Heroic BSOD/Web Comics

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


It's all fun and games until someone's psyche crashes and burns.

  • Hyacinth of Squid Ninja has this happen a couple of times. Of Course, her Trickster Mentor messing with her head doesn't help much.
  • In Megatokyo, after a dramatic conversation with Miho, Ping the Robot Girl ends up with all of her emotional statistics jumbled up.
  • In Erfworld, when Jillian is unable to rationalize her way around a conflict between Wanda's influence and her loyalty to Ansom, she briefly collapses. She recovers and charges into battle, resulting in a major victory for Ansom's side. This stuns Wanda into a considerably more severe BSOD of her own.
    • Later, it turns out that this may simply be backlash from the breaking of Wanda's suggestion spell.
  • Parodied in Exterminatus Now! After hearing that an old friend of his is behind an assassination attempt on his boss, Eastwood goes into a trance and spends a few minutes repeating his name. His teammates take the opportunity to steal his wallet.
  • Grace kinda has one of these after making Big Bad Damien blow himself up.
    • Yeah that's an example. Ellen also went through one of these when she was created.
  • In one of the rare dramatic moments of 8-Bit Theater, Fighter has a brief moment of sadness when Black Mage is killed by Lich. He replaces it with a screaming rage though.
    • Black Mage later fakes one when he accidently killed White Mage. She got better.
  • Hanners of Questionable Content has one after learning her underwear was showing while she was drumming-from both of her MALE bandmates.
    • That the best you can think of? What about Faye after her dad died?
      • I do believe that Marten sorta suffered from one when he and Dora broke up.
        • Pintsize comically suffers from them on occasion.
          • Marten's friend Steve (I think it's steve) does this...only though in his case he ends up going on an adventure, becoming a spy and all that.....though I'm not sure if it happened, as it may have been a case of of (put on the bus)
  • Ash from Misfile suffers one during his first defeat at the hands of Kamikaze Kate in this strip.
    • Although having his first period might have contributed to that emotional rollercoaster.
    • Ash gets it again when Vashiel tells him that Rumisiel won't be able to return to Heaven for another 72 years, meaning he won't be able to correct his misfile mistake until then. Considering the average human lifespan, Ash realizes that he will have to stay the way he is for the rest of his life. It takes a visit from Emily to snap him out of it.
  • In Sluggy Freelance, Torg goes through a mild one of these after an Alternate Universe version of Zoe he'd been dating dies, and immediately jumps to Roaring Rampage Of Revenge mode. He never completely stops being his goofy self after the ordeal and returning to his home dimension, but he is a lot angrier and mopier for a while, especially around Zoe.
  • Lilah's miscarriage in Ctrl+Alt+Del forces Ethan to go into Heroic BSOD mode. He spends the next several comics wandering around in a zombie-like state (the lack of sleep might have contributed to that), and was seen trying to get a soda out of a vending machine until moments later, when he says he's not even thirsty and that seeing Lilah inconsolable was far too much for him.
  • Dan from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures experiences one of these in this strip due to a troubling suggestion.
  • The innocent titular character in Rice Boy has to travel the harsh wilderness, be dosed with liquid despair, learn cosmic secrets at the cost of other people's lives, see a hundred clones of himself spawned and cut down, and know that he must save the world and die. Suffering a Heroic BSOD he throws himself off a cliff ... into the next stage of his quest.
  • The Order of the Stick
    • "I think we broke Haley."
    • Vaarsuvius as well, as the result of what the elf perceives as a great failure back in Azure City and in everything that has happened since, to the point where everything the elf does has the underlying tone of being horrifically, terribly afraid of continuing to fail in new and horrifying ways.
    • Elan goes through this after he realizes his father Tarquin is evil, and not in a Noble Demon sort of way. It gets worse when he tries to kill him, only for his father to tell him that he'll win either way: If he wins then he wins and if he loses then he'll at least he'll go down in legend and that he'll at least have lived a great life.
    • And Vaarsuvius, again, has the mother of all Heroic BSOD when s/he realizes that the earlier casting of the Familicide spell had not only killed black dragons, but numerous human families on the Western Continent through the dragonblooded Draketooth clan.
  • In Fletcher Apts, Doug often blanks out and mentally reboots when he sees a girl flash her breasts. Like in this strip, he forgot the answer to the homework problem he was talking about, and in this strip his brain literally flashes a BSOD, causing Doug to forget his lesson and possibly the entire week beforehand.
  • Lampshaded in Shortpacked! When Ethan realizes how gratuitously evil he's being, his shock and horror causes the strip itself to "crash"--complete with BSOD.
    • As an added bonus, that entire chapter was named Heroic BSOD
  • A comedic version appeared in VG Cats, when Aeris had a major Freak-Out on the subject of Donkey Kong's stare.
  • In "4our-Calendar Cafe", Cambel and Sara both had a BSOD moment when they heard of Michael Jackson's death in this strip. Although clearly not part of the cannon, the author himself said "pretty much all of us entered a state of Blue Screen of Death when we heard about the news".
  • Misho, from Keychain of Creation, suffers one of these in #220 as a result of his Heart of Tears Limit Flaw.
  • Torvald of Dante Residential gets a literal BSOD in this strip after being liked and rejected by the same girl within mere seconds.
  • Parodied in this Concession, where Matt (post-destupidification) seemingly goes into a Heroic BSOD when he learns that The Internet Is for Porn.
  • Kate of Instant Classic suffers one after learning that Orson Welles (whom she idolizes) voice acted in an anime (a genre that she regards as the lowest, least dignified form of filmmaking).
  • In Homestuck, John is given the command "mental breakdown" after discovering Fruit Gushers are made by Betty Crocker. In actuality, this trope is brilliantly and hilariously subverted. THIS IS STUPID
