Better Days (Webcomic)

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Lucy, Sheila and Fisk Black.

Better Days includes examples of:

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A-K

Absentee Actor: Lucy is entirely absent from 'Reconciliation', and Fisk is entirely absent from 'Lucy Black' right after.

Aerith and Bob: While every other character whose first name is mentioned has a typical American one, Fisk has a last
Anachronism Stew: Fisk suggesting to Elizabeth to go to the movies seeing Happy Tree Friends. This scene is set in 1982; however, Happy Tree Friends was a series of Internet cartoons, not a theatrical release, so this was likely intentional.
Animal Stereotypes: Two characters are explicitly said to be weasels: Randy, who has a penchant for infidelity and lies to Lucy about using a condom without knowing she’s on the pill, and Ralphie, Persia’s pimp, who claims ‘there’s no such thing as right and wrong’ and keeps her addicted to heroin.
Appetite = Health: Increased appetite is used as a sign that Persia is recovering after Fisk rescues her from prostitution and heroin.
Armor-Piercing Question:
- Lucy fills in for a colleague who hosts a show giving listeners relationship advice, a listener calls in to complain about women choosing their mate by superficial standards and should want him for who he is. She then asks him who he is, so he thinks for a moment and realises who he is is far from appealing.
- After Elizabeth catches David cheating on her with their neighbour:
  Amy: Elizabeth. Do you really love David?
  (Elizabeth stares into thin air in shock)
  Lucy: Now THERE’S a pause.
Arranged Marriage: Elizabeth’s mother has the nasty habit of trying to govern Elizabeth’s love life, to make sure she marries a Jew.^note Unable to work up the courage to defy her, she winds up in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful husband, whom she ultimately leaves for Fisk at the end of the comic.
Asian and Nerdy: Aron, for a given value of ‘Asian’.
Aside Glance: Used on occasion as a reaction to obnoxious or stupid remarks by others.
Attack Its Weak Point: Lucy is instructed to defeat the Evil Sorceress, the Big Bad of the role-playing game she participates in, by finding the ‘Pink Pearl’ hidden among her tentacles, that ‘no man can find’, but Lucy might, as she’s a woman. Lucy’s reaction is an Aside Glance. When she succeeds, the Sorceress clearly looks like she’s had an orgasm, and asks Lucy to ‘do that again’.
Audio Erotica: Lucy’s boss tells her to aim for that when she has to fill in for a colleague who gives relationship advice.
Author Appeal: There are lots of shots of women’s derrieres. Lots and lots of ‘em. Disturbingly Lampshaded in a minor gag, in which Fisk is partially an Author Avatar, remarking on how he likes drawing Sheila.
Author Filibuster: Frequently, on the subject of politics and his personal philosophy, and his view of art as an extension thereof.
Author Tract: Moderate example—Fisk’s philosophy often overlapped with Naylor’s, starting from Conservatism to Objectivism, but he points out that it’s his own philosophy and doesn’t invalidate others. Later on Naylor stated that Fisk’s ideology no longer represents his own, after Fisk becomes an agent for a private special ops organisation.
Awful Wedded Life: A visitor at the gallery Beth’s works are displayed at seems to think so about marriage in general.
Babies Ever After: Persia and her boyfriend.
Badass Israeli: Mrs. Catadze sends Fisk to Israel to train there in fighting in populated areas, citing how Israel has to constantly fight for its survival.
Bait-and-Switch: After the three previous comics imply Lucy will sever Randy’s penis with shearers for dating her and Andrea simultaneously, keeping them both a secret from each other, and for lying about using a condom when sleeping with her, it turns out she only intended to cut his hair.
Balcony Wooing Scene: Tommy flees his home after the Rachel vilifies Lucy to Tommy's parents. Tommy resorts to lobbing pebbles at Lucy's upstairs window in the Monday 23 October 2006 strip. The window is open, so one pebble bips off Lucy's shoulder. This leads to a face-to-face discussion that furthers their relationship.
Batman Gambit: It’s implied that Fisk’s monologue to Carlos when he wanted to kill himself was this. Original Life shows it works.
Be a Whore to Get Your Man:
- Lucy goes to a clothing shop literally named ‘No, I’m Not a Prostitute Boutique’ in hopes of getting more male attention.
- Very much averted in the case of Tommy and Rachel—her indiscriminate promiscuity is one of the main reasons he leaves her, the other being Lucy.
Between My Legs: Beth and Jessica, when Marvin Lipschitz chides them (among others) for their actions leading up to the bachelor/ette party stripper fiasco, are seen this way, along with Marvin’s enormous pixellated genitalia.
Be Yourself: Subverted in this comic.
Listener: [Women] say I don’t exercise and I’m overweight. They laugh at the cartoon character T-shirts I wear. but, I shouldn’t have to change any of that, because I want women to love me for who I am.
Lucy: Well, that begs the question, Bill: who are you?
(Beat)
Listener: Um... a broke, unemployed man who dresses like a child and doesn’t take care of his body?
Big "WHAT?!": Sheila’s reaction when ten-year-old Fisk tells her he had sex with Nikki.
Bi the Way: When Persia first meets her boyfriend, he’s kicking his boyfriend out of his home.
Black and Nerdy: The comic portrays Africans as hyenas. In one strip, there’s a nerd club and one of the members is a hyena.
