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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 22d
Bayjmin Tuckles @bayjmin-tuckles.bsky.social ⋅ 17h
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 22d
Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social ⋅ 21h
Mae Dean @maegodhavemercy.com ⋅ 2d
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“I may have bombed, but I bombed with DIGNITY”
*plays Tom Petty’s “Swingin'” on the hacked Muzak*
meant to add before my internet died:
AirBnB: “Four of five stars, basement is a MOOD”
Did you, did you really?
(Sorry, someone had to step in for Mike)
… some regrets?
If he did well, great. If not, he has an excuse.
And could probably request a do-over.
As long as you got a passing grade that’s good enough. God knows how much I wished i had gotten that instead of missing 3 points…
Argh, this just brought up a foul memory.
In college I had to take Calc 2. It was a truly terrible class; the lecturer had such a bad reputation (she didn’t give examples, only proofs) that one of the other lecturers for that course subtly hinted in a mass email that he totally had room in his lecture just in case, for some odd reason, the winds of fate should blow some of her students his way so they only needed to show up for their actual scheduled class for tests. Alas, my job and other classes prevented me of taking advantage.
Nevertheless, I passed, with like the highest possible C. It was a C+++ basically, a planck length from a B-. Didn’t matter to me, you only needed a B- or better if you wanted to take Calc 3, and I didn’t!
Until I switched majors over the summer. Now I needed Calc 3. Which meant I needed to take Calc 2 again. I seriously almost kept my old major just to avoid that nightmare. I would be in a completely different career right now, wistfully wondering what could have been if I’d just found the brass to retake that one wretched class. My life almost changed because I hated that class so much, and I hadn’t even failed it.
Good on you for not letting it limit you!
A bad math teacher is one of the worst nightmares you can have as part of your education. You can be wooed back to science with cool tricks, language is too intrinsic to culture for complete ignorance, and other stuff tends to find its way if you care enough. But having a teacher teach you badly in math scars you for life that doesn’t heal until you run into a good teacher, and you may very well never do so because of those memories.
For people with such scars, I would recommend googling “Eddie Woo” or “3blue1brown” on Youtube.
Had several rough Calculus 2 teachers in a row and dropped out from my physics program to go to culinary school.
I almost want to say I’d prefer your situation to mine, where I for some reason got it in my head that math was ALWAYS a requirement, every year, so I ended up taking Calculus for my freshman year…
…as an ELECTIVE.
Didn’t count for SHIT toward my major(s). Fun times
(I made many bad decisions, including putting off my second semester of REQUIRED Physics, just bc I didn’t want to deal with it again so soon, only to struggle once I did finish the second half)
[also I have never once used my computer animation degree for anything job related, hugest waste]
I am one of the few people I know who ended up working in the exact field I took my degree in, which was research programming.
Oddly enough, along the way I ended up having to take Linear Algebra 2 three times… I am still not very good at it, but I do need it even now, decades later.
Not according to Linda (probably), it’s not!
Is it weird that even with two dead dads, one comatose Mike, and Amber’s possible outing as a superhero to the 0.3% of the population who don’t already know…I’m actually really curious about how Walky did on his test?
Not at all, I want to know how he did too. I hope we find out soon. It’ll probably be months before we actually find out though.
No no. Test results typically take months in the real world, so in DoA timeline were looking at real world YEARS!
I still maintain that this is a good relationship despite its origins in Garbage Roof. Walky would still be too afraid to tell anyone else this, lest it be known that he’s been fucking up.
Can anyone name me some good reasons to not be on this ship?
Because Willis will make it end in pain. Better it should just kind of waft off as an almost-was-with-no-hard-feelings.
…. I mean, I’m all aboard the SS Garbage Skowl, but in the abstract that’s a reason.
Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
Better for them to just fuck already than to spend their lives wondering what might have been. Even if it’s a mistake, finding out that it’s a mistake offers more closer than an eternity of “what ifs”.
It’s also more fun.
Ah, but is it better to have shipped, and watched it sink, than never to have shipped at all?
