Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
Sorry to disillusion you, but that’s not actually how integrity works. You just end up regretting different things, for different reasons. SOMEtimes there’s less guilt and shame swirling around your regrets that way, but you can’t even bank on that – life has a habit of presenting one with situations that lack tidy solutions.
I’m pretty sure we heard his father is a powerful corrupt businessman who’s ‘basically a supervillain’. But he picked the TA Job in America spesifically to get away from him and his influence.
So it’s not an exact thing, but the parellels are there. Although my guess is maybe Ruth’s thinking more of her general abuse of the students under her care than her relationship with Jennifer?
Eh, new SSRI’s usually start taking an effect two weeks in. I think the greater problem is that, for the vast majority of people, medications alone don’t cure them. CBT, group therapy, or some other traditional talk treatment is needed alongside medication to help the patient understand their cognitive biases and combat them effectively. My bet is that Ruth just needs some time with meds, therapy, and a stable life in order to grow into someone who can forgive herself.
She also needs to be out from under the thumb of her abusive grandfather. Much harder to recover and grow when the abuse is ongoing – even if it’s mostly at a distance now.
She was probably back there over the break wasn’t she?
One time I was talking to my therapist, and I said something like, “The other, kinkier type of CBT.” And they said,”I’m not sure what you mean by that?” And I was like, ” …That is completely fair, but I’m not going to explain.”
Anyway, Mr D, if you’re not sure, TheCatCameBack was referring to (I ASSUME) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Ruth does not seem to think very highly of herself. I’ve got maybe three incidents I’m thinking of: getting with Billie, breaking up with her, and what she’s doing right now.
So many in the cast have such fucking dramatic issues and black and white views on life. It makes me wonder how I ever survived college, and if I ever was that bad.
Who’s saying “couldn’t possibly”? I haven’t noticed anyone saying that. I’ve seen speculation that it might not have been quite as bad as Rachel makes it out to be, but never anyone saying “There’s no possibility of that being the case.”
I think it would honestly be funnier if it was something petty and super low-stakes. Rachel obviously had doubts about Ruth from the start, but I’d laugh my ass off if it turned out she didn’t mind the angry/depressive behavior and Ruth like, stole her pudding by accident or something.
Jason seems to be willing to wait out whatever Ruth is doing… Hard to tell exactly where his line is. It’s certainly farther than Ruth expected at least.
No worries; if you deliberately misspell stuff it doesn’t count towards the curse. This is like the It’s Walky equivalent of calling Macbeth “the Scottish play.”
Thanks to those of you how provided suggestions about how to get this website working for me again. Fortunately, it seems to issue somehow resolved itself on its own, allowing me to annoy you with my inane comments and pointless commentary for the foreseeable future.
I think Robin would be a good option, legitimately. Her personality is likely to cause some strife with her current TAs, which might open up a slot, she’s a lot wealthier, and much more likely to go “so, you slept with her, but you didn’t give her the grades, and she initiated the whole thing? Why’d you get fired again?” to the whole deal.
I’m sure there is some advice she could give, that lets him stay, and doesn’t compromise her principles. But everyone (including Leslie) is assuming she’s being asked to personally fix the problem, not to point the way.
“All the other”? Unless I’m missing something the only other one we had abusing their power was Penny. I feel like even in this comic, one is a very small sample size.
Even if that wasn’t his intention, Jason did abuse his power. He slept with a student that he was tutoring and who he had grading power over. And she slept with her at least partially because of that. And that is still on him, even if it is technically a misunderstanding. That is his fault, that is why you shouldn’t sleep with someone you have power over.
Also, I am pretty sure the only other TA that we know is Penny and she got fired for literally the same thing as Jason. In fact, we don’t actually know if she was grading Joe (or any hypothetical student she may have slept with), so technically for all we know she was actually less ethically compromised than him (though, given how she behaved otherwise, that seems unlikely).
