he is.
i know a dude who says he can make a guy taller by breaking his legs
This is a real procedure actually. It’s very painful and you have to spend basically a year in grueling physical therapy to re-learn to walk but it is possible.
Featured in the fil Gattaca.
I actually discussed this with my pediatrician. He said wait until after puberty. then he had a heart attack and died, and I came back around to the realization I had been cosplaying as a guy the whole time, and wanted to be taller to make it more believable. Went from short for a guy to average height for a woman, and all it required was ego death.
misread that as YOU were the one who had a heart attack =O
yeah though, that feels like a lifehack, throwing off that cosplay!
Whereas I’m finally gunna turn into the shortest guy on the block at (wait, translating) five feet and one inch.
Same procedure is used when teens or adults have legs that mismatch. The platform shoe will help a little, but the surgery is needed to prevent problems (hip, knee, etc) later. Get some leg breaking, some metal pins, some therapy, and you’re set.
Sarah consider that Tony will CLIMB you instead.
But Sarah is the protagonist!
The height difference won’t matter once they’re lying down. Oh shit that’s going to be the next slipshine, isn’t it?
Women are the same height lying down dot dot dot
Coming to Slipshine in Summer 2025! 🙂
(hopefully)
+1!
upvote ++
hehehe are we using Slipshine as a catch-all term for DoA pornos now XD
im just sayin this cuz Slipshine commissions Willis for those when he puts them there, not the other way around
thus if anything we’re overwhelmingly likely to get them on the NSFW Patreon, which is even more fantastic if you ask me ^^
I love how these two are meshing. Kind of worrying, though, but hey who cares!
The last two panels look like the beginning of Sarah’s Animorph transformation
snapping turtle
Excellent take, good job, take the rest of the off you’ve learnt it
Alligator Snapping Turtle.
Laughing!
Sarah planning a date to a shoe shop specialising in elevators.
Kinda feel Tony may be low key offended this means so much to Sarah. Or maybe he will take it in stride and go if that’s what makes you comfortable I’ll do it but..mmm.
I will say this: Sarah is more smiley than Tony. I don’t think he’s ever cracked a grin.
Sarah is making an active effort to smile more – Tony is Tony.
Some people just don’t smile much. I know I sometimes get flack because I don’t smile all the time even though it’s not like I’m upset or anything.
No shit, there I was…
When I was in US Navy boot camp the other guys were commenting that I never smiled. So I convinced them that I had a medical condition that prevented me from smiling because the muscles were atrophied. And many of them bought it. We were doing “cleaning” duty once, and I overheard an officer asking one of the other recruits and he trotted out my BS story. I had to try so hard to keep from busting up laughing.
I haven’t thought about that in decades.
Ah, time to rant about group projects, a classic tradition…
I’m taking classes again (grad school) after being out of school for a while, so I’m getting reacquainted with this experience. Last semester, we had a group project that was research+ slide show+ video presenting it, and I did more than my share in the first two, and then I was like, hey, could literally anyone else do the narration for this, I have a speech impediment and should not be our top choice. And then no one responded and it was due, so I just ended up doing that too.
for reals? that SUCKS, sorry to hear they hung ya out to dry like that
you know that that means -> 🏝
I once had a project partner who didn’t show up for a single group meeting or do a single thing for our prep work and then still got full credit because she read off the slides and answered questions during the presentation. Like, I asked the prof about it and that was the answer I got, even though this wasn’t prearranged with the group, it was just one girl piggybacking and then talking over the rest of us. It’s been a decade and tbh I’m still salty.
One of the benefits of google slides for presentations and assigning people a set amount of slides. They can do their own slides whenever they want (without having to send it to someone to have it added into the presentation, which can be a pain for everyone), and have a better set division of work. Of course, they could still probably try to work around that by trying to claim someone else’s slides and talking over people, but maybe that could be cut off beforehand with an email to or chat with the professor right before class with the fact that the person didn’t do their assigned slides. That requires the professor to care, which I know isn’t always the case.
