331

Condone
Posted on June 12, 2018 by David M Willis

331 thoughts on “Condone”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    WOW OKAY THEN, I guess teaching kids how to get the correct answers wasn’t actually part of your job or anything

    1. Ana Chronistic

      nomination for “Mrs. Gorf”

      1. Doctor_Who

        No apples on her desk from what I can see.

        1. Remmington Steele

          Maybe the odd crabapple.

        2. LookingIn

          It’s spelled “Krabapple”

          …oh, you weren’t talking about Edna K… disregard that!

      2. miados

        I think her name is ms phillips. there is a name tag saying as such.

        1. Yumi

          Also, she was mentioned by name in the last flashback strip.

        2. Ana Chronistic

          dang Willis forgetting his own characters from like three days back

          Anyway, new nomination for first name “Flathead”

        3. Proxiehunter

          Yeah, well her new name is Ms. Bongo.

        4. King Daniel

          I googled “Phillips Bongo” and Google’s first recommended result for me was Richard Feynman, weirdly enough.

        5. UniqueSnowflake2

          His full name was Richard Phillips Feynman, and he loved to play bongo drums.

        6. King Daniel

          That would probably explain it.

        7. Reltzik

          Stories like that about Richard Feynman neither need an explanation, nor are they better for one.

        8. Agemegos

          “Any questions?”

        9. Tawdry Quirks

          I’m disappointed that Philips hasn’t yet added a bongo to their Hue line. Although I suppose I could just stick a Hue bulb in a regular bongo.

        10. Trinitylast

          It’s a “wayside school” reference, folks. Mrs. Gorf turned her students into apples. She wiggled her ears, first to write one then her left, then she stuck out her tongue and they turned into apples.

        11. Trinitylast

          *right, not write

      3. WikiDreamer

        *recoils so fast she gives herself whiplash* JESUS! There’s a name I never expected to hear again.

        1. Sambo

          Same here, though I was pleasantly surprised by the reference

        2. Jon Rich

          I didn’t even *recognize* the reference, but once it was explained—*there’s* a blast from the past I never expected to see again.

          Also, I love little Mike so much. You go, little guy. Be as inconvenient for people in power as possible.

      4. TheHorseCouncil

        Is this a wayside reference?

      5. Thursday Violist

        No, you didn’t read the mouseover text well enough.

        It said her name was “Ida Ano”

        1. Ana Chronistic

          I thought Ida Know was a princess

        2. Ana Chronistic

          shit, that’s a little more obscure than I thought

          (Ida from Xanth)

        3. Thursday Violist

          Oh! Yeah. I knew I spelled her last name wrong.

          Thing is, she is a princess, but this teacher isn’t actually her, well, kinda: the teacher is her evil cross-dimensional twin.

      6. Regalli

        Seconded.

      7. Needfuldoer

        I’d go with Barbara, because I once had a horrible teacher with that name. (We don’t need to explain things differently, when we have Jason-esque ramrodding!)

        Sorry, Barbaras of the comments.

        1. merbrat

          *snif* (dramatic sigh) I’ll.. be alright.. perhaps, in time…

        2. Leorale

          I once knew a Barbara who married into the last name ‘Bartholomew’ but kept her maiden name, because she had no whimsy in her heart. (She could’ve been Barbara Bartholomew, but noooo, that name was too silly and fun to say.)

        3. Ana Chronistic

          I know someone married to a Charles Xavier

          yep, he gets called Professor X

    2. LeslieBean4Shizzle

      In my experience as a teacher, there is one surefire way to determine the truth about this sort of situation.
      Take an hour and write the damn test yourself instead of using something out of a drawer. If you suspect cheating, then offer to let the student take a proctored makeup quiz under supervision. If good student, then will get equally perfect score. If cheater, will be screwed by lack of ability to cheat on test with no forewarning.

      Of course, that’s just my experience. But I would never, NEVER mark off a student’s score for correct answers. You grade the test correctly. If you suspect cheating, you issue a 0 until the matter can be settled, but you don’t mark some answers wrong to artificially lower the student’s grade. I don’t see how she could argue that slapdash method to anyone up her chain of command.

      1. Lokitsu

        You are a good teacher 🙂
        Unfortunately, Ms Phillips’ methods have nothing to do with logic and everything to do with her biases. My friends in Junior High suffered under a similar teacher, except she seemed to believe that any boy who scored too well was cheating. I was lucky and never had her for English. I don’t know why these kinds of people become teachers or how they become so nasty.

        1. Mr. Random

          My guess?
          They genuinely care about helping raise kids to be proper adults. But let their past experiences cloud what could be possible for the next generation.

        2. Ingrid

          See also why I see a lot of shitty shitty nurses, and social works in my line of work. Why even join a helping profession if you’re gonna be a dick. Oh its cause you think the only way of being a good person is to be like you? Allllllrighty then.

        3. Bathymetheus

          Depending on where you are in the world, the helping professions are likely underfunded, and the workers – especially the lower status ones – overworked. This leads to burnout, which often manifests as rudeness and apparent lack of concern for the needs of patients/clients. It is basically politics, and they put the money where they think the votes are. Truly, we get the government we deserve.

        4. HeySo

          Your guess sounds lovely, but in practice, the teachers I’ve seen with similar biases don’t care in the least about education. They’re bitter about educating, and they find scapegoats to take that bitterness out on.

        5. erejnion

          Lokitsu, in my experience, boys cheat way more often, so the teacher you know is the sane “but I’m not racist, I have a black friend!” type (individual bias excused with statistics). Ms Phillips is the insane “there’s an international black conspiracy to eradicate the white race!” type (lack of connection to reality). Or, if we want to extend the parallels, the type of those insane black supremacists who believe the white race stole every single Western advancement in technology or culture from black people, and how the Africans are genetically superior to everybody else.

        6. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

          I was told by my teachers in my youth that one becomes a teacher either because they love children or they hate children.
          They also tend to be myrmidons for the establishment, because frankly they’re often expected to. Ethan, Amber and Mike didn’t exactly grow up in the Village.

      2. Reltzik

        When I was TAing, we always had two or three versions of the same test/quiz. Basically testing the same skills at the same difficulty for each question, but the answers were different. Then we’d distribute each test so that everyone had one different from their neighbor.

        EVERY term I caught someone copying an answer from their neighbor’s quiz. Even though it was a different quiz. I remember one examination of a test with about a third of the department over a single quiz answer which went on for about 45 minutes, with us arguing about “Okay, MAYBE if she remembered the formula REALLY REALLY wrong she could have done this, it’s possible, I’ve seen students screw up that badly before even if it would be a hell of a coincidence” and culminated with us sitting the student down and challenging her to explain how and why she put a 4 in the denominator.

        1. Regalli

          Yeah, I had professors who did the same. Though most of them weren’t very crafty so they announced ‘you don’t have the same tests as your neighbors, so don’t try.’

        2. CJ

          Having A, B (and sometimes even C) papers was matter of course in maths and physics where I went to school and university.
          Cheating was more likely done by someone good putting your answers on the loo.
          Up until the end of middle school, teachers tended to treat trying to cheat as a thing that was to be expected as part of learning and growing up. You got a bad grade if caught but in my school no one was ever expelled because of it.
          (In my view, the most repeated and don’t care cheaters were never caught, only the usually honest desperate ones).
          Is getting caught at cheating in school a big deal in the US?

        3. BBCC

          Dunno about the US, but in Canada, middle school, no, high school, a little (you can usually expect a 0) and in university, they’ll kick you out.

        4. Opus the Poet

          The incident that ended up with a baseball bat applied to my head was a case of they sat a member of the football team behind me an told me to let him copy off my test so he could stay on the team. I put down all the wrong answers and waited until he turned his test in before erasing the wrong answers and putting in the right ones. Then I made fun of him for being so stupid he couldn’t even copy right.

        5. Khno

          I was rather known to do the contrary. I don’t know how many right answers I gave, then erased them to make them wrong so we wouldn’t get caught.
          That’s how I never was head of any class and was not licentiate the same years as my friends, folks.

        6. Regalli

          Definitely in college in the US. Most colleges these days have a specific academic integrity policy. In high school I think it’s ‘if you get caught’ and bigger for plagiarism than cheating on a test? Then again I was at an IB feeder school where cheating among the IB kids was endemic.

        7. Yumi

          Yeah, kids in advance classes will cheat like whoa. I remember in my AP Chem class, kids were putting programs on their graphing calculators that would basically solve problems for them. I didn’t eat anybody out, but I did go to the teacher like, “Hey, maybe we should be using a class set of calculators for the tests, because, umm…”

        8. Yumi

          I didn’t RAT anybody out, this is the most I have ever hated autocorrect.