As a former TA and professor, no. You do NOT sleep with your students. Period, end of story. That is, in and of itself, an abuse of power, even without an explicit quid-pro-quo. And there are so many stories of female students – undergrad and grad – who are pressured into it, by professors with real power, that zero tolerance is fully warranted and morally correct. This is not a grey area. Jason acted reprehensibly. Even if he’s learned, to put him back in that kind of position so soon after he did it would be a massive institutional failure.
Ruth is being melodramatic cuz internal demons, but actions like this SHOULD have severe consequenses.
It’s a bit of a grey area. Back in undergrad one of my friends ended up being the TA for a class her girlfriend was taking. Human relationships are sufficiently complicated that one single policy is going to be a good fit for every possible situation. “If you and a student are interested in one another, just wait a couple months until the class is over” is, I think, a much more practical stance than “don’t do it ever and if you do you’re a horrible human”. Catch more flies with honey, and all.
As an interesting aside, best teaching practices are that you shouldn’t know whose work it is you’re grading in the first place. My department has been using Crowdmark since the start of the pandemic and its default setup gives TAs no way to know what work belongs to what student. That goes a long way toward disarming situations like Jason’s before they happen.
There are things in place most places for pre-existing relationships—generally what happens is someone not in the relationship is in charge of grading or is the boss. This is not that hard. Yes, anonymous grading is good when feasible.
And yes, if Jason had waited until the class was over he likely wouldn’t have been fired. Some places say no sleeping with undergraduates but many places just specify no situations with a power imbalance. Of course Sal was not actually interested in him so nothing would have happened if Jason had done his job correctly.
It’s crazy to me how many people think these things are about sex and not power (see also: Ned Fulmer).
I feel like it is about sex though? Because the idea is that sex is inherently something that is such a violation of Sal’s rights that it cannot be had without Jason being abusive, even if it’s purely consensual. I can’t think of any other consensual activity an off duty TA and student could do together that would result in immediate firing. Other than I guess maybe smoking weed or getting drunk or something.
Sex is just sorta a big deal and you can’t have it unless there’s no chance that someone is benefiting more from it than the other.
Like I guess I could argue that maybe Jason would be looked at funny if some of his students were like…his good friends. He might be biased when grading them. But I feel like even that would be a case by case basis and I feel like if Jason just did what he already did and gave the work to Penny they wouldn’t actually mind if Jason hung out with some students in his downtime. I just can’t come away from this thinking anything other than the idea that SPECIFICALLY sex is the one thing you can’t ever do with some if you’re in a position of power. Or kissing probably. Probably can’t kiss people either.
Our teachers definitely had various lines of professional they weren’t supposed to cross in my university. The only one I know of who would’ve gone out drinking was one of my first term grad school teachers. At the end of the term, he invited the students in his class out to a restaurant at school to have a drink.
The more the story goes on, the more Ruth and Jason seem to me like a great couple with a lot in common. Dunno what will happen now, Rightfully Leslie doesn’t want to put Jason back in his previous position and I don’t think she’ll ask Robin if she can do it. Also because, it could turn out that Robin thinks exactly like her about these things. Maybe marriage is really the answer?
I honestly can’t feel all that bad for Jason. Despite abusing a position of power, and having honestly faced pretty minimal consequences, he’s still able to be successful and he’s with Ruth of all people.
As a former professor and also former TA – this is exactly the consequence level he should have to deal with, from an institutional perspective. He’s lucky it was consensual-enough that Sal doesn’t press charges for harassment or worse. Even consensual, it’s still a massive abuse of power and he should not be allowed back in that position.
If he needs to meet the work visa requirements, he should look for a research assistantship or fellowship. They exist.
I know there’s Robin talk, because she’s likely physically nearby, and she does have some money and/or influence. But a fellowship or research assistantship doesn’t make sense, to me, for a math grad student from a polysci professor. She doesn’t even know him, or Ruth. With Becky, they had a personal connection and Robin may have just facilitated a scholarship that someone else was paying for.
