337

Smidge
Posted on March 24, 2017 by David M Willis

337 thoughts on “Smidge”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    coming full circle, are we

    1. Ana Chronistic

      though after cosplaying Adrian, I’m SUPER GLAD Jason isn’t ALSO wearing a belt with those

      1. Doctor_Who

        Man I wish that show had become a bigger deal.

      2. Kamino Neko

        Cybersix fan! Hoorah!

      3. N0083rP00F

        Wow – it has been ages since I last saw that series – wonder if they will ever do a followup?

        1. Ana Chronistic

          sadly, no–they spent a budget for 26 episodes on 13 =/

    2. lia47

      jesus christ that was 2015

      1. Kamino Neko

        Jesus Christ, that was only 2015?

    3. Tan

      I mean, if we’re really full circle then that makes Joyce Sal’s girlfriend. Also we’ve got an interesting Slipshine coming.

      1. lia47

        im confused how these circles are working but im all for it

      2. Dark

        Wow, that art shift.

      3. zoelogical

        i could be into that

      4. zoomer296

        “I’m taking you home.”

        ~ Joyce, to Sal, June 29, 2002.

    4. jeffepp

      “So, same deal as your sister?”

      1. CJ

        Does he even realize Walky is Sal’s brother?

        1. Tan

          Besides the fact that he grades both their assignments wherein they share the same last name…

          There’s also http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/diddlin/ Note that the first panel contains Jason, Sal, Walky, and the use of the word ‘brother’ spoken aloud by the second in reference to the third.

          If he doesn’t know he’s REALLY BLOODY BAD AT MATH.

          So could go either way.

    5. AgentKeen

      Huh, I think the devil’s advocate is in the strip after that.

  2. AnvilPro

    Taking bets on how long it takes for Walky x Jason Slipshine

    1. Emperor Daniel

      Are you saying Walky wants to “snap his suspenders”?

      1. DarkoNeko

        yes

    2. Schpoonman

      Don’t think that’s gonna happen, but I’m betting Jason is gonna start seeing Sal in Walky and become uncomfortably aroused.

      1. Kryss LaBryn

        Just wait until the next time he sees Walky in Sal… XD

  3. Mr. Mendo

    I wonder if Jason sees the resemblance?

    1. Schpoonman

      Not yet, but soon.

      1. Mr. Mendo

        I wonder if it will lead to sexy misunderstandings?

        1. Kris

          Or he can just cut to the chase and point Walky toward Danny.

        2. Rukduk

          That would be the smart, logical thing. It will, as a result, not happen. Also, I’m not sure Jason knows that Danny is the one helping Sal.

        3. Ana Chronistic

          only if Walky puts on a wig

          or a clump of seaweed could work

        4. TheGrammarLegionary

          *briefly becomes Chris Evans* I understood that reference!

        5. Brotato

          I didn’t…

      2. Briny

        In the “Just FIX it! Stop trying to teach me, and just make the problem go away!” sense? Absolutely canon, I 100% guarantee it.

    2. Doctor_Who

      He grades their papers, presumably he knows their names and so could already be aware they are siblings.

      1. Leorale

        That’s not as funny, though.

      2. Passchendaele

        Ah, true. And he *has* talked to both Walky and Sal in the past, so their being twins should be apparent. Unless he’s as dense as Danny, but I don’t think anyone else can be. XD

  4. Vinny

    One down, one to go.

  5. Shiro

    Man, who mentioned Jason yesterday? Well predicted.

    1. Rukduk

      I don’t remember, but now I want to (if it’s legal for them to drink) buy them the alcoholic beverage of their choice? That was damn psychic.

      1. Chris

        I thought we just mentioned not wanting Jason in today’s comic, but I probably just missed the comment

        1. rectilinearpropagation

          Someone did say it’s been a while since we’d seen him. Someone else replied that that was a good thing.

  6. ValdVin

    How soon does Walky learn about Sal and Jason?

    1. Doctor_Who

      Probably when Jason says he’ll tutor him if he wears a long wig and stuffs his shirt.

    2. Ansel

      I’m thinking when Sal sees them together and assumes Walky already knows and yells at him.

      1. jeffepp

        More likely, when Sal makes a comment about being to manly for Jason, so he went for the girlier twin.

        1. Liliet

          …I really don’t think Sal would say something like that.

        2. Ansel

          I could sort of see a variation on ‘so that’s why I didn’t get better grades for slap jackin with you’

  7. Doctor_Who

    Walky just wants to test his hypothesis that snapping them would make his bowtie spin around.

    Scientific curiosity should be encouraged.

    1. Zatar

      I think we all know the answer to that question and that it is yes.

      1. Leorale

        it goes vvvwweeeeeeee!

    2. Passchendaele

      Next test: does a spinning bowtie have hypnotic powers?

      1. Zatar

        see previous comment.

    3. Emperor Daniel

      Journalism.

    4. Chris

      *Now imagines Jason in some olde-timey cartoon, plays “The Entertainer” on the hacked muzak*

  8. Claire

    Now’s Jason’s chance to redeem himself TA wise.

    1. Gwen

      The good news is I think he now cares about figuring out what he did wrong before. So here’s hoping a bit of humility and creativity will make him into a better teacher.

      1. Inspector Hound

        Yup. We didn’t see much of Jason’s tutoring style before (no, *that* doesn’t count as tutoring, get your mind out of the gutter, hypothetical reader), but I’m guessing he’ll try to adjust his methods.

        Jason had seemed genuinely upset that he had failed to tutor Sal well.

  9. Kris

    Jason’s still in this comic? I thought he died in a tragic suspender related accident.

    1. Passchendaele

      Nope, he didn’t die of suspender whiplash, but he still has the scars to show it. 😛

    2. Chris

      Next Poll: How should Jason die:
      A) Freak Suspender accident
      B) Bowtie twirls like rotor and he flies out of the atmosphere
      C) Trips on Walky’s shoelaces

      1. Passchendaele

        C: It’s embarrassing /and/ ironic. 😛

  10. Cerberus

    Oh, Walky, you could do so so much better for a teacher. Like a pet rock. Or The Rock. Tape up a picture of Dwayne Johnson on your door. You’ve instantly got a better teacher than Jason.

    1. Leorale

      Maybe it’s Jason’s chance to learn how not to be terrible? He probably won’t sleep with both of them.

      1. Rukduk

        Was Jason bi in the “Walkyverse”? I never read any of those comics, so I don’t know. If he is, then “probably” is the key word here.

        1. John

          Not so’s anyone could tell. But then, neither was Danny.

          Walkyverse Jason spent most of his time sexually harassing Sal.

        2. Rukduk

          Oh. So pretty much the same as here basically?

        3. BBCC

          (SPOILERS FOR IT’S WALKY)
          He also got super pissy when her dead boyfriend came back to life because he was throwing an entitled tantrum about how he could never get in Sal’s pants because she missed the aforementioned dead boyfriend.

          That isn’t why he couldn’t get in her pants, by the way – he couldn’t because he was a DICKHOLE.

          (END SPOILERS FOR IT’S WALKY)

        4. Rukduk

          Ok. So he’s slightly less bad this time around. I think? I mean that’s like, some Gaston style stalker stuff right there (referring to the original animation having not seen the live action adaptation yet).

        5. BBCC

          He gets better, if that helps. He was basically throwing a tantrum in his thoughts there.

        6. Leorale

          I think his Nice Guy Syndrome was pretty much confined to his own thoughts. That Sal was unaware of his frustration, so hey, it didn’t wreck her day or anything. I don’t think Jason counts as It’s Stalky.

          Joyce, on the other hand…

        7. Historyman68

          It seems like most of the characters have become significantly less dickish in the transition from It’s Walky! to DoA. Though some have just had their dickishnessn refined into VERY SPECIFIC DICKISHNESS.

        8. BBCC

          Some of them, yes, definitely. Folks like Mary are much worse, though. Also – Walky and early!Joyce were already miles ahead of their Walkyverse counterparts in the maturity scale. Talk about five year olds.

        9. Historyman68

          Early Joyce? It’s been a while since I read Roomies!, but her only qualities for a while were
          a) stalkerish obsession with Danny
          b) unrelentingly sunny disposition
          c) loves the Sound of Music, I guess?

        10. Warren

          I assume “early Joyce” means “early IW! Joyce,” back before she got therapy. You know, when she was a giggling sexophobic amnesiac with occasional bouts of berserker rage.

