I’m pretty sure Penny did it in the last strip or two. In the first strip of this scene, I think we can see enough of his back to be sure the sign wasn’t there already. And in the last strip we see Penny’s hand on his back.
I, too, am sure that she did it in the last strip.
Personally, I think she’s a great example of the sort of ‘teacher’ who should get tossed out on her rear end. The job of a teacher is to educate, and she’s a miserable failure at that. She views teaching as a job where the objective is to do as little as possible. It doesn’t matter to her whether her students actually learn anything or not. All she cares about is getting paid and having sex with her students.
Of course, I work at an academic institution (not as a teacher, but I know most of the faculty and staff very well due to being part of the IT staff), so I might just have a slightly different viewpoint than the average reader of this comic.
Which does suck for her, I will admit. I don’t see it as an excuse for her attitude, though. I empathize will people who have crappy jobs. I don’t empathize with people who have crappy job and take it out on the customers.
Technically we don’t even know if she is a “bad teacher”. True, she may have a bad attitude, and she did point out that professors just “regurgitate lesson plans”. But that might not necessarily apply to her.
She may actually be a good TA (able to handle students with all sorts of problems, grades tests well, etc.), but just realizes that she’s working in a system that doesn’t reward teaching abilities.
And the thing is, she still might be an excellent teacher.
Look, Jason in his current form is not a good teacher, without dealing at all with his a banging student. We see that because he is not—- currently— mentally flexible enough to frame things in a way that his (rather bright) student Sal could begin to get a handle on them, while an untrained kid like Danny was able to give her the tools. (Although to be fair, I don’t get a vibe the entire T.A. manual in this school is brown-edged Post-It with “Good Luck!” and a smily face in distinctive handwriting that belongs to no-one in recent memory.)
Actually, I take back the aside that excludes sex with students. I suspect that if he weren’t so stiff-necked and concerned with the rules, rather than the maxim from which they proceed, he’d be able to figure out a way to reach out to those whose thought process differs from his— WITHOUT ripping their clothes off. I hope the connection with Sal makes him see these people as, y’know, people, instead of “lazy others.”
Mike is another likely candidate. Thing of it is, she has a point about Jason being full of it regardless. This seems to be about Jason, like Danny and Shortpacked’s Ethan, having delusions of character by putting up a sanctimonious persona, that they themselves are buying far more than anyone around them, resulting in them not having any real moral high ground to speak of over all the other jerks in their lives, and failing to meet their level of self-awareness to boot.
A lot of people don’t realize that, in college, they aren’t teachers. Your professors and the institutions they work for are generally much more concerned with whether or not they’re churning out quality research than if they’re good at imparting information to their students.
That’s actually kind of upsetting, because it shows she had every intention of doing that before the conversation went bad. It’s funny buuut just a little mean spirited.
Not sure exactly but the spade has a long history as both an entrenching tool and a weapon, so there is that, Chiri likes the spade because SZS loves giving characters meaningful names and the name Chiri has a number of possible meanings, one of which is “to bury” and a spade is handy for that task.
I was impressed with the final twist at the end of the manga where it turns out that Furura Kafuka has been dead all along and that all the girls in the class has received donor organs from her which causes them be possessed by her spirit from time to time.
Not true. There’s an episode of 30 Rock where a threesome involving Liz Lemon, James Franco, and a Japanese body pillow named Kamiko-Tan solved the problem of Liz’s cousin crashing on her couch.
“Just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean you MUST sleep with him or her. You’ll survive. It’s also easier to exist in a way that you prefer if you aren’t lying to yourself.”
Trouble is, it’s hard to get this on a gut level without a tonne of relationship XP under your belt, or with the surging hormones of your late teens/ early twenties roaring in your brain’s ears.
She appears to be a rather nasty cynic who thinks she can get away with questionable behavior so long as she’s superficially charming. She’s also got a horrible attitude for someone who’s supposed to be an educator.
In summation: I kinda want to push her out a window.
Heh, don’t tell Jason. I think he’s been too busy trying to match the depiction Family Guy has for British people to have taken the time to even notice that she’s been trying to ‘pull’ him, as they used to say in Britain, much less what kind of person she really is.
Wouldn’t be surprised if all he picked up on from this spat is the part that had to do with how people in their department don’t like him that much, or so Penny the Jilted claims.
I think in this case it’s less to do with the fact that a male PA/teacher would be in a lot more trouble than a female equivalent and more because the students and staff like her a lot while he’s unpopular.
While there certainly is a tremendous double standard when it comes to female teachers sleeping with male students (and there is, totes), that’s not what she’s getting at here. Penny is saying that people like her more, so they’d be more willing to brush her activities under the rug. Whereas with Jason, nobody likes him, so if he was caught doing something that unethical he’d be out on his scrawny British ass.
I’d expect either “out on your arse” or, alternatively, “out on your ear”, a well-established phrase meaning being dismissed or ejected ignominiously. But there’s a lot of variation within English so who knows.
Is Penny supposed to be British or Irish? I forget.
With the name “Worthington” I’d expect British, but I guess there’s nothing stopping kinky redheaded Irish lasses (hold on, need to savor that particular thought a moment… . …) from having British lass names and saying “rear.”
It also helps quite a lot that we know in another world the dude was basically James Bond combined with Nick Fury, a normal dude able to run with a bunch of super powered kids and still kick ass. It also helps that we know that alternate Penny was a mass murdering super psychopath on top of being a huge…well, take your pick of terms that are unflattering.
Man, that sounds like my situation where I work – I’m great at my job, and everyone loves me for doing my job well, but on a personal level it’s like two people speaking two different languages and the two languages sound like a bunch of swear words and racist epithets to the other person.