If he gets a research assistantship, I’d expect it to be in the math department, and for the professor for be the kind of creepy one who doesn’t think what Jason did is that big of a deal.
And I know this strip isn’t meant to be 100% like real life, but where’s his advisor on all this?
Keep in mind the country and region they’re in. If he’s entitled to an advisor or has some sort of fallback on his contract (or whatever paperwork he did, it doesn’t especially matter), it’s in the best interest of everyone who’s against him to keep him away from that information and those resources, legality be damned. It’s amazing how much vital info people will “forget”, gloss over, or outright lie to avoid sharing.
I don’t really understand what that is, but I’m assuming it’s a person he’s meant to visit who… oversees his status at the school? Maybe Google can help.
“An academic advisor is a type of counselor who works with students, usually at the college level. They are the ones responsible for helping students choose a major and a minor and ensuring that they meet all the requirements to graduate with a degree in that field.”
Okay, I kinda get it now. I’ve never encountered one before, so this is a brand-new concept for me.
Should but as someone who has been back to school recently, ymmv with that one. I have a mandatory once a semester check in with my advisor who confirms my classes, says they will get back to me on issues I need and then doesn’t resolve them.
Undergrads see their advisor like once a semester. Grad students should probably see them a lot more frequently (about once a week maybe), in some capacity.
That definition is for undergrad. I assumed he was a PhD student, not masters. If so he should have a committee of 3-4 people (eventually). If he’s just an MA student, that’s only a couple years and it’s not really a career credential so he’s going to have to go back home or transfer to another program anyway. It’s unlikely he’d be a TA as a math MA anyway since those slots are usually reserved for PhD students. If he’s a first or second year phd student then he might have an academic advisor and not a PhD advisor depending on how the program is set up. But that person is still in charge of helping with funding concerns. It’s possible the person assigned is not proactive and nothing will be tripped until the end of the school year. There should also be an international students office to help deal with paperwork concerns though if Jason is working without papers he may be avoiding them. Still, my international grad students have stuff that needs to get signed every semester.
On the one hand Jason absolutely deserved the consequences he experienced with regards to his TA job, on the other hand U.S. immigration law is extremely messed up and I don’t know that he deserves to be deported. (If I were Sal I’d honestly feel kind of relived if he was deported… So maybe it would be best if he was?? Idk)
Agreed. Losing his position was a minor consequence. The threat of deportation isn’t part of his punishment, it’s an unintended consequence of harsh immigration laws.
Why would Sal feel relieved if Jason was deported? It wasn’t Jason who was looking for it, Sal was the one who enthusiastically initiated the encounter by literally jumping him while shirtless. Hell, if Jason had not responded, that would be grounds for sexual harassment.
No Ruth. Mistakes must be learned from. And for positions of power especially, there has to be some kind of demonstration that the person who made the mistake has learned from it and won’t repeat it (and even if such a demonstration did exist the person is not entitled to another chance). Jason has given no such demonstration.
Eh, I really don’t buy into the concept of being “stained forever”, because how far back does that get to go? Yes yes, consequences from actions and all the other sanctimonious bullshit people are obsessed with tacking onto that, but how small can the action be, how young can you be when you do it, and how far are people supposed to be allowed to go with the consequences? What are the limits? How much can we justify putting a person through over a given mistake?
And this isn’t me saying Jason didn’t fuck up (if you think it is, learn how to read and come back later), I just get a weird vibe sometimes when it comes to mistakes and the proportions of the consequences.
Not all mistakes. Ruth does say “some mistakes are life-defining”, not “all mistakes”.
Some of them shape your life long after any one is still putting direct consequences on you for. If Jason winds up being deported for losing his job, that’s going to change the entire rest of his life, long after everyone’s forgotten the original cause.
I’m of the persuasion that maybe some (even all) mistakes are “life-defining” in terms of we are shaped by all our experiences, but the “they taint you forever” thing is very mental illness talk. Which I get, at someone who deals with mental illness. There are some mistakes I would love to stop feeling shame about, and would probably grow from more if I did. But it’s a lot of work to get to that point, been a lot of work to even get to the point of recognizing that as something to aim for.
