There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Goodbye to Halos
Valerie Halla
Cuddles, gay flirting, weird feelings, and magic-fueled knife fights - it's an adventure across the queer multiverse!
Star Impact
Jack McGee
A young, energetic woman fights her way up in the world of super-powered boxing after discovering the mighty gloves of her missing idol!
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.
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.
The End
August Brown, Cory Brown
Two aliens crash a sci-fi convention and accidentally take seven nerds on an adventure that spans the galaxy!
Alexander, The Servant & The Water of Life
Reimena Yee
The 21st century retelling of the life and legends of Alexander the Great.
This is Not Fiction
Nicole Mannino
What do you do when the person you're in-love with is an anonymous romance novelist? Get your best friend to hire your worst enemy for help!
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.
Missing Monday
Elle Skinner
Two girls fall in love through a magic door connecting their worlds. When Monday suddenly goes missing, it's up to Foyle to find her. How she's going to navigate an entirely unfamiliar world is another matter.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
Alice and the Nightmare
Misha Krivanek
Alice finally attends University to learn to collect the dreams of humans, meet new friends, and deal with a pesky reflection along the way.
Gzhel Guardian
Atla Hrafney, nushanchel
The Railway World is a complex, mysterious network of trains, towns and mechanical monsters. Leo is a Guardian of one of these towns, and although their burn-out and depression has taken hold of them, they have one last job to finish.
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.
The Last Diplomat
Cat Farris
Samma and Tark didn't ask to be stuck together, but now they're partners on the adventure of a lifetime.
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.
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?
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...
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.
Within
Verena Loisel
A young hitman meanders between a reality that seems to happen without him, and his dreams where he is lost in an endless house. When he makes an accidental friend, his world is shaken up and he realizes there are things he can't remember about himself.
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.
Ride or Die
Mars Heyward
Ride or Die is an LGBTQ webcomic about two street racers who team up with a demon-possessed muscle car in the search for a missing woman, while being hunted by a deadly religious cult.
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.
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.
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
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.
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.
Trying Human
IntroducingEmy
Two women separated by over half a century are brought together by an alien-filled conspiracy involving murder, mystery and romance!
Headless Bliss
Clover
A story about story-telling, and other metaphysical themes such as Nightmares! (Failed) Teamwork! Comedy! And more!
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.
Scape
Lauren
Sula has always preferred to forge her own path, but before she knows it, she is pulled into the middle of a civil war between man and monster!
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Love Not Found
Gina Biggs
Abeille is on a quest to find someone who wants to do it the old-fashioned way in a time when touching has become outdated.
Quick$ilver
Crypto
The flirtatious, directionless, and ever disastrous Luci searches for excitement in a life of crime, and finds himself caught in a web of messy romance and bad blood.
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.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
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!
The Substitutes
Myisha Haynes
What happens when three roommates accidentally acquire otherworldly and powerful magic weapons destined for someone else?
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
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
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.
Cassiopeia Quinn
Gunwild, Psudonym
A cute, pantsless thief is pursued across the stars by a buttoned-up military officer in the spacey, laser-filled future.
Kochab
Sarah Webb
A YA F/F fantasy comic about Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village; and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she let fall apart around her.
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?
Monsterkind
Taylor C
Wallace Foster, a young, bright-eyed human social worker, has his entire world view rocked when he's suddenly relocated into a city primarily inhabited by monsters.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Astral Aves
Moon Cabal
A fantasy coming-of-age following the adventures of Astra The Black and friends, as they navigate the mysterious world around them. It's politics, adventure, and the supernatural; oh, and crazy hair.
Aquapunk
Lo
In an underwater world of unknown coordinates, inhabited by aliens, ghosts, and robots, a young member of a warrior underclass is framed for a crime and goes on the run. Little does he know he is part of a grand design that only gods and ancestors could choreograph.
Widdershins
Kate Ashwin
A series of light-hearted Victorian-era adventure stories featuring grumpy bounty hunters, accidental thiefkings, and more, in England's magical capital city Widdershins!
The Forgotten Order
Christy
A young witch for whom every spell is a misfire finds solace and friendship in her new companion - a cursed doll.
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I’d say she’s pretty mid-Millennial? I mean, generational divides are kind of whatever, but as someone who generally qualifies as younger Millennial, Leslie (currently) still has a few years on me.