        9. CJ

          What’s IB feeder and AP?

        10. Inahc

          they’re different systems of advanced highschool classes. https://universityadmissions.ca/ib-vs-ap/

        11. CJ

          Thanks. So they are a way to school harder in order to get into better universities or skip the first year there?
          The differences between US/Canadian and German education never cease to amaze me.

        12. Yumi

          Basically. I’ll speak for AP since that’s what I have more experience with. AP classes are advanced high school classes that look better on transcripts comparatively. They’re more intensive and may cover similar material to what a college class would. At/near the end of the school year, students may choose to take AP exams, which can award college credit depending on how the student scores and what the college accepts. For instance, I took seven AP classes and exams, passed them all, and entered college with 37 credits under my belt, more than one would generally get in the first year of college.

        13. Chris Phoenix

          My ex-wife taught at Miami Dade College around 2003-2005. She taught people who were going to be teachers. They plagiarized. She caught them. The school told her that she could not fail them because they hadn’t signed something saying they wouldn’t cheat.

          The next semester, she had her students sign a statement that they wouldn’t cheat. They cheated. She caught them. (Essays with whole sentences that were searchable on Google.) The school still would not let her fail them. She quit.

          You see, the teacher-training program was the program that let Miami Dade College be “College” instead of “Community College.” It was new, and they needed all the students to succeed. So they let blatant plagiarists become teachers.

          (Also, a friend taught remedial math there. She said that a lot of the students were doing math at the 3rd grade level.)

      3. erejnion

        In my experience as a teacher, there’s one surefire way of detecting cheaters.
        Don’t give tests. Make them write proofs.
        Okay, I’m a mathematician, so I make them write proofs, but it surely can be extended to other fields too. The point is, if they are cheating, they will make a mistake in the cheating too. And it’s clear when the mistake comes from not understanding what you’re writing.
        Of course, if the cheater understands what he’s writing, that’s good enough for me, and I don’t mark him down.

        Also, in my experience, girls are way less likely to cheat than boys. But who cares, muh oppression.

        1. dethtolldotmid

          I nearly got expelled for plagiarism (read: I didn’t cite something properly) on an English term paper in uni that I’d spent two weeks working on and was absolutely desperate to get right under a prof who was a fucking nightmare. He’s why I never went back to finish my minor after graduating — I’ve been waiting for him to die or retire, whichever comes first. I hate that man like you wouldn’t believe.

      4. LynneB

        I wish to god I had had you as a teacher when I was in school.

        I got marked off for correct answers, again and again, in primary school, because I either did not reach the answer using the approved methodology (e.g. I used short division instead of long division) or I just did them in my head when the problem was particularly simple (used to be I could do that), or occasionally I got a teacher who just didn’t believe that anyone could get 100% on all the quizzes. This continued all the way up to Algebra II, by which time my love of math had been forcibly turned into a loathing of math. I had even been punished for “cheating” sometimes. It just happened too often. I wasn’t allowed to do work I knew I could do.

    3. newllend(henryvolt)

      “I know to damn well I’m too much of a shit teacher to have someone actually learn from my classes.”

  2. Johan

    Yeah no this is mike. 100%

    1. Clif

      Yep. Mike making a distinct hit and causing pain. Making someone face the truth they don’t want to.

  3. miados

    being a blunt dick can, on occasion, be good. Depends on the intent behind it.

    1. LordSimian

      Or despite the intent. It IS Mike, after all.

    2. desolation0

      I still prefer tapered

    3. Unusually Angry Hippie

      The issue therein is that Mike doesn’t just go after people who deserve to be hurt, or moreso, he believely EVERYONE deserves to be hurt. Including himself.

  4. Pablo360

    Terrible teachers, huh? I smell a Cerberus rant in the near future.

    1. Stu

      Extra points for being a female math teacher who thinks that a girl shouldn’t be that smart at math.

    2. Regalli

      I think I hear her screams of fury in the distance.

      1. Clif

        I love the way her eyes are closed in pain in the last panel, but still staring in rage from her forehead. Go Mike.

        1. Regalli

          I meant Cerb’s fury, not Ms Phillips, but yeah that expression sure is something.

      2. BBCC

        I hear it too!

        Cerberus! Don’t forget to breathe! Pace yourself!

    3. Reltzik

      Is Cerb even still around? I don’t think I’ve heard from her for months.

      1. King Daniel

        She made a few comments on a comic a week or so back.

      2. BBCC

        She also occasionally pops onto Patreon.

  5. Sunny D

    And thus begins Mike’s nihilism

    1. King Daniel

      eat arby’s

      1. Tacos

        What’s the point of eating at arby’s when the inevitable heat death of the universe is upon us?

        1. King Daniel

          their curly fries

        2. Jamie

          I don’t know if you’re aware of the reference or not, but there’s a Twitter called “Nihilist Arby’s” and it’s often pretty damn funny.

        3. Woobie

          I read “inevitable meat death”.

      2. NerdHerder

        Arby’s doesn’t see gender.

        Arby’s doesn’t see race.

        Arby’s doesn’t see god.

        There is no god.

        No gods, only Arby’s.

        1. Inahc

          There is no more Arby’s. There is only Zuul!

        2. Opus the Poet

          There’s another one a town over, 10 minute drive at most.

  6. TemporalShrew

    In this strip: Mike is pretty much absolutely the good guy.

    Turns out these comics aren’t flashbacks, they’re rifts into another dimension.

    1. miados

      he is the anti villain. he does good things (calling out the teacher) for bad reasons (because he wants her fired so he can skip class)

      i dunno i am making it up because i often think we know the anti hero does bad things for, at least in their mind, good reasons, but how would an anti villain work?

      In theory they do good things for horrible reasons. Maybe something like cure world hunger, end wars peacefully, and find the cure for every long term terminal disease so he can be chosen as the dictator of the world eventually?

      1. Some1

        An anti-villain is a thing that has existed for years now. Here is a TV Tropes Link http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiVillain

      2. Meep

        No anti-heroes are the ones who slip to moral grays for good motives or goals. Anti-villians are the “bad guys” who steadfastly behave like flipping Batman despite having sworn loyalty to Dark Lord Baby Eater.

        1. Zach

          What about a man who likes torturing people for fun, but has figured out the solution to world hunger and is pursuing it for his ego?

          This was an antagonist in Worm

        2. Nappus Maximus

          That’s just a straight up Well Intentioned Extremist. Not really an anti-villain. There’s a trope page for that too.

        3. Liliet

          Anti-villain imho describes like 70% of Worm cast, it’s like THE defining trope for the book.

      3. BrotherFlounder

        Wait, what? Where are you getting that from?

      4. EnerPrime

        Doing good things for bad reasons (and sometimes using bad methods) is pretty much the definition of anti-hero. And anti-villain is the opposite doing bad things for good reasons (and/or using good methods). So assuming your read of his motivations is correct, Mike would hbe and anit-hero here.

        1. threePwny

          Both are more complex than that. Anti-heroes aren’t necessary doing good or with evil motives. They’re usually amoral with character traits distinctly opposing those of conventional heroes. Anti-villains do usually have good motives and evil means of achieving their goals, but they can also have bad motives—albeit more ethical or moral than their peers—and use either amoral means to achieve them.

          But regardless of their means or motives, the key difference between them is alignment. Anti-heroes are aligned with other heroes/the protagonist, while the anti-villain is aligned against them. And in this case, although DoA doesn’t have a true singular protagonist, we can assume that for this flashback Amber is the protagonist, and Mike is acting in her favor, making him an anti-hero, as you said.

          Of course, that requires that his motivation be less than heroic, which is most likely the case, but I think the above assertion that his motives are decidedly bad is unfounded. We just don’t know enough about Mike’s character at this age to know if he was already as cynical and dickish as he is in the present. There may have been a catalystic event sometime after the flashback that broke him.

      5. Zee

        As far as I’m aware, anti-villains are people who do bad things for what they believe are good and justified villains. For example, taking over the planet through war because they believe they can make the world better that way when in reality they’re just a powerhungry dictator.

    2. DanLovatClark

      We might be getting the Mike origin story here. We already saw the disturbingly-accurate intuition and manipulative tendencies, this might be what hardens that into the nihilistic iconoclastic asshole we recognize.

      1. Maja!

        Yes, I agree. And we might also learn why Amber would be okay with hacking Walky’s grades.