Nah, they’re good for each other. It’s similar to Ruth/Billie, but the dynamic is different in a way I can’t articulate.
There’s a lot less alcohol.
Passive vs Pushing? Amber and Walky seem to be about finding acceptance in your current self (flaws and all) while Ruth and Billie seem to be about literally fighting to do better and improve themselves so they can be what they feel each other deserves.
But they weren’t for a very long time. There was a lot of wallowing in self-destruction, far worse than anything in the Amber/Walky relationship.
Having thought about it a little, my current articulation is that Amber/Walky is about having a safe space where you can hate yourself without hating yourself for it, but early-days Ruth/Billie was more about having someone to facilitate their mutual downward spiral. Whereas Amber/Walky is more about meeting each other where they are and being stable with what they have.
It’s a kind of “best self” thing where both of their available best selves just aren’t very good, but nevertheless is better than what they are without each other. Like, I went back and looked at some strips and… when Walky decided to stop hating himself and do better, Amber supported it as best she could. And a few strips later, we have Ruth calling out Billie on being an albatross around Ruth’s attempts to do better.
Doesn’t feel like a coincidence.
Honestly, I wasn’t really into this ship before, but looking back at those old strips again I’m totally on board now.
Good job, Walky! And hey, maybe coming in after being kidnapped will get you some extra credit points.
I don’t think Prof. Reese cares enough about the details of his students lives to notice.
Good on you, Walky, for facing your math fears
Nice use of fingerquotes, Amber.
Isn’t that how it always goes, though? You rise above your mental baseline, a setback happens, and you crawl right back into your basementality.
*flees for dear punning life*
And hey, if you flunk, you can just claim you were still out of it.
Considering he just got kidnapped there’s a good chance he could pass on compassionate terms, or whatever they’re called.
Considering he just got kidnapped there’s a good chance he could pass on compassionate terms, or whatever they’re called
“I’m sorry for your loss and I hope he’s burning in hell” is an excellent phrase.
I wish that would be the title of the next book, but I know it won’t be
Good on you for taking the midterms, little mouse boy.
I just hope amber doesn’t feel tempted to screw with the scoring.
Nah, she’ll just screw with the scorer.
Heh! Let’s hope. I still fear they will break up for stupid reasons, and I really want a slipshine out of it beore they do.
You mean he’ll score?
Well done!
Score with the screw-up?
I forget what Walky’s major is, but I could’ve sworn it was something that he doesn’t need to take math for.
I think he was a Communications major. Which is amusing seeing at how poor he is at communicating his feelings.
Telecommunications – because it had ‘tele’ in it and he thought it was similar to television.
Television is just one-way telecommunications.
At least it’s one-way until a confused elderly viewer somehow gets the station’s phone number and calls asking what happened in yesterday’s soap operas, because they dozed off and missed them.
I’m pretty sure his fear of this math grade has nothing to do with his career prospects academic status and has more to do with disappointing his parents because he didn’t get straight A’s or something. Like they’d even see his report card. Also just the shock of not being able to cruise his way to academic success without any effort. Although we don’t know what other classes he takes besided math and gender studies. He could be doing well in them which would make his worry over his math grade even more pointless.
I’m sensing, regardless of whether they can legally access them without his consent, his parents DEFINITELY expect to see his grades.
because they’re such good parents and just want to see how he’s doing, of course. -_-
Remember how Sal started doing better after getting frustrated with Jason and looking elsewhere for help? What are the odds that Linda will see the kids’ transcripts and automatically assume they got each other’s grades back?
Oh, quite high. That or blaming Sal for not helping Walky. Or both!
I am lowkey curious if Walky would do better with Danny to help, since he was the one who really helped Sal get it, but it’s not as though the two of them are on good terms. (Mostly I just think it’d be another possible point – assuming Walky does in fact try – in the ‘is this Walky not knowing how to study, or a sign of ADHD and other methods not helping’ debate.)
