#weekly thoughts

WEEKLY THOUGHTS, EP 219!

WE ARE BAAAACK!! i dunno how much people are actually interested in these, but I enjoy writing them lol. I guess I don't have a ton to say about the actual return episode- I probably have more next week, but I'm just happy to be sharing this comic again. I don't think it was a shock to anyone that Bell was okay but sorry the pause was so long to find out. I think that's the longest break I've taken in the 4 years I've been publishing this comic, even when I moved states. It was a much needed break and I think I'm in a munch better place than when I paused.

also spoilers. obvi.

Okay I’m wine drunk and teary still so this might not make any sense but does it ever really make sense?

Kev is so dumb lmao

He’s that we’re the millers meme

Please someone get franny and Liam out of there

EMT Ian

How are they all still shocked by the shit Mickey says

Fuck this new girl I want Sandy

Carl is me needing coffee

This girl is so unnecessary this is the dumbest thing why would they even write her in

GET YOUR KID DEBBIE

pat pat

Mickey you’re not subtle

Good thing your husband is a himbo

He’s so sweet :((((((

Debbie and lip are annoying. Throw Tami in there too

MICKEY

Let my baby take the potato masher he needs it

Liam 😂

I actually really like the Mickey Debbie dynamic

He’s used to having a little sister to piss off :((((

Lip go back to college challenge

Not me triggered by this pregnancy lmaoooo

Kate’s bump :(

GOOD MEMORIES STAINED INTO THIS ONE

The 21st :((((((((((((

The glare lmao

WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS GIRL AROUND YOUR CHILD

Okay since Debbie is a fictional character am I allowed to mom shame her or are y’all gonna come for me

Who tf does that

Save franny

Just looking at those drinks Kev is making is making my stomach churn oh god 🤢

You can’t just call it a toilet?

Oh god don’t pick up a used mask 😩

RIP patsys

Oh my god now I’m thinking of CG

This job is actually perfect for dumbass Carl 😂😂

That’s so LA I fucking hate that they couldn’t film in Chicago 😭😭😭

I hope brad has a good life

Mickey makes his decisions based on blowjob capability

HUSBAND

GET MY ASS IN THAT POSITION YOU LIKE

Fuck this lady

FIGHT HER IAN

Mickey’s face lmao

HIS LITTLE CLAP GIVE YOUR HUSBAND SOME PIZZA IAN

He’s baby

SAVE FRANNY

DEBBIE IS THE WORST

Y’all I would be just as angry as Kev HOW DARE YOU PUT THEM IN OTHER JERSEYS THAN YOUR TEAMS

BURN THEM KEV

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GEOGRAPHY

IM WITH KEV ON THIS ONE

Wtf kinda tip is that

Carl looking out

This is pissing me tf off

Lip you’re so fucking smart please do something with it my gosh

This fucking asshole HE JUST MAKE YOU LOTS OF MONEY WTF

V just adopt Liam please

They’re gonna cook in their new apartment :((((

MICKEY IN LEATHER KINKY MF

CRIB

GIVE THEM A BABY

This was too much

HIS FACE IS TOO MUCH

I literally sobbed out “you’d be the best dad!!” And J just sighed and hugged me 😭😭😭😭

He’s over my shit but he cares I guess lmao

His fault for buying the wine

YOU WOULD NEVER BABY

YOU BOTH ARE GONNA BE THE BEST DADS

YOURE GONNA BE A GREAT DAD

This is the best comfort hug GIVE US MORE ANGLES COWARDS

Oh no the flashbacks are too much

Wait he has covid?

I didn’t catch that first time

I love a good pretend to forget an anniversary and surprise spouse

IANS LITTLE ONE YEAR AGO TODAY

he was so upset

I LOVE THIS MAN

ME TOO

MICKEYS SMILE

He’s so proud of himself

LAST EVER THUMB CARESS 😭😭😭😭😭

Is the band playing at last 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Omfg Kermit and tommy lmao

Why am I in love with this nurse

MICKEY DANCING I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

We all know Ian had zero doubts

OH MY GOD GIVE THIS MAN A BABY ITS WHAT HE WANTS

To raise a baby with his baby

This brothers scene made me 🥺🥺🥺

Now I miss my brother 🥺🥺🥺

This would’ve been a perfect I should probably go dance with my husband

this scene :(

THEYRE BEING SILLY HUSBANDS TOGETHER

Liam :(

I wanna watch them be husbands forever

Ian always has to hold

So much singing this season

Goodbye sweet nurse you’ll always have my heart

The letter omfg

MICKEY AND CARL

MICKEY AND LIAM

We just needed Mickey and lip and it would’ve been the holy trinity

I don’t know how I feel about frank floating

Also they should’ve warned me when the last ever Mickey shot was

Of course that happened lmao

Reverse Culture Shock Defined : the emotional and psychological distress suffered by some people when they return home after an extended time overseas. This can result in unexpected difficulty in readjusting to the culture and values of the home country, now that the previously familiar has become unfamiliar.

