Webcomic / Girls with Slingshots

Girls with Slingshots is a Mundane Fantastic webcomic by Danielle Corsetto about the lives of Hazel and Jamie, their talking cacti, and their friends. The strip takes a lot of its humor from switching the standard gender arrangement of common sex comedy tropes.

Word of God^note see for example the author's blog post for March 16, 2015 on the origin of the strip's name is that before she started the comic, the artist would get a lot of requests to draw pictures of girls with guns. As she doesn't like drawing guns she would draw girls with slingshots instead. In-universe, a slingshot is the name of a strong drink.

It's connected to the Walkyverse by way of Candy's friendship with Davan of Something*Positive and the mutual offspring of Sprinkles and Choo-Choo Bear, one of whom became the pet of Leslie from Shortpacked!.

Corsetto announced on 12/29/14 that at some point in 2015, GWS will end as a webcomic, but will not be the last we see of the characters. The final strip as we know it appeared March 13, 2015. Since then, the comic is being re-released from the beginning in color, with this version referred to as "GWS Chaser."

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Girls with Slingshots contains examples of:

• 555: Poor Jim is given such a number by a girl.
• Accidental Unfortunate Gesture: Hazel and Jamie imagine how Chris the Pirate attempting American Sign Language could go horribly wrong.
• Actually, I Am Him: Hazel sends Erin to spy on Jamie and her "new boyfriend"... when Jamie's actually starting a lesbian relationship with Erin.
• Adorkable: Zach, Joshua and Tucker.
• The Alcoholic: Hazel, a petite woman, is to the point of showing no signs of intoxication until her ninth beer. Played for Laughs, big time.
  Hazel: I'm a high-functioning drunk, Clarice. You know that.
  Clarice: Yeah, but I've been counting bottles and you've crossed your faux-sober threshold.
  Hazel: Eight? Holy shit, I leveled up!
• All Girls Like Ponies: Referenced in this strip.
• All Men Are Perverts:
  • Jamie gets pretty much everything she wants from strange men, thanks to her endowments. When she covers them up, she is shocked that drinks suddenly cost more. Played creepily straight by every male customer of the porn store.
  • Tyler is already a pervert, despite not even having made it to puberty yet. Later, it's revealed that neither he nor his mother actually knows what sex is.
  • Hazel assumes what Zach wants when he offers to drive her home.
• All Women Are Lustful: When all the AA batteries disappear, a mob of women are seen wandering the streets as though society had collapsed. It's started.
  "This is about as close to post-apocalyptic storyline as you're ever gonna get from me." — Danielle Corsetto
• Alt Text: Starts with strip 1054.
• Anatomically Impossible Sex: Angel believes that if two women are having sex, they can't get STDs. Wow. Recent events show that she realized a bit too late that she was wrong.
• And the Adventure Continues: The comic ends with Hazel and Zach walking off into the distance on their way to the café to celebrate the birth of Maureen and Jameson's baby, with Hazel saying she finally has something to write about. In the final panel, McPedro is seen running in the opposite direction, headed to an unknown destination.
• Anything That Moves: Zach's past.
• Art Evolution: Over time, the art style has become more stylized and loose.
• Artistic License – Animal Care: Hazel's attempt to put Sprinkles on a diet of "hippie food", which doesn't go well, leading into...
• Artistic License – Biology: Apparently, Zach's mom is skilled enough to make Sprinkle's farts smell like vanilla sandalwood.
• Asexuality: Erin, Jamie's girlfriend. The issues it causes makes this one of the few comics to tackle the difference between sexuality and romance.
• Author Avatar: Played with. Corsetto herself admits that she has a lot in common with Hazel, in fact Hazel's birthday is the day before Corsetto's.
• Bar Slide: Taken to extremes in this strip.
• The Bartender: Angel. Also Jameson (even if he's actually a barista).
• Bestiality Is Depraved: A one-off character named Joshua describes how his ex-girlfriend was cheating on him with his best friend.