Remember how Linda Walkerton is an emotionally and financially abusive parent who cares more about appearances and blaming someone, anyone, than supporting her child? Because like seriously, I know Walky’s a Bongo Eating Crackers thing for you but a large amount of what you hate about him is because he grew up trying to avoid the disapproval of an unreasonable person. (Sal, since she could not avoid it, stopped trying. The fact that Linda’s abuse was primarily aimed at Sal does not at all mean Walky was exempt growing up and seeing how she treated Sal for not complying.) A lot of the rest is Walky being a pretty normal 18-year-old in his first relationship and time on his own, particularly a ‘gifted’ kid through public school who didn’t learn how to study as a result. Particularly one of those with a possible undiagnosed disability that he compensated for up to this point.
She’s said Walky ‘only thinks’ he’s a telecommunications major, and that really he’s premed. Walky is aware she’s set on him being a doctor or lawyer, but not the degree to which the pressure will come when Linda decides it’s time for him to stop playing around.
https://criminalreviews.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/a-captain-awkward-glossary/#useyourwords
(Shout outs to Captain Awkward for the phrase! Linking to the glossary phrase above it just to ensure it doesn’t get bongo censored.)
IU students probably need to take at least one math class to graduate.
Thus my career in tutoring students taking “finite math”, an odd melange of matrices, sets, and I forget what else.
They do.
Pretty sure it’s pre-med.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/footforward/
I mean, Linda wouldn’t be wrong about her golden boy, would she?
He just doesn’t know it yet.
Walky’s major is telecommunications (I think he wants to make cartoons), but his minor requires him to take calc. (He’s minoring in keeping Linda happy which means humoring her hopes that he’ll excel and go pre-med or something equally respectable.)
All majors have to take some sort of math, and calc is one of the three that satisfies the requirement.
Right, but if it wasn’t for that minor he could have taken an easier math class.
Sure, Linda definitely had something to do with it. Hell, Sal implied this class was her parent’s choice for her too.
I seriously doubt the first midterm of a four year college run at minimum matters. But good for Walky……..I guess.
I don’t get the point in trivializing anxiety because its source “doesn’t matter.”
Very true. Anxiety disorder is not a rational beast.
Anxiety is not rational and things that do not matter in 4 years time can still matter to you in the moment in which they are happening. And his mother’s standards for him have given him the belief that if he is not amazing at every subject all the time, that she will stop loving him which may or may not be true. She may go Karen on everyone grading instead but it is a pretty valid fear with her treatment of Sal in the past for being the ‘less good’ child in her eyes.
Anxiety likes to catastrophize small setbacks into major unsolveable disasters *regardless* of how likely the disaster scenario is and doesn’t really care that four years in the future, things will be fine.
Anxiety disorders: Yes, I know my brain’s overreacting and catastrophizing. I cannot make it stop. I have tried. Hence it being a ‘disorder’ and not just standard garden variety anxiety.
How do the midterms not matter??? Idk maybe it’s different for Americans but afaik midterms are a large chunk of your grade (sometimes 50%) and usually if you fail the midterm you’re screwed
It’s a large chunk of your grade, but it’s generally possible to recover from – if you can actually recover enough to do well in the rest of the class.
Sirksome was talking more about in the context of the whole college education – doing badly in or even failing one class isn’t that big a deal, if you’re doing well elsewhere.
Hm, doesn’t really apply to my school. If you fail a class you have to jump through hoops to make up the lost credits, and if it’s one that’s a requirement for your degree you basically put off graduation for at least a year
I find it funny thinking about how time progresses in this strip. I was in elementary school when this first came out, now I’m close to graduating college and they’ve only progressed from late August to early November
Hey! Character growth from Walky! We’ve turned a corner!
He even looks a bit older. Less rounded and kid-adjacent.
Good on ya for going, Walky. Hopefully it pans out well.
I predict he’ll barely pass.
Ol’ mouse lad’s gonna squeak by.
Just gonna put this here…
Well that’s a cheesy pun.
What is more, I think he’ll use his marginal grades as leverage. He only got this far because of his friends, specifically, Amber. If Linda forces her out, he’s dropping out because there’s no point staying.
Expect Linda to blame Sal for teaching Walky to be defiant. Expect Sal to say that she’s proud if it turns out this is due to her.