        1. Unusually Angry Hippie

          Maybe her respect for authority does not extend to academic institutions?

    3. Clif

      If you think Mike is absolutely the good guy, I think you aren’t playing attention.

      1. Yumi

        They did say, “in this strip.” Meaning this one specific strip, not the comic as a whole. In fact, they go on to pose good guy behavior on Mike’s part as being in contrast to the rest of the comic.

        Maybe you got all that and do think Mike isn’t the good guy in this conversation with the teacher. I see some interpretations along those lines. Your comment just comes off like you’re the one not paying attention.

  7. kay

    W O W.

  8. BBCC

    Wow, up your’s, lady.

    Seek a new profession immediately.

  9. Deathjavu

    Wow, I figured the teacher was just wrong and incompetent, not actively malicious. I mean, the teacher isn’t a main character’s dad, I didn’t think they’d be evil…

    1. Regalli

      My guess was ‘up too late grading’ or something to that effect. Honest mistakes do happen, and even though they’re more common on higher levels basically all teachers put in way more hours than they’re paid for, it’s just the way things have become structured in this country.

      In this case, her mistake was teaching children.

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        Heh this reminds me when I had teaching practice in college. I graded some tests for the teacher I had practice under and then handed it to kids. One boy (it was Middle school) came to me saying I graded it wrong, I was embarrassed by making a mistake… until I noticed the fresh eraser marks…

        1. Yumi

          In my 7th grade algebra class, there was one girl who claimed that the teacher had marked her test wrong a few times, having changed her answers when he wasn’t looking after getting the test back. The first couple times, he took her at her word and fixed her grade accordingly. Then one day she raised her hand to say he had marked a question wrong that she had gotten right, and he said, “No, I didn’t. I know because I photocopied your quiz before giving it back to you.”

  10. Passchendaele

    Ms. Philippa Philip Phillips, III

    1. Schpoonman

      I had a phenomenal teacher whose first name is Phillipa, don’t besmirch that good name.

      1. Passchendaele

        but

        it’s the perfect name here

        I had to. ;-;

      2. Myth

        My aunt is both a Ms. Phillips and a phenomenal teacher. Good names are already being besmirched.

    2. TCS

      Ms. Philippa Philip Phillips, the Phliphth.

      1. Passchendaele

        YES

  11. Stephen Bierce

    *okay, who switched the Molly Hatchet and the Pink Floyd in the Muzak library?*

    1. Opus the Poet

      Flirting with Disaster, or Another Brick in the Wall Pt.2?

  12. Yumi

    Welp, Mike, I’m not a fan, but if you go all…Mike on this woman, I’ll support you.

    1. DanLovatClark

      Mike is like a hurricane. Terrible but beautiful to watch in action, and sometimes, just sometimes, it hits someone who richly deserves it.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Like those damn corn farmers on the East Coast. Dirty corn-raisers got what was comin’. /s

      2. Kit

        Your post reminded me of something from a few years ago.

        Are you familiar with Tony Perkins? If you were paying attention to politics in the ’90s, you might have heard about the $82,600 check he sent to former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke or about his subsequent speech to the racist hate group Council of Conservative Citizens. Or you might recognize the name from his more recent gig as the president of an anti-LGBT hate group: the Family Research Council. The FRC pretty much only exists to produce anti-LGBT propaganda and to use it’s affiliated lobbying group to work to enshrine bigotry into law. Last year Trump became the first sitting president to give a speech at their Values Voters Summit.

        In 2015 Tony Perkins was giving an interview less than 24 hours after Hurricane Joaquin made landfall and killed 34 people. He said that God may have been “trying to send us a message” regarding marriage equality. Less than a year later, he had to leave his Louisiana home due to massive flooding.

  13. Nono

    It’s somehow worse that it’s a woman teacher with this attitude.

    1. Valerie

      Self-hate is a hell of a drug.

      1. miados

        we don’t know for sure its self hate yet. she could just be a bongo who gets enjoyment out of messing with people.

        although yeah self hate is a heck of a drug thats easy to get addicted to.

        1. Clif

          Ask Mike.

    2. carms

      internalised prejudice, ironically, is very equally distributed.

      1. thejeff

        Yeah, pretty much. It’s not even “self-hate” as such, it’s just easy to absorb common cultural stereotypes – even when they’re directed at your own group.
        It’s usually not this blatant and aware though. Usually it’s more subconscious – grading those you expect to do poorly more critically and giving more leeway to those you expect to understand it, for example.

        1. Valerie

          I guess I should clarify that I meant the definition of self-hate that extends to an entire group to which one belongs. So, in this case, a sexist (against women) woman.

  14. Gojira

    Wow, its not just all parents are scum in this comic, all adults are scum!

    1. wwwhhattt

      See also: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/sandwich/

    2. King Daniel

      The only recurring characters in this comic I can name off the top of my head who aren’t technically adults are Riley and Conquest. 😛

      1. miados

        I was thinking the same thing. in a college setting comic nearly everyone is an adult.

        1. Mitsukara

          Faz isn’t an adult, but I mistook him for one because he’s a pretty small guy even as an adult.

        2. King Daniel

          Also to be fair, Faz wasn’t a “recurring” DoA character (as in, had non-flashback appearances in more than one chapter) until…the previous chapter. 😛

      2. Needfuldoer

        Then how about “adults (relative to the main cast in age and life experience) who aren’t scum”?

        That leaves us Hank Brown, Jocelyne Brown, the Keeners, the Snows, Stacy Brennan, probably Galasso and Pamela…

        1. Inahc

          Leslie too

        2. King Daniel

          Mindy didn’t seem half bad either.

        3. Ana Chronistic

          We don’t know about Professor Rees!

    3. Plasma Mongoose

      So it is less that growing up sucks and more growing up makes you suck.

  15. Deadjolras

    I don’t know if young Mike is being brutally honest here. He seems genuinely heartbroken by what he’s perceived in panel 6.

    1. Nobody

      How do you think Mike ended up hating humanity

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        I thought he became the way he is due to having Stepford parents.

        1. Nobody

          yep I’m sure they have no dark disturbing corners to their psyche

        2. Meep

          I think it would be more likely that they are good people who live in a privilege bubble. Mike is very observant, with an *extremely* strong, if (now at least) twisted sense of justice. That sort of “head in the sand” behavior would slowly drive a young Mike to despair.

  16. DailyBrad

    Mike’s not omniscient, but he can definitely hit the mark.

  17. Ivy

    Aw, look at this sweet boy

  18. Some Random Name

    So the teacher assumed Amber cheated but she didn’t. That’s just a dick move.

    1. miados

      I did have a similar thing, in math, where i was marked wrong on every question getting 50 percent because the answer was right but the work i showed wasn’t how we were taught (i figured out my own way and it always worked) my dad basically came in (only time he made a fuss over me getting a not good grade. I always excelled in math) and basically said something like.

      every answer is right and the work is shown right there. You never said to use a specific way of solving the answer just to show the work which was done.

      the teacher gave me a 100 percent and then there was talk about putting me in high school math.

      sadly i was not smart at anything else and it would conflict badly with middle school so i stayed.

      1. monkyvirus

        That is so infuriating. I have no issue with a learning objective being “learn method X” but then you need your test questions to reflect that your testing my knowledge of X gosh darn it.

        1. Pat

          Eh, you do test methods sometimes.

          Especially if you’re teaching different methods and want to make sure they understand all of them.

      2. Larkle

        I can relate to that. A math teacher marked me off for the way I showed my work in middle school as well. I’d been in a different schooling system for a year and had learned a different (better method) of how to do the problem. I had to explain my system to her, but she did give me the points back. It sucks though, because I know that there are plenty of people who wouldn’t do the confrontation, especially as this teacher was generally considered pretty awful and would put kids in detention for any kind of perceived backtalk. When the teacher is a bully, all the pressure is on the student to defend themselves or to just accept it.