          (Also, I’d argue that Mary didn’t get worse in general, she just got worse at hiding it. The real dickishness boost… it depends on whether you count SP! as part of the transition or part of IW!. In the former case, I’d go with Robin.)

        11. Bluewind

          Actually Willis said the strip where Danny sees Walky and noticed how Walky resembled Sal was when Danny figured out he was bi.

          https://www.itswalky.com/comic/he-looks-like/
          https://www.itswalky.com/comic/your-boyfriends-weird/

          Rukduk: Willis’s older stuff isn’t as polished as it is now and there are plenty he outright cringes at now in the comments, but it’s worth a read. It really shows how he changed and evolved in not only his art, but his outlook as well. You can find the original site with the entire run online. The site I linked is where he’s re releasing them with commentary. Short packed is also great, but much more cartoonish and wacky than Dumbing of Age, so keep that in mind.

        12. Schol-R-LEA

          The only relationships we ever saw Walkyverse!Jason had been in were with Sal, Penny (he broke it off just before leaving for the US), and one of the Squad 48 women (I don’t recall whom, I think it might have been Marcie) some years after SEMME was disbanded when he got fed up with Sal’s behavior.

      2. Reltzik

        Teaching isn’t something you learn just by trying it. Maybe you’ve got an innate understanding of how it works already, but if you don’t (and Jason doesn’t) you’ll keep just doing it wrong without really knowing how to do it right. Your bad outcomes will let you eventually figure out that you’re not doing it right (and Jason has), but that doesn’t tell you what you need to change in your style in order to improve.

        There are some basic principles that you need to learn first. (And a lot of tips, advice, and guidelines that expand out of those basic principles, but the basics are key.) They’re the sort of things that seem common sense once you learn them, but are only so in hindsight. Jason doesn’t have these, and so a lot of tryhard (especially with a student like Walky) is likely to result in little to no improvement whatsoever.

        1. Gwen

          And unfortunately the university system builds in precious few opportunities for TAs to learn and improve their teaching technique. If you get any feedback at all, it is usually in the comments at the end of the semester (TAs often don’t even get independently evaluated). By then, it’s hard to figure out specifically what went wrong, much less identify a solution and put it into practice.

          And then some of those TAs become professors without any additional preparation, and the cycle continues.

    2. TemporalShrew

      Ugh, you accept sex as bribery from a student one time and suddenly you’re not a good teacher!

      1. Optimal Optimus

        I don’t think Jason ever accepted bribery from Sal. There are other reasons to call him a bad teacher, but that’s not one of them. But, please point me to the appropriate strip if I’m wrong.

      2. Rukduk

        Hell, he didn’t even accept the bribery properly because he still gave her a bad grade. Damn Brit needs some major lessons on how to a) tutor properly b) keep it in his damn pants and c) take the stick out from where it’s lodged in his ass, which might help with part a).

        1. Durandal_1707

          Not giving her an undeserved grade certainly doesn’t make his massive breach of ethics *better*, but it doesn’t make it *worse.*

        2. Historyman68

          I’d argue that it makes it a tiny bit better. However, he might have used that slight betterness in his mind to justify continuing to sleep with her to himself.

          It also makes him more of a dick, much more so if that’s why he did it.

        3. Optimal Optimus

          Sorry. But doesn’t Sal share some responsibility in all of this? She did throw herself at him.

        4. Anowan

          I was a teacher and there’s actually a rule for that!

          => If a student throws themselves at you, throw yourself off the fucking window. (At ground level. Throw yourself off the door actually, it’s a better bet).

          It’s your responsability to get the hell away from the situation and notify as soon as possible someone (colleague, director) who can explain to the student, on your behalf, that you are NOT interested, that if they really have a crush on you they will STOP doing this seducing that can HURT you (from legal repercussions), and that from now on, whatever happens, they DON’T have your consent for anything romantically or sexually related they’d want to do to you, EVER.

          It mostly works.

          (Also, notifying a colleague is a beginning of protection against the 0.00000001% chance of allegations, by the student or by their parents, that you were attempting a statutorial rape. Of course, I’m supposing that you were NOT doing that in this situation.)

        5. Cerberus

          Nope. If you’re a teacher, rule one is not to sleep with your students. Doesn’t matter if they strip naked in front of you and beg for it. As Anowan says, your moral and legal duty as a teacher is to fucking run for it.

          Jason broke that flagrantly and then invented a weird other moral code of “not exchanging grades for sex” which is so far down the line of what he already violated, it’s not funny, which basically meant he was also a dick to the student he slept with, but yanno, still isn’t as bad as sleeping with a student.

        6. thejeff

          I’d say it does still make a difference, but it’s still completely unacceptable. Like there’s a difference between First Degree Murder and Second Degree Murder, but they’re still both Murder.

        7. rectilinearpropagation

          Nope. When you’re the one with power, it’s all on you if you abuse it.

          The rules preventing sexual relationships between two people when there’s a power differential (student/teacher, employee/manager, etc.) are aimed at the person in power. To use an extreme example, if an adult has sex with a minor we don’t *also* send the minor to jail. The minor didn’t break any laws.

        8. Cerberus

          This.

        9. Fart Captor

          Seriously.

        10. Reltzik

          That Sal might have some responsibility for her actions in no way negates or diminishes Jason’s responsibility for his, any more than our responsibility not to, say, attempt to bribe a police offer in any way diminishes the officer’s responsibility not to accept (much less solicit) the bribe. Nor does a critic’s imagined responsibility not to blaspheme a religion in any way diminish a fanatic’s responsibility not to attack or kill them for it. Regardless of whether Sal had any responsibility in this situation (and she actually did, under IU’s list of Student Responsibilities), Jason is no less on the hook for his own conduct.

          They both done fucked up, no pun intended. The fact that it was a mutual fuck-up doesn’t do much to modify or diminish the fact that Jason fucked up.

          But Jason fucked up oh-so-much-worse than Sal did, because his responsibilities in this situation are far greater. He’s got professional ethics and a hell of a lot of “good practices for power dynamics” factors involved, he’s sabotaging the teacher-student relationship that he (far more than Sal) is obligated to cultivate, he’s probably violated his contract in a handful of different and excitingly litigious ways. And if you want an easy sign of that, the very first consequence of them having sex was an end to their tutoring session.

        11. Optimal Optimus

          Okay, I’m convinced.

    3. Rukduk

      1) Now I want to see a movie with Dwayne Johnson in a peripheral role as a math teacher.
      2) Was it Walky or Danny who thought they had to be nemeses? Because Danny’s tutoring Sal pretty well. He might be able to tutor Walky as well. Also, I’m thinking Danny might actually do well as a teacher if he were so inclined. But he’s doing software engineering or something like that right?

      1. Cerberus

        1) I need this in my life. Badly.
        2) I think Danny would be an excellent teacher, but yeah, I believe Walky said that they needed to be nemeses, so maybe not.

        1. Krys Brynhildr

          Wasn’t he in the new “Sequel” to Kindergarten Cop? Oh wait, no that’s Dolph Lundgren, cause nothing says “Gruff FBI Agent” who can’t handle a “liberal, politically correct environment” than a musclebound Swede? Or something, I dunno?

    4. foamy

      I dunno. I’ve had this argument with Norton before, but, I mean, Jason tries. And he tries in what’s clearly a large, first year math class.

      And, outside of Leslie, name me one person on staff at IU who is both competent and well-intentioned.

      1. Cerberus

        Alex (post-coming out).

        1. Lailah

          Oh! It’s the same Gal! Hadn’t realized!

          …BUt no, we don’t actually know that. Because we haven’t seen her in the same basic situation of someone trying to show what she’s capable of. As far as we know, Alex was fine when not dealing with the precocious ones.

        2. Cerberus

          That’s not fully canon, I should note. It’s left intentionally vague whether Alex is the same person or a replacement.

          Either way, “new Alex” would be my answer.

        3. Lailah

          I really don’t think it is vague. That’s a made up country cited for the fleeing, and the idea that the FBI would prosecute for most cybercrimes is fairly laughable (It shouldn’t be, granted!) It’s also the sort of absurd thing you’d say if you’re just trying to make the question go away, that would, at best, be the sort of terrible joke that would get you reviled for a former colleague. Also the skin-care regimen line.

          Like, it’s not explicit, but it’s really not vague. So hey, two trans characters, and I wouldn’t have noticed without this 😀

        4. Lailah

          Oh right, I knew I was forgetting the actual second. Been a while since Jocelyne was on screen. And the second potentially basically happy one.

