Webcomic / One Wheat Mark

From left to right: Will, Mike, and El.

One Wheat Mark is a Stranger Things parody/fancomic made by truckstoptiger05, a.k.a. Ronnie. It was created in 2022, following the misadventures of Mike and Will, two childhood best friends in their tween years and their journey to Home Depot. The comic is posted in parts on Instagram, along with supplementary official art and animations. The animations are posted to Ronnie's Youtube channel, under the same username as his Instagram account.

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One Wheat Mark contains examples of:

A-G

• Adaptational Badass: Mike and Will have blown up several buildings, and shown themselves to be able to handle themselves when fighting demogorgons, especially Will with his large M16. This goes both ways though, as Will also is frequently incapacitated by the Mind Flayer's influence, and both have been seen crying over very little things happening.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things was pretty bad to his friend Will sometimes, but One Wheat Mark takes it even further, yelling at Will "KILL YOURSELF" (in impact font, no less), making him break into Dave & Buster's with him for Furcon even though Will doesn't want to and leaving him to fend for himself at the venue as soon as they get inside, hating gay people, tweeting at Russia from the U.S. military's account, being a cyberbully, hurling various insults at Will during their time in the secret military bunker, seemingly trying to gaslight Will, etc. Granted, Will only seems nicer by comparison, and is fully capable of saying and doing harmful things to Mike as well (like making it clear several times that he wants to hurt or kill Mike).
• Adaptation Personality Change: The two are more like caricatures of their Stranger Things counterparts' most inflammatory traits, with Ronnie admitting in a reply on one of his comments that "the personality change or whatever is because the characters all act like wet cardboard so it's impossible to make anything funny with them"
• Adapted Out: Most of the other characters from the Stranger Things television show are completely absent, including Eleven (for now at least).
• Advertised Extra: Eleven has been depicted in an official art on Ronnie's Instagram, as well as in one of the animations, but has yet to appear in the comic itself.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: In the first part, Mike can be seen ruffling Will's hair with his elbow.
• Affectionate Parody: Of the Netflix Original Stranger Things. It's debatable though to what extent Ronnie even has affection for the series, seeing as he's told his fans not to watch Stranger Things because it's "mid" and often saying that he barely thinks of Mike and Will as the characters from Stranger Things anymore, as they're more like his own creation at this point.
• Air-Vent Passageway: The two use one to break into the Dave & Buster's hosting Furcon 1984.
• All Animals Are Dogs: The Demogorgons.
  Mike: "NATURAL SELECTION DUMBASS DOGS!!"
• All Love Is Unrequited: Zig-zagged. One of the main sources of comedy and intrigue in One Wheat Mark is Will's seemingly unrequited crush on Mike, his closeted gayness, and Mike's inner struggle to remain straight, not knowing if he can reciprocate Will's affection.
• Alternate History: The World of One Wheat Mark is one where Russia actually DID bomb the United States during The Cold War. Because the United States Military Twitter account said they were going to bomb them first.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Neither Mike's nor Will's parents appear in the comic, even at the beginning when we see inside of Will's house. This was likely due to a lack of interest in writing them as characters rather than to imply that they aren't around.
• Ambiguously Gay: Both Will and Mike, to varying degrees. Both of them claim to be straight, but between Mike being oddly touchy with his little friend and Will always blushing when they hold hands, the audience is clearly meant to see that this is not the case.
• Amusing Injuries: Several instances. Usually happens to Will, but both boys get their fair share of hurt throughout the comic.
• Anachronism Stew: Stranger Things is set in The '80s, and One Wheat Mark seemingly also takes place in 1984 specifically, but sprinkled throughout are inventions which did not exist yet during that time period. Rule of Funny seems to be the determining factor in whether or not they have modern cellphones, music, social media, etc in any given moment.