I mean he was typically right, and nobody started really listening to him until everyone else fucked up hard. Jason isn’t a people pleaser, but he was basically an actually intelligent James Bond what more could you ask for in a story with actual threats. Here he his kinda boring; unlike most of the other characters he is mostly just doing school, but in a comic about college it’s nice to see someone who actually cares about education.
Well it’s true. People with a good reputation tend to have negative things hit them a bit softer from their superiors. She’d probably get a warning and a slap on the wrist.
No… A grad TA who is caught having relations with an undergrad in a class they are the ta of is getting fired woth no warning. Around here we have a policy of, if you were in a relationship before the class (but its over before the class starts) then you would just have to tell the professor and not grade any of their work, but if you did not do that then you are kicked out of the program immediately.
Not everywhere is that harsh. Some places have the rule that if relations start, the grad student is supposed to switch the section they teach. The problem arises only when people aren’t honest or open about it, or if the student is less than 18 obviously. They don’t make you end relationships that have already started also.
JASON.
WHAT THE FUCK.
HOW AND WHY ARE YOU LECTURING HER ON “HAVING RELATIONS” WITH STUDENTS WHEN YOU HAVE DONE THE DO WITH SAL AT LEAST TWICE?
Just cause you don’t like her doesn’t mean you get to be a hypocrite.
I’m pretty sure he does like her, in an intelligent, banter-y, i-respect-you-but-can’t-stand-you-except-when-i-can-stand-you kind of way.
He’s not lecturing her on “having relations”, but “blatantly having relations”, ie. having relations in a way that he sees as likely to get her fired.
They’re not trying to be teachers though. As a grad student, teaching is a thing you just have to do, and many grad students don’t want to be a professor.
Sorry mate, but nobody likes you Jason. Original Jason was uptight but he was nice and cared for others. He gave people free drinks. New Jason openly berates his students.
Everything these two say is delightful. I am so easily pleased, but I do enjoy these British-isms immensely, I hardly register the content of the words lol.
I can see the point at which she attached the note, but not when she had time to write it. This leads me to believe that Penny was carrying that and some tape around in her notebook all day just in case she happened to bump into him. Either that or it was there the whole time (probably because of Mike) and she didn’t mention it, but I prefer my version.
I see where she could have put it on his back a page ago. And the shot two pages ago has his back looking kind of clear, but it’s not a full view…
What might be throwing me off is it looks like she has a red pen/marker in her mouth and the text it black? Or maybe it’s because her point would seem more valid if it was a third party who attached the sign?
I honestly can not tell you how unpleasant I have found these last two strips. Not because of the writing or characters, or anything like that. I hate them because they are just a touch too real to me.
How about the names of skintones? I’ve seen some pretty deep browns, but never black. I’ve seen some pretty pale bages, but never white (Although I do know there are albino people out there). And Asians aren’t yellow. I’m also pretty sure Russians are not red. It’s like WTH PEOPLE?
Also, what’s up with the term “Straight”? Last time I checked, there is no combination of male and female that make strait that can’t be made with two females or two males. Although I will admit, I didn’t check that much into it.
Are people TRYING not to make sense? Seriously guys, if you’re going to be using weird labels for no reason, MAKE SENSE!!!
I’m wrong. I lost internet for a moment. I wouldn’t mind a bilingual populace that could speak that lanuage, but I think I’d disagree with making that the number one language. No doublespeak for me please!
I’m not sure, but I think “straight” comes from “on the straight and narrow”, a phrase used by the gay community (probably before it was referred to as “the gay community”) to refer to someone trying to pass as straight. And before you complain, may I state that “gay” used to refer exclusively to male homosexual prostitutes.
She makes a decent case for herself. Have to wonder if she’s quite so well-loved as she thinks she is though.
Possibly hasn’t fully accounted for competition? If she loses her job, the position opens up. Somebody out there stands to benefit from that.
I mean on the one hand, I can believe that being charming and well loved will get you very far in life. I still have a hard time buying that anybody in the working class is quite so untouchable as she claims to be though.
I don’t think she believes she’s untouchable, just relatively secure. Jason on the other hand is not liked clearly by many, which does make him more vulnerable to her.
I think “I don’t have to hide my job-ruining crimes” is pretty high up on the scale of untouchability.
Secure would be more if she thought she’d still have this job in ten years so long as she tows the line and plays by the rules. Got a secure position for herself, but it’s not like she’s impervious to the potentially dire consequences of her own actions.
I doubt that Penny has many real friends who’d take any risks to protect her. She seems more likely to play social games instead of building trust, and play the small points of charm.
As a coworker, she probably has the sense to identify and do the work that strategically matters. Unless that work is secretly brilliant, or it includes helping with grant applications or sifting for blackmail material, it wouldn’t be enough to protect her.
If push comes to shove, she’ll have to rely on quick thinking, viciousness, preparation and strategy.
I wouldn’t bet that she isn’t a type A with some wary and respectful coworkers. She could be quietly working on research, seeking a co-author spot on someone else’s work, and volunteering for an academic conference, while wasting an a hour of the week on Joe. If the snarky battles with Jason leave him preoccupied, so he’s not hunting for opportunities she wants, so much the better.
I’m disturbed by how many commenters watched Penny being an awful person and essentially declaring her immunity to being reprimanded for being awful because she knows how to kiss ass to the right people…and how many of them are applauding her for it. What the hell, guys?
I don’t think what she’s doing is right, but there is a sort of admiration you can have for her. She’s very assertive, even if what she’s doing is wrong, and she seems to understand a lot more than Jason does about the way things are at the school.
She’s kind of like Joe in the way she takes a no-nonsense approach to Jason’s complaints. Except I hate Joe, and the limited amount of time Penny’s been in the series has left me with a better impression of her. Who knows, I may come to hate her too eventually.