        5. Lailah

          Oh, but we’re 3/3 on trans people with similar names to their dead names. Bother, but okay then.

        6. Lailah

          Oh, of course, this had to be for the person who actually is a real world person. This is why I can’t even get mad, it’s an irksome stereotype from cis people but it still happens _so much_ that I’m just like “??????” on how to feel about it in fiction XD

        7. David M Willis

          ??? carla is only carla, no other name for her has been established

        8. BBCC

          TBF, while we know that New Alex is trans, we don’t know for 100% sure she’s the same as Old!Alex (we know she wasn’t originally intended to be). If you prefer her not to be Old!Alex, her dead name may be very different from her real one.

        9. foamy

          Massively insufficient data. Stuff looks good, but then again, people thought Chloe might not be an absolute failure at everything at one point too, so.

        10. Cerberus

          Fair. Admittedly I’m relying pretty hard on Word of Willis on that one.

        11. Warren

          Now, Choe’s not an absolute failure at everything. She’s great at inspiring misplaced confidence. Top marks for betrayal, as well.

      2. Sam

        Regardless of whether he tries or not, he has been shown to be bad at teaching math, and it is his job to be good at teaching math, so he is still a bad teacher.

        Also, Asma. Asma is best at dealing with mail.

        1. foamy

          He’s been shown as bad at teaching math to precisely one person, two if you count Walky, and Walky is Walky’s fault, not his.

          I may be forced to eat my words tomorrow, of course.

        2. Nightsbridge

          He had sex with his student. He shouldn’t have a job anymore, period.

        3. foamy

          Yeah well if people were losing jobs for banging people they shouldn’t be banging in THIS comic strip we’d have a cast full of unemployed.

        4. Liliet

          there’s, you know, a different degree of ‘shouldn’t’

        5. trlkly

          He had sex with one student. The redhead girls whose name escapes me was having sex with all of them, with no fear of it causing her any problems if she got found out. It seems having sex with students is what teachers’ aides do in the Dumbiverse.

        6. Liliet

          P… P… Peggy? Something like that.
          Either way, she was literally a villain in Walkyverse. I don’t think we should take her behavior as norm either >_>

        7. Cerberus

          Which is why Penny and Jason are awful teachers. Yes, Penny is an even shittier and less moral teacher than Jason, but they both violate pretty much every duty of a teacher on the regular and should never be allowed to work with students ever again.

        8. foamy

          On the regular, what? Penny sure, but Jason…? I got the impression that the thing with Sal is very much an exception to how he normally operates.

        9. Cerberus

          Doesn’t matter, you’re still not supposed to do it ever.

          You don’t get points for stopping after 2-3 times and then only because you so antagonized the student you were sleeping with they wanted nothing to do with you.

          But yeah, I freely admit I’m biased against Jason because I have high standards for people in teaching professions and Jason so frequently violates every rule that you’re never supposed to break when you’re in that role.

        10. nightsbridge

          I don’t know if remarking on ‘Jason so frequently violates every rule that you’re never supposed to break when you’re in that role.’ is actually something I’d call bias . . .

        11. foamy

          “Frequently” is a reiteration of “on the regular”, but you’re still only citing one thing.

          What other incidents are you thinking of, or other principles to warrant the “every”?

        12. foamy

          PS:

          Jason is, if we can trust Penny’s words (I don’t, especially, but given basically everything we’ve seen about how IU in the comic operates I’ve no reason to disbelieve them), the only person around who actually DOES believe in a code of ethics in the course of his teaching.

        13. Cerberus

          We did a whole podcast episode on all of them:
          https://skepticalclown.wordpress.com/2017/02/12/podcasting-of-age-episode-5-jason-chesterfield-the-jason-vorhees-of-teachers/

          But the shorter is that he’s:
          *Opens with sexually harassing a student.
          *Consistently blames a student for his own failures.
          *Constantly undermines a student’s self-esteem in toxic ways.
          *Racist
          *Sexist
          *Classist
          *Doesn’t ever change teaching style.
          *Blames student when that doesn’t work for them.
          *Actively tries to shit on a student’s accomplishment because it happened without him.
          *Harangues student when she is telling him what actually worked for her in learning new stuff because it’s not what he wants to hear.
          *Refuses to listen to students.
          *Is openly dismissive of student statements to their faces in a derogatory manner
          *Shits on a woman both for being too sexually active and not sexually active enough.
          *Harasses the student after she moves on to the point where she has to literally shut him down when she passes him in their last mutual appearance.

          I think we mined most of his appearances because almost every one of them has some awful bits to it, especially if you’re a teacher.

          Penny’s still worse though.

        14. foamy

          I know you’ve done that podcast; you mention it every time people talk about Jason.

          I actively avoid podcasts and videos as means of gaining information, if I can; text is so much faster and in many cases clearer. Plus it’s easier to refer back to if I forget something or need to doublecheck what was actually said.

          I appreciate it must be irritating to have to do this all the time. Thanks for providing the list… looks like I’ve got an archive dive in my future.

        15. Mitara

          He’s not a teacher at all. He’s the teacher’s aide. He’s really just grading papers, maybe helping out a bit, but he isn’t responsible for teaching the students.

        16. Historyman68

          What is a teacher’s aide responsible for, if not teaching students? Aiding teachers? Ok, aiding teachers in teaching students.

        17. Inspector Hound

          Teaching assistant, and yes, he absolutely is responsible for teaching. It’s in the job description.

          Not full-on lectures, but as an interpreter of professor-speak and the more terse/arcane parts of the textbook, and for helping students past the bits that they are having trouble understanding.

      3. Reltzik

        Hrrm. Competent AND well-intentioned…

        Rees: Big question mark. We don’t know much about him.
        Penny: Not well-intentioned.
        Jason: Not competent. Intentions highly debatable, veering towards no.
        Leslie: Largely yes to both, but some red tic marks for both for bringing Robin into class.
        Alex: Working to overcome a lot of bad marks, but moving in the right direction, from what little we’ve seen.
        Dean McHenry: Seems competent, questionable intentions… wait, does the Dean count as staff?
        Chloe: Definitely not yes to both. Debatable whether she’s failing on one, the other, or both.
        Asma: Seems yes for both.
        Guns: So far no problem with her working in the mail room, so we know everything’s okay and nothing can possibly go wrong.
        Doctor Beverly: For all I know she might be the incarnation of incompetent bad intentions (in line after a certain president), but from what we’ve seen she’s both competent and well-intentioned.

        So there’s your answer. Doctor Beverly.

        1. BBCC

          How do we know Guns works in the mail room?

        2. Reltzik

          We don’t. But even if she doesn’t, there’s been no problems with her working there. So there.

        3. foamy

          Well, the thing about Rees is, he has Jason as a TA. I don’t recall offhand if Penny is also one of his, but if so, well.

        4. Reltzik

          Professors don’t always get to choose their TAs. Sometimes they get TAs assigned out of the general pool, unmet and unknown.

      4. Krys Brynhildr

        I really think Leslie’s “Signboard” is basically a pretty true statement so far as things go in the comic currently.

        “Sorry about all those other adults, I promise I’m mostly okay.” fits pretty well in the range we’ve seen generally so far. Other than the few incidents that were generally sparked by either Roz or Robyn, her classes have usually seemed to go decently well, and she actually cares about her students’ wellbeings even beyond just “are they doing well in class”.

        Most of the other teachers seem to have ranged from barely existent to questionably competent, so, yeah, not much of a list to go off of.

    5. Falcon

      But sex is an excellent motivator.

      Um, to many people.

      1. Chris

        Ahem…

    6. Lailah

      Oh for fuck’s fucking sake. Maybe I’m just spoiled by a cavalcade of shitty teachers still getting me through IB and my BS, but Jason is almost definitely better at this shit than average. Average is really fucking bad, in my admittedly limited experience, and a lot of that was at high quality schools. He’s not optimal, but especially, and this is critical, /for still basically being a kid/ he’s done pretty good. The way he ultimately ended up treating sal is still really shitty, but it seems he’s done well, and not just with some very narrow subset of students.

      1. anonymsly

        Basically being a kid AND having zero training to be a teacher. He’s not an education major, he’s got no training. He’s a grad student FROM BRITAIN. There’s a good chance that he’s barely capable of socializing, and some canonical evidence to that effect, much less being an effective teacher.