I am surprised that happened in grad school. I went from having to do all the work in high school, to having to fight to do my part (instead of someone taking it over) in undergrad, to people being control freaks in grad (where I had to do my part the style that they wanted rather than how I wanted to do it, not really anything about substance). Undergrad I blame on it being biology, and the people aiming for med school are cut-throat. They will duel a professor over a single point on a quiz, and trust absolutely no one to do a project the way they want it to be. I was more on the ecology side, which is grouped together with the med side for the required biology major classes (aka biochem, microbiology vs applied ecology). The ecology side is way more laid back until you are applying to grad school.
It is an interesting balance that you have to maintain on group projects. I have had a class of people in high school, seniors even, that couldn’t read 2 pages of Hamlet (theater script) over 2 days. I have also had group partners in grad school that don’t like how I worded things, and so wanted to redo everything into their tone instead of my own, and it was my own slides. I was only called colloquial once back in undergrad freshman year in a 1 credit non-biology class that I loathed, so it wasn’t that my work was poor. I have always been a proponent of not having other people’s work relect on your grades, as in, any group work that counts towards your GPA should be distinct enough to be able to grade each person separately on their own work. As long as GPA matters for getting scholarships, getting into graduate/med schools, and other things, I believe that it should be based on the individual’s capability, not whichever random people they got paired with. It wasn’t even random at my high school, as the teachers would purposefully put one excel/AP student with people who were doing poorly (normally from refusing outright to do any work). Excel students were supposedly supposed to benefit from being able to teach their fellow classmates (teaching without pay anyone?), which might have some truth in theory. The problem is when you are paired with someone who absolutely refuses to learn and would much rather try to burn down posters or other sorts of destruction. You realize how much of a joke it is at that point, and I would sincerely hope that anyone that is attempting to do something similar, rather than doing their job at their workplace, would be fired.
Also, sympathies on the speech impediment. As someone who had speech therapy starting around 3yrs old through some of elementary, and still have trouble with s and sh sounds, I fully understand the hate of being recorded. It feels like the video just highlights all of the flaws in my voice.
In undergrad, I had to do a boom report presentation with a girl who wasn’t known for being a great student. I took the intro, conclusion, and several main chapters in the book, and gave her the more minor parts. When it came time to present, I had to correct several mistakes in her presentation and answer several questions from the class about her section of the boom. The prof was a good one, so he figured out exactly what was happening. I’m still friends with him and he talks about that as one of the worst group projects to this day. Anytime somebody on fb complains about group projects, he tags me and tells them I had it worse than them and still managed a A on the project
*book report presentation. Stupid autocorrect
Dang. Am now wondering what a ‘boom report’ might be.
I hated group projects more because I always had to be in the worst group. I mean I liked most of the people, but everyone else in my class divided smoothly into (mono-gendered) friend groups with established dynamics and balanced skillsets, and we were the leftovers with no leadership or public speaking or social skills, and we’d spend hours trying to divide up tasks of which no one wanted to do any until the two girls who were friends would overrule each of the others to decide who did what, and then we’d not collaborate in any way that would suggest it was a group project. Worst of all, I realized the whole point was to learn to work in groups, but there was no teaching going on – our teachers didn’t have to do anything once they assigned a group project – and ultimately all I learned was that I didn’t know anything about working in groups and should avoid it.
Retired HS teacher here. I learned this problem in college. So I made my kids split up equally all the work tasks, track who got what task, and when it got done. Every group project was 70% grade per the individual’s work and 30% grade per the group’s overall work. Smaller projects earlier in the year, to show the coasting kids that coasting doesn’t work, train them slowly into stepping up. Worked most of the time, but not with all.
Good for you. But that sounds like a lot of extra work most people aren’t going to want to do.
🙄 How’s the weather in La Brea?
You sounds like you were so much better than the hs teachers I had that would grade us during a mock trial project on how well our “witnesses” did with knowing the information. There was one group who had a student witness recall information from the movie rather than the book (“Of Mice and Men”), which was inaccurate. I believe the book was considered to be the police report, if I am remembering correctly. It was an odd book to do a mock trial on anyway, as the murder wasn’t exactly in doubt, and then they also included a lot of limitations on what the defense lawyers could do (adding new things that they couldn’t do after each year to the list, so it got longer). It wouldn’t have been much of a problem, except you were graded on the outcome of the trial along with how your witnesses did. It felt very biased to one side and everyone who got a lawyer position absolutely hated it. I would hear people younger than me complaining about it on the bus ride to school and how frustrating it was. The mock World Health Organization conference we did was better, because the parts were more separate and graded separately.