        1. Coma

          I kind of experienced something similar: in lower secondary (which is probably middle school level) I got answers marked as being wrong, because I skipped parts of the solution in an equation, not writing everything down but e.g. adding numbers in my head – but the teacher wanted to have the whole way noted down, so my parents had to argue with her and I had to prove that yes, I could calculate pretty well in my head and didn’t simply copy anyone’s results.
          Another thing, such as with Amber, was in higher secondary in a preparation course for the ECDL (Eurpean Computer Drivers License – which basically just is a document to prove “Hey, I can use all Microsoft Office parts, even Excel and Access to a certain level”). My father works with computers, I don’t understood much of what he told me back then (still just not much, but maybe a bit more than the average user), but I knew certain things, and there was a basic knowledge multiple choice test on computers (e.g. “What does RAM stand for?” etc) which I simply took without revising anything, just to see how much I knew (and it wasn’t part of the grade, it was just a test as preparation for the license tests). I didn’t pass, but just because four answers I gave were marked wrong (with them, I would’ve passed with around 75%), because they were wrong in the comparison sheet of the teacher. I argued with her, she didn’t believe me that my answers were correct (that was at a time before the existence of affordable smartphones, so not so fast access to the internet to look it up and show her the answer)- which made me pretty mad. So my father had to come in at the next parents day (which was soon) and argue with her about my answers, explaining to her why they were correct, but without saying that he came from the field. She did alter my score into a “passed”-thing, but I still find it bogus that the effing COMPARISON sheet was wrong. I mean, you pay for taking the test and getting the license, so the preparation material should be top notch or else you learn something that’s wrong which might cost you a passing grade on the license.

        2. Coma

          Oh wow, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make this comment THAT long

        3. Inahc

          I’m kind of amazed I never had this type of bad teacher myself… But then again, maybe sheer obliviousness got me through without me noticing. If I was in Amber’s position I’d have assumed good intent and politely explained until the marks were Right, bulldozing straight through any attempts at subtext.

          I did encounter the “show your work” issue a couple of times, though. Long division was way too slow for me, and I think my parents convinced the elementary school teachers that short division was good enough. Then in high school it took my parents a while to explain to me that I did actually need to show some work for complex problems, and that teachers couldn’t just take my word for it that I knew what I was doing. ( I guess I was still having trouble understanding that other people couldn’t read my mind?)

          Then I got to calculus, and it turned out you actually need long division there, and I had completely forgotten how it worked. (But whatever, it also turned out I was too *young* to take the IB/AP calculus exam anyways.)

  19. Tacos

    Well fuck you, teach.

  20. Synnerman

    Aaaand now I have flashbacks to 2nd grade.

    My mother told me my 2nd grade teacher did exactly this because I was awkward and introverted. They tried to put me into Special Education even though I got perfect scores on those stupid tests.

    My mom says I should not hold a grudge. I hope that harridan rots in the bowels of hell and dies horribly.

    1. Mollyscribbles

      Grudges are things that can be released once you can utilize a time machine and a crowbar to have closure.

      1. Coma

        Eh – despite really laughing about your comment, it just reminds me of hating one of my English teachers in lower secondary.
        She basically assumed I was stupid because I didn’t do well on her tests and I was sent to some institute to take intelligence tests – turned out I wasn’t of low intelligence, but just really bored with her method of teaching (teaching from the front), and couldn’t understand the way she explained things, which was always the same, repeated over and over, instead of trying some different approach.
        In upper secondary I started enjoying English as a language (also because I got good teachers, one especially being exceptional, supporting my creative writing side), resulting in me choosing to study the language at university. Met the lower secondary teacher later in the course of my studies and it turned out she had a pretty rough phase while she was teaching my class in the past – her young son was sick from cancer, so she was under constant stress, making some of the things she said and did pretty irrational. Which explained her behaviour to a certain extent. Plus she could’ve just not cared about me failing, but she chose to care (even if it was from a somewhat wrong angle), so I couldn’t stay mad at her; I even felt sorry for her. And yeah, she should’ve probably taken a break, but that’s easier said than done (especially if her son is sick for years and she probably needed the money).
        But she was possibly an exception – many teachers behaving stupidly have an equally stupid reason to do so.

    2. Meep

      Lots of special ed kids get superb grades. You may have just lined up with whatever abelist stereotype of a “high functioner” was in her head.

    3. Garrulous

      This reminds me of my parents once telling me that I was nearly held back despite good grades –

      Because I was very small for my age and ‘wouldn’t fit in’. Seems like an odd reason to hold someone back a grade.

      1. Bathymetheus

        This may have been code for the school had a bullying problem.

      2. Inahc

        When I first came to Canada, I was placed a grade above my age, based on my abilities. Three weeks later, the school got a new principal, and she pushed me back to be with kids my own age. 😛 it did solve the problem of being in a class with a guy who wouldn’t shut up about my accent, but it put me with a horrible teacher who forced me to do addition and subtraction with the rest of the class; my mum had to fight just to get me multiplication *homework* :p

        About a year after that, the principal somehow ended up teaching me math herself for a while.

  21. Synnerman

    Not my mom, the evil 2nd grade teacher.

  22. Kyrik Michalowski

    You know the more of Mike’s early days I learn about the more I’m reminded of my own, and it’s an extremely uncomfortable feeling. As much as I enjoy seeing more about what makes him who he is, it’s still not great to be reminded of those experiences.

  23. insomniac

    …oh, okay. Wow. Is this what it is?

    Mike can read people. He has a gift for it.

    With this gift, he determines that people are awful.

    Having come to this realization, he… becomes Mike.

    1. miados

      people are pretty awful. Especially that jerk that looks at me every day in the mirror.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Do you have that guy, too? Mine keeps trying to tell me I can’t do stuff, but then I go do stuff, so that shows what he knows.

        1. Some1

          Mine keeps smiling creepily at me and writing “soon” in backwards letters on the mirrors condensation.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Backwards from your POV, or his?

        3. Some1

          I don’t really know, its in an undiscovered writing system and the meaning is etched into my brain whenever I read it.

        4. Clif

          It really says NOOS, you’re just reading it backwards.

        5. 0kami

          Does that imply that they intend to hang them from a length of rope?*

          Boy, this is sure taking a dark turn…

          * I know I shouldn’t explain the joke, but just to clarify; Noose.

        6. Tacos

          But does it included the trademark symbol after “Soon”?

        7. Doom Shepherd

          Mine has no expression, and just draws a neutral smiley but the straight line of the mouth drops down at the end.

    2. Inahc

      Hey. So Mike is like Patrick/Menace from SFP.

  24. Danni

    susan phillips

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Jeesh, why not name her Caucasotron Unit #FFFFFF, while you’re at it?

      1. Danni

        that was my second choice!

  25. Delicious Taffy

    Remember, kids. Nothing you ever do will be the right thing, and everyone will always be mad at you for something you didn’t do. The important thing is to never try, and just focus on bettering yourself at what you actually care about.

    1. Inahc

      That seems to be what my brain is telling me lately (minus the last part). I really wish it’d shut up.

      Also, autocorrect seems determined to make sure nothing I post is exactly what I intended to write. Grr.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        I wasn’t being sarcastic. Screw what other people want for you, they change it all the time without notice, then get mad when you don’t meet their latest whim. Just do what you enjoy and get good at it, you’ll be way happier.

        1. Inahc

          yeah, but I can’t do hardly any of what I enjoy because my body is fucked. :/ Anxiety has been sucking all the fun out of things I used to enjoy, too. And the person that’s mad is also me, so there’s no escape. >.<

          I did make *some* progress last night, though. It's just so, so frustrating to always be behind; even when expectations seem pathetically low they're still too high. 🙁 Partially because so many spoons get spent on arguing over which of the things we want actually gets to happen. 😛

          I'm gonna drag myself to the gym in a minute… but that probably means I'll end up too tired to watch tv I've been meaning to watch for weeks… that or I'll forget again and get distracted by random shit…

        2. Arian

          I definitely know the feeling.

  26. jeffepp

    Code words: “You’er new here” “Some things you just don’t understand”.

    There are special rules going on. And, Amber is the subject of them. I smell the work of her father in this.

    1. Regalli

      I think it’s more likely some form of prejudice, but I would not be at all surprised if Amber’s home life played a part in the judging.

      Then again, depending on the size of the town and how known it is that Blaine’s a scumbag who’s probably involved with the mob*…

      * Likely not widely. That’s something you want to keep quiet and we know Blaine can be glibly charming in that Abusive Creep Covering His Shittiness way to strangers, probably does it with people he doesn’t have power over too.

  27. newllend(henryvolt)

    God forbid someone be smart enough to completely ace a test.

  28. DrWattson

    This kind of hits close to home for me; when I was a kid, I was horrible about doing everyday school work, meanwhile I was a great test taker. More than once, I had teachers try and convince my parents I was cheating because of this fact.

  29. Sam

    The sadness of Mike’s face in panel 6 makes me upset.

    1. Clif

      Worked on the teacher too. Mike is good at what he does.