Those are all really subjective questions, and I think you’ll get a different answer from everyone. I think in this case, Jason being fired and not being able to get his job back (or even a different job at the same institution) is a reasonable consequence given he’s a grown man who should’ve known better. Meanwhile, let’s say, like, lying about where you hid your sibling’s stuff just to annoy them. That’s a lot more excusable for a seven year old than, say, a seventeen year old. For the seven year old, I think saying ‘Don’t do that’ and telling them why and making them go get it and apologize is pretty reasonable and everyone involved should move on pretty fast. For the seventeen year old, maybe a longer lecture and telling them to grow up and stop doing such immature things is probably appropriate but probably still pretty fast to move on from.
Your seventeen year old robbing a bank and hiding the money though? That’s probably gonna have more severe consequences that won’t be moved on from so easily.
Sorry, unhelpful, but that’s all I got. Shit’s subjective and context matters.
The tapping one? Yeah, I saw it but I don’t get it. I assume some guy did the thing the character does, maybe in a YouTube video or on Twitter, but aside from that it’s just a funny scenario to me.
Optimus Prime broke down and cried on the set of "Transformers" (2007) due to the extensive use of green screen filming. He reportedly said, "This is not why I became an actor."
“I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected. That child deserves our support. Don’t worry about the pollsters calling it distractions, because we need to be the party of human dignity.”
Minnesota Star Tribune@startribune.com ⋅ 1d
Gov. Tim Walz is doubling down on trans rights — and criticizing members of his party who are retreating — at a time when the issue has become a political lightning rod nationally and back home in Minnesota.
they managed to get the arms and thighs to be different grays, which I wasn't sure they'd be able to do, the way the mold's set up
though maybe they're just producing a lot of extra thighs and/or arms in the wrong colors and throwing those away, i dunno
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 1d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Loading ...
“Whilst I appreciate the consideration, mum, I realise that we were inconveniencing you, so sorry, I do believe I must go queue now”
Cheerio and well met.
Pip pip.
set regrets to maximum
Noooo, live with integrity for NO regrets
Sorry to disillusion you, but that’s not actually how integrity works. You just end up regretting different things, for different reasons. SOMEtimes there’s less guilt and shame swirling around your regrets that way, but you can’t even bank on that – life has a habit of presenting one with situations that lack tidy solutions.
~it’s a reference~
Some of life’s best moments are sharing your shame with a complete stranger.
Group therapy ftw, I’ve had some really good experiences sharing stuff or hearing stuff from semi-strangers and now friends.
Cue “random” encounter with Robin DeSanto.
Maybe. We can hope.
Totes is. Take a look at the blurry Patreon preview
And here she is! Right on cue!
Bow-tie appreciation society
Ruth, what exactly are you trying to draw a parallel to in panel 4? I’m pretty sure none of your mistakes have landed in that category.
One of Billie’s has.
Ruth was having an affair with a student she had authority over. And here she is still as RA. The irony is not lost on her.
Is Jason’s grandfather corrupt and influential enough to get him his job back whether he wants it or not?
I’m pretty sure we heard his father is a powerful corrupt businessman who’s ‘basically a supervillain’. But he picked the TA Job in America spesifically to get away from him and his influence.
So it’s not an exact thing, but the parellels are there. Although my guess is maybe Ruth’s thinking more of her general abuse of the students under her care than her relationship with Jennifer?
Not coincidentally the exact same offense that got Jason fired
Too bad her brain won’t let her believe that.
At least not yet. New medication can take quite a while to work
Eh, new SSRI’s usually start taking an effect two weeks in. I think the greater problem is that, for the vast majority of people, medications alone don’t cure them. CBT, group therapy, or some other traditional talk treatment is needed alongside medication to help the patient understand their cognitive biases and combat them effectively. My bet is that Ruth just needs some time with meds, therapy, and a stable life in order to grow into someone who can forgive herself.
