Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 3751-3755 (28th May to 1st June 2018)
A small perverse otter:
--- Quote from: Bad Superman on 01 Jun 2018, 09:05 ---
--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 01 Jun 2018, 08:52 ---
--- Quote from: Bad Superman on 01 Jun 2018, 08:15 ---Regarding today's comic... am I the only one who gets a somewhat... manic(?) vibe from Hannelore..?
Especially her face in the last panel.
The little lines below her eyes? The way she's grinning? Crocodile wrestling?
I don't know... It doesn't look... healthy.
--- End quote ---
The reason the Hanners is off traveling the world is that she realized she had experienced a slough of new emotions when she told her mother off. She'd always been limited and defined by her disabilities and she felt like she'd very suddenly transcended many of them. (We, looking in from the outside, saw her gradual transition, but Hanners had not perceived that.) Suddenly, she's free!
But what does that do to her limits? What can she do now that she couldn't do before? Suddenly, this collared person is loose. She's experiencing something the rest of experience as we become adults: freedom from external constraints and acquisition of normal internal self-regulation. What can she do?
She's got to find out by testing her limits. Most of us do that during our teen years -- and we get the pure joy of learning "hey, I *can* do that" as well as the occasional "You know that thing you just did? Don't do it again."
So, crocodile wrestling and yak herding? You can't know until you try.
And besides, it's a very small crocodile.
--- End quote ---
And that's the part I'm not really buying.
I may not be an expert in that field, but I think it's fair to assume, that one does not get rid of years and years (and years!) of severe mental health problems in one single "Heureka!"-moment.
To me it seems too much and too sudden.
--- End quote ---
But you're right: it would be too much and too sudden -- if it hadn't been foreshadowed by other events in the comic. That's why it's important that we've seen Hanners' growth from the outside. It isn't that she grew suddenly, but rather that she suddenly realized that she had grown. In confronting her mother, she realized that however she'd been in the past, she could be scared and work through it. We see that in the first two panels where she self-coaches that she *can* do it, and that it will be all right and it will be cute and (most importantly) that she isn't going to panic.
Being scared is a rational response to doing something scary, and, as her companion AI points out, there are things which could go wrong with the piercing. Differentiating between that fear and the irrational fear which lies in overresponding to it is also rational. Hanners is scared -- as she should be -- but she doesn't panic. Seriously, if I were her -- speaking for a friend here, of course -- I'd be utterly thrilled.
awgiedawgie:
--- Quote from: NemesisDancer on 01 Jun 2018, 04:51 ---Yay Hannelore :D
The piercer in today's strip looks familiar - has she been in a previous comic?
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: BenRG on 01 Jun 2018, 05:02 ---I believe that she did Claire's ears and septum peircing. She may have also been the lady who handled Tai's piercing in a somewhat... er... 'intimate' area.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Welu on 01 Jun 2018, 05:36 ---Claire's ears and septum was a different person. They do work in the same shop as who did Tai's piercing. This new place has the same wording sign but a different design. The character design might be based on the same person as Tai's piercer, probably a real person Jeph knows, but it's hard to tell because we're seeing different sides and can't compare tattoos easily.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Theta9 on 01 Jun 2018, 06:43 ---Am I the only one who remembers the server who gave Clinton advice about Brun and then shook him down for a Ben?
--- End quote ---
We have now seen two different girls working at the tattoo/piercing place, plus the guy who did both of Claire's piercings. The waitress who shook Clinton down was not one of them. All of the girls are a similar type, but their tattoos are all different. So is their hair, but hair is easier to change than tattoos are.
* The girl who pierced Tai's lady bits
* The girl at the front desk
* The guy who did both Claire's ears and septum
The shop Hanners went to is a different one (the exterior and interior of the building are completely different), and is probably not anywhere near Massachusetts, since this was at least a few days after Hanners started off on her walkabout (it was originally posted on Patreon right before this strip).
Bad Superman:
--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 01 Jun 2018, 09:24 ---But you're right: it would be too much and too sudden -- if it hadn't been foreshadowed by other events in the comic. That's why it's important that we've seen Hanners' growth from the outside. It isn't that she grew suddenly, but rather that she suddenly realized that she had grown. In confronting her mother, she realized that however she'd been in the past, she could be scared and work through it. We see that in the first two panels where she self-coaches that she *can* do it, and that it will be all right and it will be cute and (most importantly) that she isn't going to panic.
Being scared is a rational response to doing something scary, and, as her companion AI points out, there are things which could go wrong with the piercing. Differentiating between that fear and the irrational fear which lies in overresponding to it is also rational. Hanners is scared -- as she should be -- but she doesn't panic. Seriously, if I were her -- speaking for a friend here, of course -- I'd be utterly thrilled.
--- End quote ---
I agree that, for someone like Hannelore, confronting her mother was a big thing. Perhaps even the biggest thing in her life, in terms of a personal breakthrough. Maybe I did not see that at the time, since I was one of the people who did not like the "Tilly / Hannelore vs. Beatrice"-storyarc, to say the least.
So, yes, Hannelore may have made some significant progress in that arc, but I still think that a majority of her anxieties and other issues are still there. Such things don't just vanish. Maybe she's riding on a wave of endorphins and adrenaline right now, I don't know, but I am concerned with what happens when that wave breaks...
In other words, should Hannelore come back from her journey and just be 'completely healed', I would consider that to be pretty unrealistic...
Lastly, regarding the piercing:
When I had my tattoo done back in 2008/09, I was rather calm. Or better: I was calm, until the tattoo-artist drew the first real line of ink near my elbow. At that point I had a sudden flash of realization:
"I cannot back out anymore! This will stay there FOREVER! Hell, I'm really doing this!"
Then the adrenaline kicked in and everything was fine. I would say it was a pretty enjoyable experience, even with the pain that is necessarily involved. The finished product now covers my upper right arm, including the deltoid, and I would not have it any other way. :-D
A small perverse otter:
--- Quote from: Bad Superman on 01 Jun 2018, 11:27 ---[...] So, yes, Hannelore may have made some significant progress in that arc, but I still think that a majority of her anxieties and other issues are still there. Such things don't just vanish. Maybe she's riding on a wave of endorphins and adrenaline right now, I don't know, but I am concerned with what happens when that wave breaks...
In other words, should Hannelore come back from her journey and just be 'completely healed', I would consider that to be pretty unrealistic...
--- End quote ---
No question about it, she's never going to be completely 'healed', but she has developed a set of coping behaviors which bring her mental illnesses under more, if not complete, control. She can self-coach to get past the some anxiety attacks. She can vent enough to handle cleaning out a stable. That doesn't mean she won't have to wash her hands a few times extra every day, and it doesn't mean she won't ever panic, it just means she can function in ways she could never manage before.
Theta9:
--- Quote from: awgiedawgie on 01 Jun 2018, 09:59 ---
--- Quote from: Theta9 on 01 Jun 2018, 06:43 ---Am I the only one who remembers the server who gave Clinton advice about Brun and then shook him down for a Ben?
--- End quote ---
We have now seen two different girls working at the tattoo/piercing place, plus the guy who did both of Claire's piercings. The waitress who shook Clinton down was not one of them. All of the girls are a similar type, but their tattoos are all different. So is their hair, but hair is easier to change than tattoos are.
--- End quote ---
Ah, well, all these tattooed women with colored hair look the same to me.
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