Sorry, but the “Silent Generation” killed arbitrary generational divides long before they were conceived ;p Strauss & Howe, and many later “generational theory” demographers, attribute cultural shifts that should be rightly attributed to them to either the preceding or succeeding generation as that better fits their model.
That seems to be what’s happening to Gen X too. They are almost always left out of the debates, and the Millennials and Boomers lump them in with the other when they’re having their shouting matches.
I’ve been noticing that on Imgur. We (Gen X) are far too often referred to as “Boomers.” At least, when we aren’t lumped in with Millennials. (facepalms)
I mean, it’s almost like we have no identity of our own! Seriously, go watch some ’80s movies, guys!
GenX are older than Millennials, and the youngest Millennials are just hitting 20. She’s probably in the middle Millennial range (late 20s-early 30s). MAYBE a Xennial (the youngest GenX – late 30s-early 40s – who have more in common with older Millennials than older GenX.) In 20 years (if the comic’s still going, then) she’ll be smack in the middle of GenZ. (I refuse to call them Zoomers…when I was working with seniors, that was a term for active Boomers. Don’t make things confusing cohort-namers!)
Math says the oldest Millennials would be pushing 40 now, putting their kids in college. My kids bridge Gen X and millenials, the oldest is end of Gen X, and the youngest is early Millenial, and there’s one right in the middle between the two.
As a 25-year-old millennial, my impression of who is similar enough to me and other people my age to count as the same generation is roughly ages 22-34 or so, which would put it at 1985-1997 I guess. But I dunno how much that counts. I know generations are supposed to be defined as longer than only 12 years. I also know that the Game Grumps and most other people Arin’s age probably have more in common with my age group than Gen X, and yet my range would put them in Gen X. Maybe I should classify millennials as 1985-1997 + people from 1975-1985 who were nerdy enough to have had a similarly internet-and-video-game-intensive upbringing? Hm, but then the political views millennials are infamous for still don’t really include anyone older than 1985…
Generations are *supposed* to be arbitrary as fuck. It’s basically astrology, except instead of caring about which month you were born, it cares about what year you were born. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but it’s painting with a sledgehammer: the interesting question is what’s left of the canvas, and easel, after you’re done, not what you’ve painted.
They’re very broad and there’s definitely blurring around the edges, but there’s still far more to it than astrology. Certainly doesn’t apply in detail to every individual – like every demographic.
But they’re grounded in real differences in shared experience, which is far more influential than “the stars”.
I guess we GenX should be grateful that someone else has taken over as “those damn kids”, but in fact, we’ve finally just become completely irrelevant.
@Kamino Neko
OH! Huh.
As a very late Gen-Xer, I’ve found it odd for a while that no one seems to talk about my generation BUT that things said about Millennials tend to apply to me as well. And now I know why!
I guess I’m a ‘Xennial’ who was late for the bus (mid-late 80s), I understand and was there for a lot of the shared Millennial experiences like being pretty much the last cohort to grow up before the current social media hell, but at the same time I hate getting lumped in with all the “hurr durr avocado toast” nonsense.
We should start a support group, “Milennials With Mortgages”.
I sincerely hope that Becky will take the time to apologize and talk to Leslie. However I’ll keep my expectations low, wouldn’t want to be disappointed right?
Becky take any olive branch and burns it with a smile. When Dorothy gave her an opening to avoid more conflict with Roz Becky continued being a jerk. I doubt she will apologize immediately to Leslie, and will instead try to justify herself with something like “I didn’t want to be a burden to you”.
Thank you for enabling us, and also curse you for enabling us.
This strategy is disturbingly effective, and I consistently employ it to great success. Sometimes I wish it was a little less effective, frankly… but not enough to make myself stop.
Related: How long til my husband’s grandparents realize every life update since we move is about the weather, our kids and my dog and never me at all except in the most superficial way
I’ve been sharing pro-lgbt memes for years on my facebook, aggressively, and my mother was still shocked to learn I’m “still bisexual” since getting married.
Could having an encyclopedic knowledge of coping mechanisms be in itself a coping mechanism?
Secondly, “An encyclopedic knowledge of coping mechanisms” is unfortunately too long to be a successful band name. And I am saddened by this realisation.