She also needs to be out from under the thumb of her abusive grandfather. Much harder to recover and grow when the abuse is ongoing – even if it’s mostly at a distance now.
She was probably back there over the break wasn’t she?
Excuse me, CBT???
One time I was talking to my therapist, and I said something like, “The other, kinkier type of CBT.” And they said,”I’m not sure what you mean by that?” And I was like, ” …That is completely fair, but I’m not going to explain.”
Anyway, Mr D, if you’re not sure, TheCatCameBack was referring to (I ASSUME) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Honestly I wasn’t sure of the kinker meaning either until just now LOL XD
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Look, for some people, a stiletto heel in the nads can work wonders.
I’m pretty sure she thinks most of them have. Years of gaslighting and abuse can do that to a person.
Ruth does not seem to think very highly of herself. I’ve got maybe three incidents I’m thinking of: getting with Billie, breaking up with her, and what she’s doing right now.
Also we don’t know what exactly went down with her and Rachel, but it has to have been something
They were roommates right? I wouldn’t want to be roommates with pre-timeskip, pre-dating Billie Ruth.
Someday we will get the Rachel flashback and it will turn out to be something completely inconsequential.
So many in the cast have such fucking dramatic issues and black and white views on life. It makes me wonder how I ever survived college, and if I ever was that bad.
There are not many things as simple and concrete as how a young adult believes the world works. Some grow out of it, some don’t.
Makes me wonder if the comic’s epilogue is going to be a flash forward.
And, every now and then, one of them makes some of it happen.
It’s certainly possible, but it really is amazing how many people seem to assume the violent alcoholic couldn’t possibly have been at fault.
They were both violent alcoholics? What??
Rachel was?
Who’s saying “couldn’t possibly”? I haven’t noticed anyone saying that. I’ve seen speculation that it might not have been quite as bad as Rachel makes it out to be, but never anyone saying “There’s no possibility of that being the case.”
Fair. Probably overreacting to the “something completely inconsequential” suggestion.
I think it would honestly be funnier if it was something petty and super low-stakes. Rachel obviously had doubts about Ruth from the start, but I’d laugh my ass off if it turned out she didn’t mind the angry/depressive behavior and Ruth like, stole her pudding by accident or something.
Yeah, their introduction went… well…
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/blankslate/
“This was never about me, was it?”
Jason seems to be willing to wait out whatever Ruth is doing… Hard to tell exactly where his line is. It’s certainly farther than Ruth expected at least.
live with intergity, no ragrets
Don’t say that! After it, somebody always get hit by a truck.
No worries; if you deliberately misspell stuff it doesn’t count towards the curse. This is like the It’s Walky equivalent of calling Macbeth “the Scottish play.”
…yeah this is 100% leading towards an encounter with Robin. Wonder if they’ll have a bowtie-off.
Would he stoop so low? Robin’s bowtie is bound to be a clip-on.
No, no. It spins, remember?
It doesn’t have to be life defining but there’ll always be pieces you can’t fit in again or are missing once you go to glue your life back together.
The day Ruth became an RA, she has fully forgotten, alt.
Thanks to those of you how provided suggestions about how to get this website working for me again. Fortunately, it seems to issue somehow resolved itself on its own, allowing me to annoy you with my inane comments and pointless commentary for the foreseeable future.
ppl should start using that last line as an opener more often lol
Have I mentioned that I really like post-timeskip Jason? Because I really like post-timeskip Jason
Ruth, Ruth, it’s okay, you’ve already been sentenced to being a Leafs fan, you’re suffering enough.
So no job with Leslie. Perhaps ROBIN would be interested?
I think Robin would be a good option, legitimately. Her personality is likely to cause some strife with her current TAs, which might open up a slot, she’s a lot wealthier, and much more likely to go “so, you slept with her, but you didn’t give her the grades, and she initiated the whole thing? Why’d you get fired again?” to the whole deal.
Plus they can bond over wearing bow-ties.