• Beta Couple: Jameson and Maureen become the stable background couple after they get married.
• Better as Friends: How Hazel and Zach decide to settle their relationship at the webcomic's end.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Jamie is sweet and kind until you mess with one of her friends.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Hazel has "length" and "girth" requirements for a man.
• Bilingual Bonus: A rare sign-language one.^Translation "My Valentine"
• Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...: With email.
• Black Comedy Rape: See Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male. This may be the only webcomic where an attempted rape can end with a punch line, and people are willing to roll with it.
• Blatant Lies: Darren tells Chris he doesn't own a computer as he hides his laptop down his pants.
• Blowing Smoke Rings: Jamie's bubble pipe blows heart-shaped bubbles.
• Brains and Bondage: Clarice, one of the more intelligent members of the cast, is a dominatrix. But she dreams of being a librarian.
• Brick Joke:
  • The wedding arc pulls obscure comments from earlier strips and turns them into punchlines. Jameson's remaining hair makes him look like a clown? His parents are clowns. Candy wanted to marry Jameson with as many things as possible made from baby seal leather just to offend Maureen the vegan? She replaces the wedding rings with "100% Baby Seal Leather" rings. The rest of the cast is not amused.
  • This minor arc helped pave the way for Vincent's entrance nearly 400 strips later.
• Bubble Pipe: Jamie has one when she's a "Romance Detective."
• Burger Fool: Thea's job as a wiener snack seller, complete with humiliating hat.
• Butch Lesbian/Lipstick Lesbian: Jamie's Coming-Out Story arc had her visiting a gay bar full of Butch Lesbians. She ends up going home with Lipstick Lesbian Thea instead, and eventually decides she likes her girls girly.
  • Most of the major gay/bisexual girls are Lipstick Lesbians. Even Mimi is more Short Tank than she is butch.
• Butt-Monkey: Tucker, Thea (until they got better), poor Vincent, and Hazel (although in her case most of the time she brings it into herself).
• Buxom Is Better: Jamie, all the way.
  Maureen: Jamie, your breasts are...legendary.
  Jamie: You can say it twice. I consider them each a separate legend.
  • Jamie's sister is even more buxom, to the point even Hazel can get distracted.
• Camp Gay: Darren, all the way, with a heaping helping of Have I Mentioned I am Gay?. The rest of the gay cast are, by comparison, Straight Gay.
• The Casanova/Chivalrous Pervert: Zach, he considers the three hundred women whom he has serviced as a gift to the community. Prior to hooking up with Hazel, he gave virgins a good first time and helped service the elderly to make them feel loved again.
• Cast of Snowflakes: A variety of female (and male) characters with simple but wildly varying body shapes and faces. Even when they dress up as each other for Halloween, it's still possible to tell which character is which.
• Cats Are Mean: Discussed and then subverted.
  Hazel: Cats only have two emotions — "feed me" and "fuck you."
• Cerebus Syndrome: Starting roughly around Volume 3—the original strips were a lot lighter and wackier, with Hazel and Jamie frequently breaking the fourth wall.
• Character Development: Chris started out as a compulsive exaggerator who was universally known for wearing an eye-patch, but becomes a solid recurring character. One strip also lampshades this when no one recognizes Chris until he puts on his eye patch, which he no longer actually needs. He remarks that he knows what his only distinctive characteristic is. It turns out he has another one, but he works pretty hard to keep that one under wraps.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The old man of "Dinosaur Universe".
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Hazel in this strip.
  • Jaimie in this one.
• Commitment Issues: Hazel's refusal to commit or even acknowledge Zach's desire to settle down, becomes the catalyst of their eventual breakup.
• Contrived Coincidence: When Clarice goes to ask Hazel's mom for a job at the library, they're having a going away party for a librarian that is leaving her job. Lampshaded by Clarice and by the author in the Alt Text, where she just admits she couldn't think of something better to write.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Jamie makes Tyler dress as a fairy and return all the batteries he stole.