In contrast, Jason is a naive idealist who has a very grating personality. He doesn’t know how to communicate with people, evidenced in the way he was unable to help Sal study (personally, I liked how Danny approached Sal a lot more; he made it sound appealing to her with the whole “Learn the rules so you know how to break them later” idea, and all that), and he’s pretty condescending toward others. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine why he isn’t liked, and why people won’t support him even when he’s right.
Personally, I don’t think what he’s saying is hypocritical in the least, because he hasn’t been with Sal since that day and he just doesn’t want Penny to take the same risks. However, she’s not afraid to take risks as long as her reputation is upstanding. Being liked by your peers, believe it or not, actually does pay off.
He actually has been with Sal since that day. Wasn’t just a lone incident. He did it. He regretted it. He explained why it should never have happened. Then he did it again.
Since then I’m pretty sure he hasn’t said or done anything to indicate he plans on stopping anytime soon.
I don’t think she even kisses ass. It sounds like she just thinks she’s a really delightful person to be around, so obvious her coworkers/superiors would never want to be rid of her.
I don’t know that anybody’s quite that delightful though. Certainly not that she is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she’s a really popular person within her circle, but in the few interactions we’ve seen of her she seems to have too much meanness and condescension in her to have such a universal appeal where nobody dislikes her. She’s probably a bit like Billie was in her prime right now. In with the in crowd, but maybe overestimating how much all the plebes just wish they could be her, and having estranged more supposed allies than she realizes along the way.
The thing about Jason and Penny— people tend to like people they think would have their back, and people tend to dislike feeling judged.
I think if Jason allowed himself to like himself a bit more, genuine self-esteem rather than conceit, people would suddenly enjoy being in his company more, because he’d stop with the narrative of “I must be better than everyone else to be worthy of good things. Since I am the best I can be and still not hailed as worthy, I’d better find ways that these people are worse than I am.”
I may be oversensitive to this; I spent roughly fourteen years in a relationship with someone like this, and may be prone to overdiagnosis.
I find the parallel to Ruth interesting; she too said that as long as she was loved by the administration, she could pretty much do as she pleased. Of course, Ruth was pretty certain she’d be fired if she was found out – Penny seems to think she’s immune to that too.
Penny is right to some extent although I think Something Positive’s Vanessa Cubbins’ perspective has just right amount of cynicism. Being a teaching assistant means Jason could have quite a lot of students to contend with as well as his own studies and it’s a considerable burden for someone in the mathematical field. There is only so much he can do and on the college level teachers cannot be expected to nag and prod their students to perform. College students have to responsible for their own performance. Jason knows the subject and tries to work with people, but he cannot spend the extra time to figure out every student’s learning disability.
There’s some serious Marauder’s Map oath shit goin on here.
Oh Jason, if your name didn’t remind me of a certain person with the last name Mars yelling “JAAASON, JAAAAAAAASOOOOOOOON” each time I pressed X on my PS3 Controller then I’d probably have given you a wedgie and told you to git gud
I absolutely want to refute Penny’s points, but I still kind of want to find reasons for her to be likeable. Damn her cute hairstyle and attractive red hair/green eyes combination.
Nah, Americans normally say “This is what I’m getting at” to convey a main idea also. “Playing at” is more often used in phrases such as “What exactly are you playing at?” The phrase implies that the other participant is treating the conversation like a game and that his/her intentions may not be truly honest.
Since Penny’s referring to herself, though, I figure it’s just a weird speech quirk. (I thought it might be the British version of the saying, but I guess not, huh?)
OOPS! Forgot to source, sorry! I looked the phrase “playing at” up on the Word Reference forums and the MacMillan Dictionary to double-check its meaning.
Hey, I just wanna say if you have even a slight crush on one of the characters in this comic. DO NOT tell Willis, he will give you a link to an dumbass article. And then he’ll tell you to talk to your doctor about it. Because apparently having a crush on a character is a “medical problem.” Willis if you read this. When it’s my doctor’s business who I have a crush on. I’ll tell him, but since it’s none of his business I ain’t telling him anything! I thought you’d be flattered about it but no you were a straight up jerk about it.
That’s not fair. We all have huge crushes on several characters in this comic, we boldly announce them in the comments, but Willis never gives us links to dumbass articles. I want dumbass articles too!
“Perverse Sexual Lust is a term for a real person’s attraction to a fictional character.
It originated in a reader poll during the early days of the webcomic It’s Walky!. The author wished to know the reason behind the slightly loopy church-girl character Joyce Brown’s popularity, and saw this option achieve an overwhelming win.”
I always did wonder if that term originated in the IW! fandom or if it was A Thing from before that. Well, now I know!
The article in question gives a fairly direct answer to your question and even gives the phenomenon a name. It even goes as far as to point out that Joyce Brown is the very character that gave this phenomenon a name.
That’s a very helpful response, dude. I don’t know what makes this a jerk move.
He linked you to Perverse Sexual Lust, a trope that was created because people were crushing on Joyce so much. Willis made a joke, YOU acted like an asshole about it.
You lashed out at someone who gave a helpful answer to your question. It does not matter what your excuse is; that’s still a shitty thing to do and you haven’t even apologized to him yet.
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the layouts have been such that really anyone could have put the sign there, too
I got here at 12:00 and hit the home button until the comic loaded and you were still already here. ._.
Willis doesn’t make the comic visible until Jen Aside comments
where is the lie
Wait:
Jen Aside ==> Genocide
I’ve been reading DoA for more than a year now and I just got that .-.
Wow.
You get laughed at in chat rooms
I feel bad for you, son
I got 99 problems
But an inability to interpret casual puns ain’t one
(Sry, had to get it out of me before it festered)
You’re number pun
Don’t worry about it, I had a close friend who didn’t get it until talking about me one day =p
I thought it was your real name *shamed*
I’m pretty sure Penny did it in the last strip or two. In the first strip of this scene, I think we can see enough of his back to be sure the sign wasn’t there already. And in the last strip we see Penny’s hand on his back.