  30. Kit

    Ohey, I had her my senior year of high school. She taught AP English, and she graded me down for understanding the material too well. How do I know? Because she literally wrote it on my term paper.

    1. CJ

      And that didn’t get her fired?

      1. Kit

        Nope. But she did retire at the end of the year, which was definitely for the best.

  31. Mr. Random

    The Sadness of Mike shall turn into the Madness of Mike.
    And then the Mating of Mike.
    Followed by the Madness of Mike Part 2: Eclectic Bugaboo.
    Followed in quick succession by
    The Misery of Mike, Mike the Miser, Mike the Wiser, and Mike the Why?
    Until we settle into
    Mike.
    The Wise-Ass

  32. Bagge

    “Some things you don’t understand” is code for “I can turn this power I’m abusing against you, and if you give me cause I will”, naturally.

    1. Tacos

      This is probably how Mike becomes an asshole and gets her fired.

  33. Bagge

    FUDGE YOU, AMBER’S TEACHER
    FUDGE YOU AGAIN, ALEX

    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/html/

    1. Rowen Morland

      What grades did Alex actually award her though?

      1. Bagge

        Presumably he didn’t have time to grade her before he took of for Bulmeria.

        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/alex-2/

  34. Axel

    That’s so much not how you’re supposed to deal with cheaters (or presumed ones) anyway.

    1. Regalli

      Seriously. For starters, if you think they’re cheating, let them know you’re onto them.

  35. C.T Phipps

    Now, Mike, it’s entirely possible she believes Amber isn’t smart enough because she’s POOR!

    Don’t be prejudiced.

    1. Regalli

      Could be because her parents are divorced too. Any way you cut it, Ms Phillips can go eat an entire saguaro.

      1. thejeff

        I don’t believe they’re divorced yet. This flashback is before the robbery, IIRC.
        Also little reason to think they’re poor.

        If there was a more understandable reason to think she isn’t smart enough, it’s because of Amber’s abuse related issues – crippling shyness and introversion. She aces the tests but can’t actually answer questions or explain anything? Suspicious.
        Not a good reason, mind you. In fact, huge red flags to check for other problems, but Blaine probably shoots down any attempts at that. And likely plants the seeds of doubt about Amber in any parent-teacher meetings.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Mrs. Phillips senses the inner Amazi-Girl/Michael Myers in her. “For eight years I tried to reach her, then for the next eight I tried to keep her locked up.”

          *Halloween theme plays*

      2. jy3

        Whole. Without sauce.

  36. Morbid

    She definitely looks like one of those old women types that would be sexist against her own :/

  37. Classic Appa

    Ah the curse of being able to read people so well.

  38. Regalli

    I take back everything I said about how Mike should have offered moral support while Amber asked, Mike is perfect here. Shame her, Mike. Shame her. And then steal all of her staples.

    Betting now this wasn’t just Amber’s usual avoidance, either. The ‘you’re new here and don’t understand’ line says to me this wasn’t an isolated incident.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      And don’t forget to steal all her sugar and put it in her fuel-tank.

      1. Regalli

        While he’s in her home he can rearrange everything in her house to be just an inch closer to each other. And use all her hand sanitizer.

  39. motorfirebox

    It occurs to me to wonder, is Mike maybe on the spectrum? Sometimes if you’re, y’know, just slightly cyborged and not a full-on beep boop computer, you can come up with routines for managing social interaction. It’s like creating a simple character for a play or something, you create the idea of a personality and then try to act the way that person would act in social situations. “Deadpan asshole” is a straightforward enough concept that I can see someone choosing that as their character. I don’t feel like it’s a super super likely choice because the whole point of building a character to play is so you can get along, but in the right circumstances I feel like it could happen.

    1. motorfirebox

      Oh, and the thing that got me on this track to begin with—the whole blurting out uncomfortable observations thing. Mike doesn’t seem like he’s doing it to be an asshole, here. Maybe he learned to disguise it as assholery, because people respond to that more predictably than they do to zero-affect information dumps?

    2. Raen

      …cyborged? Is that what the kids are calling it now?

    3. Regalli

      I think he reads social cues and people a bit too well for that, but it might also be me Not Wanting it as well, even if we have other probable autistic rep with Dina.

      Mostly though I just really dislike the idea of ‘well Mike CAN’T just be a neurotypical asshole white dude because those Just Don’t Happen, must be something Not Normal about him!’ like all the ‘he’s a sociopath’ commenters say. Don’t get that vibe off of you, but it’s been in the comments so much lately I can’t separate the two notions.

      Even if he is, I think the asshole is genuine. Thinking on it I could see him having the same awful trajectory as my one cousin*. (Basically fell down the Gamergate rabbit hole into the alt right.)

      * Counting me, there are at least six people firmly on the spectrum in my generation of cousins from that side of the family.

      1. Sam

        I agree kind of on both sides here, I can see Mike being on the spectrum because well, a lot of autistic symptoms tend to be on extreme ends on a scale and this could arguably be a case of ‘picking up on small details but not the big picture until prompted’, but I would also agree that the being an abusive asshole thing is likely separate from that, where even if that was true, I don’t think he is playing a character, I think he has just shifted his natural perception into using it for evil purposes. On one hand, it would explain his meticulous, obsessive nature in ruining people, but on the other, neurotypical people can still fit a few symptoms without being autistic.

        It is also really easy to just try to pass him off as a sociopath or abnormal though like you have said and go ‘he is part of this group of people, and that is why he is evil’ even when no, having a differently designed brain isn’t why, Mike is just choosing to be the way he is. He still has the free will to choose and also the opportunity to grow and change into someone who is not like this.

      2. Inahc

        Yeah, he seems a *lot* too good at social cues. At that age, iirc, I was still having trouble with concepts like “people can lie”.

      3. motorfirebox

        Totally with you on white dudes being neurotypical assholes. What bugs me, I guess, is that his assholery is so sharply defined and harmless. Nine times out of ten it seems like he’s being an “asshole” by making someone face a truth about themselves that they were either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge. He doesn’t do really harmful or hurtful stuff. He may or may not be a neurotypical asshole, but he’s definitely not a regular-typical asshole.

        1. motorfirebox

          Er, not that “white dudes are assholes” but that “if white dudes are assholes they shouldn’t be given a pass or excuse”.

        2. BBCC

          So what truth was he revealing by lying to Walky to make him cry?

        3. motorfirebox

          If I had to no-prize it, I’d say maybe Walky just needed a good cry? I’m not gonna claim Mike is secretly doing good EVERY time, just that a lot of time his “assholery” offers valid insight into his victims’ issues.

      4. Opus the Poet

        Mike is a Chaotic Good sociopath. He’s weaponized his personality for the Greater Good. He knows he’s an Agent of Chaos, but he wants to Be Good.

        1. Fart Captor

          He’s chaotic neutral at best

        2. Inahc

          and yet he fails every time. 😛

        3. thejeff

          Maybe not everytime – there has been occasional postive fall out.

          Of course, those could be the times it actually backfired and he didn’t get the result he wanted. Which is more my theory.

          But yeah, not Good. Even if his ends were good, the means matter. And his means are causing people pain. If he’s as brilliant a manipulator as some think, he could help people without the torment.

        4. Sam

          He is not a sociopath or Chaotic Good. Grown up Mike is Chaotic Neutral at his best and Chaotic Evil at his worst.

  40. ARoseJess

    A teacher did the same to me in high school. I used too many polysyllabic words in a book report, and I was SO clearly plagiarizing someone else. I just appreciate words, and her son hated me…or liked me, maybe? I’m still not clear on that one… I just took the “C” and seethe years later. Healthy huh? Funny thing is I actually wrote papers for a friend (yeah, so my ethics are “flexible;” she inspired me 😉 ) and she got better grades than I ever did in the same class…and they’re Facebook friends. *sigh*

    1. Coma

      I promise, not all teachers are like that! There are good ones out there! (though you’re probably out of school now)
      My English teacher in upper secondary taught us the American voting system (I’m from somewhere in Europe) and a friend started to read an English book in class. He asked her after some time if she could tell him about what he explained and she did, without missing anything. She just had this talent to concentrate on both things, and she already knew about the system – so he was like “okay, as long as you can move along with the class and don’t check out, you can read books or doodle all you want.”
      And him also being a teacher at university for English teaching got my hopes up that many of the future teachers might become like him, accepting students as individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. He also ALWAYS took the time to discuss weaknesses and strengths with each student after important tests, to make sure they understood what they were great at and in which fields they needed to improve.