• Cool Old Lady:
  • Hazel's neighbor who has upstaged and hijacked her parties more than once.
  • Mara Doddridge, one of Clarice's favorite poets. Also of note, the author's grandma as well.
• Crash-Into Hello: How Thea and Mimi meet.
• Crossover:
  • Davan attended Maureen and Jamison's wedding, and recently Sprinkles gave birth to Choo-Choo Bear's babies, one of whom went to Leslie and Robin.
  • A breakdown of the cats and their crossovers is included in this strip◊.
• The Cutie: Jamie. Mimi makes a good case for herself too.
• A Date with Rosie Palms: Masturbation is treated as a casual, fact of life topic. Not that any of the characters are willing to discuss the topic with their mothers, which is the source of a Running Gag with Hazel's mom mistaking various toys as "back-massagers".
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?:
  • Hazel freaks that her comment was supposed to be "inner dialogue."
  • She also slips and refers to Maureen as "Blog Bitch" to her boyfriend. He's understandably furious.
• Did the Earth Move for You, Too?: Played with in this strip.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: Hazel get laid? Hazel get laid!.
• Dirty Old Woman: Hazel's neighbor, who has ordered strippers and had to have her stomach pumped after a wild party.
• Disabled Love Interest: Chris and Melody, although it is played very well and the relationship is fleshed out and realistic.
• Disability Superpower: Do not question the Daredeviless.
• Disappeared Dad: Hazel's father abandoned her and her mother when she was very young. The setup for the comic's finale involves Hazel tracking him down and learning just how much of a deadbeat he really is. While hurt and disappointed, she's glad for the closure.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: Played with. Thea catches a STD from fooling around with Angel. It's just Restless Leg Syndrome.
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • A seldom-seen inversion.
  • Jameson has fallen victim to this a few times.
  • Hazel uses it on Zach.
• Ditzy Genius:
  • Despite being rather immature, Hazel is an extremely talented writer and apparently took accelerated calculus...although Vincent claims to have given her a lot of help with her calculus homework and implied that she wasn't very good at it.
• Dogged Nice Guy: In three flavors: The embittered Jim, the good-intentioned but clueless Tucker, and the more mature Vincent towards Hazel.
• Dope Slap: Jameson gets one.
• Double Standard/ Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male: Discussed and ultimately condemned. Even though Candy tried to rape Chris, Jamie seems horrified at the idea of him macing a girl. However, this was more a demonstration of the gut reaction many people would have; two strips later Jamie defends him from the possibility of Candy macing him, pointing out that it should only be used for self-defence, which makes her feelings clear. Meanwhile Hazel's (and initially Jameson's) reactions are more to do with their views on sex (way to miss the point, Hazel), though Hazel later pinpoints Candy as not a feminist but a straight-up misandrist.
• Drag Queen: Darren
• Dresses the Same: Thea at Mimi's party. For bonus awkwardness, it's the same top as her girlfriend's mother.
• Drunken Master: Hazel is an amazing writer when she's drunk. Her publisher even tells her straight-up that she doesn't have to read an article to know it's quality as long as she knows Hazel wrote it drunk.
• Engineered Public Confession: Jamie nails Hazel with an intercom, letting Jameson know her nasty thoughts about his girlfriend.
• Entitled to Have You: Corsetto's angle for Jim's portrayal.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: The old man of Dinosaur Universe claims that the dinosaurs were taken by aliens to the planet "Bloopiter", which "Is just like Jupiter, only real".
• Even the Girls Want Her: Jamie, who eventually decides that she wants the girls too. But only from the waist up.
• Everybody Knew Already: Subverted - with Jamie "discovering" that Thea and Angel aren't just "playing board games". Only to discover on her "proof" video that it wasn't Thea with Angel on the tape.
• The Faceless: Tyler's mother, whose face is always covered by her speech bubbles.