Exactly. And it would be very interesting to see how she and Jason will interact. I don’t THINK they have met here in DoA.
Even for an advice for him, you cannot tell him, Leslie?
(of course I agree with her, but…)
I’m sure there is some advice she could give, that lets him stay, and doesn’t compromise her principles. But everyone (including Leslie) is assuming she’s being asked to personally fix the problem, not to point the way.
I am less sure that there is any possibly relevant advice that Leslie could give in this situation.
Seriously, what’s with that brit aristrocrat feel XD
It still grinds my gears that all the other TAs were *actually* abusing their power, but Jason gets thrown under the bus for not playing along.
“All the other”? Unless I’m missing something the only other one we had abusing their power was Penny. I feel like even in this comic, one is a very small sample size.
Penny was fired. She was all of the other TAs. And Jason was actually abusing his power.
Even if that wasn’t his intention, Jason did abuse his power. He slept with a student that he was tutoring and who he had grading power over. And she slept with her at least partially because of that. And that is still on him, even if it is technically a misunderstanding. That is his fault, that is why you shouldn’t sleep with someone you have power over.
Also, I am pretty sure the only other TA that we know is Penny and she got fired for literally the same thing as Jason. In fact, we don’t actually know if she was grading Joe (or any hypothetical student she may have slept with), so technically for all we know she was actually less ethically compromised than him (though, given how she behaved otherwise, that seems unlikely).
As a former TA and professor, no. You do NOT sleep with your students. Period, end of story. That is, in and of itself, an abuse of power, even without an explicit quid-pro-quo. And there are so many stories of female students – undergrad and grad – who are pressured into it, by professors with real power, that zero tolerance is fully warranted and morally correct. This is not a grey area. Jason acted reprehensibly. Even if he’s learned, to put him back in that kind of position so soon after he did it would be a massive institutional failure.
Ruth is being melodramatic cuz internal demons, but actions like this SHOULD have severe consequenses.
Agreed with Delavan.
I also agree with Delavan.
It’s a bit of a grey area. Back in undergrad one of my friends ended up being the TA for a class her girlfriend was taking. Human relationships are sufficiently complicated that one single policy is going to be a good fit for every possible situation. “If you and a student are interested in one another, just wait a couple months until the class is over” is, I think, a much more practical stance than “don’t do it ever and if you do you’re a horrible human”. Catch more flies with honey, and all.
As an interesting aside, best teaching practices are that you shouldn’t know whose work it is you’re grading in the first place. My department has been using Crowdmark since the start of the pandemic and its default setup gives TAs no way to know what work belongs to what student. That goes a long way toward disarming situations like Jason’s before they happen.
There are things in place most places for pre-existing relationships—generally what happens is someone not in the relationship is in charge of grading or is the boss. This is not that hard. Yes, anonymous grading is good when feasible.
And yes, if Jason had waited until the class was over he likely wouldn’t have been fired. Some places say no sleeping with undergraduates but many places just specify no situations with a power imbalance. Of course Sal was not actually interested in him so nothing would have happened if Jason had done his job correctly.
It’s crazy to me how many people think these things are about sex and not power (see also: Ned Fulmer).
I feel like it is about sex though? Because the idea is that sex is inherently something that is such a violation of Sal’s rights that it cannot be had without Jason being abusive, even if it’s purely consensual. I can’t think of any other consensual activity an off duty TA and student could do together that would result in immediate firing. Other than I guess maybe smoking weed or getting drunk or something.
Sex is just sorta a big deal and you can’t have it unless there’s no chance that someone is benefiting more from it than the other.
Like I guess I could argue that maybe Jason would be looked at funny if some of his students were like…his good friends. He might be biased when grading them. But I feel like even that would be a case by case basis and I feel like if Jason just did what he already did and gave the work to Penny they wouldn’t actually mind if Jason hung out with some students in his downtime. I just can’t come away from this thinking anything other than the idea that SPECIFICALLY sex is the one thing you can’t ever do with some if you’re in a position of power. Or kissing probably. Probably can’t kiss people either.