  Will: "so how are we getting to home depot"
  Mike: "google maps"
  Will: "what's google maps"
  Mike: ""
  Mike: "map"
• Apocalypse How: Downplayed, as the severity is low and the scope is at most North America if not just Indiana, but the story does end up in a kind of apocalypse setting, after various events occur (Will creating the Demogorgons and Mike provoking a bombing from Russia).
• A Rare Sentence:
  Mike: "you are going to be so mad but that's what i smoked earlier"
  Mike: "the map"
• Armoured Closet Gay: Mike, in contrast with Will being a regular Closet Gay.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Trapped in the bunker, Mike contemplates his options: Go outside and die from the radiation, stay in the bunker and be killed by Will, or stay in the bunker and be romanced by Will. He's not particularly pleased with any of these possibilities, and the implication is that being gay is just as bad as having an anvil dropped on your head Looney-Tunes style, or literally having your flesh melted off by radiation.
• Art Evolution: Ronnie's artstyle can be seen subtly changing and developing over the course of the comic.
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Mike and Will could not leave the bunker because of "radiation poisoning." After a timeframe of a few hours at most, they decide to simply climb up a ladder to escape and, although desolate, the landscape shows few signs of irradiation, and the two are completely safe and show no signs of radiation poisoning (unless the implication is meant to be that the reason it's too hot out is not, in fact, due to the sun).
• Aw Look They Really Do Love Eachother: Inbetween their fighting, bickering, and struggling to get along, Mike and Will have a few sincerely sweet moments between eachother:
  • In part 3, Mike checks on Will, asking to see if he's okay because he hasn't spoken in a while.
  • In part 6, Will shoots the demogorgon without thinking to save Mike.
  • In part 10, Mike notices Will crying and injured behind a potted plant at the Dave & Busters Furcon 1984. Upon looking around and immediately piecing together what happened, Mike goes to a supply closet to grab gasoline and starts spreading it everywhere, specifically on the fursuiters who were hurting Will. Then he excitedly grabs Will and runs out of the building to throw a match, lighting the entire venue on fire, killing everyone inside. He does this despite having very much enjoyed the event, just because Will had been hurt. The look on Will's face as he watches the building burn down says it all. And then, upon seeing one of the furries who was bullying him crawl out of the rubble, Will pulls Mike in for a kiss. A chunk of ceiling falls on her and she dies, midway through calling Will the F-slur.
  • In parts 11-12, after the kiss, Will thinks Mike is mad at him, so he walks away to cry and fantasize about killing Mike with his bare hands. Mike decides to surprise him by drawing a rough picture of Will inside of a heart shape using the blood and viscera of the orange furry as his paint. This makes Will so happy his eyes dilate, he is drawn with visible blush lines across his face, and he foams at the mouth before hugging Mike. The sweetness of the moment doesn't last too long though, as Mike starts questioning if this is gay and pushes Will to the side, responding to his question of "do you like me?" with "Yes" and then a hesitant "maybe. i'm still deciding."
  • In part 15, Will tells Mike not to leave the bunker yet because the radiation poisoning will kill him. He has to remind him once again after their fight.
• Back from the Dead: Only in the animations, where Mike and Will (but mostly Will) have been shown dying many violent, bloody deaths with absolutely no permanence.
• Badass Adorable: Will is unstoppable with his Big Fucking Gun. He plows through demogorgons with only the same level of anxiety as if he were taking a driving test, and sees multiple opportunities to kill Mike, simply deciding against it for now because he likes him. He's also an entire head shorter than Mike, perpetually sweaty with bags under his eyes and shaggy hair, and is noticably drawn with eyelashes in the earlier parts.
• Ba Thos: The two go through some seriously messed up stuff together, especially for children their age, but Mike usually just tries to laugh if off and say something wacky to distract from the situation.
• Beneath the Mask: The dynamic of a typical One Wheat Mark animation is as follows: Will puts up with Mike's wacky antics because he's just trying to survive, and Mike's torment of Will puts him closer and closer to mental break. The comic follows this formula as well, except on the rare occasion that Will's insanity causes him to say or do something so concerning (usually to Mike's safety) that Mike's zany persona actually falters and he shows genuine fear. This aspect of Mike has begun showing up in the animations as well, much to the confusion of Ronnie's Youtube-only fans.