Blatant Lies: Randy lies about his fidelity to get into Lucy’s pants.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Fisk believes that in war, both sides genuinely believe what they’re fighting for is right. However, as their ideas cannot coexist, ultimately Violence Is the Only Option.
Blunt "Yes": In the very first comic.
Lucy: Ooo! Does my brother have a crush?
Fisk: Yes.
Lucy: Could you at least pretend to be embarrassed? For my sake!?
Braids, Beads and Buckskins:
- Marissa uses this for her Halloween costume.
- The male stripper ‘Long Creek’ exploits this trope.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: In a one-off joke in the first chapter, Lucy wonders why Cindy is so popular among the boys in her school. Naylor makes it abundantly clear.
Lucy: Thanks for illustrating it so blatantly.
Naylor: Anytime.
Lucy: I’ll bet.
Brick Joke:
- In this comic, Elizabeth complains about how her mother will eventually try to set her up with a doctor, the awkward and undesirable qualities thereof she will completely ignore. Fast forward to this comic, in which Elizabeth’s mother tries to hook Sheila up with a nerdy-looking Jewish man who talks about keeping ferrets as pets.
- Tommy, an engineering student, dismisses an artist who used a jet engine as a tool for painting, saying he’d rather hang the engine itself on his wall. By the end of the chapter, he does.
- Aron asks Lucy for a Mountain Dew when she gets up to get drinks when she plays a role-playing game with Tommy and his friends. At the end of the chapter, there are several empty bottles in front of him and he’s all jittery, implying he got a sugar rush, and he’s still asking for another bottle.
- A possibly accidental one: when Fisk is in elementary, he writes an essay specifying some of the reasons he appreciates living in the US, starting with things like personal freedom but quickly starts expanding on American food he likes. Near the end of the comic, when he comes home from six months in Singapore, Lucy tries to hook him up with Elizabeth, but all he can think about is ‘having a real American cheeseburger’.
Broken Pedestal: Subverted—see Phony Veteran below.
Brother–Sister Incest: Fisk and Lucy. Played for Drama, and both characters are very torn about it.
- Twincest
Brutal Honesty:
- In a meta-sense, Naylor illustrates to Lucy why her classmate Cindy is popular among the boys.
- Cindy explains to Fisk why she prefers their Dumb Jock schoolmate over her.
- When Elizabeth tells Lucy she could have Fisk, Lucy tells her she couldn’t, because she doesn’t have the courage to stand up to her mother and her opposition to her dating a ‘goy’.
- When Lucy wonders if she should commit to Tommy or not, this exchange happens:
  Amy: Tommy’s a sweet guy with a bright future. What benefit could there be to straying around with other guys?
  Jessica: Beth would know! Let’s ask her!
  Beth: (Spit Take)
- Near the end of the comic, Lucy gives Elizabeth a sorely needed call-out, telling her she’s been letting her mother make all of her life choices for her all her life.
Buxom Is Better: Lucy’s classmate Cindy’s main appeal.
Calling the Old Woman Out:
- Persia does not take her mother’s Stage Mom behaviour and her ban on dating until marriage (while dating a string of men in quick succession) lying down and lashes out at her as a teen. Ultimately, they have a huge fight when she’s in her twenties, and she leaves for L.A. Suffice to say, it does not go well.
- Averted with Elizabeth, who winds up in a loveless marriage to please her mother. Presumably, she eventually does, as she leaves her husband for Fisk, but it’s never shown.
Captain Obvious: Minor example with Elizabeth near the end of the comic, when Lucy tries to set her up with Fisk after she catches her husband David cheating on her.
Lucy: You know... my brother’s coming home from his trip, this weekend...
Elizabeth: Fisk?
Lucy: Well, I don’t have another brother.
Casting Couch: Lucy complains about her colleague doing it to Tommy.
Chekhov's Gunman:
- Marvin Lipschitz, Elizabeth’s well-endowed Halloween party date, later becomes a stripper and reasons away a major conflict among the main cast.
- Ryan Tobs, Sam’s son and Fisk’s friend, lands him the job he has by the end of the comic.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Happens mainly to several minor characters, but also gradually happens to notable characters like Sheila Black, Rachel, and the couple of Robert and Jessica as they drift in and out of Fisk’s and Lucy’s lives.
Comically Missing the Point:
- When young Fisk wants to make a good impression on the girl he’s into, Lucy tells him the story of how David got 200 Philistine foreskins for King Saul when he wanted to marry his daughter. Fisk asks, ‘What’s a foreskin?’ Later, he interprets the story at face value and tries to bring her father a wagon full of ‘lawyer foreskins’ (actually just pigskins) because he’s heard him say he hated lawyers.
- Beth is surprised to see Jessica coming back pregnant from her honeymoon and asks how that happened. Jessica explains.
- When Elizabeth tells Fisk they should start doing ‘what comes after marriage’, he pauses and asks, ‘We should start fighting?’
Coming-of-Age Story: Following Fisk and Lucy from when they’re 9 and into adulthood.
Commitment Issues: Lucy deals with those at the beginning of ‘Men and Women’, when she considers moving in with Tommy.
Contrived Coincidence: Both Jessica’s bachelorette party and Robert’s bachelor party are scheduled at the same time and place, with only a door between the two.
Country Matters: Rachel calls Lucy that after Lucy performs oral sex on him.