• Fake Buzz: You'd think a high-functioning alcoholic like Hazel would be able to tell Fiona's flask was full of water.
  • The point was that Hazel was so uncomfortable around her that she'd accept any excuse to feel less weird even if it was patently false.
• False Reassurance: Pulled off in the Alt Text here.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • Candy. A rotten bitch to pretty much everyone, but she's an old friend of Jameson's, so they kind of have to put up with her when Jameson decides to bring her along. Then she pulled that stunt at Jameson's wedding, and Jameson woke up to the fact that "Hey wait, I don't really like Candy either." She and Clarice are still on friendly terms though.
  • Hazel starts to drift towards this territory occasionally, such as when she was threatening to drown all of the kittens just to get rid of them, leading Jamie to wonder "how are we friends?" However, she still seems to be in high standing with the rest of the cast.
    • Hazel was probably being sarcastic with this statement, though. She may be rather self-centered, rude, and irresponsible, but she's not a particularly violent person. She doesn't seem to like animals very much either, but is never shown intentionally abusing them. All in all, it's much too dark for Hazel to seriously suggest that.
• Gag Boobs: Jamie. There's more to her than that, of course...
  Hazel: ... But I asked twenty people the first word they thought of when they think of you, and all of them said "boobs". Even your mom, who added that the second word she thinks of is "boobs".
• Gargle Blaster: The titular slingshot.
• Gender-Blender Name: Hazel mistakes Jamie's girlfriend Erin for a man named Aaron.
  • Which makes panel three here something of a Brick Joke.
• Girl-on-Girl Is Hot:
  • So hot it causes spontaneous combustion.
  • While it didn't go quite so far, it's not the first time someone got Distracted by the Sexy when talking to Jamie about her sex life.
• Gone Horribly Right: Tucker was trying to get Clarice's attention. Boy, did he get it.
• Gonk: The Bearded Lady Fetishist that followed Darren home.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel:
  • We see Thea's here.
  • ... and Hazel's here. The good one has been led astray by the company she keeps.
  • Later Grown-up Hazel shows up.
  • ... and Clarice's here. The good one is dressed just as sexily as the evil one, only in white (Alt Text: "OF COURSE Clarice's angel would have a white corset"), and seems to be ganging up on Clarice with the evil one.
• Grammar Nazi:
  • Maureen cuts Jameson off over a grammar mistake.
  • Thea corrects one of Hazel's speech bubbles.
• Groin Attack: Candy jokingly suggests Clarice do this when meeting men to see if they are into BDSM. Clarice momentarily considers it.
• HAHAHA–No: How Hazel gets turned down by the landlord of the apartment of her dreams.
• Halloween Cosplay: One year, the characters in-strip go the route of pop culture, dressing as Ghostbusters and Smurfs at Halloween. The next year, all the female characters dress as each other. This ends about as well as one might expect. The year after that, they dress as internet phenomena, including Rick Astley, Homestar Runner, Two Girls One Cup, and more.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Hazel and Jamie have a bad habit of waking up unable to remember the night before. While the other female characters all drink, it is guaranteed that Hazel (and most likely Jamie) will go overboard.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Hazel has had to remind people of her hetero-ness more than once, especially in earlier strips when she isn't getting any.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X":
  • Jamie enjoys this type of humor.
  • hee hee, come.
• Hopeless with Tech: One of Hazel's many bizarre cognitive gaps is that she doesn't understand the internet at all, especially social media. She seems to think Facebook is imaginary, forgets that email exists for months at a time, and doesn't realize that writing for a digital magazine means that people will be able to find, read and review her work online.
  • Characterization Marches On / Early Installment Weirdness: During one of the first arcs of the series, Hazel won a blogging contest she'd entered for kicks and giggles.
• Hot Librarian: Averted in Clarice, who tells everyone that she's a librarian when in reality, she is a porn store clerk moonlighting as a dominatrix. She eventually gets to realize her dream.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: While not exactly a hooker (just a porn store clerk and dominatrix for hire), Clarice, since we see her longing for affection.