        Of course he’s fucking terrible. He has NO IDEA how to do what every single person in that school and in the comments section thinks he should know by magic as soon as the magic phrase ‘teacher’s assistant’ is applied to him.

        1. BBCC

          How do we know he’s not an education major? He’s never said anything like that. And considering he thinks he’d get tossed on his ass for fucking his student (RIGHTFULLY SO), I’m more inclined to think ‘education major’ than math major.

        2. Lailah

          …Because he’s a british national in the states. With another british national in the same field. Education is one of the less transferable educations. They’re almost definitely here as part of an exchange, and for that, Maths is far more likely.

        3. BBCC

          Fair enough. I’d figured he was an education major with a math teachable (which I would think would be more transferable because math is universal where ever you are).

        4. Lailah

          Math is universal. The expectations an education system places on the faculty is not, nor are certifications and laws. This might be that I’m from Florida, but I’m not even sure the education is _entirely_ transferable between states, much less between countries. And that’s a big part of an education major (In fairness, another big part of it is psychology, which, well, should be entirely transferable between britain and the USA. There’s issues with the way psychology often only reflects an individual culture, and then often only a subset of it, but…)

          I could still be wrong, of course, but Maths Nerd trying to teach himself to teach seems most likely.

        5. BBCC

          I’m not sure about that – a lot of places around here will take an education degree from at least certain schools or countries. Plus there’s also different expectations between system to system even in a country (for instance, I’m fairly certain the catholic school board and public school board around here have different ones). If anything, I think law would be the bigger issue, but apparently not an insurmountable one, as I know of a few teachers who got certified elsewhere. For instance, Canada will accept US or some European teachers with education degrees and our laws/systems are pretty different.

          It is probable he’s a math student, though, due to the type of school this is. Though, in that case, if teaching well mattered to him (as opposed to just being a thing he has to do to get his degree), I’d expect him to at least google teaching tips before the semester started, if not enrol in an education class or two.

        6. Lin

          Because the TAs at R1 institutions are always grad students in that discipline. He is a math grad student, probably in their PhD program. The vast majority of grad programs have little to no instruction in how to educate people and just assume (incorrectly) that high levels of knowledge of the field is enough.

        7. thejeff

          The same applies to many of the professors, at least in my experience.

          That’s why I have some sympathy for Jason, despite him screwing up all over the place. From his conversation with Penny and some of what he talked to Sal about after the bar scene, he really does want to be good at teaching. He wants to help, but he just doesn’t know how. Unlike Penny, for example.

          It would be interesting if his approach was compatible with helping Walky learn. Partly because I’m not sure I want Walky’s attempt to get off his butt and try to study to fail horribly at once.

        8. BBCC

          Ahhhh, fair enough then.

          I assumed he was an education major with a teachable in math (who’d done whatever he’d had to to make that transferrable) because of how often he harped on about he wanted to be a good teacher and how he’d be kicked out of his program for fucking a student (which I thought was because they’d say ‘hell no, you’re not continuing in education with that on your record’ as opposed to being a TA being a requirement for grad work).

          I’m still irritated with Jason though – if you want to be good at something and you’ve got no training or knowledge about how to do it, I’d think that you would start looking into that – maybe even take an education class or two.

        9. Gwen

          As much has Jason has fucked up a lot, I have some sympathy. I got tossed in front of a class as an instructor, and virtually my only preparation was my experience as a TA, for which I didn’t get any training.

        10. BBCC

          That’s totally fair. I’m probably projecting my own way of thinking here – if I want to be good at something or know about something, and wanting that matters to me but have never had experience before, my first thing to do is google tips or information about it. I can’t comprehend not, at least, googling ‘how to be a good tutor’ or ‘how to help teach calculus’ before starting the job if it was important to me, especially after it became apparent I wasn’t good at tutoring.

        11. thejeff

          He may well have done so. Doesn’t mean he actually got good at it. It’s not like teaching is a trivial skill you pick up in a few hours on the Internet.

          Sure, he could take education classes, but he’s a Math grad student, likely with a full schedule laid out for him and his advisor discouraging wasting time outside of core classes. After all, he never took any education classes and he’s been teaching (badly) for 30 years.

        12. foamy

          Googling “how to be a good tutor” is such an inadequate means of preparation as to be nonexistent. You need coaching and actual, interact-with-your-students-in-the-wild experience to get anywhere.

          There’s a lot of jobs out there where even a full formal education and degree barely qualify you to start learning how to actually do the job. Law, teaching, engineering, medicine… Trying to do any of those by googling them is, uh, not going to go great.

        13. BBCC

          It is true googling information’s not even a patch on actually going into education and learning or practical information, it’s probably the bottom of the barrel ‘no shit sherlock’ tips, but considering Jason doesn’t even grasp that mocking your students is a bad idea, apparently he needs to start with what should have been ‘No, shit, Sherlock’ tips.

          My point here is that Jason keeps going on and on and on about how he wants to be a good teacher and how being a good teacher matters so much to him, but he’s doing nothing to even TRY to learn how to go about that. Either he needs to accept that he’s gonna suck for the time being until he picks up practical skill or he’s going to need to actually look for helpful information. As it is, he’s whining about how he WANTS to be a good teacher, but is doing nothing to actually improve, and so I have precious little sympathy for him.

      2. Cerberus

        *shrug* I have high standards for folks in teaching positions, because it’s my field and people who are awful/harmful in my field make me extra mad. It’s a bias I try and wear on my sleeve, because it means I’m always going to judge Jason and Penny types much more harshly than most.

        And I was a TA at a much younger age than him (19), so… again, less inclined to be charitable, especially as I so frequently see the damage Jason types cause in students.

        But yeah, total bias. Fully admit that.

    7. Bagge

      Dunno, I think this is the right time for both of them. For neither of them, skill has been the main problem (or rather – we have not had a chance to evaluate that yet). Attitude has.

      Now Jason has been humbled enough to realize he needs to step up his teaching game. Walky has been humbled enough to realize that he needs to step up his studying game. Both of them are ready to try for real this time. I think Jason might be more more useful for Walky than for Sal.

  11. Passchendaele

    “YOUR SUSPENDERS, I SNAP THEM.”

    I love it when the most and least mature characters would show up and act as comedic foils in IW!, so it’s nice to see Willis squeeze some more conversations out of them in DoA. I love this comic. XD

  12. DarkoNeko

    that’s… very honest.

  13. lia47

    wait does walky know about sal and jason and does jason know that walky is sal’s brother

    1. Zatar

      No and maybe.

  14. Ridureyu

    Well, they’re gonna have sex for grades.

    1. brionl

      Well, you know. Rule 34.

      1. Jhon

        Um, there’s an actual web site for that, you know.
        (exits, b4 awkward questions)

        1. Koms

          We are all awkward.

        2. Chris

          Every conversation I have somehow ends in awkward silence. Don’t let that happen to you @Jhon

        3. SgtWadeyWilson

          Technically, this whole conversation may have happened in awkward silence, so it’s a net loss of 0, right?

        4. Chris

          True

  15. Stephen Bierce

    *plays “Rubber Band Man” on the hacked Muzak*

    1. rectilinearpropagation

      Hah! I know this one! Is it the extended 9 minute version?

  16. DarkoNeko

    “the thing I was before” / “suspenders”

    just saying.

    1. JessWitt

      I’m not following?

    2. SgtWadeyWilson

      Is that the list of proposed titles for a Chameleon Circuit song about 11 from12’s perspective?

  17. Keulan

    I don’t know, Jason’s method of tutoring might not work so well for Walky, unless Walky’s bi.

    1. Fart Captor

      Be fair, it didn’t work very well for Sal, either.

    2. Historyman68

      Word for God says he is, but doesn’t realize it yet.

      1. thejeff

        Really? I don’t think I’ve seen that. I know it’s been speculated on here.

      2. Historyman68

        I think he included a pic of Walky, Danny, and Sierra? for Bisexual Awareness Day- maybe Billie was on there too? This was before or at the beginning of Danny’s awakening, but there was some comment about how we haven’t seen most of them in the story yet, but they are all bisexual to some degeee.

        1. thejeff

          I remember this one, but nothing with Walky or Sierra.

  18. Reltzik

    Hey now, Willis, SOME of us have higher aspirations than snapping Jason’s suspenders.

    ….

    I wanna snap his bow-tie.

    1. Tacos

      Pretty sure you can’t snap a bow tie. Fiddle around with it though? Yes.

      1. Reltzik

        Some bow-ties have elastic bands.