  Mike: "Hey what are... what are you doing"
  Will: "I was watching you build your stairs. you're really good."
  Mike: "Hey you got a uh"
  Mike: "a sharp piece of metal in your hand"
  Will: "I do."
  Mike: (extremely detailed shot of him with the most fearful expression that has been seen in this comic so far)
  Mike: "Well! i'm thinking we should use the ladder and head out right now."
• Berserk Button: The most angry the Mindflayer is seen in the comic so far is when he saw Mike smoking weed.
  Mindflayer: "TELL HIM TO STOP I HATE WEED"
• Big Fucking Gun: Will is often portrayed with some sort of large firearm almost as long as he is tall, modeled after an M16 specifically.
• Big Damn Kiss: Mike and Will share a kiss after burning down Dave & Busters.
• Bland-Name Product: Subverted. Any opportunity the comic sees to show a copyrighted, unaffiliated brand-name product, it will. Usually in the form of a stock photo being pasted into the comic.
• Blatant Lies: Mike says "Maybe if you didn't roll our map into a blunt and smoke it we'd BE there by now", referencing something that HE actually did in a much earlier part of the comic. Will tries correcting him, only to be hit with a "Shut up".
• Blood from the Mouth: Will bleeds from his mouth after vomiting up demogorgons and being attacked by the Mindflayer, and also after being punched by the blue fursuiter in part 10. Mike is also shown bleeding from his mouth after having his throat ripped out by Will during his fantasy sequence.
• Bloody Hilarious: A prominent component of both the comic and animations' appeal is the characters getting beaten and killed in many horrific bloody ways, over and over again.
• Body Horror: Mildly present with the Demogorgons as they were in Stranger Things, downplayed because none of the demogorgons take a anthropomorphic shape and are fully portrayed as nothing more than monsters.
• Boom, Headshot!: Will's main technique of killing the demogorgons.
• Bottle Episode: Parts 13-17 have Mike and Will cooped up in a secret military bunker, stuck there after Mike causes a Russian bombing that destroyed the stairs they used to get in. It doesn't take long before they start trying to kill eachother out of frustration.
• Break the Cutie: Will goes through a lot of bad stuff in the comic, leaving him bitter, angry, and violent by the later parts.
• Buddy Picture: The story is centered around Will and Mike, two frenemies trying to survive an apocalypse that they themselves technically caused, and get to Home Depot. Dips into Bromantic Comedy territory, but is decidely not one due to a) the heterosexuality of Will and Mike's relationship being too dubious to qualify as a bromance and b) the comic having an overarching plot besides developing social relationships between the two characters.
• Call to Adventure: The story begins when Mike is at Will's house and wakes him up by kicking over his fridge, and tells him that they are going to Home Depot.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The comic wasn't all sunshine and rainbows to begin with, but atleast the boys weren't constantly trying to kill one another, and the world they were walking through had not become the hellscape it is at the current point in the recent parts. As of writing this, it is implied that Mike is suffering hallucinations, Will might be experiencing symptoms of radiation poisoning, and all buildings in the area have been destroyed, so it's not clear how the two are going to make it to Home Depot at this point.
• Character Tics: Mike likes to grab onto Will by the shoulders or the hand, often making Will blush from the contact. He also smiles a lot.
• Childhood Friend Romance: A prominent feature of the later parts is the developing romance between Mike and Will, be it Will's complicated, messy crush or Mike questioning his orientation over Will.
• Closet Gay: Will, and debatably Mike as well.
• Clothing Damage: Averted. The characters get blood and viscera on their clothes constantly, both of others and sometimes their own, but not so much as a tear is shown in the area of the wound when they get hurt.
• Comically Missing the Point: Will, at several points.