• Hulk Speak: A very cute version ensues after Hazel gets back from being with Zach. Lampshaded in the alt text ("It's Talk Like a Caveman Day").
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • After insisting that they couldn't sell a cat food that wasn't nutritious, Hazel buys Twinkies.
  • Hazel, masturbation enthusiast, sex-doll user, and generally horny chick, shaming her mother for making out with a guy at a party. The immature Hazel is squicked out at the very thought of her parent having sex, so in her mind it's of course not hypocrisy.
• Idealized Sex: Mostly averted, except when it's funny. One strip even has Mimi explaining the ways lesbians protect themselves during sex, and before that there was an entire storyline about what happens if you don't.
  Mimi: Uh... If oral and fingering are things only lesbians do, then I feel really bad for you straight people.
  Hazel: Oh, wait... oh.
  Alt Text: This is that moment where Hazel goes 'How do I not have a billion STDs.'
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: Jamie. She even forgoes using a coat in the winter because she can't function without the attention.
  • Subverted with Jamie's younger - and more buxom - sister Fiona, who never realizes how her cleavage affects all the guys she tries to hook up with until Jamie gives her a coloring book titled "Our Boobies Are Magic."
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Hazel needs one at the end of this strip.
• I Want Grandkids: Both Hazel and Zach's mothers. His much more so.
• I Taste Delicious: Hazel and Maureen get a moment of this after they get into a fight and spray each other with root beer.
• If Jesus, Then Aliens: Bizarre form.
• Imagine Spot: What Clarice would really like to do to bad customers.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • Angel has trouble finding girls who aren't straight... Jim has trouble finding girls who are.
  • Jamie and Erin are mutually disinterested— Jamie isn't into girls sexually, Erin is just plain asexual. Their relationship gets kind of shaky when Jamie has to deal with sexual frustration, and neither one is into the obvious solution.
• Indulgent Fantasy Segue: The Revenge of the Porn Store Queen.
• Informed Ability: According to everyone who sees her photos, Jamie is a really amazing photographer. However, the audience hardly sees any of her work and what little glimpse we get by way of the background of her gallery show appears to be nothing more than some pedestrian pictures of flowers -not exactly the stuff of solo gallery openings (though the fact the gallery showing Jamie's work is apparently out of touch with the rest of the art world and hasn't had an opening in decades might count as a lampshading of this trope).
• Innocent Inaccurate: Oddly enough, with a grown woman.
• Innocent Innuendo: Jamie assumes when Thea says she's going to clean Angel's carpet that she's talking about lesbian sex. Thea is actually cleaning the carpet in Angel's car from when she vomited the night before.
• Innocently Insensitive: Hazel's not good with lesbians. Or remembering things that mean something to her boyfriend. She eventually gets called on this.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Clarice is a librarian working at a book store.
  • The men are starting a Guys' Club, not a Boys' Club.
• Instant Web Hit: Jamie's "I Just want somebody to Ravage me" outburst.
• Irony: Tucker who at first was smacked by Clarice for his wrong genre savvyness with women and took upon her to teach him "How to talk to Girls 101", ends up giving relationship advice to her.
• Jerkass: Candy. Hazel has her moments of this.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hazel mostly acts immature, selfish and mean. But when push comes to shove she's there for her friends (usually kicking and screaming about it).
  • She enters and wins a blog contest just to keep Maureen and Candy from fighting more.
• Joisey: Various cities and towns in New Jersey are mentioned as being close by. It seems to take place in the New Brunswick^note Not the province area. When Hazel goes to the Big Applesauce she takes the train. The writer is probably a local.
• Karma Houdini: Candy tried to rape Chris. Everyone's response? Get her a job as a dominatrix so that she has a healthy outlet.