      1. Liliet

        In high school /all/ my teachers let me doodle in class, because it was clear I followed the material, and actually better than most others in class, too. Now in retrospect I’m realizing that doodling actually helped me focus better on listening because that’s how my spectrum brain works… and they didn’t know that, even I didn’t know that, it was just the lax discipline working out in my favor. That was nice, my school was awesome (hopefully still is).

        1. Liliet

          …I also always cheated on all tests – off my own notes. We always had long answer tests, and we were always Officially Not Allowed To Use Notes (except geography, where we were allowed to use everything, and the teacher also left the classroom during tests to allow us to cooperate on figuring out answers freely, and then also left some points ‘free’ so we could have some answers wrong and still get a 100%, because the tests were -bullshit- and he couldn’t always answer them right himself. I question why he used those, but hey, we didn’t get graded down for nothing… and didn’t NOT know geography).
          I always always always cheated and helped others cheat and it was… fine? Teachers sometimes stopped people from cheating when they spotted it but the worst punishment was “you’re turning in your test right now, you’re done” (so I always did what I could on my own before starting to cheat) (I suspect that was the idea). Our math teacher actually allowed people to raise their hands to ask for her help during tests, with the philosophy that “at least they’ll learn it NOW”.
          My favorite cheating story is when I copied my entire test from my notes that were lying RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, while I was sitting at the front row desk right in front of the teacher who was looking right at me. I’d forgotten my regular copybook the day we were learning that material so my notes were on loose leaf sheets, and my desk was always a horrible mess so some sheets lying scattered in front of me among the mess of books and other copybooks (all closed naturally) didn’t ping any alarms. And I wrote my own notes instead of what the teacher dictated because that was how I listened, so the copied word for word phrasing didn’t ping any alarms either: it was my own phrasing anyway. And of course I actually understood the material, I just couldn’t be bothered to try and recall it all on my own when I could cheat XD
          Honestly people should be allowed to use their own notes during tests, that’s what notes are FOR 0.0

    2. Huehuetotl

      ‘Funny thing is I actually wrote papers for a friend (yeah, so my ethics are “flexible;” she inspired me ? )’
      This is how I read this script. Amber is helping Walky cheat because she’s been accused of cheating when she didn’t. I had a similar experience.

  41. Eva

    Um, am I the only one who thinks Amber probably did cheat, not because she’s a girl but because we *just saw her trying to help Walky cheat*?

    Unless she is doing that because she figures hey, if you can be marked down for cheating when you didn’t, might as well do it?

    1. King Daniel

      Amber probably wouldn’t be out in the hallway, alone and on the verge of tears, if she actually did cheat. Just my two cents.

      1. Regalli

        Hiding behind a locker from the confrontation, too. The current cheating is her trying to break her moral code to stick it to AG. Baby Amber was starting a speech about how rules separate heroes from villains about Ethan’s mostly-offhand remark about pirating comics when Mike joined the class.

      2. Conuly

        Adolescent Amber seems to be alone and on the verge of tears all the time. Social anxiety + emotional abuse will do that to a girl.

    2. TemperaryObsessor

      Since she wasn’t going to correct her mistakes because girls are not allowed to have good grades in math even if Amber had the guts to correct her, there was never a legitimate way towards good grades for Amber.
      My guess is the teacher instead of teaching cheaters never prosper taught Amber sometimes the rules don’t allow you to win and you have to cheat. So my guess is Amber didn’t cheat yet but after Mike gets her fired will find a way to correct her teachers mistakes for her after the fact.

    3. Twirls

      Amber’s going to go help Walky cheat via changing his grades on the computer. The math test is clearly a paper test and Mrs.Awful up tehre doesn’t look like she knows how a computer works so I’m thinking no

  42. K. Ivan Ruppert

    I really wish Amber’s father wasn’t a hot garbage fire fashioned into a cruel mockery of a man. He’d probably suggest that Amber IS wrong on those questions, or that she WAS cheating.

    1. C.T Phipps

      The scary thing is I think Blaine used to be like Amber and they did have a lot in common but he became the enormous violent asshole he was as his own way of Amazi-girling out.

      He has a lot of qualities which imply he was abused.

      1. thejeff

        There’s certainly the possibility he was abused, but there’s little to no indication what he was like as a kid or how much his current behavior has to do with that abuse.
        Nor is he much like Amber, as far as I can tell. She has rage issues, which she’s tried to sublimate into Amazi-Girl and use for good. We’ve actually seen little in the way of violence or anger from him. He’s much more of an manipulating, emotional abuser, and we’ve seen little of that from Amber.
        They don’t really have a lot in common, despite Amber’s fears and self-doubts.

        1. Inahc

          and one of the many things they don’t have in common *is* all that fear and self-doubt. and amber’s caring about other people’s feelings. really, all they have in common is the bad habits amber picked up from him.

        2. C.T Phipps

          All of Blaine’s abuse so far is directed at the fear that Amber can’t stand up for herself and needs to hurt other people who are threatening her. I think that’s an interesting twist that the ability to stand up for herself is intrinsically linked to her father.

          And why she doesn’t.

  43. Badgermole

    This happened to me in third grade and in my best subject (English) because the teacher had a grudge about me correcting her spelling one time in class. Luckily my parents insisted on the school rechecking the records and got the grade changed. Middle aged adults being pettily vindictive to children is something I saw a lot of and it was never a flattering look.

  44. Plasma Mongoose

    A female teacher who assumes that female students couldn’t be actually smart, is this proof that Patriarchy has female agents?

    1. CJ

      Since we had Margret Thatcher, do. we need any other proof?

    2. erejnion

      Plasma, I think it’s well proven women don’t like each other, statistically speaking. By your logic, the Matriarchy working against itself.
      But no, Ms Phillips is obviously off in the head somehow. The educational system is generally biased towards MALE students not being smart and being cheaters. That’s why women dominate the numbers in university. That’s part of the gender-based issues that are still left unsolved after so many years of genuine and worthwhile progress.

      1. Arian

        That’s weird – I can’t think of any women I don’t like. Whereas there are plenty of men. What are we alleged to dislike each other over?

        1. erejnion

          Statistics.
          Who the fuck knows, evolutionary psychology probably can cough up some sort of reason that has some small percentage of truth in it. Other than that, it’s just an observation of a statistical phenomenon, nothing more.

          If I am to guess, it’s probably about competitiveness and how different genders go about it. Males, statistically speaking, tend to do more physical competition, but remaining friendly afterwards. As in, literal dick measuring. Females, statistically speaking, tend to do more disliking. Meh. The standard deviation of these statistics is YUGE so it’s easy to find whole groups of people who are the exact opposite…. just, it’s even easier to find groups of people like that movie production company with only female employees that bankrupted in tears, catfights and shaming over fashion.

          tl;dr: if you want to be statistically speaking on the safe side on the topic of your company bankrupting, just don’t discriminate on the basis of gender.

  45. General Tekno

    Yeah, reading this and keeping in mind the previous strip, I’m getting the feeling the swerve is gonna be that she WAS cheating somehow. Like, as in she cheated so that she’d do well and not disappoint her father.

    And finding that out is what’s gonna break Mike.

    1. CJ

      Amber is so much about being honest I don’t think that’s very likely.
      There are just some nerdy things she’s really good at.

      1. Conuly

        Amber literally just told Walky she’d hack into the computer and change his math grade for him. Like, last strip, so five minutes ago in strip-time.

        1. timemonkey

          Yes, but that happened after she decided she was total garbage and decided to stop fighting it. It’s also after she stopped trying to make her dad happy.

        2. Conuly

          You think Blaine cares about cheating?

        3. Sam

          If it tarnishes his reputation, yes.

        4. timemonkey

          No, but Amber would be trying to avoid anything that would potentially upset him.

    2. Regalli

      Remember we just saw this Amber talking about her moral code at the beginning of the storyline. And this looks to be before the establishment of AG and with her, Amber as the Bad One. Much less Amber trying to prove she is irredeemable garbage. Possible, but I really reeeeeaaaally doubt it.

    3. Liliet

      We know Amber is good at math-things. We know Amber is terrified of confrontation and yet she was trying to go in to try to change her grades anyway (if she knew she was cheating and the teacher might be calling her out on it she would avoid this confrontation like hell I assure you from experience with both social anxiety and cheating). We know Amber thinks pirating comics makes you a villain.
      Yeah, she wasn’t cheating.

    4. Zee

      She won’t even pirate (in her words “steal”) comic books, what makes you think she could cheat?