I didn’t know Elon Musk was musing on droneships or that he’d pinched the names from Iain M. Banks culture novels. But you’re right, that would be a PERFECT name for a culture warship.
It is definitely a coping mechanism. After all, “it takes one to know one” – those of us who have a variety of obscure coping mechanisms tend to be very tuned in to when others use the same ones.
Thanks for the response and confirmation. It definitely tripped a “that doesn’t sound good” flag here, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just my mind being strange.
Oh I don’t know if it’s two long. Two of my favorite bands are Pathetic Use of Potential (albeit, shortened to PUP) and I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME
Alternatively, you could be like an early to mid 2000s emo and use it as a song title
Apparently I can do that (mixed with some genuine ‘well I’m not feeling this emotion RIGHT NOW so I don’t remember feeling it two hours ago!’ that makes monitoring my mood trends pretty hard,) but I’ve tried not to since the last time it failed ended with my mother driving an hour and back on a Monday night since I wasn’t answering my phone, hadn’t showed up to any classes or appointments, and she was genuinely concerned I was dead.
… As ever, academic-based anxiety death spirals mixed with chronic depression: They are not fun.
YES. It’s just like they say for like TV personalities, leaders, teachers, and basically anyone with consistent contact with the public in a professional role – you choose which parts of yourself to present. That doesn’t mean you necessarily lie about who you are; it just means being selective about which you(s) you show the world, and sometimes adjusting the intensities of various components. How am I? Not bad. I am getting up in the morning, going to work, helping people, and smiling, therefore I can’t be doing bad. On the other hand, (for example) my pet is dying, (for real) I am practically flunking out of grad school, and (dealer’s choice) I am slowly filling with a sense of creeping dread that nothing I do will ever be as good as what is done by those around me – not because I’m incapable, but because I simply don’t have the work ethic – and I am doomed to repeatedly let down all my loved ones for the rest of my life. …BUT… none of those other things are things I am currently panicking about at this exact moment, regardless of the anxiety attack I just had in the bathroom. Therefore, not only will I tell you I am doing great if you ask me, but I will say it with a genuine smile, and I promise that in that moment I will believe it just enough that you will too. #FakeItTillYouMakeIt, LOL!1!!
AaaaAAAAaaaah, I got to the sense of creeping dread and you have phrased very wonderfully the very horrible feeling I’ve been struggling with. Some of that might be part of trying to maintain healthy work/fun/sleep boundaries for the sake of self-care that are kind of…maybe impossible to maintain when breaking into and working in career fields that are built on trampling down those boundaries. Even idolizing it.
Grad school is notorious for overworking students and depriving them of sleep in order to keep up and excel, and that’s even held up as a feature instead of a bug. Then we wonder why amphetamine abuse is so high, or why such smart, hard-working people would burn out or die so young from heart disease. I’m sorry you’re being put in such a hard position. If someone is living by 1850s garment factory hours, that’s not a feature to celebrate, it is a flaw in the system and in the people encouraging it.
… But my inner mindscape is *complicated*, what with surface thoughts and deeper thoughts and thoughts about thoughts, and thoughts I’m repressing because I don’t want to acknowledge them…
When I was a suicidally depressed teen I played the part of a thick-skimmed, brash, insensitive, thoughtless, hyper-chirpy moron pretty convincingly, because I didn’t really know how to let anybody in, didn’t really believe anybody would want to know the real me, etc. I don’t do that any more, and am a generally open person, but I’m kinda still pretty far from an open book, now I think about it…
For someone who doesn’t get into too much drama himself, I think walky beats out even Dina in “I was standing around when everyone got loud about drama so I guess I know about it”. He could be the schools greatest gossip if he cared to be.
Beneeth the goof is a very, very good liar. Becky spent her entire life under the radar of a tyrant, she knows perfectly well the value of projecting an image.
But lying wouldn’t help you when you are around good people. Becky’s goofiness camouflages distrusts and paranoia, and it’s quite known, humans can only grow through social bonds.
Well, yeah, all trauma coping mechanisms are to help you survive the traumatic situation and then don’t work when you are no longer in that situation and are surrounded by trustworthy people. But unfortunately, there is no on/off switch for it – you have to learn and acknowledge that these coping mechanisms are no longer useful before you can stop using them.
That said, given her background and how good she is at projecting a persona – Becky is remarkably good at opening up to people like Joyce, Dina, even HANK – a dad from the same background as her own personal tyrant.