Let’s start by making it clear that, despite what people say, reverse culture shock is very real. People argue returning to a place called home is happiness and easy, but they have not spent much time away. Going to a new place you don’t know isn’t easy, it takes mental preparation and great planning for your body, soul, and mind. This preparation is essential for making a great transition into the new environment. Often times traveling for long periods abroad, the company, school, or whatever it might be helps with the transition and learning about this new culture. The problem is that upon return there is no retraining for what you’re going to enter. This training doesn’t exist because people say “home, sweet home” and high tail it back.

Reverse culture shock is inevitable. It happens to everyone, whether it’s a week away, a month, or a year. It’s only that the less time abroad, the less noticeable of a feeling it is and the shorter it lasts. Imagine being sick. If you go to the doctor when you first get the sniffles and have a head cold, they’ll give you medicine and send you on your way. Maybe one or two days later you’ll feel fine. But if you wait till you have a fever and can hardly move, you have to go to the hospital and get antibiotics. Then it might take a week or more before you feel normal. Travel does the same thing. If you go somewhere and immerse yourself for a week or even a month, coming home will feel weird. Your jet lagged, your eating is off, and you’re hyper aware of everything around you; but a few days later it's normal. Now image 6 months, 1 year, or several years. The change home takes time and effort, and an immune system you might not be prepared for. For 6 months there’s been a different eating schedule and menu, for 6 months it has been different customs and a different language, for 6 months it has been a whole new database of information that you’ve never experienced before. Then, in a blink of an eye, it’s gone. It’s back to “normal”. Whatever normal is.

I'd argue that people think that there is this “normal” that every society has and once you know a “normal”, you’ll never learn or understand a new one. But that’s not true. When I first moved to Spain, I never thought I’d be able to eat dinner at 10 pm and feel fine afterwards. But after a few days of going to bed hungry because restaurants weren’t open earlier, I figured it out. I never thought that I would become adjusted to greeting everyone I knew with 2 kisses. But after a few awkward hellos and good laughs with friends I became more at ease. Everything that once seemed so strange and different, became my every day life. The thing was, I didn’t know that I was changing. It wasn’t like one day I woke up and greeted everyone with 2 kisses, ate dinner at 10pm, or said joder like it was the word dude. These things happened gradual and over time because my idea of normal was changing. Humans have an innate need to fit in to their surroundings. It’s a survival technique. So we grow to acclimate and assimilate, especially when we’re alone. I was a single, 21 year old girl living in a city of 3.2 million people that I didn’t know and didn’t speak the language. I had to learn how to fit in to survive, and that’s what everyone does.

But coming home meant that I didn’t eat dinner late anymore and if I tried to kiss someone they might push me away. Coming home meant that people didn’t curse at work and friends went to each others houses instead of meeting at bars. Coming home meant that I didn’t understand normal. The realization that I was no longer normal where I considered home was even harder. Why? Because I knew I wasn’t normal when I went to Spain, I knew I would be different. Everyone always told me I wouldn’t be normal leaving the country. But no one ever told me that I wouldn’t be normal coming home. That I wouldn’t know even the simplest things like the coolest new tv show or how the weather had been. I had missed 7 months of jokes, politics, and pop culture; and all these little things together make up "normal". Being born in America doesn’t mean I innately understand every.single.detail. of how my life runs. These behaviors are learned and relearned over time. So when you leave them, it’s like missing class, you miss out. The USA wasn’t my security blanket of warmth and normalcy anymore. The USA was strange and different. Why did we do things this way? Why do people say that? How come it’s like that? These were questions constantly run through my head. Somehow everything in my home got flipped on it’s head and I realized there was no "normal", only me.

Reverse culture shock means becoming hypercritical of the place you once called home. Foods don’t taste the same. Words don’t sound the same. People don’t act the same. I began to notice the little nuances of things, and over analyze what they could mean. Social cues so obvious to me 10 months ago were complete mysteries. I couldn’t hear the difference in no, it’s fine and noooo it’s fineee. Spain is a direct country, full of “absolutes” and staring. I returned to innuendos, a country full of gray area and shifty gazes. Relating to people seemed impossible because they all had these experiences and training that I hadn't. I didn’t understand anymore. And them relating to me? Unlikely. I have to think before I speak now, I have to be aware of how close I am to people, I don’t have to worry about pickpockets. Culture isn’t a muscle memory that you snap back into after stretching out for a long time. It’s like a language, always evolving and changing and if you dont use it, you lose it. I have to reteach myself how to handle situations and how to address different moments in my life. This is what reverse culture shock does, it shakes you.