  46. brasca1

    Winner of the Phyllis P. Schlafy Sisterhood Award.

    1. Twirls

      A+

  47. Aletheia

    Oh, hello there 9th grade English teacher. I didn’t expect to see you and your “I know you’re a better writer and that you understood the content better, but you just can’t compare to your male classmates no matter what you do” subtext while reading this.

  48. Dara

    I have a friend whose parents were called into school for a special conference where the administration warned them she might be sterile and advised them to get her genetically tested, because she was too good at math.

    1. Regalli

      … What the fucking FUCK. That’s a new one.

    2. CJ

      Wait, what? In the 21st century?

      1. Dara

        She’s older than that – it was in the 1980s, at a private school, in Texas.

    3. erejnion

      …what? How? What? Where does this logic even come from? That’s such a bizarre case of bigotry that I want to know more of it.
      It’s something like “I bet somebody changed the gender of your kid, and it’s genetically male”, isn’t it? But for the parents to not know this… what was the school thinking, really.

      1. CJ

        There probably is a bullshit pseudoscientific reason. I’d guess they feared evelated levels of testosterone which can make a women infertile.
        Though the connection between logical thinking and testosterone seem rather inverted in that reasoning.

        When you read about medcine in the late 19th century, there were loads of that kind of bollocks around.

        1. erejnion

          So where does the genetic test come from then? You can directly test testosterone levels. Your pseudoscience is lacking, you need to go deeper in the pseudo =D
          Or maybe, considering the school needs to be staffed with idiots anyway, they think testosterone can be tested only using DNA test. Yeah. That sounds reasonable.

        2. Dara

          No, they used a cattle term for describing XY female cattle, which are sterile.

          Yes, it was dehumanising. No, her parents did not put up with any of it.

          (Also, in case anyone is wondering, no, this isn’t friend as in asking-for-a-friend; she told this story to others, including me, later.)

        3. Jhon

          Freemartin.

        4. Arian

          A term I first ran across when I read “Brave New World”. In that case, they were genetic females who were sterilised with pre-birth doses of testosterone.

        5. erejnion

          Hahawut… well, the more you know. Thanks! It’s always useful to know what total bullshit one might encounter.

        6. CJ

          When I had elevated testosterone levels, the doctors thoroughly occupied with the effect on my fertility (I already was in my early 40ties lol) suggested a gene defect as a possible reason. I vaguely remember it was somehow linked to intersexuality.
          The more sane doctors agreed with me that even if that were the case, it wasn’t a problem as I never intended to have kids in the first place.

      2. Dara

        It was the late 1980s, so it was more that they thought she was born female but genetically male. They used a cattle term to describe it, as it’s known to happen in cows. (This did, of course, make it worse.)

    4. Needfuldoer

      Did she float or sink when they threw her into a river?

    5. Derek

      how in the fuck’s name would they conclude she is sterile and how did they think this was an appropriate thing to talk about when referring to a minor??

      1. Dara

        Because they’d decided she must be genetically XY male. And because Texas in the late 1980s.

  49. Koms

    Aaargh hulk mode initiating. In computer class at school in a test I had written a program correctly. The teacher had marked it incorrect. I demonstrated the program to the teacher on the computer. She was forced to give back the marks. But then she deducted an equal amount of marks for another question.

  50. Regalli

    *Appropriate gestures of support* to everyone sharing teacher horror stories. Bad teachers are a special level of awful.

  51. Eldritch Gentleman

    What is this fresh new hell? [looks on with horror]

  52. BenRG

    “Because I can’t believe anyone is smarter than me, I’m going to punish anyone who shows that they’re smarter than me.”

  53. Fogel

    I have a few shitty teacher stories which I could add to the collection, both ones which happenned to me and to others, but id like to add an example from the other side of the ledger. On my final essay, this prof wrote that I hadn’t answered the question as asked, BUT he could see why I had read it as I did, and that it was a good topic as well, and that my answer for *that* question was excellent, and he gave me an [A].

    1. erejnion

      This is relatively normal in mathematics. Doing one mistake usually means the work you have to do from there on changes, but I personally, as well as most other teachers I know, score it anyway. So a flipped sign at the beginning of the proof can still give you an A- if you finished the rest correctly.
      It’s good to know other fields do it too.

      1. thejeff

        This however is the kind of thing where bias creeps in, even in the apparently objective field of math.
        That flipped sign can either be a trivial mistake while doing everything else correctly or obvious evidence you don’t understand the concept, depending on the teacher’s impression of you.
        I’ve seen studies showing gendered bias in math grading as early as elementary school, based on this kind of thing.

        1. erejnion

          I usually don’t even know who am I grading, because I’m notoriously bad with names. You have to be a shit teacher to conflate a trivial mistake with not understanding the concept.
          Then again, many teachers are shit. Also USA has a really strange idea how one must teach mathematics to elementary grade students – so I find it easy to believe anything for that perverted system.

  54. Tawdry Quirks

    I’m all too familiar with this kind of misogyny from women teachers.

    I played trombone in school. Anyway, I improved greatly over the summer between my 7th and 8th grade year. Everyone was stunned by my playing when we held auditions for chair positions in class.

    For whatever reason, I was out of class on the day that chair positions were announced (I can’t remember if it was a field trip for a different class, or for an all-day event like Knowledge Master Open). Anyway, I went by at the end of the day to ask about my chair position. The woman director told me that although I had made amazing strides over the summer in my playing and deserved first chair, she was only going to give me middle chair because she didn’t think the boys in the trombone section were going to be able to handle having a girl as first chair, and she thought it would be better to have only half the section upset instead of all of them upset. Which was utter bullshit…the only boy who would hate my guts for it already hated my guts (because I had a chair position above him for half the previous year), and it wasn’t going to matter too much to him if I were one chair or three chairs above him. The only other guy in the section who would have even given a shit about it would have been the guy who had been first chair forever, and he wasn’t the kind to hold a grudge.

    So I got cheated out of the chair position I deserved, because the director decided it was more important to cater to the feelings of the boys in my section. Is it any wonder the two other girls who played trombone in 7th grade dropped when signing up for 8th grade classes?

  55. Keulen

    I don’t understand why any teacher would give a student bad grades for doing too good on a test. That is literally punishing kids for being smart.

    1. Conuly

      She thinks Amber is cheating. She’s punishing Amber for cheating.

    2. kater

      Teachers punish kids for being too smart all the time. In Kindgergarten, my teacher called me a liar in front of my parents because she thought I made up the echidna. In 7th grade, my science teacher yelled at me for reading a fiction book after I had already finished the assignment. Freshman year, a social studies teacher actually signed my year book with an insult bc I made him look bad (in fairness, I was a little smart ASS but he was also a terrible teacher who had inappropriate relationships with students so…)

      1. ischemgeek

        All of 3rd grade I’d be punished if I finished work too quickly. In 5th grade I had a teacher suspend me because I could do math faster in my head than with a calculator. I could go on here.

  56. foducool

    “gave her an F because her answers were just too good”
    ‘MURRICA, EFF YEAH!

  57. Potatamoto

    Hmm, well, I guess it had been too long since this comic made me want to vomit with rage. Well played.

  58. stoodmuffin

    Where the hell is THIS Mike. He’s the Hero we don’t deserve. What the hack HAPPENED to you, dude?

    1. Needfuldoer

      Life.

      His youthful idealism just got shattered by harsh, dirty reality. Only cold, nihilistic cynicism can fill the void left behind.

      Eat Arby’s.

    2. Wraithy2773

      We’re about to find out.

    3. JBento

      Nothing happened to Mike. Mike is still Mike. This Mike. He just got new data about the world in the meantime, and adjusted accordingly.

      You might as well be asking what happened to the scientists who thought the dead platypus was a hoax until they were shown a live one.

  59. Mojo

    Teachers like that need to be ex-teachers.

  60. Vi

    Gonna be real….. Despite everything he consistently pulls, I STILL love Mike, and this isn’t getting rid of it. I know I’m biased because I loved Shortpacked Mike and can’t really separate the feeling from DOA Mike (though Malaya is not yet at the point of character development that I loved her in SP, so I’m not there yet again with her, but very hopeful), but I don’t know… he’s just INTERESTING, and when he DOES do good he does SO good.

    1. erejnion

      That’s why I find the comment section so strange.
      What’s the problem with liking an asshole of a character? These usually are the most interesting ones. Loving the character Mike doesn’t mean you would have liked him if he was real. It’s like people presume everybody conflates fiction and reality.
      And yes, certainly Mike is one of the more interesting and enjoyable characters here. And the shit he consistently pulls is one of the main reasons for that.