She is not as open as, say, Joyce, but she still manage to deal with her trauma in a surprisingly healthy way.
What alternately amuses and frustrates me is how good she is at projecting it to the audience. How many comments we see about Becky’s inability to keep secrets, for example.
Not today, since it’s explicitly being pointed out to us, but in general.
If this strip had been put up three-four years ago (when those comments were at their most common), I would’ve thought it would be a direct response to those commenters.
I mean, it possibly still is; but at least now it’s delayed enough that most of those commenters won’t see themselves being called out.
Plus, at the time, Cerberus did enough of a job calling them out for that.
It still comes up, we just haven’t focused on anything that would make it apply in awhile.
The pattern’s broader of course. Treating characters surface defense mechanisms as all they are is common. See the talk about Walky over the weekend.
Becky: “I have no problems.”
Joyce: “You took an entire day to tell me you got kicked out of college and cried when I told you I am not gay.”
Leslie: “You ran away without telling me and I got worried! A small note would have been enough!”
Dina: “Your mouth tastes like skittles, and that is scary!”
Becky: “Okay, I have many problems.”
“You think that you know somebody…!” Of course, Becky has spent her whole like trying to stop people from knowing who she really is and she’s pretty much a master of it! At most, you see the person she projects but the actual young woman? Lots unsaid there.
PTSD is mainly defenses that don’t work in the new situation. Know someone who drove 50,000 miles in Iraq. Yes, it took him a couple years to drive normally and not be spooked by random bits of trash on the road. Hyper-vigilance is a terrible thing and Becky has it.
Anyone who’s purchased one of Willis’ published volumes, does he include the alt-texts in those volumes? It strikes me that that’s some substantial content loss, if he doesn’t.
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“I mean, when did she tell you she was a lesbian, immediately once she knew?”
“…shit”
Well, she KINDA did – she just didn’t know for sure until after she and Joyce were separated.
Volume II: Fatalistic Humor and You (the Millennial Method)
(Not actually sure how old Leslie is, guessing Millennial)
Currently Millennial (but definitely on the younger side). In twenty IRL years or so, she’ll be Gen X.
Oh my god I’m the same age as Leslie
A character I first read in like middle school
*crisis intensifies*
I’d say she’s pretty mid-Millennial? I mean, generational divides are kind of whatever, but as someone who generally qualifies as younger Millennial, Leslie (currently) still has a few years on me.
Millenials Are Killing Arbitrary Generational Divides.
Millennials have the longest kill list since the Greatest Generation.
That’s only from July 2017. I’m sure we’ve killed more stuff since then.
Last I heard, we’re killing economic growth by putting money into savings rather than spending it all immediately.
no, that can’t be, because when billionaires do that they’re ~creating jobs~.
Sorry, but the “Silent Generation” killed arbitrary generational divides long before they were conceived ;p Strauss & Howe, and many later “generational theory” demographers, attribute cultural shifts that should be rightly attributed to them to either the preceding or succeeding generation as that better fits their model.
That seems to be what’s happening to Gen X too. They are almost always left out of the debates, and the Millennials and Boomers lump them in with the other when they’re having their shouting matches.
“we exist!”
Sshh. They’ll notice us.
I’ve been noticing that on Imgur. We (Gen X) are far too often referred to as “Boomers.” At least, when we aren’t lumped in with Millennials. (facepalms)
I mean, it’s almost like we have no identity of our own! Seriously, go watch some ’80s movies, guys!
GenX are older than Millennials, and the youngest Millennials are just hitting 20. She’s probably in the middle Millennial range (late 20s-early 30s). MAYBE a Xennial (the youngest GenX – late 30s-early 40s – who have more in common with older Millennials than older GenX.) In 20 years (if the comic’s still going, then) she’ll be smack in the middle of GenZ. (I refuse to call them Zoomers…when I was working with seniors, that was a term for active Boomers. Don’t make things confusing cohort-namers!)
The youngest Millennials are 25, not 20. The standard range is those born from 1980 to 1994
Math says the oldest Millennials would be pushing 40 now, putting their kids in college. My kids bridge Gen X and millenials, the oldest is end of Gen X, and the youngest is early Millenial, and there’s one right in the middle between the two.