Country Mouse: Beth takes Fisk, Lucy, and Tommy on a trip to New York, on a first-class flight in a fancy hotel, when she gets invited to display her work at an art gallery there. Fisk and Tommy are noticeably unaccustomed to the luxury—they parody high society city mannerisms, Tommy abuses the abundant champagne offered on the flight and he mistakes a bidet for a toilet.
Covert Pervert:
- Lucy drunkenly mentions Amy is this.
- Lucy peeps for a bit too long when she catches Beth and Aron in the act.
Cranial Eruption: Jessica sports one of those, having falling asleep and bumping her head after she snaps out of being almost catatonic with joy about Robert proposing.
Creator Thumbprint: Explicitly stated Aesops concerning self-reliance and individualism, influenced in part by his divisive political philosophy. Also, gratuitous focus on women’s backsides.
Creepy Souvenir: One of the men Sheila tries dating tells her, ‘Kelly tells me you like soldiers. I have a collection of Vietnamese hands under glass at home...’
Cultural Cringe: Fisk defies this in at least two of his essays.
Cute Little Fangs: Randy uses those for his vampire costume for the Halloween dance.
Dangerously Short Skirt: Rachel’s usual attire.
Dark Is Not Evil: Fisk likes playing black when he plays chess (fittingly, his last name is Black), as it relates to his notion of war as the result of Blue-and-Orange Morality resulting in Violence Is the Only Option.
Dating What Daddy Hates: Or mommy, rather—Tommy’s mother is displeased with him dating Lucy, an atheist. His father is just concerned he might be gay.
Deadpan Snarker: Some characters engage in it on occasion. Fisk starts early enough to get in trouble.
Deep South: Mostly averted, even though all of them live in small town Georgia—Tommy even points out that Lucy barely has an accent. The main exception is Sheila (to a moderate extent), who ignores the blatant anti-Native American statements in Fisk’s essay, grew up using the N-word liberally, and owns a commemorative Robert E. Lee garden gnome.
Delusions of Eloquence: When Aron goes sailing with Beth, he starts spewing random nautical jargon. Beth tells him he has no idea what he’s saying.
Dirty Kid: Played for Drama with Shanikwa. The reason she's sexually active at eleven years old is because she's being molested by her father.
Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male: Subverted. While Nikki essentially raping Fisk is initially Played for Laughs, it’s quickly acknowledged it’s a symptom of something horrible she’s suffered, and there is serious concern for Fisk’s emotional well-being.
Dramatic Irony: Sheila is glad Fisk and Ryan are working at a safer job now. They’re actually working for the same secret special ops organisation Fisk’s father died working for.
Dream Sequence:
- Lucy has one, in which Fisk creeps into her room to have sex with her.
- Fisk dreams about talking camel spiders when deployed in Iraq.
- Lucy dreams Aron calls her out on watching him and Beth having sex. When she feigns innocence, he demonstrates.
Driven to Suicide: Narrowly averted twice.
- Fisk’s war buddy Carlos White asks for Fisk to get him his gun from his upper floor (as he physically can't reach it), but Fisk refuses. Carlos tries to convince him his life is no longer worth living, but Fisk still refuses, and starts crying when he goes out. (Fortunately, Original Life shows that that moment motivated him to rebuild his life and function again.)
- Sparky, the receptionist from Brasilia Exposed, almost shoots herself in the mouth over guilt from getting Persia taken by a prostitution ring before Fisk stops her at the last second.
Dumb Blonde: Jessica. Fortunately, she’s of the Dumb Is Good variety.
Jessica: Beth, I had a thought...
Beth: Stop the presses!
Earn Your Happy Ending: Lampshaded by Fisk on the final comic.
Fisk: With all I’ve been through the future can only hold better days.
Easter Egg:
- Along with The Economist, Wild Frontier, and Better Homes — Gardens, one of the magazines in the Wondrous Ladies Room Fisk gets the rare chance of seeing is titled Teddy Bear Monthly.
- The newspaper Tommy’s father is reading in this comic has the headlines ‘Cynthia Tucker Eat My Balls’ and ‘With Mustard’. Later on, Sheila is reading a newspaper with the headline ‘Cynthia Tucker: Whore’. Naylor seems to really hate her...
Erotic Eating: Sexually-frustrated Sheila looks at a banana in despair and relishes eating it. When Fisk interrupts her, she snaps at him for hardly any reason. In the next comic, she confides in Kelly (Elizabeth’s mother) that she indeed hasn’t had a man since Longfellow, i.e. in about four or five years.
Eye Dialect: Mostly averted, despite it being implied that characters have varying levels of a southern accent, but there are a few examples on occasion.
Fanservice: Not limited to Naylor’s pornfolios—there’s plenty of shots of female butts, panty-clad or otherwise, within the actual strip.
- For the female readers, most of the men tend to be shirtless every now and then throughout the comic (especially Fisk).
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Some species represent specific groups: cats are white, mice are Jewish^note, and hyenas are black; also, while there have been no answers from the Word of God, there’s a number of hints that rabbits are analogues for Irish descent, but in Original Life Red the otter is said to be Irish.
Fille Fatale: Nikki, played tragically due to being abused by her father. She eventually gets better with a lot of counseling.
Fluffy the Terrible: The little girl in the role-playing game Lucy, Tommy, and their friends play has a pet named Puffle’s who’s sick. Justified, as she is the Evil Sorceress in disguise.
Lucy: Where is Mr. Puffles?