I like Penny.
I, too, am sure that she did it in the last strip.
Personally, I think she’s a great example of the sort of ‘teacher’ who should get tossed out on her rear end. The job of a teacher is to educate, and she’s a miserable failure at that. She views teaching as a job where the objective is to do as little as possible. It doesn’t matter to her whether her students actually learn anything or not. All she cares about is getting paid and having sex with her students.
Of course, I work at an academic institution (not as a teacher, but I know most of the faculty and staff very well due to being part of the IT staff), so I might just have a slightly different viewpoint than the average reader of this comic.
I very much agree with you.
Thing is, she’s not a teacher. She’s a grad student who has to T.A. despite having no interest in it.
Which does suck for her, I will admit. I don’t see it as an excuse for her attitude, though. I empathize will people who have crappy jobs. I don’t empathize with people who have crappy job and take it out on the customers.
Empathize >with<. Sigh.
I’m with you on this. She’s cute, but she’s an asshole.
Technically we don’t even know if she is a “bad teacher”. True, she may have a bad attitude, and she did point out that professors just “regurgitate lesson plans”. But that might not necessarily apply to her.
She may actually be a good TA (able to handle students with all sorts of problems, grades tests well, etc.), but just realizes that she’s working in a system that doesn’t reward teaching abilities.
And the thing is, she still might be an excellent teacher.
Look, Jason in his current form is not a good teacher, without dealing at all with his a banging student. We see that because he is not—- currently— mentally flexible enough to frame things in a way that his (rather bright) student Sal could begin to get a handle on them, while an untrained kid like Danny was able to give her the tools. (Although to be fair, I don’t get a vibe the entire T.A. manual in this school is brown-edged Post-It with “Good Luck!” and a smily face in distinctive handwriting that belongs to no-one in recent memory.)
Actually, I take back the aside that excludes sex with students. I suspect that if he weren’t so stiff-necked and concerned with the rules, rather than the maxim from which they proceed, he’d be able to figure out a way to reach out to those whose thought process differs from his— WITHOUT ripping their clothes off. I hope the connection with Sal makes him see these people as, y’know, people, instead of “lazy others.”
I think you just explained the irony in the strip.
Mike is another likely candidate. Thing of it is, she has a point about Jason being full of it regardless. This seems to be about Jason, like Danny and Shortpacked’s Ethan, having delusions of character by putting up a sanctimonious persona, that they themselves are buying far more than anyone around them, resulting in them not having any real moral high ground to speak of over all the other jerks in their lives, and failing to meet their level of self-awareness to boot.
Ooh.
A lot of people don’t realize that, in college, they aren’t teachers. Your professors and the institutions they work for are generally much more concerned with whether or not they’re churning out quality research than if they’re good at imparting information to their students.
omg she totally did.
She puts her hand on his back in the last strip, so I’d assume that’s when she did it.
That’s actually kind of upsetting, because it shows she had every intention of doing that before the conversation went bad. It’s funny buuut just a little mean spirited.
Jason’s back is totally off-panel in this entire comic except the last one tho
[[off-screen Mike]]
I want to know the story behind how This man gets to be the first to comment always.
“This man” doesn’t, I do haha
[unless I’m busy or can’t think of anything]
Remember everyone, “Threesomes never solve anything”
except in universes parallel to the walkyverse
oh wait
No, that was a foursome.
But they are fun to watch. 😀
Unrelated but I’m really enjoying the encyclopedia of characters your tumblr is rapidly becoming 🙂
I didn’t know Chiri but I immediately remembered Nicole of Quantum Vibe: It’s not aikido (a little gory)
What is it with girls and shovels?
Not sure exactly but the spade has a long history as both an entrenching tool and a weapon, so there is that, Chiri likes the spade because SZS loves giving characters meaningful names and the name Chiri has a number of possible meanings, one of which is “to bury” and a spade is handy for that task.
Of course, she seems to go for the burial bit if someone steps out of line and isn’t proper.
Not so much a thing in the first season, though. Might be a flanderization thing, much like how the other characters got weirder with new seasons.
I was impressed with the final twist at the end of the manga where it turns out that Furura Kafuka has been dead all along and that all the girls in the class has received donor organs from her which causes them be possessed by her spirit from time to time.
Not true. There’s an episode of 30 Rock where a threesome involving Liz Lemon, James Franco, and a Japanese body pillow named Kamiko-Tan solved the problem of Liz’s cousin crashing on her couch.
…That may have been kind of a weird show.
Well, that settles it. I’m binge-watching 30 Rock.
That may have been the one 30 Rock episode I’d like to have remained forgotten. Thanks, that really sours my mind grapes.
I most CERTAINLY disagree with that thesis, my friend 😉
I don’t know, threesomes generally solve the problem of what to do with that extra couple of hours that we had no idea how to use before.
If you’ve got a better solution to the Amber/Danny/Ethan problem, I’d like to hear it.
Foursome? Counting both of the people in Amber’s head.
And threesomes totally solve the problem of not having enough threesomes.
“Just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean you MUST sleep with him or her. You’ll survive. It’s also easier to exist in a way that you prefer if you aren’t lying to yourself.”
Trouble is, it’s hard to get this on a gut level without a tonne of relationship XP under your belt, or with the surging hormones of your late teens/ early twenties roaring in your brain’s ears.
Well, that’s like saying “alcohol doesn’ solve any problem”. Since, well, neither does milk ^^
Calcium deficiency.
Hungry infant mammal.
Alcohol solves lots of other things, though.
It’s an excellent disinfectant and quite good as a cleaning solvent, for one thing.
Nice job Mike.
Never let Mike pat you on the back.
You assume it’s Mike. But when has Mike ever used signs pinned to someone’s back?
Fourth panel here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/twelvethirty/
Though I wish it was written in red, because of the strip before that.