As a 25-year-old millennial, my impression of who is similar enough to me and other people my age to count as the same generation is roughly ages 22-34 or so, which would put it at 1985-1997 I guess. But I dunno how much that counts. I know generations are supposed to be defined as longer than only 12 years. I also know that the Game Grumps and most other people Arin’s age probably have more in common with my age group than Gen X, and yet my range would put them in Gen X. Maybe I should classify millennials as 1985-1997 + people from 1975-1985 who were nerdy enough to have had a similarly internet-and-video-game-intensive upbringing? Hm, but then the political views millennials are infamous for still don’t really include anyone older than 1985…
Generations are arbitrary as fuck I guess.
Generations are *supposed* to be arbitrary as fuck. It’s basically astrology, except instead of caring about which month you were born, it cares about what year you were born. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but it’s painting with a sledgehammer: the interesting question is what’s left of the canvas, and easel, after you’re done, not what you’ve painted.
Astrology makes more sense than generations. At least it’s easy to tell what sign you are
They’re very broad and there’s definitely blurring around the edges, but there’s still far more to it than astrology. Certainly doesn’t apply in detail to every individual – like every demographic.
But they’re grounded in real differences in shared experience, which is far more influential than “the stars”.
If you listen to the news (and boomers), millennials still are the 18-24 year old college kids.
and always will be.
I guess we GenX should be grateful that someone else has taken over as “those damn kids”, but in fact, we’ve finally just become completely irrelevant.
We’re not a big enough generational cohort to push against either the Boomers or Millennials.
No one is a big enough cohort to push against the boomers. They’ll successfully drag the country whoever they go.
Not for too much longer.
Hey, some of us born in 1994 are still 24
@Kamino Neko
OH! Huh.
As a very late Gen-Xer, I’ve found it odd for a while that no one seems to talk about my generation BUT that things said about Millennials tend to apply to me as well. And now I know why!
I guess I’m a ‘Xennial’ who was late for the bus (mid-late 80s), I understand and was there for a lot of the shared Millennial experiences like being pretty much the last cohort to grow up before the current social media hell, but at the same time I hate getting lumped in with all the “hurr durr avocado toast” nonsense.
We should start a support group, “Milennials With Mortgages”.
I’m not a millennial. You’re the millennial.
She is certainly older than 20 and surely younger than 40 so she has to be a Millenial.
I sincerely hope that Becky will take the time to apologize and talk to Leslie. However I’ll keep my expectations low, wouldn’t want to be disappointed right?
Becky take any olive branch and burns it with a smile. When Dorothy gave her an opening to avoid more conflict with Roz Becky continued being a jerk. I doubt she will apologize immediately to Leslie, and will instead try to justify herself with something like “I didn’t want to be a burden to you”.
Even if she just said that, it would help Leslie. As long as she occasionally keeps in contact.
Giving off the impression that you are more open and outgoing that you actually are.
Yeah, sounds familiar.
….. huh
Look, you don’t have to call me out like this, in front of all these people.
I’m the person who is not even able to give off that impression, and believes those who use that coping mechanism.
Thank you for enabling us, and also curse you for enabling us.
This strategy is disturbingly effective, and I consistently employ it to great success. Sometimes I wish it was a little less effective, frankly… but not enough to make myself stop.
I’m in this comment and I don’t like it.
I wish I had a coping mechanism that made me seem like a good person
“An encyclopedic knowledge of coping mechanisms” would be a fantastic book title
Leslie’s Coping Mechanisms Encyclopedia, Vol I: Tell Everyone Everything Immediately All The Time, Except DON’T
If it’s not a DoA book title I’ll revoke my regular Kickstarter top tier pledge
…ok no I won’t, but I’ll be mildly disappointed
Why not “The Bean Encyclopedia of Coping Mechanisms”?
The book titles are always direct quotes from the strip
I meant for when Leslie gets around to publishing it.
Today’s strip is sponsored by a State Farm ad–in CHINESE.
*Looks at myself doing exactly that*
…shit
add me to the tags ’cause… ouch.
Apparently there’s a “yup, I do too” train going, so I’ll just hop on aboard.
Choo choo!
Walky is still rockin’ that free pizza.
Related: How long til my husband’s grandparents realize every life update since we move is about the weather, our kids and my dog and never me at all except in the most superficial way
How obvious is it, I wonder??