    2. AgentKeen

      That, or trick him into wearing one that spins.

  19. Grethelwvier

    ( =DDDDDDDDDDDD)
    Walky, you go! I know this is hard for you; asking for help when you’re not used to needing it, and being too prideful to accept it on the occasions that you do. Dorothy is going to be so proud of you! I know I am!

    1. Cerberus

      Yeah, it’s a really good character moment for Walky and one that was super hard for him to get to. So I’m super proud of him for making the effort.

  20. Tenzhi

    My great grandfather wore suspenders, which inspired a suspenders wearing phase for me as a kid. As such, I do not wish to snap those suspenders.

    1. Chris

      So you know the pain too?

  21. C.T Phipps

    I will be bitterly disappointed if this doesn’t end up with Walky trading sex for grades. They fit together so well…

  22. Optimal Optimus

    Finally, Jason is interacting with someone other Sal!

    1. Rukduk

      Or Penny. But I don’t think anyone in the comments section remembers, or cares, about Penny.

      1. StClair

        I do!
        I think she’s hot. Always have. (Green eyed redheads, yo.)
        But as Leslie has unfortunately discovered about Roz, sometimes the hot contains a whole lot of bad and wrong.

        1. Carms

          Roz is the college age sister. Robyn is the adult

        2. StClair

          … yes, correct, deSanto lookup failure. sorry.

        3. trlkly

          She also has worse ethics than Jason re-having sex with students. Apparently she does it for fun, with no fear of getting caught, since everyone likes her.

          She’s why I find it hard to hate on Jason. He had sex with Sal, sure. But he also tried to teach her.

          And, anyways, there are lots of redheads in this comic. No need to date the nihilist.

      2. BBCC

        I like Penny! As an ‘asshole antagonistic character’ anyways.

        1. SgtWadeyWilson

          And who doesn’t like an asshole antagonist character…
          *Hands raise.*
          …
          *Clears throat.*
          …that hasn’t ruined any protagonist’s life?

      3. AgentKeen

        I am reminded of her whenever I comment.

        1. StClair

          I wonder why.

      4. Cerberus

        Oh, I remember:
        https://skepticalclown.wordpress.com/2017/02/12/podcasting-of-age-episode-5-jason-chesterfield-the-jason-vorhees-of-teachers/

        And retain much seething hate for her as a teacher.

  23. Rukduk

    …And Jason is still dressing like an old school carny or member of a barbershop quartet. Quick someone get him one of those weird hats made of straw both groups wear. He needs it!!

    1. Durandal_1707

      His outfit always just reminds me of the Eleventh Doctor.

      1. MatsuoTanuki

        Thin and gangly: check

        Bow tie and suspenders: check

        Fez: Data not found.

        1. Master of Chaos... yeah, I chose that

          Black, almost crazy hair: Data not found

        2. Chris

          Fez as in Faz?

        3. Chris

          Never mind. Fez as in hat

        4. Reltzik

          Jason ends up wearing Faz following a comedic and entirely-predictable auto-correct.

      2. Chris

        @Durandal_1707 I have actually seen someone dressed exactly the same as the the eleventh doctor, including his hair, walk through my school’s cafeteria, and walk into a class. I checked both doors and the hallway, but no one ever came out

    2. Zatar

      Honestly the way he dresses is one of the few things I like about Jason.

      1. Chris

        I can hear that British accent now…

      2. Krys Brynhildr

        Personally, I think he’d look better if he wore a nice vest instead of suspenders though.

        That might just me wanting him to look like a butler though.

        1. BBCC

          Well, he can’t possibly be worse at that than being a teacher, so why not?

  24. JessWitt

    Takes a real man to ask for permission before snapping suspenders.

  25. Jhon

    Off topic here-
    I’d like to suggest a book of trans interest.
    “Dreadnought” by April Daniels.
    It’s full of tidbits that ring true, thanks to the education I’ve received in this comment section.

    1. Sdrainbow

      Aaah! Aaah! Seconded!

      Enjoyed this book a shitton.

    2. Micro-Girl

      You get your education from comments made on a webcomic?
      You don’t see anything wrong with that?

      1. Krys Brynhildr

        I’m assuming Jhon means in regards to trans issues?

        Since well, thats not really something that is really formally taught everywhere, at least in the USA?

        And well, a lot of the commentators here who have a lot of personal experience with the subject generally seem more willing to educate and explain the matters a lot more than other places on the internet often seem to so, not the worst place to go.

        1. Jhon

          Trans issues, abuse issues, toxic masculinity. All in “Dreadnought”. And I could see how well grounded in RL it is instead of being weirded out by it.

      2. Neeks

        You never know where you’ll get information that alters your perspective of the world. This comment section TENDS to be fairly well-behaved as comment sections go, and people tend to come forward with their personal experiences that validate the experiences of characters in the comic when other commenters claim them to be far-fetched. I’m sure the DoA comments aren’t the ONLY source of John’s broadened horizons, but I see nothing unusual about it being one of them.

      3. thejeff

        I’ve learned a hell of lot here. Don’t see a problem with it.

        1. Chris

          It has been an educational experience for all of us.

  26. BBCC

    Walky, you could literally throw a rock and come up with a better teacher.

    Go ask Sal, she might help you.

    1. SgtWadeyWilson

      List of plans for Walky getting a tutor:
      >a pet rock
      >the Rock/picture thereof
      >throw rock

      I think I can get bingo if somebody suggests a rock band!

      1. BBCC

        Okay – Walky, a rock band would be better teachers.

        1. SgtWadeyWilson

          Bingo!

      2. Warren

        How about a rock lobster?

  27. Kitschensyngk

    I’d rather tug on that bow tie.

  28. Ivy

    there is no heterosexual explanation for this

  29. Tomas

    Two sad sacks with poor impulse control and something to prove.

  30. Chris

    Well shit! Of course have to make it Jason. Damn you Willis!

  31. MK15

    Little does Walky know his sister’s already ‘been there, done that’ and snapped those suspenders 😉

  32. Chris

    I actually wore suspenders once. One frickin’ snapped and hit me. Damn the thing hurt! Can’t believe it’s just elastic cloth

  33. Showler

    I just had the horrible thought that chindad’s “other fires” is going to be him confronting the “problem students” on Ruth’s floor so that she doesn’t have to worry about them.

    1. Micro-Girl

      Oooh and love to see him try to “contain” Carla!
      Make it happen Willis!

      1. BBCC

        I can’t see Roz or Carla kowtowing to that bastard. He’s rich? Cool, so’s Carla. He’s got connections? Roz LAUGHS at his connections. He tries to intimidate them? Either pie to the head or being chased out of the dorm with a condom hat.

        And if he tries to intimidate Joyce, he’ll have to go through her motherfucking crew first.

        1. Rukduk

          In which case there will be bats, fists, angrily thrown toys, a velociraptor attack, and scathing expose of who he truly is in the college paper and online,me (Dorothy) which eventually leads to him being banned from entering the campus and the entire dorm floor (sans Mary) siding with Ruth. Joyce has a really good crew for these types of situations.

        2. BBCC

          Also Billie will punch him for real.

        3. Rukduk

          Also reminds me: cheerleader kick to the groin. I had the fourtunate pleasure of seeing a cheerleader inflict such a wound to a quarterback making unwanted advances at a dance I was proctoring as part of my part-time substitute teacher job before I had to intervene. The results were…fascinating and horrifying, but he had it coming. He’d been in trouble with the admin before because he thought he could do whatever he wanted because his parents had made been regular donars and he was essentially a legacy student and a big sports jock. This was the final straw that got him expelled. He’d been suspended twice previously for bullying behavior (each time for two weeks, both incidents were different students, and both times it was made clear that it would not be tolerated), so the administration (and student body) was glad to see him gone. We have a very, very strict anti-bullying policy about anything, a pretty good support system for victims, and have fostered a school culture wearing bullying someone else will make you a pariah. And, we’ve had all three for a good six decades at the least (definitely one of the better private high schools). Anyways the main point is, I’ve seen what and angry cheerleader using all their strength can achieve with one kick. It’s not pretty, and generally involves tears, peeing one’s pants, and vomiting from a gag reflex while struggling to breathe through gasps of pain, with randomly twitching legs. Then a three day hospital stay. At Clint’s age, such a thing could possibly kill him.

        4. DSL

          Rather nice to hear a story about a person defending herself against a bully and NOT getting into as much or more trouble than the actual bully.