Nice catch! Oh Penny that is just petty. Petty Penny.
Pretty Penny
Did Joe put that sign there?!
YES
Probably not, but YES
the thirst for more penny is HIGH
yessssssss
You can ask Willis but I bet it would cost you a pretty penny. 😀
Agreed, I would read a whole ‘nother comic about Penny and Jason TA shenanigans.
Am I the only one that loathes her?
Nope, I do too.
Also not a fan.
I think she’s like a less severe version of Mike: a real jerk, but funny because of that.
She appears to be a rather nasty cynic who thinks she can get away with questionable behavior so long as she’s superficially charming. She’s also got a horrible attitude for someone who’s supposed to be an educator.
In summation: I kinda want to push her out a window.
And that’s why we want to see more of her. So we can learn her habits and weaknesses.
Heh, don’t tell Jason. I think he’s been too busy trying to match the depiction Family Guy has for British people to have taken the time to even notice that she’s been trying to ‘pull’ him, as they used to say in Britain, much less what kind of person she really is.
Wouldn’t be surprised if all he picked up on from this spat is the part that had to do with how people in their department don’t like him that much, or so Penny the Jilted claims.
She’s absolutely despicable. I love her.
I was actually just going to comment on how I don’t really like her much either. 😉
[insert coin joke here]
Love the sign on the back.
Where’s Mike when you need him?
Looks like he’s already been here to me.
Mike is a busy guy why do you think we don’t see him in the comic more often?..I wish Willis would move him up out of being a B list character
To where? The C list?
Double-standard is alive and well then it seems.
The double standard between people who are personable and well-liked by their colleges and those who are stuffy pompous assholes?
Don’t get me wrong, Jason is up there with my favourites, but…
*colleagues
I can spell…
I think in this case it’s less to do with the fact that a male PA/teacher would be in a lot more trouble than a female equivalent and more because the students and staff like her a lot while he’s unpopular.
While there certainly is a tremendous double standard when it comes to female teachers sleeping with male students (and there is, totes), that’s not what she’s getting at here. Penny is saying that people like her more, so they’d be more willing to brush her activities under the rug. Whereas with Jason, nobody likes him, so if he was caught doing something that unethical he’d be out on his scrawny British ass.
British rear, apparently. Do British people say “rear”? I thought they were all about “bums” and “bottoms.”
…Sweet suffering fuck, the English language has far too many euphemisms for human buttocks.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
No language can ever have too many euphemisms for butts.
Tina Belcher approves this message.
True dat.
By which I mean “BUTTS!”
They do use the term derrière even if it is a French word.
They say “arse” instead of “ass”.
I’d expect either “out on your arse” or, alternatively, “out on your ear”, a well-established phrase meaning being dismissed or ejected ignominiously. But there’s a lot of variation within English so who knows.
Is Penny supposed to be British or Irish? I forget.
With the name “Worthington” I’d expect British, but I guess there’s nothing stopping kinky redheaded Irish lasses (hold on, need to savor that particular thought a moment… . …) from having British lass names and saying “rear.”
They do, IIRC. “Rear Admiral” was certainly considered a source of snickers.
People do like you Jason, it’s just that they don’t live in your side of the 4th wall.
I dunno. I think the fact we don’t have to deal with his disapproval in person contributes to his popularity over here.
Fair enough!
If he was existed in this world and I had to deal with his bullshit, I would have left a permanent imprint on his face a while ago
What bullshit? Expecting people to study for a test rather than hooking up for a good grade?
Yes.
And that attitude does happen in the real world, too.
Jason is unnecessarily rude and condescending in nearly every conversation he has. He doesn’t talk to you, he talks down at you.
It also helps quite a lot that we know in another world the dude was basically James Bond combined with Nick Fury, a normal dude able to run with a bunch of super powered kids and still kick ass. It also helps that we know that alternate Penny was a mass murdering super psychopath on top of being a huge…well, take your pick of terms that are unflattering.
Jason was a pompous overbearing ass in that universe, too.
Eh. He got better as time went on.
He never entirely removed the stick from his ass, but it did get loosened a bit.
Kwahahahaaah
Shoryuken!
RISING DRAGON! – Devil May Cry 3
I don’t like you, Jason. And it ain’t because you boned Sal either. I just don’t like you.
OK, Penny just became a favorite character. I am partial to redheads anyway…
Man, that sounds like my situation where I work – I’m great at my job, and everyone loves me for doing my job well, but on a personal level it’s like two people speaking two different languages and the two languages sound like a bunch of swear words and racist epithets to the other person.
i like you jason
Jason, your books don’t count as people.
Them’s fightin’ words
Himmel the Humming Hymnal is not really a book
It doesn’t count as a person either. Hellspawn, maybe, but not people.
Welp, time for a makeover Jason.
Dude in the last Universe you were a bongoy narcissistic know it all, in this universe nothings changed except that your also a hypocrite
Well, she hasn’t murdered Jason’s father in this verse, I’m assuming.
Don’t all of those descriptions fit Jason as well?
….are we talking about Jason or Penny here?
I mean he was typically right, and nobody started really listening to him until everyone else fucked up hard. Jason isn’t a people pleaser, but he was basically an actually intelligent James Bond what more could you ask for in a story with actual threats. Here he his kinda boring; unlike most of the other characters he is mostly just doing school, but in a comic about college it’s nice to see someone who actually cares about education.
Jason, Penny don’t fight…you’ll both get fired.
The only downside is Jason gets fired.
Or Jason will, at least
I think she’s still taking a risk. If the wrong person finds out or worse case it goes public it probably won’t matter how likable she is.
Oh, Jason…
Poor simple, confused Jason…
… no. They don’t.
😀
I do
Penny is making an alarmingly large amount of sense for a teacher banging a student.