2) Probably could only be more obvious if you explicitly pointed it out to them, and 1) Probably forever.
Sorry, dude. :\ Especially if they’re his blood/childhood family, not yours.
You husbands grandparents don’t know you are together? Even though you have kids?
I’ve been sharing pro-lgbt memes for years on my facebook, aggressively, and my mother was still shocked to learn I’m “still bisexual” since getting married.
Could having an encyclopedic knowledge of coping mechanisms be in itself a coping mechanism?
Secondly, “An encyclopedic knowledge of coping mechanisms” is unfortunately too long to be a successful band name. And I am saddened by this realisation.
A bad band name, but an excellent album name.
It sounds like a good name for one of Elon Musk’s droneships. (Yes, I know where those names come from, but I’ve never read one of the books.)
I didn’t know Elon Musk was musing on droneships or that he’d pinched the names from Iain M. Banks culture novels. But you’re right, that would be a PERFECT name for a culture warship.
It is definitely a coping mechanism. After all, “it takes one to know one” – those of us who have a variety of obscure coping mechanisms tend to be very tuned in to when others use the same ones.
Thanks for the response and confirmation. It definitely tripped a “that doesn’t sound good” flag here, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just my mind being strange.
Sounds like a good name for the DoA book box set.
Oooooh, agreed!
More likely the result of trying to get better.
Oh I don’t know if it’s two long. Two of my favorite bands are Pathetic Use of Potential (albeit, shortened to PUP) and I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME
Alternatively, you could be like an early to mid 2000s emo and use it as a song title
Apparently I can do that (mixed with some genuine ‘well I’m not feeling this emotion RIGHT NOW so I don’t remember feeling it two hours ago!’ that makes monitoring my mood trends pretty hard,) but I’ve tried not to since the last time it failed ended with my mother driving an hour and back on a Monday night since I wasn’t answering my phone, hadn’t showed up to any classes or appointments, and she was genuinely concerned I was dead.
… As ever, academic-based anxiety death spirals mixed with chronic depression: They are not fun.
YES. It’s just like they say for like TV personalities, leaders, teachers, and basically anyone with consistent contact with the public in a professional role – you choose which parts of yourself to present. That doesn’t mean you necessarily lie about who you are; it just means being selective about which you(s) you show the world, and sometimes adjusting the intensities of various components. How am I? Not bad. I am getting up in the morning, going to work, helping people, and smiling, therefore I can’t be doing bad. On the other hand, (for example) my pet is dying, (for real) I am practically flunking out of grad school, and (dealer’s choice) I am slowly filling with a sense of creeping dread that nothing I do will ever be as good as what is done by those around me – not because I’m incapable, but because I simply don’t have the work ethic – and I am doomed to repeatedly let down all my loved ones for the rest of my life. …BUT… none of those other things are things I am currently panicking about at this exact moment, regardless of the anxiety attack I just had in the bathroom. Therefore, not only will I tell you I am doing great if you ask me, but I will say it with a genuine smile, and I promise that in that moment I will believe it just enough that you will too. #FakeItTillYouMakeIt, LOL!1!!
AaaaAAAAaaaah, I got to the sense of creeping dread and you have phrased very wonderfully the very horrible feeling I’ve been struggling with. Some of that might be part of trying to maintain healthy work/fun/sleep boundaries for the sake of self-care that are kind of…maybe impossible to maintain when breaking into and working in career fields that are built on trampling down those boundaries. Even idolizing it.
Grad school is notorious for overworking students and depriving them of sleep in order to keep up and excel, and that’s even held up as a feature instead of a bug. Then we wonder why amphetamine abuse is so high, or why such smart, hard-working people would burn out or die so young from heart disease. I’m sorry you’re being put in such a hard position. If someone is living by 1850s garment factory hours, that’s not a feature to celebrate, it is a flaw in the system and in the people encouraging it.
I am in this picture and I don’t like it
… But my inner mindscape is *complicated*, what with surface thoughts and deeper thoughts and thoughts about thoughts, and thoughts I’m repressing because I don’t want to acknowledge them…
When I was a suicidally depressed teen I played the part of a thick-skimmed, brash, insensitive, thoughtless, hyper-chirpy moron pretty convincingly, because I didn’t really know how to let anybody in, didn’t really believe anybody would want to know the real me, etc. I don’t do that any more, and am a generally open person, but I’m kinda still pretty far from an open book, now I think about it…
Damn you Willis, uncovering my neuroses!!