    2. Grethelwvier

      Wait, so we have “chin dad”, and “toe dad”… What is Blaine in this vein?

      1. David M Willis

        assdad

        1. StClair

          Word of Willis, folks.

  34. AgentKeen

    Suspenders are fun. I think I wore them when I was a little kid, but I don’t really remember. But I do remember the fancy pants with attached suspenders I found at like a Goodwill or something, and I wore for a swing dance themed winter drumline show.

    Good times.

    1. Chris

      But did they get snapped?

  35. Danni

    i still have suspenders! theyre just for my suit though, not sure if theyre snappable.

    1. Chris

      Mine are probably too small now

      1. Danni

        get bigger ones!

  36. Mr. Random

    if you know what I mean…

    1. Schpoonman

      That’s perfect.

  37. Mikael

    I wear suspenders regularly, they are excellent when you do gardening and there is a lot of bowing and kneeling. A belt kind of cinch you in half after a while, and no pants-drop-protection is to horrible to think of …

    1. Danni

      i need to wear more suspenders

      1. Chris

        Same

  38. Bagge

    They will be so good for each other. Jason need to learn to meet his students at their level of understanding, Walky need to learn to sit down and study.

    They will drive each other nuts.

    Yes, yes, Walky. You made your point. Stop smartassing and start contributing.

    1. Krys Brynhildr

      Walky would…probably do a lot better if he wasn’t trying to get his diploma from the School of Total Smartasses to begin with.

      I mean with how many classes he’s skipped and never bothering to study he definitely needs some catching up, but at least he’s finally trying to take it seriously in the slightest.

      1. BBCC

        In Walky’s defence, he only skipped one and a half of his classes.

        1. Krys Brynhildr

          Ah, yeah, I sometimes forget how slow days go by in the comic. Still a decent amount of math probably.

          I mean, not that I blame him for hating it, cause I mean, Math, but thats always been even more reason to show up to college math classes for me so I didn’t fall hopelessly behind.

        2. BBCC

          I’m so glad my school doesn’t require me to take math. I did fine in high school but I hate it so much.

        3. Rukduk

          I was able to avoid taking an actual math class in my college years by taking a course on the history of math. In hindsight I think the college intentionally allowed that cheeky way of avoiding math directly for the non-science and engineering majors.

        4. BBCC

          I’m a history major – no math required!

          Well, we have a math or science requirement, but I filled that with Astronomy because fuck taking math if I don’t have to.

        5. Rukduk

          Cool. History major high five! Also, what are you planning on doing with your history major? Education? Law? Curation? Librarian? Archivist? Researcher? Consultant? I know I personally was set on teaching and will finally get a full time teaching job starting in August at my old Jesuit run high school, after being a part time sub. Which also means I’ll be switching my job as a bouncer at a local, as the owner describes it, Bi-bar (essentially a bar that reaches out to and provides community and gathering space for primarily LGBT individuals by making it a safe environment with straight people being perhaps only ten to fifteen percent of our regulars) from full-time to part-time. Technically I could just quit but I like the atmosphere, the boss, my coworkers, and a decent amount of my regulars. But teaching history has always been my dream. And it’s a school where the administration actually does give a crap about the students, so that’s a big plus in my book.

        6. BBCC

          I want to be a librarian or an archivist, yeah! In particular, I think a legal library would be cool. Most official ones need a law degree, but lots of law firms and such have archives they need librarians for. I also plan to going to teacher’s college so I can work school libraries, but I’d rather get in a public one or a legal one. Children aren’t my thing. Maybe if it were a high school.

          That’s super exciting you’re getting into teaching though! Respect! Good luck in August and hopefully that goes well!

          Funny enough – I went to a Catholic high school too. Fun times!

        7. Rukduk

          Who ran it? I know mine turned out well because we had really good Jesuit priests and former alumni working at the school with pride, when a lot of private schools do not.

        8. BBCC

          I believe mine was publicly funded. I live in Canada. XD

          We didn’t have priests or clergy running around – we had normal ass teachers. Albeit, the board required them to be confirmed Catholics, so there’s that. And we didn’t have a priest – we had to drive downtown to a Catholic school for mass once a year around Easter-ish.

    2. Fart Captor

      That’s a really good point. Jason’s usual techniques aren’t any more likely to help Walky, but Walky can match his level of “but the way I’ve always done this worked fine before!”

      At least one of them will have to realize this eventually.

  39. nothri

    Come on, Jason. We both know you’ve let people in that family do weirder stuff to you than snap your suspenders.

  40. Siyajkak

    Walky always says what we’re all thinking. He’s the audience insert. Or at least it’s Id

    1. Chris

      Wally is pretty much the character given the power of us commenters’ urges.

      1. Chris

        Oh Lord sorry I mean Walky

  41. Znayx

    I doubt anybody will see this comment here, but… The URL calls this strip “Suspenders” while the title on this web page is “Smidge”. There’s a mistake somewhere, unless Willis just compromised since he couldn’t decide on one of them.

    1. Krys Brynhildr

      Yeah, that is a little odd.

      Mainly just wanted to respond so you knew at least one person saw your comment and could second the odd case of there being two names for this particular comic.

    2. SgtWadeyWilson

      I like the compromise idea. It’s a nice way to give an attentive reader two titles, and if it was a mistake, no one will know now.

    3. David M Willis

      The filename is suspenders, but I didn’t want the strip title to tip off the punchline early if you clicked through the Twitter link.

      1. Krys Brynhildr

        And hey, an official answer!

        Seems a good reason to me, gotta make sure those lines get punched at the proper moment after all.

      2. Znayx

        http://imgur.com/KmsOrKq

        (Honestly that’s pretty clever)

  42. BenRG

    When he looks back in years to come, I suspect that Jason will remember the Walkerton twins were both the best and worst thing that ever happened to him. He will also reflexively close his hands into fists whenever he remembers Walky.

    Seriously, though, I think Jason has unwittingly hit the nail on the head: Walky is out of his depth, not only in the course but in the mindset he needs to seek help.

  43. Optimal Optimus

    Completely OT. But is anybody else in this forum looking forward to Young Justice season 3?

    1. Atoms

      Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

    2. Optimal Optimus

      Sorry, Willis. I really shouldn’t have asked this question. I just wanted to see if anyone else here had similar interests. Delete away.

    3. Adam Black

      Yup!!!!

    4. Micro-Girl

      Indeed!

  44. bastischo

    shouldn’t those suspenders be in some way connected to his trousers?
    looks weird to me.

    1. Rambling Idiot

      He doesn’t actually have any suspenders, Jason just wears two blue sashes at once, hoping to become double Jesus.

  45. trlkly

    Do we know he’s actually a bad teacher? Yes, we know he has ethics problems in sleeping with students. But I just mean the quality of his ability to teach.

    Sure, he couldn’t teach Sal very well, but the suggestion is that she’s had problems with math for a long time (Why she’s in a freshman calculus class in college is still a mystery to me.) But Walky’s problem is with one class, and has to do with his inability to pay attention or put in the work to learn.

    I think it’s possible Jason may actually be compatible with how Walky’s brain works.

    1. BenRG

      Let’s put it this way: Jason refused to ‘enhance’ Sal’s grades in exchange for sex and tried to tutor her instead. She saw no improvement in her grades until she refused to continue the tutoring sessions and instead turned to Danny.

      So, no, he isn’t as good a one-on-one tutor as Danny is. Learn from that what you will.

      1. Krys Brynhildr

        Wasn’t part of what made Danny such a good tutor was that he was able to give a convincing argument for why Sal should learn all the rules of how the math works in the first place?

        Instead of being a stuffy by-the-book Brit about it all? I mean, Jason’s methods might work for some people. Just not rebellious sorts or trailblazers who want to do things their own way?

    2. Cerberus

      Me and Emperor did a whole podcast episode on all the things that make him (and Penny and Rees) a bad teacher. It began with sleeping with a student but definitely didn’t end there:
      https://skepticalclown.wordpress.com/2017/02/12/podcasting-of-age-episode-5-jason-chesterfield-the-jason-vorhees-of-teachers/

      But short answer would be, yes, we know he’s a bad teacher and in fact is frequently an actively harmful teacher.

    3. rectilinearpropagation

      Jason was also shown to keep giving the same explanation over and over again even when it clearly wasn’t working and just blamed Sal for not understanding instead of trying something different.

      If you can’t even try to re-word something or at least ask questions to figure out why a student is stuck, you’re not a good teacher. I’m not even talking about doing so successfully, dude didn’t even make an attempt.