Well it’s true. People with a good reputation tend to have negative things hit them a bit softer from their superiors. She’d probably get a warning and a slap on the wrist.
No… A grad TA who is caught having relations with an undergrad in a class they are the ta of is getting fired woth no warning. Around here we have a policy of, if you were in a relationship before the class (but its over before the class starts) then you would just have to tell the professor and not grade any of their work, but if you did not do that then you are kicked out of the program immediately.
Not everywhere is that harsh. Some places have the rule that if relations start, the grad student is supposed to switch the section they teach. The problem arises only when people aren’t honest or open about it, or if the student is less than 18 obviously. They don’t make you end relationships that have already started also.
JASON.
WHAT THE FUCK.
HOW AND WHY ARE YOU LECTURING HER ON “HAVING RELATIONS” WITH STUDENTS WHEN YOU HAVE DONE THE DO WITH SAL AT LEAST TWICE?
Just cause you don’t like her doesn’t mean you get to be a hypocrite.
Oh well I guess he did say “blatant” and he at least tried to hide it.
Oh wait no he didn’t, he fucked her in a room with the door open.
Isn’t the smell of hypocrisy grand?
Hypocrisy smells like sexual bodily fluids? ^_^
Sometimes it does.
I’m pretty sure he does like her, in an intelligent, banter-y, i-respect-you-but-can’t-stand-you-except-when-i-can-stand-you kind of way.
He’s not lecturing her on “having relations”, but “blatantly having relations”, ie. having relations in a way that he sees as likely to get her fired.
Well…they say those who can’t make good teachers, so…
Those who can’t teach, teach physical education XP
They’re not trying to be teachers though. As a grad student, teaching is a thing you just have to do, and many grad students don’t want to be a professor.
I think it’s just as much “wait, could I have been blatant too?”
Well shit, no offense Jason but she’s a kinky beautiful redhead. You can’t win this fight.
Sorry mate, but nobody likes you Jason. Original Jason was uptight but he was nice and cared for others. He gave people free drinks. New Jason openly berates his students.
Somewhere on the IU campus, Mike’s Asshole Senses are tingling
Eww, write your fan porn somewhere else
Best username/avatar/comment synergy ever?
Oh crap. Asshole just got literal. O.O
Nobody likes you Jason, because you’re an arrogant condescending jackass. And so far you’re an improvement on your other incarnation!
Indeed. Also, you’re one of the best commenters.
Eh he’s just too real of a person you. Have fun whining about characters you don’t ike
Thank you. I do.
Nonononono! Walkyverse Jason was way cooler than Dumbiverse Jason.
Everything these two say is delightful. I am so easily pleased, but I do enjoy these British-isms immensely, I hardly register the content of the words lol.
I can see the point at which she attached the note, but not when she had time to write it. This leads me to believe that Penny was carrying that and some tape around in her notebook all day just in case she happened to bump into him. Either that or it was there the whole time (probably because of Mike) and she didn’t mention it, but I prefer my version.
Wha… I didn’t think it was her who wrote the note. I thought it was just some angry student.
?????
Can we get a confirmation?
Actually if you go back 2 pages I guess you could see how she did it
I see where she could have put it on his back a page ago. And the shot two pages ago has his back looking kind of clear, but it’s not a full view…
What might be throwing me off is it looks like she has a red pen/marker in her mouth and the text it black? Or maybe it’s because her point would seem more valid if it was a third party who attached the sign?
Overthinking this.
I honestly can not tell you how unpleasant I have found these last two strips. Not because of the writing or characters, or anything like that. I hate them because they are just a touch too real to me.
Go on…
The thing I don’t understand with the names of hair colours.
“Rising sun Orange?”
Just like the fruit.
Sporange?
*facepalm* Now I’m going to have to make that next week aren’t I? (Can’t play spore until then)
*heh heh heh*
How about the names of skintones? I’ve seen some pretty deep browns, but never black. I’ve seen some pretty pale bages, but never white (Although I do know there are albino people out there). And Asians aren’t yellow. I’m also pretty sure Russians are not red. It’s like WTH PEOPLE?
Also, what’s up with the term “Straight”? Last time I checked, there is no combination of male and female that make strait that can’t be made with two females or two males. Although I will admit, I didn’t check that much into it.
Are people TRYING not to make sense? Seriously guys, if you’re going to be using weird labels for no reason, MAKE SENSE!!!
Maybe if the language of Lojban became popular…
Link is dead on my side. Sorry.
I’m wrong. I lost internet for a moment. I wouldn’t mind a bilingual populace that could speak that lanuage, but I think I’d disagree with making that the number one language. No doublespeak for me please!
The two main disadvantages of Lojban is that very few people speak it and humour involving word-play will be just about impossible with this language.
Plus there’s Godel— a system may be consistent or complete, but not both.
I’m not sure, but I think “straight” comes from “on the straight and narrow”, a phrase used by the gay community (probably before it was referred to as “the gay community”) to refer to someone trying to pass as straight. And before you complain, may I state that “gay” used to refer exclusively to male homosexual prostitutes.
I would claim that their “strawberry blond” is closer to a “honey blond”.
I like him… Not a lot or the most, but I don’t dislike him.
She makes a decent case for herself. Have to wonder if she’s quite so well-loved as she thinks she is though.
Possibly hasn’t fully accounted for competition? If she loses her job, the position opens up. Somebody out there stands to benefit from that.
I mean on the one hand, I can believe that being charming and well loved will get you very far in life. I still have a hard time buying that anybody in the working class is quite so untouchable as she claims to be though.
I don’t think she believes she’s untouchable, just relatively secure. Jason on the other hand is not liked clearly by many, which does make him more vulnerable to her.
I think “I don’t have to hide my job-ruining crimes” is pretty high up on the scale of untouchability.
Secure would be more if she thought she’d still have this job in ten years so long as she tows the line and plays by the rules. Got a secure position for herself, but it’s not like she’s impervious to the potentially dire consequences of her own actions.