Girl: Over there, eating people.
Forbidden Fruit: Elizabeth’s parents discuss this when she goes on her first date with Fisk, regarding him not being Jewish.
Foreshadowing:
- There are occasional subtle hints at Fisk and Lucy having an incestuous relationship early on.
- Fisk saying that the only truly ‘bad idea’ is one that takes away self-determination. Later on, near the end of the comic, he rescues Persia from her pimp, using the pimp’s own ‘morality’ that he’s been using to justify keeping Persia prisoner to justify killing him, explicitly telling Persia no-one has the right to enslave her, and in the last two chapters Elizabeth finally does away with her preoccupation with not crossing her mother and her aversion towards marriage between Jews and gentiles and leaves her husband for Fisk.
- Early on, Fisk is shown to be a good marksman, an early hint that he'll follow his father's footsteps and join the army.
Furry Confusion:
- The feral dogs raiding the wagon full of pigskins.
- A man Sheila goes on a date with talks about keeping ferrets as pets.
- Beth talks about the wide array of dildos, mentioning a variety of species they’re modelled after. As the pornfolios and the uncensored version of the nudist colony arc in Original Life show the cast all have human genitalia, it seems to imply these are based on feral animals.
Furry Reminder: On occasion.
- Sheila telling Fisk not to lay his ears when he talks to her.
- Lucy’s tail fur standing on end at Sheila’s Big "WHAT?!" when ten-year-old Fisk tells her he had sex with Nikki.
- Fisk purrs when hugging Elizabeth on their first date.
- Mice squeak. Elizabeth’s squeak is one of the things Fisk finds most appealing about her.
- Feline babies are often referred to as ‘kittens’.
- Jessica’s and Lucy’s doctor’s tongue.
- Every now and then a character’s race/species is mentioned.
Gag Penis: Marvin Lipschitz, who is noticeably well-endowed. When looking for strippers for Jessica’s bachelorette party, Beth wants to hire him because even because he’s so hung even she has never seen anyone who matches up. His semi-censored penis plays a key role when he delivers An Aesop to several characters, resolving the bachelor/ette party stripper conundrum.
Jessica: The penis spoke. And it was wise.
Gainaxing: Mild example when Jessica is giddy after Robert proposes.
Gambit Roulette: Almost—Marissa relies on Fisk to leave her and Randy to cheat on Lucy specifically during the Halloween dance, in order to win Lucy over. Her predictions are correct, but Lucy has no interest in her.
Gaydar: Beth claims her is ‘legendary’.
The Glomp: Beth gives Fisk one after he comes home, after a news report implied he might have died in battle and Beth was very distraught.
Genre Savvy: Lucy realises that the innocent-looking girl in the role-playing game she participates in must be evil.
Lucy: Everyone’s undead except her!? What is this!? Aliens?
Gilligan Cut: Beth promises Lucy she would never tell anyone she’s attracted to Aron. The very next panel, she tells Aron.
Gone Horribly Wrong: Beth thinks getting Tommy and his ‘nerd friends’ to plan Robert’s bachelor party will assure it won’t be a Stag Party. The first thing they do when given the task is making sure it will be.
Good Angel, Bad Angel: This occurs when Lucy first experiences feelings for Fisk.
Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Sheila would rather Lucy took pills (she wants her to abstain, but is realistic), because ‘we’re not killing unborn kittens in this family’.
Gossipy Hens: Lucy’s college roommates, when Fisk is about to come, much to Lucy’s annoyance.
Heroic BSoD: Happens to Elizabeth when she realises she doesn’t love her husband and Lucy helps her realise she’s been putting aside her own happiness all her life to keep others happy.
Heinous Hyena: Zig-zagged. While some hyena characters are depicted as the scum of the Earth (Muhammad al Aziz probably being the worst of them), hyenas as a whole are portrayed as being no worse than any other animal. Of course, since hyenas are the setting's equivalent to African-Americans, depicting them as Always Chaotic Evil would be enormously racist.
Hiding Behind Religion: Tommy criticises Rachel for wilfully indulging in sin and repeatedly going to confession for it.
Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Marvin Lipschitz, who becomes a stripper to work through college.
Hypocrite: Persia lashes out at her mother for dating many men in quick succession while not allowing her to date at all.
Hypocritical Humor: When the bachelor/ette party fiasco is discovered:
Lucy: Ahem! We’re not shoving our noses up the asses of naked women!
Beth: STRIPPER JOUST!! EN GARDE!!’
If I Can't Have You...:
- Lucy accuses Elizabeth trying to sabotage her relationship with Randy because her mother forces her to date undesirable partners, and ‘misery loves company’. Elizabeth denies it.
- Fisk and Lucy make an effort to defy this when they grow up and there’s a prospect of one of them dating someone else, talking it over to make sure they don’t hurt each other.
Ill Girl: Happens to Lucy Black in chapter 3 when she's bedridden with a cold.
- From Bad to Worse: When Fisk accidentally mistook their mother's blood pressure medication for decongestant, resulting in Lucy having to be rushed to the hospital. Thankfully she got better.
I'm Standing Right Here: The awkward game master describes Lucy’s character in abundant, erotic detail to the players, including Lucy. Tommy actually asks him to continue.
I Need a Freaking Drink: Elizabeth’s reaction to catching her husband David cheating with the neighbour.
