Brain Bleach/Web Comics
- From Hark, when someone suggests to her to check out James Joyce's love letters to his wife. Leads to this exchange:
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Dream James Joyce: I wrote you a letter. |
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- This is one among the many Freak Angels powers. They apply it as a mercy to traumatized people they encounter, but also often without consent, in order to keep their powers secret. They do have self-imposed laws concerning the morals of this practice, but treat those more like "Guidelines"
- The Freak Angels are OFTEN treated to Too Much (sex-related) Information from their friends, invoking this trope. Most clear example is poor Connor's reaction to reaching his Too Much Information limit for one day. This scene came very soon after a very similar reveal concerning his MOTHER. "No No NO That is not an interesting fact and I dont want it in my head".
- The author of Handsome Fungus is already carsick, and It Got Worse.
- Penny Arcade. This strip.
- In Something*Positive it's caused by low-end strippers and "the horror that is roleplaying geeks" ("take me home so i can claw my eyes out in privacy, please" and "I wash and I wash, but I can still feel their stares on my skin") respectively.
- Schlock Mercenary has Ennesby's "Weapons Grade Vocabulary" and the memorable response:
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"My stomach is in my throat now. It's trying to spit acid on the parts of my brain that remember reading his message." |
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- The incident during the cloning of General Hugo Matsui Xinchub in an effort to be paid five times for one job. Clones are grown in slime-filled People Jars and do not have clothing. This frequently elicits minor comments of disgust when main characters are being partially cloned as an extreme medical measure—but Xinchub is morbidly obese, to boot. And according to the characters' comments, he had some tattoo that managed to make it even worse.
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Kevyn: If I get drunk right now I might be able to shut down my long-term memory before the next write transaction. |
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- Der Trihs, staring into his (iced) drink after learning adult kreelies had been mating in the freezer (via external fertilization):
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Der Trihs: I need a tall glass of bleach right now. |
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- And again:
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Kevyn: That's overkill. I'm shooting for "Don't think about Elf." and you're taking us all the way to "I need to gouge out my eyes." |
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- While they are at brain-fixing, 'Chelle wants to wipe the memories of her clarinet lessons.
- The Order of the Stick has Roy's reaction to hearing what Belkar wanted to do to his gender-flipped self:
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Roy: Excuse me, I need to soak my brain in acid now....Maybe my ears, too. |
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- It should be noted that this was fully intentional on Belkar's part. He could tell that it was Roy by the scent, and is apparently secure in his masculinity — not to mention extremely sadistic.
- On a related note, Belkar himself has a tendency to go blind, or at least wish aloud that he'd done so, when he sees other male characters naked. See for example, #25
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Elan: Woohoo ! I'm invisible! |
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- Roy and Belkar thinking that Haley was talking about Elan's penis when she's really talking about the new rapier she found for him.
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Haley: Vaarsuvius checked it out too, naturally [...] I mean, it's awfully skinny, but he uses it so masterfully. |
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- This is then subverted when Haley says:
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Haley: Well anyway, V says Elan has been running around naked, so I'm off to see what his 18 Charisma is worth "under the hood". |
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- Roy needed some Brain Bleach after he died and saw his mother in the afterlife, and realized that her spirit manifests there as a hot chick several years younger than he. He needed more Brain Bleach when he saw that she was sleeping around.)
- The Oracle of the Sunken Valley needed Brain Bleach after (apparently) having witnessed, in a vision, Roy and Celia having sex.
- "Am I drunk enough yet that I won't remember getting out-logicked by Elan?"
- 753 has Belkar attacking Roy mentally once again. He's definitely getting a lot out of that feat level in Craft Disturbing Mental Image.
- In Gunnerkrigg Court, Kat tries to be polite upon meeting Ketrak, the Psychopomp of insects, and as soon as he's gone...
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Kat: Ugh! I need new eyes and a new brain! |
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- Annie was shocked merely by observing two kissing Merostomatozons ("very distantly related to eurypterids and xiphosura").
- In Cass Toons, this is Robin's reaction after Starfire shares with him the details of just how she cheered up the eternally depressed Nightwing:
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Robin: I don't care if trepanning is no longer considered a valid medical procedure. I need you to cut a hole in my skull and pour in this bleach. |
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- This strip of Loserz.
- Freefall:
- When a security guard saw Helix's topiary rendition of Sam as a reclining nude, he had to be physically restrained: "My eyes! I have to pull out my eyes! If I don't I might see it again! I have to pull out my eyes!"