Weekly thoughts ep 217-

I forgot to do these last week! But you know I HAD to talk about this week's episode. I know a ton of y'all are behind and this is a spoiler but if this doesn't motivate you to hurry up and catch up, idk what will.

Jericlaude canon! Kinda lol. For like 30 seconds. Relieved most of the creeps seem to be gone by now so nobody was too viscerally angry about two guys kissing on a webtoon like they were about LGBT stuff in earlier episodes. That's the kind of audience I don't mind losing lol.

Anyway, yeah, I've been waiting to draw this one for a while, tho probably not as long as one might think. I definitely only decided to give them a big kiss scene recently, as tbh Jericho returning Claude's feelings is a newer development as well. I think I've talked about it a little, but Jericho was never originally supposed to return Claude's feelings. But as his character developed, I thought it made great conflict for him and his scion- something that I see a lot of people noticed.

I did hate breaking the 180 rule so blatantly this episode, but it was so important that these panels focus on Jericho's human side. And I think breaking it so blatantly made that clear to a lot of people, because a lot seemed to pick up on it. One of those things where sometimes the curtains really are just blue, but in this case, it was a very intentional choice. Things as well like his blank hand not embracing Claude, and it only touching him when starting to fall back into the scion's mindset and turning into a claw.

I also absolutely didn't originally plan on having Bell in this scene, but plot kinda made it unavoidable so I'm glad everyone liked that one little awkward panel of her lol.

There was a lot of thought put into this episode, and it's definitely one of my favorites, so I'm glad people enjoyed it. I've said this before, but watching Claude go from hands down the most hated character, to one of the most popular has been one of the highlights of writing this story for me. His character development has been some of my favorite to write and I feel like it all culminated in this episode.

YEAHHH weekly thoughts ep 220!

the doomed yaoi couple officially broke up! that seems to be the big main takeaway from this episode haha. i don't have too much else to about that part other than everyone in the CoB discord was certain Claude wasn't getting out of this fight alive so I'm sure plenty of Claude enjoyers are pleasantly surprised he's still kickin.

highlight for me was definitely those black and white panels in jericho's blank space. the one of jericho yelling and rex exploding were some of my favorite in the entire series. i think if you read these regularly, you know by now that i basically live for drawing panels like those. love when my art can get really rough and messy.

a detail that i think flew under a lot of people's radar is that Rex blew up in the same place that Mikiah blew him up. It was him giving Rex a taste of the pain his brother inflicted on him, which ofc was more than just physical. but also it really, really physically hurt too.

Weekly thoughts, ep 199

This is actually one of my fav episodes this season! Possibly even in my top 5 of the series. Maybe I'm a little biased as Claude's really become one of my favorite characters but I also just really enjoy writing the inner workings of a character like him. I really appreciate that (the majority) of the audience is recognizing that Claude's never really been okay.

To address a few frequent questions-

Does Claude have some sort of anti-social personality disorder? If we're being real...yes. However, and I've talked about this before, I don't really know enough about that subject to say exactly what he has. You're welcome to project whatever you want onto him, especially if you relate, but all that you really need to know is there was something wrong that he needed help with that he never got.

Would Claude have become a blank if Jericho never asked? No. HOWEVER. I do think he was out the door, so to speak. While I can't exactly confirm what anti-social disorder Claude had, I can confirm he definitely deals with depression and I think even if Jericho never came into the picture, he would have left this world eventually anyway. He was already out the door, Jericho just showed him it, and he figured since he was leaving anyway, at least a blank could replace him to make Jericho happy.

Weekly thoughts, ep 213-

kinda funny to me that the most commented on thing this episode kind of ended up being the bear, so i guess i'll address the bear in the room-

fictional universe, fictional jungle, fictional bear. i needed the character to get mauled by something and i already had a big cat attack desmond less than 20 episodes ago and i just couldn't think of any other animals big enough to maul someone to death. plus there is a bear in one of the most famous jungle stories of all time (hello?? baloo? jungle book?). im sure that's a different type of bear that maybe doesn't even exist anymore or if it does, it's in India or something, but point is bears can exist in jungles, especially fictional breeds of bears in fictional jungles.

as for the actual contents of the episode... yeah! this one freaking hurt! ik we like to joke about how much i torture my characters but killing them off and doing something this brutal to them seriously does hurt LOL. this episode is probably the worst i've felt since christoph.