  46. Commodore Jeep-Eep

    This looks like the non-sexual part of a bisexual twin-fucking fetish story. This might be good.

    1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

      In a non-sexual, comedy way.

  47. Joe Covenant

    Quick Question….
    Why do a lot of Americans think “British” and “English” are interchangeable?
    -asking as a concerned Scot! 🙂

    (I don’t recall if Jason has ever canonically been described as “English”, but the stereotyping above certainly does!) 😉

    1. BenRG

      Jason was described as English in the Walkyverse, IIRC. However, I’m not sure if it counts because he comes from a parallel universe where England is home to ninjas and world-dominating supervillains.

      Dumbing of Age is a rewrite without the fantasy elements so, yeah, Jason is basically English.

      I’ve also got bad news for you; I doubt most people outside of Europe are aware that Scotland is not a small suburb of a town in England.

      1. Joe Covenant

        Aye – the struggle is constant…
        😉

    2. Heatth

      On large part because most British things and people they are familiar with are English. England is the “face” of the UK for centuries, so that is why people get the two confused all the time.

      It is kinda like Holland and the Netherlands.

      1. Joe Covenant

        Hi Heatth…

        I find this the most interesting answer… “because most British things and people they are familiar with are English.”
        But, it screams at me to ask.. “Like what?” 🙂

        The problem (to my mind) is that it never happens the other way around.
        E.G. Ewan McGregor, Sean Connery, Billy Connolly, David Tennant, Gerard Butler, Andy Murray… You’d be hard pressed to hear them being described as British…?
        But English becomes synonymous… when the differences between Scots and Welsh and ‘English’ is usually very plain.

        The only time you ‘will’ hear of such people being described as ‘British’ is in the English press when they are doing well. But if Andy Murray crashes out of his next tennis tournament, he’ll be labelled as Scottish quick as a wink!
        (And yes, seriously, this does happen!)

        1. Krys Brynhildr

          I guess the ‘plus side’ is that I’m pretty sure Americans tend to use the word ‘Brit’ in a similar way that ‘Yank’ or ‘Yankee’ were used by the English long ago?

          So maybe not the nicest of terms on the other side of the ocean from you. Though I’ll try and keep in mind that British is a larger category than English in the future anyways.

          That said, I’m going to totally apologize in advance that I have a hard time keeping Scotland and Ireland straight sometimes. Those are pretty easy to mix up when all you really can remember is that they’re both close to England but don’t really want to be part of England. Geography is not my strong suit.

        2. thejeff

          And you likely get a similar reaction using Brit to describe a Scot as using Yankee to describe a Southerner.

    3. Krys Brynhildr

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/twist/

      He totally says that he arrived there from England when he’s talking to Sal in a bar. I mean I guess maybe he could have just gone to college there and that’s why he was a graduate student from England, but he seems pretty stereotypically English as well, at least to someone from the USA?

      Or was the issue with calling English people British, honestly not sure so trying to address both possibilities.

    4. Cerberus

      Uhhhh… we just assumed that you all are going to be able to break away and escape soon and are future-travelers coming back to congratulate you?

      *nervous sweat drop*

      … I apologize on behalf of all of my American peers.

      1. emusam

        Scotland may cease to be part of the political entity United Kingdom, but will continue to be located in the British Isles, on the island of Great Britain.

        I thought Scandinavia and the World might have made a comic about it, but I can’t find it.

        1. Cerberus

          This one:?
          https://satwcomic.com/new-nordic

        2. Pablo360

          ¡Pobrecita Estonia!

      2. Joe Covenant

        Cerberus.. GREAT save! 🙂

        emusam… You’ve not seen the pair of scissors we’ve been building!
        But the point was more the virtual synonym status of English and British… Not groovy… (at least, not if you are not English! Although more and more Scots and Welsh are begrudging the title of British too!))

        Cheers all!

    5. BBCC

      Sorry, wish I could tell you. If it makes you feel better, a lot of Canadians know that the terms are not interchangeable.

    6. Rukduk

      I generally never considered “English” and “British” to be synonymous. Of course, I’m a history nerd and teacher and thus probably more aware than most Americans. And the Isles were originally given their name because of the Romans trying to come up with a Latin equivalent for the Greek…I think the term was Prythanoi but I’m not entirely sure. Anyways, the Romans came up with Britaini as a result. Which led to the big island becoming Britannia Magna aka Great Britain. But the main point of this, British should actually refer to the original P-Celtic (as compared to the C-Celtic or Gaelic) speaking peoples of the islands, so it’s actually the Welsh who should be referred to as British or Britons, especially because “Welsh” is actually derived from on Old English aka Western Germanic word that means “stranger” or “outsider” (Vlach or Wallach has pretty much the same origin), when they are the native people. Then again, the original Greek name of Prythanoi means “painted folk” referring to the ancient practice of using woad to paint themselves, so I really don’t know which would be the preferred name for them. Meanwhile, Scotts, being Gaelic in ethnic and linguistic heritage are only really British in location of habitation. And old Scottish Gaelic referred to Scotland as Alba if I’m correct, with “Scot” deriving from “scotus” which was a name given to the 6th to 8th century Gaelic equivalent of Vikings and generally meant as an insult in its origin. So I’ve always personally wondered why you don’t call yourself “Albans”. Then again, that is pretty close to “Albanians” and you’d probably want as little confusion as possible…sorry tangent about linguistics and history. Quick set of questions though. Is it full independence or will the would a Dominion status, if put forth by the English as a compromise be acceptable? If you do successfully separate from England, do you think you’ll establish a republic or a parliamentary monarchy? If parliamentary monarchy, would it make more sense to take one of the spare Windsor princes or make an offer to the current Jacobite claimant? Also, if Scotland and North Ireland leave at the same time, do you think you two will make an independent country together or separately? Sorry I’m really interested in the current situation in the Isles (and secretly wonder if a United Gaelic Republic would ever arise, as I perasonally think that would be one of the coolest things ever). Then again, of North Ireland separates from England, is it possible that it would reunite with the rest of Ireland? Would such a reunification even be possible after a century of separation? Sorry, I’ve always been interested in historical and political speculation, including alternate history and “What If?” Scenarios and their possible repercussions on the world. I do think that the IRA will most likely set off a second round of the Troubles if North Ireland separates from the U.K. but attempts maintain its own independence.

  48. L!ghtn!ng

    I had to read the last panel twice because the first time I read it, I thought the “out of our league” comment referred to fashion.

    Yeah, it’s true, Walky is sartorially out of his league.

  49. Sean

    Aaaand now I ship it. Yep. It’s that simple.

  50. Delicious Taffy

    This is completely unrelated, and I may come up with a comment relevant to today’s strip, but right now I need to gush.

    Go see Power Rangers. It may just be my new favorite movie. From a 23-year fan who’s snubbed a few Power Rangers seasons in the past, even a few of the better ones (I didn’t know better at the time), this movie is absolutely amazing. Billy is my favorite, just for his personality and relatability. He is the heart and soul of this new team, maybe even the movie itself. All of the actors looked and acted like they were having a blast with their characters. There are so many fun shout-outs to the original TV show, and none of them felt forced or out of place. Yes, the original theme song plays, and yes, it’s amazing. This is the first movie to have me grinning and bouncing in my seat the entire time since I saw the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie all those years ago. If someone asked me, every day for the movie’s entire run, to go see it with them, I would say “YES”, every single time. I will be buying this movie, the moment it comes out for home viewing. Highly recommended.

  51. BenRG

    It occurs to me that Jason asked the right question here: “What do you want?” The answer, at least on a subvocal level was: “Out of this class”. If I were Jason, I’d recommend that Walky talk to the student counsellor about whether he wants to continue his math course or even transfer to a lower-level skills-building course before tackling Calculus again.

    1. Krys Brynhildr

      Well, the big differences between Sal (who he did try and go that route with after tutoring didn’t seem to work) and Walky are that he hasn’t tried to walk Walky through the steps yet and the fact that apparently Walky basically had been acing the tests up until they got out of the review material.

      Depending on how much of that was Walky overselling his scores previously, its hard to tell if there even is a class that would help him build up to Calculus that he didn’t take in highschool.

      Walky just might need help studying so he doesn’t get bored and goof off instead. I mean, yeah, if its more than that or Jason’s tutoring doesn’t help, it’d be sensible to take the topic to a counselor to figure out whether or not he’d be better off dropping it, but they’re still pretty early in the semester, so it doesn’t seem likely that Jason will feel pressured to do so without trying to help Walky get back on track first.