- Robots commit data from short term memory to long term memory about every 24 hours in a procedure similar to sleep. Thus "staying awake" for extra 24 hours after a particularly nasty day will overwrite that day's memories and experiences, serving as general purpose Brain Bleach.
- Organic AIs were created with several safeguards, control and shutdown mechanisms hard-coded into their DNA. One of those works with a chemical that disables short to long term memory data transfer; another allows to wipe recent direct orders from the AI's memory.
- Bowman AI architecture works via neural pathways. Pruning those pathways indiscriminately wipes information associated with them, be it memory, skill or attitude. The "Gardener in the Dark" neural pruning software, which blindly cuts all pathways above certain length, reduces self-aware A Is to sub-sentient robots, leaving only their primary purposes intact.
- Eight Bit Theater: When the Light Warriors learn of Bahamut and Matoya's relationship. And that the quest item they had just fetched for Bahamut was actually the last ingredient for a virility drug.
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Black Mage: I'm going to throw up now. On the off chance that there's a kind and loving God, I will choke on my own vomit. Do not help. (after vomiting for several panels) Oh God, I'm ejecting things I haven't eaten yet. |
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- In a later scene, Thief is unimpressed with a so-called dark, mysterious woods the party has entered, and makes an aside remark about having seen "darker wood in Elf porn." It's enough to make Black Mage projectile-vomit in the background. His analogy certainly didn't help matters...or the readers' sanity...
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Black Mage: Man, and I didn't lose it when I caught sight of an elder god defecating. |
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- When Red Mage proposes animal husbandry as a solution:
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Red Mage: Yeah. Two words for you. Animal. Husbandry. |
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- Characters in Umlaut House do it from time to time. Given that most of them have quite a few implants in their brains, this is apparently a pretty trivial thing for them to do.
- Mark from Sexy Losers plaintive cry (brought on by the antics of his roommate and his roommate's sister) of "I don't want my eyes anymore!"
- In one guest comic, he goes for a more "realistic" solution when his roommate uses him as masturbation fodder—incredible amounts of cocaine.
- VG Cats: when Aeris saw "Democrat Dance Revolution" game intro.
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Aeris: SWEET HOLY HELL! SOMEONE GOUGE OUT MY EYES! |
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- Also, the infamous Fox/Falco comic. For the readers. Unless you're into that.
- RPG World: #284, "Really Evil Costume":
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Evil Soldier #???: AAAGH! The goggles! They do nothing! |
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- Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: More times than can be mentioned. Practiclly a Running Gag.
- Questionable Content: Everything is ruined forever!
- Made all the more funny when eventually, it did happen.
- And then commemorated in a shirt.
- There's also Jimbo's, erm, wallet picture. "Now I DO need a drink. To throw into my EYES."
- Happy birthday, Grandma!
- Last Res0rt lampshades it in the middle of Jigsaw's panic attack after she picks up some apparent thoughts from Jason Spades and Alice Quinn enjoying their newfound 'alliance'.
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Cypress: Doing any better down there? |
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- This page of The Last Days of Foxhound.
- Full Frontal Nerdity gave us a number of unpleasant mental images, including mind flayers and lizardmen reproducing. Considering that mind flayers are betentacled Eldritch Abominations, the screams of "THIS IS WORSE THAN HENTAI!" and "MUST DUMP CLOROX IN EARS!" seem entirely justified. It should be noted that Frank was intentionally trying to Squick the other characters in that panel.
- Then there was «eating ghost rock in the hopes that the voices in my head will drown out his» response, when Lewis had his character resort to graft and voodoo to repair some… critical damage.
- This strip of Ctrl Alt Del.
- And this one.
- These two Wapsi Square strips.
- It is even the title of the strip here. And it is used as a verb.
- In Nip and Tuck, after being shown a picture of previous Pop's Girls, Nip asks about the fox cutie, stating that she was hot. Pop responds that that is Nip's mom. He then asks his brother to take a toilet brush and run it through his brain a few times.
- Happens quite a few times in Sluggy Freelance most famously when Torg announces "I just got a magic flap installed!" and some other characters are heard making comments like "It's a little snug for me, but I did play with it a bit!" Later, at the bar:
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Riff: Whisky double straight up. |
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- The full Nightmare Fuel potential is explored here.
- Also try checking out Aylee explaining about feminine things.