She’s probably banging Rees, too.
But, yeah, I think she’s probably overestimating her own invulnerability. She’s absolutely right about Jason, though.
I liked penny until she said the word “arsehole”. Blegh. That’s like something Joyce might say.
or a british person
wait a minute……
Nah, you’d never see Joyce saying “arsehole” because it’s equivalent to “asshole”
I use the term arse and arsehole a lot but then again I am an Aussie…
Punch me in my faaace…
In my FAAAAAAAAACE!
(I’m surprised there hasn’t been a FAAACE thread before this…)
Yea, I would have thought it would have been one of the first posts. Maybe because it was too obvious?
Penny surely doesn’t suffer from low esteem does she?
She’s the one that she be tossed out on her arse. (think that’s just the English way of saying ass Yotomoe, could be wrong)
YES! RUN THIS HELLHOLE INTO THE GROUND!
WOO!
*plays Schools Out Forever*
Ahem, sorry, didn’t have the best college experience.
Did you have one of those suppressed-desires freakouts? Those are rarely good.
To see my ex-place of learning collapse into chaos and despair? That’s not suppressed. 🙂
“I used to have a lot of repressed anger.”
“How are you doing now?”
“Oh, much better! It’s not repressed anymore!”
Jason the overbearing and Penny the confidant, and of them screwing students…wtg guys. Good exmples.
I guess Jason is angry, not in a hypocrital sense, because he did it too, but because he’s jealous, she’s his ex?
Jason is ashamed of what he did with Sal. He also thought there was more to it than just sex and grades.
He was wrong.
Well there’s obviously research.
Serving science.
Ah, who am I kidding?
Charles Phipps, thank you for hitting the nail on the head.
I know Jason’s English and not Irish, but I always imagine him sounding kinda like Wheatley.
Ha, I tried it and chuckled. May just have to keep doing that from now on.
To tell a great lie, spice it with a truth.
I doubt that Penny has many real friends who’d take any risks to protect her. She seems more likely to play social games instead of building trust, and play the small points of charm.
As a coworker, she probably has the sense to identify and do the work that strategically matters. Unless that work is secretly brilliant, or it includes helping with grant applications or sifting for blackmail material, it wouldn’t be enough to protect her.
If push comes to shove, she’ll have to rely on quick thinking, viciousness, preparation and strategy.
I wouldn’t bet that she isn’t a type A with some wary and respectful coworkers. She could be quietly working on research, seeking a co-author spot on someone else’s work, and volunteering for an academic conference, while wasting an a hour of the week on Joe. If the snarky battles with Jason leave him preoccupied, so he’s not hunting for opportunities she wants, so much the better.
I’m disturbed by how many commenters watched Penny being an awful person and essentially declaring her immunity to being reprimanded for being awful because she knows how to kiss ass to the right people…and how many of them are applauding her for it. What the hell, guys?
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been waiting to find a comment like this on the last few strips.
I don’t think what she’s doing is right, but there is a sort of admiration you can have for her. She’s very assertive, even if what she’s doing is wrong, and she seems to understand a lot more than Jason does about the way things are at the school.
She’s kind of like Joe in the way she takes a no-nonsense approach to Jason’s complaints. Except I hate Joe, and the limited amount of time Penny’s been in the series has left me with a better impression of her. Who knows, I may come to hate her too eventually.
In contrast, Jason is a naive idealist who has a very grating personality. He doesn’t know how to communicate with people, evidenced in the way he was unable to help Sal study (personally, I liked how Danny approached Sal a lot more; he made it sound appealing to her with the whole “Learn the rules so you know how to break them later” idea, and all that), and he’s pretty condescending toward others. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine why he isn’t liked, and why people won’t support him even when he’s right.
Personally, I don’t think what he’s saying is hypocritical in the least, because he hasn’t been with Sal since that day and he just doesn’t want Penny to take the same risks. However, she’s not afraid to take risks as long as her reputation is upstanding. Being liked by your peers, believe it or not, actually does pay off.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/altercation-2/
He actually has been with Sal since that day. Wasn’t just a lone incident. He did it. He regretted it. He explained why it should never have happened. Then he did it again.
Since then I’m pretty sure he hasn’t said or done anything to indicate he plans on stopping anytime soon.
Ahh, thanks for the correction. My point still stands. He hates taking those risks and doesn’t want Penny to do the same.
I don’t think she even kisses ass. It sounds like she just thinks she’s a really delightful person to be around, so obvious her coworkers/superiors would never want to be rid of her.
I don’t know that anybody’s quite that delightful though. Certainly not that she is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she’s a really popular person within her circle, but in the few interactions we’ve seen of her she seems to have too much meanness and condescension in her to have such a universal appeal where nobody dislikes her. She’s probably a bit like Billie was in her prime right now. In with the in crowd, but maybe overestimating how much all the plebes just wish they could be her, and having estranged more supposed allies than she realizes along the way.
Jason and Penny are pretty equally condescending and mean, as I can tell, though Penny might just be that way to Jason and nobody else.
Oh by no means am I claiming Jason is the more well loved of the two.
In that respect she hit the nail on the head. Only one of them has a “punch me in my face” sign on their back right now.
Placed there by Penny, though, which undermines the point a little bit.
The thing about Jason and Penny— people tend to like people they think would have their back, and people tend to dislike feeling judged.
I think if Jason allowed himself to like himself a bit more, genuine self-esteem rather than conceit, people would suddenly enjoy being in his company more, because he’d stop with the narrative of “I must be better than everyone else to be worthy of good things. Since I am the best I can be and still not hailed as worthy, I’d better find ways that these people are worse than I am.”
I may be oversensitive to this; I spent roughly fourteen years in a relationship with someone like this, and may be prone to overdiagnosis.
FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEEEE
I hope Penny is wrong about the department, otherwise it sounds like a pretty crappy place to work.
I find the parallel to Ruth interesting; she too said that as long as she was loved by the administration, she could pretty much do as she pleased. Of course, Ruth was pretty certain she’d be fired if she was found out – Penny seems to think she’s immune to that too.
Can “immune to firing” be my superpower?
Yes, but you have to where and iguana on your head.
If she thinks that any department would let her get away with having sex with a student merely because they ‘like’ her she is in for a rude awakening.
Penny is right to some extent although I think Something Positive’s Vanessa Cubbins’ perspective has just right amount of cynicism. Being a teaching assistant means Jason could have quite a lot of students to contend with as well as his own studies and it’s a considerable burden for someone in the mathematical field. There is only so much he can do and on the college level teachers cannot be expected to nag and prod their students to perform. College students have to responsible for their own performance. Jason knows the subject and tries to work with people, but he cannot spend the extra time to figure out every student’s learning disability.
Mike, punch him!
There’s some serious Marauder’s Map oath shit goin on here.
Oh Jason, if your name didn’t remind me of a certain person with the last name Mars yelling “JAAASON, JAAAAAAAASOOOOOOOON” each time I pressed X on my PS3 Controller then I’d probably have given you a wedgie and told you to git gud
Jason and Penny are both unlikeable as individuals, but their interaction entertains me.
I dunno. Jason at least is show some redeeming qualities at this point. Penny…not so much.
Are we supposed to agree with Penny here?
Because her attitude makes me dislike her much more than Jason.
We are not supposed to do anything.
“It’s okay if I fuck students because nobody likes you” is not something we’re supposed to get behind.
I absolutely want to refute Penny’s points, but I still kind of want to find reasons for her to be likeable. Damn her cute hairstyle and attractive red hair/green eyes combination.
Tell me about it.
I was even more conflicted ten years ago…
I’m having trouble understanding Penny here, what exactly is she playing at? Is that an American way of saying “this is what I’m getting at”?
Nah, Americans normally say “This is what I’m getting at” to convey a main idea also. “Playing at” is more often used in phrases such as “What exactly are you playing at?” The phrase implies that the other participant is treating the conversation like a game and that his/her intentions may not be truly honest.
Since Penny’s referring to herself, though, I figure it’s just a weird speech quirk. (I thought it might be the British version of the saying, but I guess not, huh?)
OOPS! Forgot to source, sorry! I looked the phrase “playing at” up on the Word Reference forums and the MacMillan Dictionary to double-check its meaning.
Dude, I have you as my face on this site, and I don’t like you.
Oh I disagree, dear sir!
Internal Conflict! Get the popcorn!
Hey, I just wanna say if you have even a slight crush on one of the characters in this comic. DO NOT tell Willis, he will give you a link to an dumbass article. And then he’ll tell you to talk to your doctor about it. Because apparently having a crush on a character is a “medical problem.” Willis if you read this. When it’s my doctor’s business who I have a crush on. I’ll tell him, but since it’s none of his business I ain’t telling him anything! I thought you’d be flattered about it but no you were a straight up jerk about it.
Is it still a medical problem if you yourself identify as a fictional character?
It depends
On if you’re using it on the net to hide you’re real name. If it’s all the time see a therapist.
That’s not fair. We all have huge crushes on several characters in this comic, we boldly announce them in the comments, but Willis never gives us links to dumbass articles. I want dumbass articles too!
Hell I told him on tumblr. And he was a massive jerk about it.
Was he maybe just being sarcastic?
No he wasn’t he the page he sent was real. It’s on his damn tumblr page go see for yourself!
I checked both his general tumblr and his Dumbing of Age tumblr and I don’t see anything about this in the last few days.
It was several months ago.
I linked you to TVTropes’ page for Perverse Sexual Lust because you asked if having a crush on Joyce was normal.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PerverseSexualLust
“Perverse Sexual Lust is a term for a real person’s attraction to a fictional character.
It originated in a reader poll during the early days of the webcomic It’s Walky!. The author wished to know the reason behind the slightly loopy church-girl character Joyce Brown’s popularity, and saw this option achieve an overwhelming win.”
I always did wonder if that term originated in the IW! fandom or if it was A Thing from before that. Well, now I know!
Would have been funnier if Emperor Kiva had only reemerged now. “YOU LINKED ME TO TVTROPES YOU BASTARD!”
Are you telling me, that shit was fake?!?!?!?!
The article in question gives a fairly direct answer to your question and even gives the phenomenon a name. It even goes as far as to point out that Joyce Brown is the very character that gave this phenomenon a name.
That’s a very helpful response, dude. I don’t know what makes this a jerk move.
I’m sorry, but it is kind of funny that you’ve held a silent grudge for the last few months over a complete misunderstanding. ^_^
TVTropes ain’t the DSM-IV if that’s what you’re asking.
Why would you even tell an author you’re legit crushing on their characters? That’s always going to be awkward at best.
So what? I didn’t think he’d be an asshole about it.
Plus I have slight brain damage. What’s your excuse? And by the way Willis. I said I have brain damage. Not you.
He linked you to Perverse Sexual Lust, a trope that was created because people were crushing on Joyce so much. Willis made a joke, YOU acted like an asshole about it.
What part of I have Brain Damage isn’t sinking in, Time Monkey?
Brain damage is an explanation, but it is never an excuse.
I really don’t care what you say, Gigafreak
You lashed out at someone who gave a helpful answer to your question. It does not matter what your excuse is; that’s still a shitty thing to do and you haven’t even apologized to him yet.
I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.
I am I was in a car accident when I was 15. My head got bashed really hard. I had a broken hip and a compound fracture to my right arm.
Yeah I am having that moment as well. Some people just really take the joke too far.
No, they don’t.
Yeah sure you are