The best group interdisciplinary project that I have ever done was one on Lewis and Clark back in 7th grade. You would do activities together in a group, such as the hiking trip up a mountain, the calculation of a tree’s height, plant ID, and figuring out a budget for a trip like that. The grade came from the journal you personally submitted at the end though, so while you could help people find the answer during the activity, everyone would still have to sum it up nicely and submit it later. Since they would use the same plan every year, it would cut down a bit on some of the work, though I am sure it was still a fair amount of work for the teachers. I remember both teachers and students looking forward to it every year though.
I’m glad he at least doesn’t seem concerned about height (you know, assuming he’s intentionally taking her on a date).
I wonder if he’ll be understanding of Sarah’s obvious issue around being taller than him..
You know, Tony is basically Mike but toned down to a actually palatable state. No wonder they get along.
They’re not even close. Mike went out of his way to be antagonistic. Tony mostly just stayed to his lane unless people are being douchebags.
yeah there’s a big step between “thinks people suck” & “actively working towards making them feel miserable”
That is why I say “toned down to a palatable state”.
tony’s a normal guy who tries to be down to earth and patient but is constantly surrounded by people who test that patience. and mike who refused to have any and chose to test the patience of others. love ’em both with my big stupid gay heart but this is like apples to oranges.
From what little we’ve seen of Tony in this comic, I don’t see that at all.
he might like an amazon to his short king status, don’t hate.
shoes/clothes don’t need to be begendered buti wouldn’t be surprised if there were steel toed boots/high heels ‘ for men’ or so lol. tho wouldn’t matter on the bed ;P unless sarah likes to do it standing up for some reason XD
“Elevator shoes” look flat but have little wedges inside to give you an inch or two. “Lifts” are wedge-shaped insoles that you can put into any shoe (also useful for people with one leg longer than the other). Or you can just wear boots with thick soles, such as workboots, cowboy boots, hiking shoes, etc.
Tony seems pretty comfy with his height, though. Sarah may have to get over her idea that she needs to be shorter than the fellow.
Oh yeah they could also just stand on some stairs from time to time. This super doesn’t need to be a big deal.
Yeah, this seems more like Sarah’s hangup than anything else.
re that last bit: honestly, if that was the case, their height difference would probably make it *easier*
High heels were originally only for men. Some French king started the trend.
How is Tony a short king? He’s close to Sarah’s height, that’s tall.
I’m seeing him at about average male height. But Sarah’s taller, so the difference is clear. But I hope Sarah’s self-consciousness doesn’t stay long.
I gotta say I don’t feel like Tony is even that short. Shorter than Sarah, sure but she’s likely tall for a woman. Also Walky and Danny both exist as fellow short princes and I think Tony could steal their lunches easy.
I’m guessing 5’8″ or 5’9.”
Yeah, that’s not short. Medium king.
This king is too short.
This king is too tall.
This king brought myrrh?
And he’s still here!
Happy Three Kings Day (to Christians who celebrate that one)!
Years ago I saw an ad for a Tall Singles Group, minimum 6′ for men and 5′ 10″ for women.
Yeah, I was a member of a college group (back in the early college days). Only women I met of my height or taller were from the college lady’s basketball team.
What is she doing in the last panel
my guess is she’s crouching to compensate for the fact that Tony is shorter than what she otherwise desires in a partner
but she seems to value him for the person he is on the inside more than anything
Or might be crouching because she thinks he would find her more attractive if she weren’t so much taller than he.
I agree that they seem to be connecting mostly on a non-physical level, at least for now.
This semester seems to be about people discovering new qualities in themselves and how they relate to others.
Trying to be shorter
Walking
I don’t think she’s actually doing anything, that’s just what’s in her head at the moment.
It’s drawn the same as reality. The background has the same color and resolution.