    • However, this is played very straight immediately before the above example, where John's discovery that his dad is just a boring businessman and isn't really into "harlequins" at all is enough to send him into the fetal postion.
    • Later on in Act 5, Karkat of all people has one after he fails to get Sollux into the Medium in time. It doesn't last for very long, though.
    • He gets another one when Eridan kills Feferi and Kanaya
    • And another very shortly thereafter when he finds out that Gamzee flipped the fuck out. Much later on, it's implied in a conversation with John that he's only just recovered from another following encountering post-flipout Gamzee in person and presumably having to kill him. (Although it's revealed Karkat was able to calm him down rather than kill him)
    • And another, less serious one when he freaks out about possible troll-human relationships that might develop during the three years on the asteroid, complete with a Call Back to the first example in this list.
    • WV gets one after the demolition of his rebellion. Complete with Mood Whiplash, I might add.
  • Yumiko experienced one in And Shine Heaven Now when she finds out not only isn't she the original personality, but she has eleven split personalities in total. She then suffers a second one when Heinkel releases them, while the personalities sort themselves out.
  • Dejoru in Juathuur, after being abandoned by everyone and seeing Mijuu die in front of him.
  • Peanut of Housepets is prone to having these when confronted with his socially unacceptable attraction to cats, most recently when his best friend and adopted sister Grape revealed that she knew about his secret, long-time crush on her.
  • Fumbles of Goblins experienced this twice. The first was when he injured an elven child and realized he had become as bad as adventurers; the second came after Goblinslayer carved the word monster into his forehead and he was left alone in the torture cell by his friends. Following the second, Big Ears has stated his mind is completely broken.
  • Lloyd from Murphy's Law experiences this after he discovers that the dragon that he had been fighting, wasn't evil.
  • Rikk had one in Fans when a fellow Aegis member Hilda committed suicide right in front of him. Shortly after the suicide, Rikk learned that "Hilda" was an artificially constructed homunculus created by the Aegis' enemies, and the "suicide" was staged to create just that response in Rikk.
  • Not the most heroic example, but the Nameless Grad Student of Piled Higher and Deeper experiences one when his experimental results turn up lacking. It's even lampshaded by his advisor: [1].
  • In Penny Arcade, Tycho goes into one when he sees an ad for a place called "Gamez N Flix", which made the always elegant Tycho go mad.
  • When White Mage realizes that all of her well-intended acts inevitably lead to ruin, she experiences a BSOD that actually turns her evil for a while. Of course, because it's White Mage, it doesn't work, and she quickly reverts back.
  • Antimony, in chapter 31 of Gunnerkrigg Court after being told that she was the reason for her mother's death, reels back in shock and proceeds to run out of the Court and into the Forest, setting off the alarm, and creating a huge firewall of death to prevent anyone following her.
    • It helps that the art is also bizarrely warped to represent her crazed state of mind
  • Girl Genius
    • Gilgamesh Wulfenbach suffers one of these when he thinks that Agatha's dead.
    • Agatha later has one of her own when Lars dies, but hers involves a calliope and a great swarm of mechanical minions. Given the Gray and Black Morality of the characters, the degree of Heroic in Heroic BSOD may vary.
  • Germany literally BSOD's in this comic(Scandinavia and The World) when faced with a dog that Finland trained. He's sorry! He's changed! He really, really has! He's sorry! He's sorry! He's sorry!
    • For those that don't want to click, the dog gives him a Nazi salute.
    • Not the first time Germany BSODs. He did it before when, after he begs the Scandinavian countries not to fly his flag around cause it makes his people prideful, it's pointed out that his shirt has the flag on it too.
  • Its Walky!: During the strip's climax, Linda Walkerton was taken out of commission by Her preserved, pre-ressurection corpse and the information that she'd died, been brought back, and manipulated into doing the will of Dargon Chesterfield and his compatriots, which turned her understanding of the most important moment in her life and the aftermath thereof on its head.
  • Sluggy Freelance Riff went through a minor one upon finding out that Zoe was not dead as he had thought, but instead was horrifically burned and in constant agony, kept alive by life-support. What's worse is that he thinks it's all his fault. He gets over it quickly though and vows to set things right.
  • Squid Row Total system shutdown
  • In Wapsi Square, Shelly went through one of these after being trapped in another world as a sphinx for 80,000 years, while no time at all passed for her friends. She got better surprisingly quickly.
  • Julie suffers one in Our Little Adventure after her friend Pauline dies.
  • Scarlett from Plus EV declares that Poker and Princess Amazia are her two favorite things, and she couldn't do without either. Then Amazia comes out against gambling.
  • Ninth Elsewhere: Carmen enters this when she accidentally destroys the key that unlocks her mind because of her lack of self-control of her lucidity.
  • Dubious Company's Leeroy has one complete with Oh Crap stare when the magic fades from the latest leap to Another Dimension and Sal is missing.
  • In Blue Yonder, Jared shows it when they are attacked again
  • In Schlock Mercenary, after Ventura faced an angry mob with green belt... and low-profile Powered Armor. Her commander is good at snapping people out of such problems and knows this, but forgot Para was not really trained as a soldier, so it worked only as a quick-fix and she froze in the next fight.

Doctor Bunnigus: It's not her blood, sir.
Captain Tagon: What do you want me to do, give her a bath?
Doctor Bunnigus: It's worse than that. I think she needs a hug.

    • Karl Tagon in Book 16.

Kathryn: Oh, no… I thought he was broken before, but now he's actually broken-broken.

    • Vaal in Book 17, when he had to kill some co-workers ho had their brains hacked. Chelle found him there staring at the corpses, still holding a wrench and sidearm.

Chelle: Bosun! Are you okay?
Vaal: Nope.

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