For someone who doesn’t get into too much drama himself, I think walky beats out even Dina in “I was standing around when everyone got loud about drama so I guess I know about it”. He could be the schools greatest gossip if he cared to be.
Alt-text you mock me.
Exactly.
Beneeth the goof is a very, very good liar. Becky spent her entire life under the radar of a tyrant, she knows perfectly well the value of projecting an image.
But lying wouldn’t help you when you are around good people. Becky’s goofiness camouflages distrusts and paranoia, and it’s quite known, humans can only grow through social bonds.
Well, yeah, all trauma coping mechanisms are to help you survive the traumatic situation and then don’t work when you are no longer in that situation and are surrounded by trustworthy people. But unfortunately, there is no on/off switch for it – you have to learn and acknowledge that these coping mechanisms are no longer useful before you can stop using them.
Take it from me; when you’ve been around bad people enough, it takes a long, long time to teach your brain not to regard everyone as bad people.
It’s usually not even a matter of regarding them as “bad”, but taking long time to regard them as “safe”
Even that may be too conscious – the coping mechanisms become habitual reflexes and are hard to turn off even with safe people.
That said, given her background and how good she is at projecting a persona – Becky is remarkably good at opening up to people like Joyce, Dina, even HANK – a dad from the same background as her own personal tyrant.
She is not as open as, say, Joyce, but she still manage to deal with her trauma in a surprisingly healthy way.
Now that you’ve explained that logically, I’m sure she’ll see your wisdom and just stop.
What alternately amuses and frustrates me is how good she is at projecting it to the audience. How many comments we see about Becky’s inability to keep secrets, for example.
Not today, since it’s explicitly being pointed out to us, but in general.
If this strip had been put up three-four years ago (when those comments were at their most common), I would’ve thought it would be a direct response to those commenters.
I mean, it possibly still is; but at least now it’s delayed enough that most of those commenters won’t see themselves being called out.
Plus, at the time, Cerberus did enough of a job calling them out for that.
It still comes up, we just haven’t focused on anything that would make it apply in awhile.
The pattern’s broader of course. Treating characters surface defense mechanisms as all they are is common. See the talk about Walky over the weekend.
can’t relate
i just isolate myself and never talk to anyone about anything!
Oh good, so I’m not the only one.
Becky: “I have no problems.”
Joyce: “You took an entire day to tell me you got kicked out of college and cried when I told you I am not gay.”
Leslie: “You ran away without telling me and I got worried! A small note would have been enough!”
Dina: “Your mouth tastes like skittles, and that is scary!”
Becky: “Okay, I have many problems.”
Damn, Leslie, way to call out the comment section.
“You think that you know somebody…!” Of course, Becky has spent her whole like trying to stop people from knowing who she really is and she’s pretty much a master of it! At most, you see the person she projects but the actual young woman? Lots unsaid there.
I’m more or less the opposite. I come off as stand-offish and private, but I share well with a small inner circle of friends.
Did I post this comment under a different name? Because it sounds like me, that’s for sure.
Poor, worried Leslie.
My college friend -used to say; “People have their defenses because they need them”
Though often it’s because they needed them. The problems come when they’re not needed anymore, but they’re too ingrained to drop.
Because, “Are you SURE I don’t still need this defense mechanism?” I keep finding new reasons to go back to old habits.
Like talking to people primarily on the internet. …crap.
PTSD is mainly defenses that don’t work in the new situation. Know someone who drove 50,000 miles in Iraq. Yes, it took him a couple years to drive normally and not be spooked by random bits of trash on the road. Hyper-vigilance is a terrible thing and Becky has it.
Awful thing is, she’s going to need that hyper-vigilance again real soon
But oh such a useful thing when you need it.
Anyone who’s purchased one of Willis’ published volumes, does he include the alt-texts in those volumes? It strikes me that that’s some substantial content loss, if he doesn’t.
Oh good. An adult is finally getting involved.
As expected uh. Poor Leslie
She just lost respect and trust in authority…and Leslie was hers for a Lil while, hence…the ghosting
Becky and Sal could open a club then.
I think Becky lost respect for authority a long time ago, and is just worried Lesley would think less of her for working with a bigot