Sarah is very very tall and likes big beefy masculine men who make her feel small. Tony is very short and squat. She is making do.
Does she like them tall? She seems to like Tony plenty so far. I get the feeling that she usually avoids dating shorter men because the guys have been weirded out by having a taller girlfriend and it ends up spoiling the relationship. I think she’s trying to avoid making him feel small, rather than trying to feel small herself out of enjoyment.
She thinks she does at least.
He’s definitely not very short? He’s very close to Sarah’s height.
Sarah would look wrong short. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a short gal with some wideness (is there a term for that?), but tall gals are where it’s at.
I mean Liz is basically the ‘short gal with some wideness’ that you’re talking about.
No, Liz isn’t Sarah. I’m talking about Sarah. You’re gaslighting me.
Hell yeah
Heh, that’s the thing about having a type: it almost certainly WILL be challenged by developing an attraction to someone who doesn’t entirely fit it. This is fine, and doesn’t mean you don’t still have preferences, obviously, but it just kind of showcases the amount of variables in how people look, dress, etc.
I’m not even sure that it’s that he’s not her type, but rather that she’s afraid he’ll realize she’s taller than him and lose interest
It is specifically that Sarah has expressed a few times that she like men taller that her. Tony now being the exception due to their great chemistry buts he still like more is he was taller, hence the crouching.
I.. Can’t imagine Tony not already aware of the height difference. Even if he doesn’t care, he’s still gotta notice she’s obviously taller than him
Think you and Jeremiah are taking this a bit too literally. It’s not that Tony hasn’t noticed Sera is taller than him. It’s that there’s a difference between shorter men not being Sera’s type, and Sera being afraid that her being taller than him will make him or others decide she’s not feminine enough to be with him.
I don’t see how talking about a specific thing that has come up a few times about Sarah’s taste in men that is relevant to this moment is taking things “too literally”.
Get some sort of digging tool to create a trench ahead of you as you walk.
It’s been done.
She’s a star. She doesn’t get a million dollars to act out of a trench.
Wait, are all the people who are listed as That Annoying Kid already on the island?
Sarah puts quite a lot of thought into the various ways she doesn’t want to interact with others.
Billingsworth? Bad news? You jest.
Just an island? What if they get sent to Tahiti
The island isn’t a punishment, it’s just somewhere out of your misery, that’s difficult to get back from. Tahiti is fine.
I have a plan for when I rule the world, to put all the billionaires on an island. It’s a nice island. Humane. There is going to be reality TV coverage, but it’s public places and otherwise opt-in.
Why do they get a nice island? They’re not people.
Surely you’re not championing cruelty to animals?
Billionaires aren’t animals, either. Animals have vital parts to play in their ecosystem, billionaires are fully devoid of value. Cremate them on the spot and use their ashes to grit your driveway, it’s best for everyone.
suffocate them in boiling hot molten gold, forever preserving their expressions of agony, and put them on display in a museum
that way future generations can learn how NOT to have their unfortunate attitudes
Nah, I don’t wanna look at ’em. Besides, that gold could go in a Nintendo, something people actually enjoy.
at that rate it’s better off going and staying IN Nintendos and other consoles, given it’s usefulness as a conductor
interesting fact, over 90% of the gold ever mined on earth is still in use today, you can have gold that was mined thousands of years ago in your Game Boy LOL
wat that i could have sworn you said “on” a nintendo, huh
It can’t be easy to get someone anywhere near boiling gold (2970 °C, 5378 °F). They’d evaporate.
Um actually, I watched Game of Thrones and they just tossed a couple gold chains in a cauldron for like ten seconds and it was liquid enough to pour over a man’s head. No way a horseman’s campfire is 5300°, and those actors weren’t evaporated at all.
Melting point 1947.52 °F. GoT is playing fast and loose with the facts.
and besides, the Ozempic they are hoarding has probably ruined the flavour of their meat anyway.
A nice volcanic island?
They’re america’s fastest growing demo. O_O
The great part about exiling billionaires is nobody has to go. You just have to give away some surplus money…it’s not like you won’t still have more than you’ll ever need. So everyone on the island deserves it.
Oh I like this reason! Yay!