  • She finally gets her comeuppance for everything—after her prank at the wedding, the entire group turned their backs on her. She hasn't appeared in the strip since...unless you count some stuttering steps toward redemption in crossover strips from Something*Positive. She eventually reappeared, greatly alarming Jameson. The way he acted, you'd think he was the one she tried to rape.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Poor Thea.
• Lap Pillow: Jamie does this with Hazel at a meetup spot Zach recommended.
• Left Hanging: The webcomic ended with several plotlines unresolved: So what's Maureen and Jameson's baby's name? Will Hazel reconsider moving in with Vincent? And what's Vincent's side of the story on this? Is McPedro an alien?
• Les Yay: Invoked by Jamie, most likely to good-naturedly push Hazel's buttons.
• Lethal Chef: Hazel can start a fire boiling water. Protip: Don't do it in a cast-iron skillet in the microwave.
• Loads and Loads of Characters
• Magic Realism: Rule of Fun often brings this into effect, such as with the laser tag game that makes your clothes disappear. The presence of talking house plants presents a Running Gag as cast members are seen conversing with the plants for the first time. They're always very relieved to find out they're not the only ones that have been hearing the plants talk.
• Malaproper: Chris can't keep his sexual innuendos straight.
• Male Gaze: Jamie's sister, Fiona, is able to induce this even in Hazel.
• Marshmallow Hell: Jamie's ...tracts of land are so large that her poor kitten frequently ends up lost in her cleavage. One strip, however, implies that in a former life, the kitten was a soldier who died a virgin, so in a way, he's getting his wish. He also wanted to come back as a kitten. If that soldier is that kitten, this a definite hero's reward.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Scott had a tendency towards this.
• Maternally Challenged: Hazel is terrified of kids. She can't even figure out how to hold one.
• Meat Versus Veggies: Candy Versus Maureen.
• Meganekko: Maureen.
• Medium Awareness: Here.
• Mood Whip Lash: When things get too serious always expect a throwaway gag to attempt to lighten the mood, one example is when Zach breaks up with Hazel.
• Ms. Fanservice: Jamie and her younger sister Fiona.
• My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Hazel's ovaries start talking to her. She resists them at every turn, even threatening to cut them out and sell them if they don't shut up.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: Jamie inverts it perfectly.
• Naked People Are Funny: Hazel's trip to the nude beach and Strip Scrabble.
• Nerds Are Virgins: Played straight with Joshua, who until Clarice admits never being in a relationship before.
• Never Bareheaded: Jameson is never seen without his bandana. When the girls decide to find out what's underneath it, they find another bandana. Maureen even says he wears it to bed and during sex. When they finally do get it off of him, they find out he's hiding an embarrassing balding pattern.
• Nice Hat: Jamie's bear hat.
• No Ending: The series ends with Hazel getting rescued from her finally-gone old car with Zach and her coming to terms with their relationship. It's part of a story arc where Hazel re-acquaints herself with her long-lost father, and realizes how horrible a person he is and how she won't end up like her father. But the series itself ends with Maureen giving birth off-screen, and with a hint that not all plots have been resolved.
• No Fourth Wall: Often and explicitly.
• "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: discussed, though legally, Tyler's mother's lack of understanding of what sex even is would make proper consent difficult if not impossible.
• Noodle Incident: "Best ER story ever."
• Non-Human Sidekick: McPedro,the talking Scirish cactus. McPedro's mustache is, in turn, a Non-Human Sidekick himself, as he runs away from McPedro and travels the world. And he's French. And gay!
• The Nudifier: Lasers that remove your clothes, and save them for later, used in playing Strip Laser Tag.
• Oh, Crap!: The reaction of pretty much everyone (in-universe and outside) of Hazel's reaction here.
• One of the Boys: Hazel, to the point where she hangs out with the guys during the bachelor party and is repeatedly mentioned as actually being the guy in her relationship (including shallowness and refusal to think about the "future" beyond lovemaking).
• Only Six Faces: Lampshaded when Clarice and Maureen are undecided on their costumes for Halloween.