In Vino Veritas: Lucy almost slips out a sexy secret of Amy’s when she’s drunk at Jessica’s bachelorette party. (The secret was revealed in full in one of the pornfolios.)
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Being Star-Crossed Lovers, Fisk and Lucy make it a point not to stand in each other’s way when the other has a new potential lover.
Jaw Drop: Fisk’s reaction to Persia when they meet again, for the first time in years.
Jerkass: Ted Stephens. As if dating Lucy just to get with her mother weren’t enough, he peeps on Sheila in the shower, has no qualms about his actions, and finally rudely dismisses her when she confronts him.
Karma Houdini: Ted Stephens, who suffers no repercussions for dating Lucy solely to make a move on her mother.

L-Z

Lame Pun Reaction: Cindy loves puns, much to Lucy’s annoyance.
Literal Metaphor: The ‘perfect storm’.
Love Confession: Beth tells Fisk she’s done with Polyamory and wants to settle with him. Unfortunately, Fisk takes a job that makes it impossible.
Love Epiphany: Inverted near the end, when Amy asks Elizabeth if she loves her husband, and Elizabeth realises she doesn’t.
Love Letter: The first chapter revolves around Fisk wanting Lucy to deliver one to Cindy, the girl in Lucy’s gym class he has a crush on.
Love-Obstructing Parents: When Fisk and Elizabeth first expressed interest in each other as young teens, Elizabeth's mother was concerned about her dating someone who wasn't Jewish. Her father rebutted her thusly:
Jerry: Kelly, they're going to see a movie. They're not going to go get married. She could stand to have fun while she is still a child. Besides, she seems to like him. If we forbid her from seeing him, he will seem more enticing. Then, she will elope when she is sixteen, and they will live in a trailer with no wheels in Lumpkin County, with chickens.
Make It Look Like an Accident: Jim’s old Army friends pay Longfellow a visit and deliberately infect him with lethal meningitis so he appears to have died in surgery. His own doctor willingly helps out, and tells them he’s going to start the paperwork when they show up.
Malicious Slander: D’Anna uses her relationship with their manager and the editorial leeway she gets to keep reviewing a false testimony at a controversial trial at face value, thinking it would sell better. Lucy later finds out D’Anna has based her entire career on smear.
Maligned Mixed Marriage: Both Elizabeth’s Jewish family and Tommy’s Catholic family disapprove of their relationships with people outside of their faith.
Manly Tears: Fisk can’t help but cry on two gut-wrenching occasions:
- When he sees his father’s name on a monument for fallen soldiers; and ** when his war buddy Carlos almost succumbs to depression and kills himself.
Massive Numbered Siblings: Elizabeth’s family. Fisk comments on this.
Mature Animal Story: This webcomic deals with some very adult subject matter, such as rape, incest, and the horrors of war, among other things.
Matzo Fever: One of the things Fisk mentions he finds appealing about Elizabeth is the way she squeaks. Since Jews are portrayed as mice in the comic, it comes across as an example of this, even if probably accidentally.
Meaningful Name: Fisk Black’s last name relates to his philosophy regarding Dark Is Not Evil.
Menstrual Menace: Implied in this comic.
Fisk: Don’t go downstairs. I think Aunt Flow is in town.
Misspelling Out Loud: Fisk getting kicked out of his Girl of the Week Jenny's house by her mother:
Mother: Out! Out! Oh-Dubya-Tee, OUT!
Mistaken for Gay:
- Tommy’s father often assumes his son is gay.
- Happens to Beth for something as innocuous as carrying a wallet instead of a purse.
- Beth says she knew Aron was straight, even with his haircut.
The Mole: Fisk is told that the CIA’s susceptibility to Soviet moles cost his father’s life when he worked for a secret special ops organisation that used to be linked to it, and that’s why it isn’t anymore.
Mood Whiplash:
- The tone of ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ turns almost instantly from jocular and light-hearted to terrifying when Fisk accidentally gives Lucy the wrong medicine, putting her life in danger.
- Fisk’s and Nikki’s cheerful reunion becomes somewhat awkward and melancholic rather quickly.
Mr. Vice Guy: Marissa and Andrea think Randy is this, his vice being his infidelity. That’s why Andrea sticks by him, believing it’s likely he’ll change.
Nice Jewish Boy: Marvin Lipschitz turns out to be a sweet, level-headed man as an adult, even if, somewhat unusually for this trope, he does become a stripper.
Noble Savage: Beth makes a reference to this to describe male stripper ‘Zulu Bob’.
Noodle Incident: Whatever happened to Sheila’s garden gnome was bad enough to get Lucy to successfully blackmail Fisk.
Not Distracted by the Sexy:
- As part of her attempts to prove Lucy has an incestuous relationship with Fisk, Rachel tries to seduce Fisk and Robert very crudely. They are mostly taken aback and bewildered.
  Fisk: What the?
  Robert: Dude, she’s a total whore.
- When Lucy openly tries to encourage Fisk to pursue a relationship with Elizabeth after her husband David cheats on her, Fisk, having just returned from been deployed in Singapore for six months, can only think of ‘having a real American cheeseburger’.^note
Not Listening to Me, Are You?: Beth realises Robert is too engrossed in playing video games with Tommy to listen and answer properly when asked about guests to invite to Jessica’s baby shower. She quickly demonstrates this to the girls.
Beth: We’re going to put Jessica in porn films with the male fetish porn star ‘Tad Pole’.