      1. Inahc

        that’s not the problem; the problem is the people who insist he’s doing good when he’s making things worse.

  61. Vi

    Also, seeing him make facial expressions is fantastic. He looks so genuinely upset, here. Jeez.

  62. Eduardo

    Mike, the Ass Knight: not the hero we deserve, but(t) the hero we need.

  63. BenRG

    I’m wondering if these are the events that led to Mike succumbing to the Dark Side.

  64. Pidgey

    Were they any adults in Amber’s life who weren’t toxic af?

    1. John

      Her mom, I think.

      1. Pidgey

        I legit forgot her mom existed. Derp

  65. Trousle Undrhil

    Two things:

    1) why not take the paper to the principal and let them take care of the issue?

    2) I think she looks like a Ms Crabapple, not a Ms Phillips

  66. hof1991

    LOL at the people who think Mike is doing this for Amber. He’s doing it for himself. To prove that no one can be trusted. That you game the system because its rigged. Also to put Amber even further behind the eight ball with this teacher. He’ll get what he needs and everyone else gets pain and trouble.

    Fast forward, he’s taught Amber to hack into a university system (felony) is an appropriate response and something you do for a friend. Nope, Mike isn’t doing good here.

    1. Paradox

      This looks like a version of Mike that actually cares in some capacity. He isn’t being blunt and he isn’t starting off by tearing into this teacher’s insecurities.

      Also, there’s plenty of other factors that have brought Amber to the current day moral code. Her father, her fear of becoming her father, and her separation into two personalities are the things that come to mind. Mike can’t be blamed for all of her decisions, especially when he’d be way more direct about what he’s getting her to do.

    2. Zee

      Seriously, he’s like 10-12 here. What reason do you have to believe he’s already a selfish asshole who wants to see the world burn beyond just “Mike is evil lol”

  67. Joebo

    Her name is Mrs. Bongo.

  68. Creativerealms

    Okay where is the asshole twist. This is too nice to be Mike.

    1. JBento

      The twist is that the asshole is the world.

    2. Jay

      I don’t know… He seems genuinely upset by this revelation.

      Are we seeing the origin of Evil Mike?

  69. abysswatcher1993

    Only a jerk can detect another jerk. Mike has a talent to be aware of evilness, but somehow he has become too jaded to change things.

    1. Dan Skelley

      His asshole sense is tingling.

  70. PB

    WHOA.

    I’m … I’m legitimately impressed.

  71. Regalli

    I just remember a lot of Mike’s actively malicious actions. Like, he:

    – Accompanied Joyce on a date for the purpose of beating up Joe.

    – Bought Walky pajama jeans solely to get him broken up with Dorothy.

    – Encouraged Ethan to put himself back into the closet.

    – Invaded Gender Studies class to talk shit about Walky and Dorothy.

    – The entire current ‘drive wedge between Danny and Ethan because they they like each other’ thing.

    – Recording Walky crying and showing it to his friends, including lying to Walky to make him cry.

    – Insinuating Amber is like her father, helping set off the full problem we have now.

    And that’s just stuff I remember or found in a very brief archive trawl of the early stuff. Like, his actions are actively damaging very often. He is an actual asshole.

    1. King Daniel

      So much this.

    2. jothki

      I certainly won’t deny that he’s an asshole, but a lot of those actions seem somewhat well-intended. He encourages the worst out of his targets, but does it in such a way that they’ll seek to be better just to not be like him.

      The Joyce date actually seems like a pretty good example of that. Joyce went into the date in bad faith, but rather than having her inevitably carry out a bunch of emotional abuse towards Joe that she could rationalize later, Mike substituted in physical abuse that she couldn’t. Joyce was forced to admit to herself that Joe didn’t deserve the abuse he was getting, and ended up being friendly with him rather than just writing him off as a jerk.

      Of course, Mike could have just told Joyce up front that she was going into the date on bad faith and that Joe doesn’t deserve to be treated like he’s a horrible person, instead of getting his point across in the most assholish way he could.

      I think that he genuinely doesn’t realize just how messed up Amber has gotten, and that his brand of criticism will never help her. Him finding that out would be a good opportunity for character development.

      1. CJ

        Your words seem to imply that Joe went to the date with Joyce with good faith, i.e. willing to accept her boundaries. This isn’t what Joe did, he wanted to get around her boundaries and “fix her” with his dick. So though getting his ears boxed for every inappropriate behavior does seem a bit harsh for a single event, I rather think he build up enough bad karma to deserve them.

        Which somehow reminds me of this
        http://www.egscomics.com/comic/2014-06-09 and the following page…

      2. BBCC

        But that’s not what happened at all. That date ended with her joining in on punching Joe and she was angry with him and didn’t want to associate with him for a while. They didn’t become friendlier until later.

  72. Yumi

    By the way, does anyone else think the teacher is going to play the “I can’t be sexist, I’m a woman” card?

    1. Bathymetheus

      My experience with teachers was that if a child (e.g. me) pointed out that they were wrong, they reacted with anger. How dare I, a mere child, correct an adult. At the time, this both frightened and frustrated me. Now, I recognise that they perceived it as a threat to their authority. Which is an explanation, but not an excuse.

    2. Bathymetheus

      tl;dr: I expect her to yell at him.

      The more so if he’s right.

  73. Nenja

    … wow Ms. Phillips. You’re a real asshole.

  74. Sara Hysaro

    I had something slightly similar happen to me in my 12th Grade English class, though I don’t know enough about the surrounding details to say whether the teacher was bad or not. It was a group project where various groups were assigned different books, and we would all need to put together a presentation to explain our book to the rest of the class. There were four books – Wuthering Heights, 1984, Brave New World, and a book I don’t recall. I was in the 1984 group.

    So in class I took the initiative and summarized my group’s book while they worked on the more aesthetic components of our project. My classmates brought our work up to the teacher, and I noticed that my section of it was marked down for plagiarizing. I was stunned, and took my paper up to the teacher, explaining that I had written it in class…and she immediately rectified the grade, because it was me.

    To be fair, I was a literature overachiever who regularly engaged with the class, and even during that big class project I finished up 1984 with enough time to request a copy of Brave New World as well. Maybe the other members of my group did poorly in the class – it’s not like I would thought to check. Still, it was quite bizarre that she’d leap to ‘plagiarism’ rather than concluding that I had written it.

    1. Sara Hysaro

      *would’ve thought to check

      I do wish we could edit comments here.

  75. Smooti

    I’m thinkin’ Miss O. Genie for a name for the teacher, how’s that sound

  76. Toes14

    Is that an alternate Geddy Lee?

  77. Josh Spicer

    I mean…considering what Amber is about to do? Yeah, she probably did.

    But this teacher can’t prove a goddamn thing and goes off the basis that she’s not smart enough?

    The makings of a shitty teacher right there.

  78. fox

    Wow, this teacher sucks. I had a teacher who called me stupid and lazy while screaming at me in front of the whole class because I asked another teacher for help because I didn’t understand how to do a math problem. The other teacher then yelled at me too, because when I asked the first one for help he told me to “figure it out” and apparently it was a terrible thing to ask for help on something I didn’t understand.

    1. Yumi

      Teachers like that are awful. When I was student teaching, as an English teacher, we were in charge of going over test prep for the standardized tests. Some kids had questions about practice problems for the math section, and while I never took math in college, I’m pretty solid up to the standardized test level. So I helped the students as best I could.

      Like, I had some time, I understood the material, why wouldn’t I help? Why do so many teachers insist on sucking?

      1. fox

        Yeah, you were doing a good job. I think some people become teachers just to torment children.

  79. Jeshua Morbus

    In the second to last, he’s not frowning; is he… sad?
    After reading this character so many times, i think that he just want to see others react but his intentions, in the end, aren’t evil (oh, he’s a bad guy, but not an evil one). A chaotic neutral of sorts.

  80. steelbright

    I keep wondering why Babby Mike has this face like a kicked puppy. Is he really sad? Or is it just what he was doing at the time?

    1. Jeshua Morbus

      He’s younger, he still deals with unfairness as a kid would do.
      When in college, he’s unmerciful (but not evil) but in school, he still doesn’t like it. He’s mean, not insensitive.
      At least, that’s how i see him.

  81. general band-aid

    The site continues to be buggy. I haven’t seen an update since Wednesday.

    1. David M Willis

      That’s not a bug. Ya just need to clear your cache.

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