  Will: "what. what is that"
  Mike: "it's YOU see. you're the guy in the middle right there"
  Will: "and there's a bear trap around me you want to put me in a bear trap"
  Mike: "it's a heart"
  Mike: "I used what I could salvage of the orange dog to make it because I thought it'd be really funny"
  Will: "i don't like that that's weird. and i don't understand what this is"
  Will: (realizes, blushing)
  Will: "...heart?"
  • And later right after hearing Russian planes overhead about to drop bombs, after Mike tweeted threats at them:
  Will: "cyberbullying is so mean"
  • And even later, we have an example on Mike:
  Mike: "Oh. ok i'm gonna leave now"
  Will: "you cant. radiation poisoning"
  Will: "Also the stairs blew up in the explosion so how are we even supposed to get up"
  Mike: "HAHA"
  Will: "Do not laugh. Don't laugh. This is all your fault you're making bad things happen because you're stupid"
  Mike: "oh yeah well you haven't showered in 3 days and you smell hahahahaha"
  *fighting insues*
• Companion Cube: At one point, Mike is drawn with blush marks while saying, "oh.. wow..." and the next panel reveals that he was looking at a wall of guns.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Will has become very used to the conditions he lives in, even in the earlier chapters while he is throwing up bloody demogorgon spawn.
  Will: "sorry eggs were laid inside me or something and i have to vomit them up to give birth nothing that ever happens to me is my choice"
  Will: "So many bad things are happening nonstop to me. I don't think I even care anymore."
• Continuity Nod: After exiting the bunker, Will asks where they're going to go and Mike responds, "Home Depot".
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Okay, maybe not the demogorgons and the Mindflayer going on with Will. But entering into a secret military bunker and tweeting "WE ARE NUKING YOUR WHOLE FUCKING COUNTRY NIGHT NOW -U.S. ARMY" at Russia was a choice Mike made fully of his own volition.
• Creator Couple: Ronnie's girlfriend of the username 'callingmebackhome' also creates art of the comic's versions of Mike and Will, including reference pages and has also made an animatic set to the song "In Fact" by Gregory and the Hawk. The two even have matching One Wheat Mark Mike and Will icons that were drawn by her!
• Curse Cut Short: After Mike and Will's kiss,
  Orange Fursuiter: "oh... you're... ... a fa-"
• Deadly Prank: Mike and Will using a pipebomb to blow up a Wendy's as a drive-thru "prank".
• Didn't Think This Through: Various of Mike's actions and ideas end up not working out for this reason, such as rolling their map into a blunt to smoke it and get high, trying to "50/50" the directions the rest of the way, and most devastatingly, tweeting at Russia from the United States Military twitter account to provoke an attack.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Whilst high on "weed", Mike calls the Mindflayer the "mind GAYER" and "COCK SLAYAH", against Will's better judgement.
• Episode Title Card: Every part begins with a "Title Card" with official artwork alongside the part number and title.
• Evil Plan: Invoked by Mike when they enter the secret military bunker.
  Mike: "TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION is in our near future"
  Mike: "what if i ruled one part of the earth and you ruled the other part and we like... went to war with eachother"
  Will: "I'd like that..."
  Mike: "Me too i hope we'll live long enough to see it happen"
• Failed a Spot Check: When Mike and Will are first attacked by a demogorgon, Mike (having just been woken up by Will) says, "WHAT is that do we have houseflies in here" right before getting tackled by the demogorgon.
• Flower Mouth: Demogorgons have this as one of the most recognizable parts of their character design.
• Forceful Kiss: Wills does this to Mike while they watch Furcon go up in flames.
• Four-Fingered Hands: A quirk of Ronnie's artstyle which adds cartoonish flare to the look of their drawings, comics, and animations.
• Free-Range Children: Mike and Will are far from home by this point, and the audience has not so much as seen either of their parents.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In this animation, Will drops his smile the second Mike closes the door.