Robert: That’s cool.
Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: Specifically, with a hyena (read: black) girl asking out a cat (read: white) boy.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Cindy explains to Fisk that’s how she keeps her boyfriend, along with letting him ‘fuck [her] brains out’.
Oh, Crap!: When the private investigator tells Sam who he is, Sam is visibly worried.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Borderline-Extreme Doormat timid Elizabeth walks into the bar Lucy and Amy are at and rudely demands a drink. The next comic reveals that she just caught her husband David cheating on her with the neighbour.
Orphaned Etymology: Fisk brings up how when his mother was young, ‘the N-word’ was socially acceptable. Problem is, that word derives from the Latin word for ‘black’, and black people in the comic are represented by hyenas, who are not physically black or even dark, while some cats (who represent white people) have uniformly black fur. This is brought up again when a hyena Sheila dates once asks if he can call her ‘white chocolate’^noteShe does have white fur, though., and when Tommy, Aron, and their hyena friend visit ‘Club Ebony’.
Panty Shot: Female characters often appear in their undergarments (usually with their boyfriends). Rachel also normally wears a Dangerously Short Skirt, partially showing her panties.
Parental Incest: Nikki’s father sexually abuses her and her siblings. It takes time to undo the psychological damage he’s left after she’s adopted.
Parental Sexuality Squick: Lucy’s reaction to her mother’s and Sam’s blatant displays of affection, even if she’s glad they’re happy.
Parents in Distress: Sheila is raped by Principal Longfellow, but Fisk manages to save her by whacking the guy with a baseball bat in the middle.
Perky Goth: Beth. Lampshaded in this comic.
Fisk: You’re pretty cheery for a black-clad goth.
Beth: I like the color!
Phony Veteran: Longfellow claims he served with Sheila’s late husband Jim, and that Jim was very unfaithful, but Jim’s actual war buddy finds out Longfellow was lying, and his service was unremarkable, to say the least—he was lying to hurt Sheila and manipulate her better.
Playing with Syringes: Principal Longfellow’s murder. He’s injected with a meningitis-causing pathogen (there are several, which one we’re never told) by Sheila’s husband’s army buddies to make it look like he died of surgical complications.
Polyamory: Beth. She lost her first boyfriend to aggressive lymphoma, and Lucy points out that Beth espousing this is primarily because of going through that, making her afraid to ‘put all [her] eggs in one basket’. At one point, she has three different boyfriends, but is warned that she will have to pick one eventually. She picks Fisk, but he takes a job that makes the relationship impossible, so she eventually chooses Aron instead.
Prank Call: Beth does this to Lucy when she’s filling in for a colleague, who has a radio show giving relationship advice.
Punny Name:
- Principal Longfellow, who starts dating Sheila early on. The pun turns very dark when he rapes her.
- The notoriously unfaithful Randy.
- Native American stripper ‘Long Creek’.
Put Off Their Food: Sheila is put off hers when dating a man with poor table manners, who keeps panting (being a dog and all) at the table.
Date: You gonna finish that?
Sheila: Not anymore.
Rape as Drama: Played dead straight. Sheila is raped by Harvey Longfellow after she discovers that he lied about knowing her husband in Vietnam, and he attempts to rape her. Fisk, who is only about 9 years old, intervenes and hits him with a baseball bat. She realistically suffers a measure of post traumatic stress after this and doesn’t date or have sex for about four or five years afterwards, even though she had a very liberal attitude towards sex and dating beforehand. As for the fate of Longfellow, he ends up in the hospital, where some of Jim’s old Army friends pay him a visit and deliberately infect him with lethal meningitis with the doctor’s help, so he appears to have died in surgery. Fisk is then sent to a psychiatrist, where he openly admits that cracking Longfellow over the head was satisfying and the right thing to do, and that he does not feel guilty in the slightest about his death. When we cut back to the psychiatrist, she’s happily drawing a dollar sign on her notebook.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: None of the few characters revealed as rapists survive the chapters in which they’re introduced.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Lucy’s programme director, who immediately takes action when Lucy provides evidence of D’Anna relying on Malicious Slander throughout her career.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Sheila gives one to Mrs. Bedbutter for her politically-motivated teaching and Slut-Shaming in Chapter 4:
Sheila: I bet your pardon!? I don't give a FUCK about your social engineering projects, but don't dare insult how I look OR LIVE!
Mrs. Bedbutter: Ms. Black-
Sheila: SHUT UP! You'll teach Fisk math, science, and REAL history! If he chews gum or talks in class, tell me and I'll beat his little ass myself! But DON'T waste my time with CRAP like this! I have to go home and finish baking for my kids. After I send them to bed, I may just invite a man over, feed him, too, and give him such a hard orgasm, he won't be able to walk 'til morning. Because I'm a WOMAN! And it's my fucking RIGHT!
Remarried to the Mistress: Done twice over:
- Sheila eventually marries Sam after having an affair with him, though it takes a few years.
- Elizabeth also gets remarried to Fisk after catching her husband cheating on her, starting a relatioship with Fisk and then demanding a divorce.
Right Behind Me: When Lucy asks Fisk to stop dating Elizabeth, he points out to her that she’s the one who asked him to date her. Unfortunately, Elizabeth is right behind him that second.
Right Through the Wall:
- Lucy is smart enough to know this will happen when Robert is coming to spend the night. Beth is, too, and offers Lucy to spend the night at her place.