• Painting the Medium: "I've never seen so many stars come out of one woman's crotch!"
• Pink Elephants: The mysterious flask from the wedding produces this.
  Jamie: What the hell was in that flask?
  Hazel: I dunno. Sammy said it was "special alcohol."
  Jamie: Sammy?
  Hazel: Yeah, Sammy the one-eyed talking platypus.
  Jamie: WHAT THE HELL WAS IN THAT FLASK?
• Poisonous Friend: Candy, to Jameson. She tells herself that her vitriolic attempts to sabotage his relationship with Maureen are just harmless pranks that Maureen is too sensitive to appreciate, until finally she pushes Jameson to the breaking point at the wedding.
• Prince Charming Wannabe: Jim doesn't get that his romantic gestures come off as creepy.
• Punny Name:
  • Tweeney Sodd, who eventually robs Jameson of his remaining tuft of hair.
  • Melody, who is deaf.
• Really Gets Around:
  • Angel has apparently slept with just about every lesbian in the area.
  • Zach also counts, before and after his relationship with Hazel.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Hazel doesn't like dressing in "girly" clothes. She panics when Jamie takes her lingerie shopping - in her own words, she doesn't wear lingerie, she wears underwear.
• Released to Elsewhere: 29 year-old Hazel finally learns that her Cocker Spaniel, Buddy, was never on a "business trip as an investigative reporter".
• Rule 63: Done by the artist herself! She thinks boy-type Jamie is very cute.
• Scotireland: McPedro's accent is supposed to be Irish, but he speaks stereotypical Scottish.This may be due to his existence as a drunken delusion of Hazel's, although he later points it out and refers to his accent as "Scirish."
• Selective Obliviousness: Hazel can't seem to grasp that lesbian sex isn't limited to strap-ons.
• Serious Business: Batteries have gone missing? This looks like a job for...
  Hazel: The Romance Detective? Really?
  Jamie: If this isn't a crime against romance, I don't know what is.
• Sex Sells: Used very early on.
• Shared Universe:
  • With Something*Positive (and by extension, Punch an' Pie). And by extension of those, with Shortpacked! (the mascot kitties of Something Positive and GWS had a litter, one of the kittens is adopted by Leslie in Shortpacked.)
  • Robyn from All New Issues is apparently Hazel's cousin.
• Ship Sinking: Hammered home when Angel not only screws someone else behind Thea's back, but tells Thea they were never in a real relationship to begin with. Ouch.
• Shout-Out:
  • Possibly unintentional, but both of Thea's romantic interests have had the same name as a character from RENT.
  • One in poor taste in a guest comic.
• Shrinking Violet: Maureen.
• Silent Snarker: Melody.
• Slurpasaur: During Jameson and Maureen's honeymoon arc, they visit a dinosaur theme park chock-full of these:
  • "That's a giraffe painted green".
  • "You'll notice that the triceratops has not grown its horns yet".
• So My Mom Can Read: As the Alt Text for this strip puts it, "I really want to do a 'Day in the Life of Clarice' storyline, but I think my mom would stop reading."
• The Speechless: Maureen's sister, who is deaf. She can still sign and text people, though.
• Spit Take: When Jamie tells Hazel she slept with her boss.
• Stalker With a Crush: Jamie's secret admirer.
• STD Immunity: Averted with Angel and Thea, where the latter picks up a scorching case of restless leg syndrome.
• Stealth Pun:
  • The graphing calculator has functions.
  • They don't get it.
  • Hazel fails to complete an obvious pun about lesbians and, ahem, felines.
• Straw Vegetarian: Maureen gets ill at the mention of eating meat.
• Strip Poker: Strip Scrabble and then later Strip Laser Tag, complete with lasers that remove your clothes.
• Technical Virgin: Jamie, despite having several dates that had "happy endings," has never gone all the way. She seems to believe as long as she has an intact hymen she counts as one since she had (implied disastrous) sex with her girlfriend Erin before she left for England but mentioned later when Hazel had an STD scare that she was still a virgin.