I like this pairing
Did not see this whole Tony thing coming, back when the “Sarah smiles” arc began! Willis, you’re rewarding her for her efforts!! And I think she just realized it . . .
And here we see the wild Sarah retreating into her shell so as to not provoke the insecurities of her potential mate.
What she instinctively thinks are the insecurities of her potential mate. I’m expecting that Tony won’t care. Might, in fact, even like the tallness.
Heeeeeelp they are SO CUTE!
No Sarah! Don’t fuck this up with that bullshit!
*Sir David Attenborough’s voice: Will she manage to avoid fucking up this potential pairing with her bullshit? Let’s see.
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found
I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
It really doesn’t matter who you put upon the list
I swear Willis, if you make them break up or whatever because Sarah can’t handle the height difference, I will track you down and break a Transformer collectible in front of your face.
Yeah, just send them to England.
The irony is that’s exactly what England was thinking over 300 years ago when they sent volatile cultists and violent criminals they were desperate to get rid of to the North American continent.
Can you guess what happened as a result?
They revolted and wouldn’t take any more, so they started sending them to Australia instead.
“Let’s take our problems and push them elsewhere! Who cares if they gonna come back to bite our descendants in the butt? By then we’ll be long dead and sipping champagne in heaven so white!”
Now we’re a country of people with issues with authority whose prime minister’s frequently get nicknamed shit like “milky bar kid”, “Scummo” “Scotty from Sales” “Turncoat Turnbull” and “Budget Morrison”
Advisor: “Your Majesty, the incarcerated criminals are revolting!”
King: “Finally, you say something I agree with.”
– Mildly adapted from Chicken Run
to be fair the cultists went to Europe first, then left for N.A. because they didn’t like that their kids were becoming too “continental”.
look Sarah all I’m gonna say is play your cards right and it won’t matter who’s taller because you won’t be aimed that direction
Horizontal people are much more equal in height.
“Huh. Normally when I smile there’s a feeling of tension from putting it on. This this…is this what a REAL smile feels like?”
buy him high heels
Maybe Ruttech hovershoes?
ITYM jugs.
Maybe she appreciates a short king?
Don’t bother, Sarah. He’s clearly not intimidated by your height.
1. He’s a college star athlete. He knows his body very well.
2. He asked _her_ out.
Definitely not intimidated. Definitely interested.
But if everyone with a podcast is exiled to a remote island, how will Boston’s Favorite Son, Jonathan off Road Rules raise his profile??
the real reason they made total drama island
…don’t sell yourself short, Sarah
Surprised herself with a genuine smile?
genuine LOL IRL at the final panel; this is the best visual gag I’ve seen in a while
Raidah’s gonna say this is all part of Sarah’s evil plan to thwart her, to which Jennifer will go “of course!”.
I mean this in the nicest way possible; I hope they’re very miserable together. ❤️
I just realized Sarah has “has a podcast” as worth exile. What about “has a YouTube channel”(devoted to reviewing snacks) …
No Sarah, don’t lower yourself!
Seriously, it’s bad for your neck.
Be the Tall Queen, Sarah!
Don’t compress your spine Sarah, be proud of your short king!
These two are great together, and I hope Sarah doesn’t worry too much about the fact that she’s taller than Tony. Also, I always hated group projects in school, I usually ended up doing most of the work.
So that’s why you want communism!
Tony needs Joyce’s jugs.
I’m sure Carla would be more than happy to make him a set. More adulation for Carla!
Don’t we all?
Let’s hope Sarah will stop try to do whatever what she’s doing in the last panel is very soon or this promising new couple is doomed.
You make comic strips? The island!
Hell, you read ’em and leave comments under ’em? Definitely The Island!
…wait…
Do not do it Sarah your back will thank you for your good posture. also thinking about how Tony might stand on his tippy toes to get a kiss and that would be so cute
Don’t you dare, Sarah! Embrace the joys of having a short king!
Sarah spends the next couple of days memorizing the locations of holes she can stand in to kiss Tony.