- Fisk and Tommy can hear each other with their girlfriends on the opposite sides of the wall at their hotel suite. They turn it into a competition.
Rouge Angles of Satin: Very sporadically. Most notably, Naylor misspells ‘awful’ as ‘aweful’ a few times.
The Savage Indian: 9-year-old Fisk apparently thinks that’s what the Native Americans were like until cats (read: white colonisers) came along. Sheila doesn’t see a problem with it (or, perhaps, only skims through his essays and doesn’t notice), but his teacher understandably does.
Secret Handshake: Tommy’s and Aron’s hyena friend meets another hyena to get them strippers for Robert’s bachelor party, and they immediately do this.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Sam’s wife’s paranoia about his supposed infidelity makes her very petty and mean-spirited towards him, pushing him to start an affair with Sheila.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Downplayed with Fisk, who only suffers Flashback Nightmares, but played horribly straight with his war buddy Carlos, who suffers depression and is almost Driven to Suicide.
Shipper on Deck: Lucy is this, on and off, for Fisk and Elizabeth—first she asks Fisk to date her when she wants to cheer her up when she’s the only one who hasn’t developed breasts in their class, then she doesn’t because she can’t spend as much time with her anymore, then she does when she realises how much Fisk cares about her, then she doesn’t because she’s tragically still in love with Fisk, then she does after she gets over Fisk. By that point she mostly just teases Elizabeth for her subtle displays of jealousy of beth, but after Elizabeth’s husband David cheats on her, she pretty much spells it out, and encourages Fisk to pursue the relationship too.
Shout-Out:
- The title of Chapter 9, about one of Lucy’s peers dating her to get a stab at her mom, was appropriately titled ‘Lucy’s Mom’.
- Lucy references Aliens in this strip (beware of spoilers!).
- The hospital Persia is taken to after Fisk rescues her from forced prostitution is named after singer Grace Jones as an In-Joke between Naylor and a friend. Another Jones appearance appears in Original Life.
- Fisk the cat can only think of having a cheeseburger (beware of spoilers!).
- Jews in this setting are all depicted as mice.
Skewed Priorities: Tommy realises this mid-sentence.
Slumber Party: Lucy holds one early on in the comic.
Slut-Shaming: Mrs. Bedbutter openly insults women who dress in revealing clothing and have active sex lives. Sheila doesn't take it well.
So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Persia suffers from it at least from her teens if not earlier, at least up to her early twenties, pointing out the tremendous amount of work needed to make sure her beauty is always impeccable, and that from a certain level of beauty people assume one is stupid as well, and her just how horrible Stage Moms can be. Later, the mob in L.A. gets her addicted to heroin and forces her into prostitution.
Society Marches On: Fisk tries this excuse to explain why he had sex with Nikki despite being 10. It doesn’t work.
Southern-Fried Private: Fisk wonders what he’ll do after graduation, hating the idea of going back to school with no proper reason to. After seeing his father’s name on a monument for fallen soldiers, he decides to enlist as well.
Spin-Offspring: Original Life is a rare webcomics example.
Spit Take:
- Sheila’s reaction when 9-year-old Fisk asks what ‘fuck my brains out’ means.
- Fisk is startled when Sheila screams out of the blue,
- Beth reacting to a particularly tactless remark by Jessica.
Stacy's Mom:
- The subject of Chapter 9 (complete with Shout-Out title ‘Lucy’s Mom’) wherein Ted Stephens dates Lucy to get a stab at her ‘porcelain white goddess’ mother.
- Fisk makes a jocular remark implying Elizabeth’s mother qualifies too.
Stage Mom: Persia talks about her experience with those, including her own.
Stag Party: Tommy and his friends arrange one for Robert before he gets married to Jessica.
Star-Crossed Lovers: In chronological order of appearance:
- Fisk the gentile and Elizabeth the Jew, on account of Elizabeth’s family, and especially her mother, disapproving of her dating non-Jews. She eventually stands up to them and marries him at the end of the comic.
- Fisk and Lucy, for obvious reasons.
- Sheila and Sam, who is still married for his son Ryan’s sake. His wife finds out, the divorce nearly tears them apart, but they still make it work and get married.
- Fisk and Beth, after Fisk takes a job that makes it impossible.
The Stoic: Fisk, from the very first page and progressively more as the comic goes on.
Strawman Political: Fisk's teacher Mrs. Bedbutter appears to be composed entirely of overly-simplistic conservative stereotypes of public school teachers.
Suck E. Cheese's: Fun Charlie’s, except it seems fairly fun.
Take a Third Option: When Tommy asks his priest whether he should date Rachel, who is a Catholic but a terrible person, or Lucy, who is wholesome but an atheist, his priest points out that he could find someone else entirely, who can fulfil both his earthly and spiritual needs. Tommy still chooses Lucy, as his faith has diminished too much for him by that point.
Take That!:
- Fisk implies to a sexually frustrated friend he could get relieved at an air force base.
- Two Easter Eggs crudely insult reporter Cynthia Tucker.
- ‘The Art of Living’ parodies and criticises abstract art to hell and back.
- In-universe example: Tommy designed the ‘Evil Sorceress’ in the role-playing game he participates in after Rachel.
Tempting Fate: Nikki remarking Fisk wouldn’t have to actively fight in a war during his service, just as The Gulf War breaks out.