• The Talk: Hazel and Clairce give it to not only Tyler but also his mother when they discover neither knows where babies come from.
• That Came Out Wrong: Thea's boss at the roller-rink has a really bad habit of throwing these out there, given their job... and his name.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Tucker scoring with hottie, Fiona.
• Token Minority Couple: A story arc built around subverting Type B: the two lesbians in the regular cast finally meet, with a long buildup to their first date...only to find that they have nothing in common. They do have a lengthy friendship with benefits, though.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Several different characters have had their moments, Angel's belief that lesbians cannot give each other STDs probably qualifies.
  • Hazel. Really, without her mom and her friends to run damage control on her constant poor decisions she may very well have been dead by now, or at the very least broke, jobless and homeless.
    • How she set on fire the kitchen of her old apartment deserves special mention.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Threatening to beat a dominatrix has no effect except her admiring your weapon.
• Umbrella Drink: Because even a Gargle Blaster tastes better with umbrellas.
  "Everything tastes better with an umbrella."
• The Unfair Sex:
  • Avoided with the crisis in Hazel and Zach's relationship, in which Hazel is clearly portrayed as being mostly to blame.
  • It was discussed earlier when giving advice to Dogged Nice Guy Jim about lavishing attention on a woman prior to dating, particularly the last panel.
• Unnecessary Makeover: In-Universe. Maureen, after sex-toy-purveyor Clarice questions her ability to be sexy. Somewhat averted as the makeover doesn't take, and it is specifically stated that the makeover took away what made her sexy in the first place.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Hazel is negligent of her friends and family, incapable of rationally advancing her own interests, and often completely oblivious to the world around her. She drinks to excess, carries a host of un-examined prejudices, and pursues her own sexual appetites obsessively while acting prudish and judgemental towards others. Her complete unwillingness to change or compromise leads to the end of one relationship and prevents her from starting any new ones, and her friends are left to accept her as a jerk with some fundamentally decent qualities.
• Unusual Euphemism:
  • Angel and Thea playing board games in the back room.
  • "Giant Sea Cucumber!"
  • ''Talk you guys!"
• Victoria's Secret Compartment:
  • Jamie. She keeps the world's luckiest kitten in there.
  • Fiona, Jamie's sister. She keeps booze in there.
• Wham Line: Uttered by Jamie, of all people.
  "Hazel, I hate to say this... You sound like your father."
• What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Inverted in-universe. Hazel seems to produce all her best work when off her face.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Delivered as the Wham Line above, when Hazel reveals that she wants to move with Dogged Nice Guy Vincent as roommates only to use him and his financial history for her own benefit.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Quoth Word of God in a January 2015 news post: "GWS takes place in the real-life town of Frederick, Maryland if Frederick consisted of all the cool shit in Shepherdstown, West Virginia and the whole thing was dropped into western New Jersey with a train stop that runs to New York."
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Darren, the resident Drag Queen.
• Will They or Won't They?: Hazel and Zach, Thea and Angel, Clarice and Joshua; #1 and #3 they do, but it hasn't worked well for Hazel though.
• Womanchild: Hazel. At first Played for Laughs, until her immaturity started to cause friction in her relationship with Zach, culminating in him breaking up with her.
• Worth It: Seen here.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Tucker thinks his stalking behavior will work because of romantic comedies.
• Women Are Wiser: Inverted. When they were a couple, Zach was much more mature than Hazel to the point that people called him "the girl" in their relationship:
  Zach: If you were the boyfriend, I'd be cutting you off from sex for a week.
• You Need to Get Laid: Vincent's employees try to set him up with Hazel for this reason.
• You No Take Candle : Hazel's "special" cat is shown to think in LOLCatspeak.
• Your Mom: seen here. Recycled later when Hazel's mom arranges the Halloween party.

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