I know they’re brother and sister – and twins at that – but when I saw Walky’s profile in that first panel I asked myself, “When did Sal get onto Garbage Roof?”
Walky only looks like his sister when he’s serious and sad.
I don’t think we’ve ever seen a goofy, optimistic Sal, so she’ll never look like Walky.
So Amber already doubts the suicide theory?
She knows her dad well enough that he’s such a narcissist that he’d never be capable of killing himself. Now if the story had been he tried to take the gun and escape and was killed in the struggle she’d probably believe that.
I doubt she even bothered to ever give it a passing thought before discounting it as wildly implausible. She knows what cops are like in this town.
I mean, Blaine was still assuming he’d get off scot-free because his fellow mobsters would pull strings for him right up until the moment Lester pulled the gun. And the mob wasn’t just going to let him go to jail, because he would turn to save himself, because Blaine considers whatever will get him out of trouble. (‘This is still salvageable if I kill all the kids so they can’t be witnesses,’ anyone?)
I think it took her about ten seconds to hear the story and go ‘right. Yeah. He’d totally realize he couldn’t get out of this and kill himself, instead of being deemed a liability.’
Why the beepity bleep are these people making kidnap victims take the midterms as scheduled?! Did it not occur to anyone to say, “Hey, maybe take a day or two to recover from that life-threatening event”?
They authorities in this comic haven’t ever handled anything competently, and this might be no different. However, it’s also probable that they didn’t really have much time to decide on and effect a response. The staff actually conducting the exams have a busy day, and might not have paid a lot attention to the radio or checked the internet for local news. So they wouldn’t know which students were affected. I’d actually be pretty surprised in a case like this if anybody got a list of the students affected, looked up what courses they were enrolled in, checked which ones had an exam scheduled, and then sent orders to the exam room that the invigilators should not allow the listed students to sit their exams.
After all, no-one specifically comes to you on the day of exams and makes you go to them.
I point you to the schools opening in-person only classes in the middle of a pandemic of a fatal or life-altering disease. And ask: if they won’t keep from exposing people to a literal plague, what makes you think getting kidnapped and witnessing a brutal murder is going to mean anything to them?
I’ve been swearing a lot about the what’s happening in the real world too. If anything, I’d question this less if it happened in real life.
As for why I thought the school in the webcomic would have cared: I figured they’d care about not looking bad. Also, the crowd of parents that came down to the campus. At the time I wrote the comment, I’d forgotten that Linda had opted not to talk to administration at all. I thought they were still going to talk to them even though they decided not to try to get Amber thrown out. Re-reading the strip I misremembered.
My guess is that most of them are going to email their instructors later saying “hey I missed my midterm because I was kidnapped, so can I retake it?”
The fact that Walky strolled in and just took it probably won’t go noticed until his instructor sees the news article later
Yeah, Dorothy almost certainly did with hers. The ones who didn’t, or took an exam the day after… well, there’s certainly reasons to rip that bandaid off.
You’ve seen the size of the lecture hall for that math class, right? Jason knew Walky’s name, but I guarantee you that the actual class instructor doesn’t.
I really love Walky right now. His relationship with Amber can be complicated, but I see a lot of positive sides in it.
I mean, if youre gonna do bad, better do it on midterms than on finals. After all, thats what midterms are for, to see where you need more work.
Walky’s always been one of the problem characters for me, because it felt like he just constantly had goodness showered on him while only giving the barest essentials in returning; that he “meant well.”
So I think even just taking a test seriously after dodging it for so long and biting the bullet, that shows growth.
I missed a lot of discourse surrounding the character, but I wonder if he’s actually got a learning disability.
Amber and Mike talked about him likely being undiagnosed ADHD.
Which seems likely because I scored well for most of my schooling years in spite of my own severe untreated ADHD disability and found grade 13 (a thing we used to have in my area that was basically a first year college thing designed only for people going on to university) and college devastating because it finally was at the point I couldn’t just fart things out and get high grades, I needed to be able to focus and organize.
yes you will