Testosterone Poisoning: Fisk insists on spearing a fish for no reason other than he can. This trope was referenced directly in the very next comic.
Thanks for the Mammary: Beth dreams about Fisk and realizes that it’s only a dream when she accidentally grabs Lucy’s left boob.
Beth: ...You’re not Fisk
Lucy: DO YOU THINK SO?!
That Came Out Wrong: Persia talking to Lucy about how she envies the nice, normal life she has, as opposed to her own very stressful life because of her extreme beauty, comes out wrong at first.
Persia: It’s okay, Lucy. I’m used to looks. It’s not easy being a walking beauty-magazine cover. Sometimes I wish I had normal, distinguishing little physical flaws like you do.
Theme Naming: Fisk Black has a war buddy named Carlos White.
There Are No Therapists: Almost entirely averted.
- After Fisk cracks his mother’s rapist Longfellow over the head with a baseball bat, he’s sent to a therapist for help. He stoically tells her that it was satisfying and the right thing to do, that he is not sorry the man is dead, and that his only regret is that he might get in trouble for feeling that way. The therapist’s response is to smile and draw a dollar sign on her notepad, but she does actually help him with some of his later childhood traumas, most notably the loss of his virginity at the age of ten (to a sexually abused eleven-year-old).
- Nikki gets some sorely needed therapy after the damage done by her father resurfaces.
Through His Stomach: Implied to be part of the reason Sam falls for Sheila, after his wife angrily stops cooking for him.
Title Drop: On the very last page.
Trademark Favorite Food: Fisk’s is implied^note to be potatoes. (Second link includes spoilers)
Traumatic Haircut: Lucy gives Randy one in his sleep for dating her and Andrea simultaneously and lying about putting on a condom when sleeping with her. He takes it very hard, refusing to remove his hat even when sleeping, but he doesn’t hold a grudge against her.
Troubling Unchildlike Behavior:
- Cindy, who is implied to be only 9, has an eighth grader boyfriend she has sex with.
- Some children drop F-bombs every now and then.
- Fisk and Lucy have sex in their freshmen year.
True Companions: By the end of the series, Lucy, Elizabeth, Amy, Beth, and Jessica. Lucy and Elizabeth even become sisters-in-law.
Victorious Childhood Friend: Elizabeth for Fisk, eventually.
Wall of Text: On occasion there will be a page or two with dense dialogue, often when Fisk explains his reasonings.
War Is Hell: As Fisk relives in his dreams.
Wham Line: Shanikwa seems like a normal enough kid at first, but then while Fisk is showing her his treehouse, she says something that shows there's something seriously wrong:
Shanikwa: This is a good place to have sex.
What Is Evil?: Persia says Ralphie, the weasel who forced her into prostitution, repeatedly claimed that there is no such thing as good or evil. Fisk says that in that case, he has no argument against Fisk killing him.
Where Da White Women At?: One of the men Sheila dates is a hyena (read: black), and asks her if he can call her ‘white chocolate’. She is visibly disturbed.
White Void Room: Frequently.
Woman Scorned:
- Downplayed example with Sam’s wife, who slaps Sheila hard in front of Lucy for having an affair with her husband.
- Lucy Lucy gives Randy a Traumatic Haircut in his sleep for dating her and Andrea simultaneously and lying about putting on a condom when sleeping with her. He takes it very hard, refusing to remove his hat even when sleeping, and she remarks he should be thankful she hadn’t taken more extreme measures.
Wondrous Ladies Room: The Blacks are on their way to visit relatives and stop for gas. Fisk uses the opportunity to go relieve himself, and soon discovers that while the men’s room is filthy beyond belief, the women’s room is utterly spotless.
Fisk: I knew it.
You Are Too Late: Sam tries to stop the private investigator his wife sent after him, demanding that he hand over the pictures he took of them having an affair, but he tells him his wife already knows, he’s just there to help build the case for her lawyer.
You Need to Get Laid: Sheila is discussing how irritable she is with Kelly, Elizabeth’s mother, and suggests she might need a man again, confiding in her that she hadn’t had one since principal Longfellow, who lied to her, cheated on her, and raped her about four or five years beforehand. Given Sheila’s liberal attitude towards sex and dating beforehand, Kelly is obviously shocked, and suggests she set her up with some single men she knows, but they are all terrible dates and she ultimately starts an affair with Sam instead.
Your Cheating Heart: A recurring theme.
- Longfellow cheats on Sheila with another woman.
- Sam cheats on his wife with Sheila.
- The most Egregious examples happen throughout ‘Exemplary Girls’:
  - Randy cheats on Andrea with Lucy and vice-versa. He seems to have a penchant for it.
  - Elizabeth cheats on Marvin Lipschitz with Fisk at Lucy’s unintentional encouragement.
  - Marissa turns out to have been relying on Fisk cheating on her and Randy cheating on Lucy to get a shot with Lucy, and her predictions were right, except it doesn’t work. Lucy is very upset, thinking she was the only one who came to the Halloween party with honest intentions.
- Rachel constantly cheats on Tommy, eventually driving to leave her for Lucy.
- Notably averted with Beth, who prefers Polyamory and open relationships, and gets called out on it when she get jealous for Fisk.
- Near the end of the series, Elizabeth catches her husband David cheating, prompting her to pursue a relationship with Fisk, at Lucy’s encouragement.