Our teachers definitely had various lines of professional they weren’t supposed to cross in my university. The only one I know of who would’ve gone out drinking was one of my first term grad school teachers. At the end of the term, he invited the students in his class out to a restaurant at school to have a drink.
Just tossing this out there, not all us internal demons are bad, and in fact a lot of us are essential in empowering our hosts
Thank you. Jfc all these people out their getting their real world morality from porn genres.
“What are you doing, step-TA?”
I don’t think anyone is actually doing the thing you said, though.
Maybe not exactly, in this comments section, no. I just got a little irritable.
No worries, we get it. The holiday season can get stressful for a lot of us
That’s implying I have morals
The more the story goes on, the more Ruth and Jason seem to me like a great couple with a lot in common. Dunno what will happen now, Rightfully Leslie doesn’t want to put Jason back in his previous position and I don’t think she’ll ask Robin if she can do it. Also because, it could turn out that Robin thinks exactly like her about these things. Maybe marriage is really the answer?
Yes, Jason, sometimes when you fuck up, it DOES fuck your life over permanently, and irrevocably.
In fairness to Jason, he didn’t ask for this conversation.
Some mistakes taint you for a specific institution for at least three months, yes, Ruth.
I must take leave – cape swoosh
ALT-TEXT, YOU MADE ME SPIT-TAKE
Your lowest moment so far!
I read that in Gabby’s voice (of Gabby’s Cats). Been spending time with my niece.
I honestly can’t feel all that bad for Jason. Despite abusing a position of power, and having honestly faced pretty minimal consequences, he’s still able to be successful and he’s with Ruth of all people.
I mean the threat of getting deported hanging over him constantly is kinda of a significant consequence!
As a former professor and also former TA – this is exactly the consequence level he should have to deal with, from an institutional perspective. He’s lucky it was consensual-enough that Sal doesn’t press charges for harassment or worse. Even consensual, it’s still a massive abuse of power and he should not be allowed back in that position.
If he needs to meet the work visa requirements, he should look for a research assistantship or fellowship. They exist.
I know there’s Robin talk, because she’s likely physically nearby, and she does have some money and/or influence. But a fellowship or research assistantship doesn’t make sense, to me, for a math grad student from a polysci professor. She doesn’t even know him, or Ruth. With Becky, they had a personal connection and Robin may have just facilitated a scholarship that someone else was paying for.
If he gets a research assistantship, I’d expect it to be in the math department, and for the professor for be the kind of creepy one who doesn’t think what Jason did is that big of a deal.
And I know this strip isn’t meant to be 100% like real life, but where’s his advisor on all this?
Ha! I was wondering the same thing earlier today. (Where is his advisor…)
Keep in mind the country and region they’re in. If he’s entitled to an advisor or has some sort of fallback on his contract (or whatever paperwork he did, it doesn’t especially matter), it’s in the best interest of everyone who’s against him to keep him away from that information and those resources, legality be damned. It’s amazing how much vital info people will “forget”, gloss over, or outright lie to avoid sharing.
Not talking about an advocate during the tribunal. As a grad student, he should have an academic advisor that he sees regularly.
I don’t really understand what that is, but I’m assuming it’s a person he’s meant to visit who… oversees his status at the school? Maybe Google can help.
“An academic advisor is a type of counselor who works with students, usually at the college level. They are the ones responsible for helping students choose a major and a minor and ensuring that they meet all the requirements to graduate with a degree in that field.”
Okay, I kinda get it now. I’ve never encountered one before, so this is a brand-new concept for me.
Should but as someone who has been back to school recently, ymmv with that one. I have a mandatory once a semester check in with my advisor who confirms my classes, says they will get back to me on issues I need and then doesn’t resolve them.
Undergrads see their advisor like once a semester. Grad students should probably see them a lot more frequently (about once a week maybe), in some capacity.