      Plus, this is his shot to redeem his TA cred.

      1. Cerberus

        Well, we’ll just have to see if… he’s not throwing away his shot.

        1. Gwen

          Congratulations, that has now been stuck in my head for four hours.

    2. thejeff

      Walky has to deal with this and it’s better to do so now rather than take an easier class and push it off. From all indications his problem isn’t Calculus is too hard or that he doesn’t have the lower level material, but that he doesn’t pay attention or know how to study and that he’s smart enough that he’s never had to before.
      Sending him back to an easier class where he’ll review material he’s had and where he’ll do well without studying won’t help. Even if he just drops Calc, since he may not need it, eventually he’ll hit something he does need to work at and it’s better to deal with it now than later in his college career.

      1. Krys Brynhildr

        That is a good point too. I mean even as someone who generally can relate to Walky’s not needing to study, albeit to a slightly lesser degree, its important to be able to study when you do need to.

        Well, and being able to read the material at least helps a lot. I mean, reading over the material once and then reviewing before the tests tends to get me As and Bs, but I’d probably fail pretty hard as well if I didn’t do that initial reading.

        Well, that and math is extra tribulatory anyways. Thats why I stopped at college level algebra.

        1. thejeff

          I kind of wish it wasn’t Math Walky was having problems with so that it was more clear that the problem is “Walky doesn’t study” instead of “Math is hard”.

        2. Krys Brynhildr

          Yeah, though it’s probably a combination of the two really. “Math is actually hard, so even Walky has to finally break down and study for once.” Which, I mean he’s probably bad at math just so they could have Sal start to be good at it right as Walky starts having trouble with it, but it is also one of the generally more precision oriented and memorization heavy type of classes available early on in college. Got to make the thing the goofball has to work at something that’d reasonably take a lot of studying even for “smart people”, right?

    3. Gwen

      Of course, sibling rivalry being what it is, there’s no *way* Walky’s dropping that class if Sal’s still taking it.

  52. Andy

    This is the second strip where Jason is staring after Sal. My guess is that he’s not over their liaisons.

    1. rectilinearpropagation

      Well it’s only been, what, a few weeks? They haven’t actually taken their midterm exams yet, right? He should still feel guilty.

      1. Andy

        Also, inadequacy. “What does that other tutor have that I don’t?”

    2. thejeff

      Jason is very definitely not over Sal. It’s not even entirely clear that Sal’s over Jason. There’s certainly some kind of hate-lust thing going on and I’d be shocked if it was completely dropped.

      That said, while Sal is pretty much the only thing it makes any narrative sense for him to be staring after, I’m not really sure how that works: Sal was out of the room ahead of Walky last strip and now Walky approaches Jason from the other direction?
      And we don’t actually get any strips of Joyce and Walky arguing over the best episode of D&MM? Pout.
      I would’ve expected Walky to use that as an excuse to keep from talking to Jason.

      1. Andy

        Walky was behind Joyce, so maybe after giving a snappy rejoinder to Joyce and Becky, he hovered in the hallway waiting for a chance to talk to Jason. Or they had a conversation, then he circled back. But yeah, the chronology is odd, unless Jason was staring after Sal for a long time.

  53. Joe Covenant

    I find the comments on the TA / Student relationships fascinating!

    Again, maybe it’s the UK ./ USA divide, but it certainly isn’t illegal over here. (In fact, I am sure that about 5-6 years back an Oxford College had a vote to enshrine in their policies that Tutors “could” date their students.

    It is certainly not looked upon favourably in some places, (Mainly down to steering clear of accusations of unequal/favourable treatment) but in others it’s no (real) biggie.

    The difference between ‘normal school’ and further education (College, University) being that they work on a, “You must legally attend here til you are 16 and your teacher’s status is In Loco Parentis.” The stance being that once you have left ‘normal’ school (16-18) you are considered an adult, and any decisions you make are therefore your own.

    1. Krys Brynhildr

      Its nice to have some insight from…across the pond? Or is that just an English phrase?

      In any case, its really neat to have a source of information on some of the differences, because hearing about how other countries do things is really something that we in the USA don’t often get to hear about very often.

      1. Joe Covenant

        I could get all fake-Scots here and claim we only ever say something picturesque like “Ower the waatir!” (which some people *do* say) but in general, yes… Across the pond! 🙂

        1. Krys Brynhildr

          Probably best not to go full fake-Scots, seeing as I can barely read that one line. I’d be totally lost if every word was spelled with that much accent.

        2. Joe Covenant

          Ach, awa’ an’ dinnae haver lass!
          Ye’ve got mair sense in thon wee noddle thin maist ither fowk aboot th’ place!

          (Sorry!) 😉

        3. Krys Brynhildr

          Surprisingly I was able to decrypt out all but every word before the “lass!”. I mean, its still basically a cryptology issue, but good job me?

        4. Jhon

          “dinnae haver” is “don’t talk nonsense”.
          (google is my friend)

        5. Marsh Maryrose

          I’ve always been a little sad that The Proclaimers failed to make “haver” happen in the US. (“And if I haver, yeah I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s havering to you.”)

        6. Chris

          eMay annotcay nderstanduay hetay anguagelay ouyay peaksay oeJay ovenantCay. ranslationTay leasepay?

    2. BBCC

      Around here, TAs are authority figures, so it’d be like a boss fucking their underling (which is a huge no-no not just because of potential favouritism, but also because of potential for them to threaten to abuse the student’s grades if they don’t fuck them or as retaliation for a breakup). At the very very least, they’d have to notify their superior so that said superior could monitor the relationship for abuse.

  54. Aislashu

    How long before je realizes how similar to Sal Walky looks in and moves in for le bangins?

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      He’s the one without boobs, and those may be the first thing he notices about Sal.

      1. Aislashu

        He can put a bra on Walky’s butt and motorboat it instead.

  55. englishperson

    Of course, Jason is English, so he [probably] doesn’t call them “suspenders”, he calls them “braces”. To an English person, “suspenders” means the things that hold your stockings up.

    Presumably he’s used to that linguistic quirk, by now, but it’s one of the language differences that still causes me momentary confusion every time I hear it.

    1. Yet Another Laura H

      … and now I am imagining the scene without that Mr. Chesterfield having that knowledge…

    2. Rukduk

      Kinda like how we Americans call a “serviette” a “napkin”, when in almost every other country where English is spoken, “napkin” actually means “diaper”.

      1. Daibhid C

        ??? In the UK a diaper is a nappy.

        A napkin is a serviette is a napkin. Which word you use probably says volumes about your place in our ridiculous and byzantine class system, but I’ve never bothered to find out.

        1. Rukduk

          Well serviette sounds pretty French, so maybe it’s one of those upperclass holdovers from the Norman nobility? I don’t think they fully Anglicized until the 15th and 16th centuries, after the final losses of the Hundred Years’ War. Until then I think it was still Norman aristocracy with an Anglo-Saxon middle class that was only just really becoming what we would consider English. The Lancasters and Tudors were the ones who actually Anglicized the ruling class, hell Henry V (second Lancaster king, which was really just an upstart side branch of the Plantagenets, much like the house of York) was the first king of England who grew up speaking English, over 3 centuries oafter the initial conquest.

    3. Jhon

      “the things that hold your stockings up” — aren’t those garters?

      Handy travel tip: If you go to the U.K., don’t take any molasses with you. It will turn into treacle.

  56. Neeks

    I’m half expecting Jason’s tutoring technique to actually somehow help walky, which leads to Jason walking up to Sal and saying “SEE?”

  57. Reltzik

    Walky, Panel 2: “This guy’s going to turn around and it’s going to be super-awkward and….”

    Walky, Panel 3: “… well what’s the dang wait? TURN AROUND AND NOTICE ME! Imthecenteroftheworldafterall…”

    …. am I just reading his expression wrong? I know I tend to think of Walky as pretty self-centered, and maybe that frowny line is more a reach for resolve and determination or growing anxiety, but…

  58. Hari

    Hahaha. Does Walky know that Jason’s bonking his sister?

  59. Falling Star

    I want to snap those suspenders.
    Also YES I CALLED IT

  60. Ivy

    Jason stands like a statue until someone talks to him

  61. E. Bernhard Warg

    I don’t want to snap them. “Do Unto Others” and all that.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.