OH Sarah, you poor gel. I know that feeling, oh mandy’s tits do I know it. That same feeling hit me at 22…and getting married was HER idea. And yes meeting SWMBO was almost exactly like this without the 3rd wheel getting jelly… oh and we weren’t talking islands. I just offered to run with with her for a couple miles. 30+ years, surprised she hasn’t fired me or given me the old “Arsenic and Old Lace” treatment.
I’m bad at guesstimating heights, even IRL, so I can’t tell how much of a difference in inches is between these two.
Roughly 2, maybe 2.5 inches, I’d say. (Sarah’s hair has its own height, so that makes it a wee tricksy.)
Oh, no, Sarah, no. He saw you were tall immediately and responded positively immediately. Please listen to your own rationality and not the stupid societal beauty standard of “man tall/woman short”.
no, it’s been established that sarah just has a preference for tall guys. waaaaaay earlier in the comic, smth about ‘i’m the protagonist, i climb him he doesnt climb me’, but also more recently, earlier in book 15 when she’s remarking on lucy hooking up with jacob- “thats why they make boys who are [short], for the tiny little lucies of the world”. it’s not that she thinks he won’t like her, she’s trying to reconcile it w/her own preexissting preferences
That was actually just after the timeskip, when everyone suddenly noticed that Walky was hot.
oh man it was wasnt it. i gotta up my game…
Sarah, just be content you won’t ever attract the police because they think a man is dating a minor in broad daylight. (Yes it happened to someone I know)
I guess what that final scene is indicating is that Sarah is….
Shortpacked.
*puts on sunglasses*
YEOW
No the thing after the sunglasses was The Who’s Won’t be Fooled Again, respect the classics. and the line was “YEAH!!!!!!”
Poor Sarah with that height thing. I hope she can stop obsessing about it.
Goddamit Barney stop pretenting you are uni student and go back to Betty, Bambam crying
He’s the strongest toddler in the whole land
Tears your arm off when he’s shaking your hand
You’re going to give yourself a terrible crick in the neck if you don’t stand up straight, Sarah.
I may not be a short dude, but as a slightly tall dude, I couldn’t care less if a lady is taller than me.
But Sarah does care if a guy is taller that her so she can climb him like an obstacle course.
obligatory overanalysis comment: this is a good sign. she’s spent her whole screentime looking for a physical relationship, something superficial short and sexually satisfying, and the most important element of it to her was the guy being taller than her. just happens to be her preference. this emotional connection is enough that she’s willing to go out of her comfort zone a little to pursue it, even though most of her is used to The Usual Criteria and is trying to reconcile it with this new approach. it COULD definitely lead to this being nothing- whether it’s a classic sarah angry backpedal or a canon-atypically-normal ‘hey i dont know if this is going to work out im sorry- but it could ALSO lead to her building a good new relationship bc she took a chance. i really like this
Offer to buy a coffee? You go to the island
I find it interesting that this is how Tony becomes relevant to the story, having only really having quick cameos and single lines of dialogue at best considering his importance in “It’s Walky!”
Speaking of podcasts, as one does, Popehat just recently boosted this one for fans of history:
https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/
oh no now i love them
Looking at the first panel, it looks like Sarah had her own idea with “on an . . .”, and just agreed with Tony after he said “an island”.
I wonder what she could have originally intended?
” put on an . . .”
” . . . electronic ankle bracelet system, so you can see where she is and avoid her?”
” . . . early warning system?”
” . . . intercontinental one-way flight to anywhere?”
I think it is a case of “finishing each other sentences”.
“…a bus” is suitably tvtrope meta lol
Sarah, PLEASE don’t make yourself smaller for a man.
Most short guys would not take it well.
Poor Sarah! I feel your pain! :V
Please for the love of Cheese, let Sarah have this. She deserves it.
i ship it.
Can you buy her coffee? Fuck yeah you can! I mean Yes, I’d love that.
Sarah: He’s not self conscious about his height, so you don’t be either. Relax. Be yourself with this dude.
Nah nah, you gotta go the other way. Start wearing heels. Own it girl, you can just sit down to get your face in there. Real men can use a stepladder.
Jokes aside this cracks me up a bit since my mom has the same problem. My stepdads a lovely guy, I really adore him. He’s also 6’10.