- Riff's reaction to Bert possessed by a ghostly women who is married to the ghost possessing Torg counts as this.
- And now we have Lau in response to Dr. Nofun explaining how even dating is better without women.
- In "Safehouse", Riff is looking a way to undo the effects of a hypnotic pattern spread via the Internet, and in the process runs across some zombie pornography on its creator's computer. When he does manage to send out hypnotic patterns to undo the previous ones, he also includes the command "unsee the zombie porn".
- Referenced in this autobiographical example from The KAMics.
- In the female dominant webcomic Girly, the most important male character, Officer Policeguy, has a clear sign of brain bleach. He begins the comic with long hair and bishounen looks. During the beginning of the comic, he almost has sex with El Chupacabre, a man with the ability to attract any woman or man that looks somewhat like a woman, even if they are straight. He is traumatized, cuts his hair shorter, and blocks out the event completely from his mind when questioned about it later. However, when El Chupacabre accidentally falls on him later on, the horrible memory comes rushing back and starts cursing dramatically at him.
- Used in a rhyming Captain SNES non-canon Wonderful Life-ish storyline (the angel was drunk, so she took him to the wrong "what if" universe) when Alex realizes that the chick he's been checking out is his own opposite-gendered parallel universe equivalent.
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Alexis (to her friends): I left them there on the street as black stains. |
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- In canon, Alex's captor screams for this after getting an extreme close-up, via flashback visual, of King Hippo's "bitch tits."
- Ansem Retort: "You heard it! You can't unhear it!"
- This The Way of the Metagamer comic references the concept, although thankfully the actual event is merely Noodle Implements.
- Badly Drawn Kitties: this strip.
- Sweden learns something new about his sister in this episode of Scandinavia and the World.
- Steve is seen by his sister in Valkyrie armor. Her reaction is quite predictable.
- In Blur the Lines, Drew asks for ear bleach after Rick explains the difference between under armor and spandex.
- Rusty and Co used "lots and lots of beer" after an introduction to Ghost Shipping:
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Mimic: Goal: Achieved! Also...Brain: Scarred! |
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- Who Says Space Quest is Dead - Xandra mentions she's seen a Crack Pairing Slash Fic between Vohaul (of Space Quest) and Manannan (of King's Quest). Roger goes off to get himself killed so that he can remove the image from his head. (Scary thing is, this is based on a real slashfic with that pairing that actually exists. It's just as mind-scarring as it sounds.)
- This Life with Lamarr strip, which was a reaction to seeing this.
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Citizen: Thank the Lord I brought my lucky pliers today! Nothing for it but to pull out my own eyeballs and stamp on them...Only way to be sure I never see that again. |
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- On the boat in Our Little Adventure, Angelika accidently walks in on Julie and Lenny having sex. To make matters worse, Julie actually asks Angelika to take a look at Lenny's boner and compare it to Rocky's. Angelika was not amused by this, but ended up taking it out on Pauline when she also asks if it's bigger than Rocky's.
- In The Cartoon Chronicles of Conroy Cat, Conroy sees doggy "naked" and says that he'll "take up that sale on brain bleach."
- Bug shows why you need some at the nudist camp.
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"Hm...maybe I can destroy this memory by drinking turpentine." |
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- In Nip and Tuck, be wary of admiring photos from a time when your mother was a girl.
- Creepknight from Voodoo Walrus seemed to hold it together well through everything. Until finding out how his boss powered his underwater "Doomcano" publishing house.
- Tedd from El Goonish Shive asks Grace if her antennae can function as Brain Bleach in this strip.
- Justin could probably use some Brain Bleach here.
- Skin Horse, here.
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Nick: Note to self...install bleach dispenser in brain tank... |
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- In Exiern, after accidentally picturing her father being involved in Yaoi Porn, Princess Peonie has this reaction:
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Princess Peonie: It's only by sheer will that I'm not jamming a spoon up my nostril to scoop out the mental image in my head. |
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- Hamstard does try valiantly, as do Erfworld fans
- Sandra and Woo: "The Vuvuzela Effect", in which Larisa inflicts on Mrs. Taylor enough of mental damage that the latter chugs a whole bottle right in the class.
- Adventures In Responsibility encounters some Left 4 Dead porn:
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Sniper: Ok, I'm off to gouge my eyes out with a spoon. |
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- Sweden in this comic, from Scandinavia and the World.
- Back to Brain Bleach