That definition is for undergrad. I assumed he was a PhD student, not masters. If so he should have a committee of 3-4 people (eventually). If he’s just an MA student, that’s only a couple years and it’s not really a career credential so he’s going to have to go back home or transfer to another program anyway. It’s unlikely he’d be a TA as a math MA anyway since those slots are usually reserved for PhD students. If he’s a first or second year phd student then he might have an academic advisor and not a PhD advisor depending on how the program is set up. But that person is still in charge of helping with funding concerns. It’s possible the person assigned is not proactive and nothing will be tripped until the end of the school year. There should also be an international students office to help deal with paperwork concerns though if Jason is working without papers he may be avoiding them. Still, my international grad students have stuff that needs to get signed every semester.
On the one hand Jason absolutely deserved the consequences he experienced with regards to his TA job, on the other hand U.S. immigration law is extremely messed up and I don’t know that he deserves to be deported. (If I were Sal I’d honestly feel kind of relived if he was deported… So maybe it would be best if he was?? Idk)
Agreed. Losing his position was a minor consequence. The threat of deportation isn’t part of his punishment, it’s an unintended consequence of harsh immigration laws.
Why would Sal feel relieved if Jason was deported? It wasn’t Jason who was looking for it, Sal was the one who enthusiastically initiated the encounter by literally jumping him while shirtless. Hell, if Jason had not responded, that would be grounds for sexual harassment.
No Ruth. Mistakes must be learned from. And for positions of power especially, there has to be some kind of demonstration that the person who made the mistake has learned from it and won’t repeat it (and even if such a demonstration did exist the person is not entitled to another chance). Jason has given no such demonstration.
Eh, I really don’t buy into the concept of being “stained forever”, because how far back does that get to go? Yes yes, consequences from actions and all the other sanctimonious bullshit people are obsessed with tacking onto that, but how small can the action be, how young can you be when you do it, and how far are people supposed to be allowed to go with the consequences? What are the limits? How much can we justify putting a person through over a given mistake?
And this isn’t me saying Jason didn’t fuck up (if you think it is, learn how to read and come back later), I just get a weird vibe sometimes when it comes to mistakes and the proportions of the consequences.
Not all mistakes. Ruth does say “some mistakes are life-defining”, not “all mistakes”.
Some of them shape your life long after any one is still putting direct consequences on you for. If Jason winds up being deported for losing his job, that’s going to change the entire rest of his life, long after everyone’s forgotten the original cause.
I’m of the persuasion that maybe some (even all) mistakes are “life-defining” in terms of we are shaped by all our experiences, but the “they taint you forever” thing is very mental illness talk. Which I get, at someone who deals with mental illness. There are some mistakes I would love to stop feeling shame about, and would probably grow from more if I did. But it’s a lot of work to get to that point, been a lot of work to even get to the point of recognizing that as something to aim for.
Those are all really subjective questions, and I think you’ll get a different answer from everyone. I think in this case, Jason being fired and not being able to get his job back (or even a different job at the same institution) is a reasonable consequence given he’s a grown man who should’ve known better. Meanwhile, let’s say, like, lying about where you hid your sibling’s stuff just to annoy them. That’s a lot more excusable for a seven year old than, say, a seventeen year old. For the seven year old, I think saying ‘Don’t do that’ and telling them why and making them go get it and apologize is pretty reasonable and everyone involved should move on pretty fast. For the seventeen year old, maybe a longer lecture and telling them to grow up and stop doing such immature things is probably appropriate but probably still pretty fast to move on from.
Your seventeen year old robbing a bank and hiding the money though? That’s probably gonna have more severe consequences that won’t be moved on from so easily.
Sorry, unhelpful, but that’s all I got. Shit’s subjective and context matters.
Ruth is talking about herself and projecting here
did anyone else notice DYW put up a new “Shortpacked”?
The tapping one? Yeah, I saw it but I don’t get it. I assume some guy did the thing the character does, maybe in a YouTube video or on Twitter, but aside from that it’s just a funny scenario to me.
So help me he sounds like John Oliver in my brain.