  • 18 seconds into this animation, Will is drawn with longer hair like in the comic for only this shot.
• From Bad to Worse: As if being so far away from home on the run from the demogorgons wasn't bad enough, Mike inadvertently causes the United States to get bombed by Russia.
• Genre Savvy: In part 4, Mike drops the line "get up we gotta go man it's like 3pm and in comic time that means it's gonna be night in like 4 panels". It's left a bit ambiguous whether Mike is this, or if he has full-blown Medium Awareness.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The comic and animations have gained a following in Russian-speaking online circles for no apparent reason, spawning Fan Translation, comic dubs, edits, fanart, and even Fan Webcomics ... of what is technically already a fan-webcomic of Stranger Things.
• GIS Syndrome: Stock photos and other photos of environments harvested from Google Images are used for most of the backgrounds, creating a photo collage look. Sometimes you can even still see the watermarks!
• Gone Horribly Right: Mike's twitter cyberbullying towards the country of Russia seems laughable and ineffective at first, as it doesn't even elicit a reply... Save for the planes overhead dropping nuclear bombs on them.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: In part 12, little angel and devil versions of Mike appear over his shoulders while Will is hugging him, seeming to represent Mike's confusion on if he likes him or not. Both the angel and devil are homophobic for different reasons, convincing Mike for the moment that he's straight and doesn't like Will like that.
• Guns Akimbo: In one of Ronnie's animations, "i cant decide animation", Will is shown wielding two hand-pistols, rather than his usual one large rifle.

H-R

• Harmful to Minors: Will experiences nightmares every time he goes to sleep, and vomits up blood which eventually turns into demogorgons. Him and Mike decide to walk to Home Depot without a map. On the way, they blow up a Wendy's, Mike nearly dies from a demogorgon attack, Will learns how to use a gun to kill said demogorgon, they break into Dave & Buster's to attend Furcon 1984, where Will is harassed and beaten by the patrons, they set flame to the Dave & Buster's, they sneak into a secret military bunker and cause the United states to get bombed by Russia, get into a fight and nearly kill eachother, and once they escape the bunker, the landscape has become barren and Mike begins to hallucinate a talking deer. None of this is good for pre-teen Mike and Will's psychological development.
• Holding Hands: Mike and Will are often seen holding hands, especially in the earlier parts. Note how Will is always drawn looking happy and/or with blush marks when they do this.
• Hypocritical Humor: Mike. He's homophobic despite probably not being straight himself, and also seems to be fiercely protective of Will, to the point of burning down a building after some of the people inside had beaten Will up, although he himself doesn't treat Will that much better. He also tells Will at one point that he is "genuinely such an annoying person." Cue eye-roll.
• Implied Death Threat: Early on, when Will reveals that he might be attracting the demogorgons, this exchange occurs:
  Mike: "you're leading them here?"
  Will: "not INTENTIONALLY"
  Will: "You think i want to kill you?"
  Mike: *shrugs*
  Will: "Wouldn't be against it."
  • This only becomes more prominent in later parts and animations, with Will holding weapons at Mike to scare him, and the repeated sentiment of wanting Mike dead is felt throughout.
• Informed Ability: Mike claims to be "an expert at 50/50" when it comes to directions. A few pages later him and Will are lost because he tried to 50/50 guess what direction they should be going to get to Home Depot.
• Jerkass: Mike oscillates between being this trope played straight and being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. He genuinely does horrible things, both to Will and others, but every once in a while he shows a soft spot for Will specifically.
• Kids Are Cruel: Overlaps with Teens Are Monsters because Mike and Will are inbetween the two age-groups. The two have bombed a Wendy's just for their own amusement, burned down a Dave & Busters because 2 of the patrons were mean to Will, caused a nuclear fallout, all just on the way to Home Depot.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: See the above example for Curse Cut Short. An orange fursuiter dies this way.
• Kill It with Fire: Mike sets a Dave & Buster's on fire to kill 2 fursuiters who had hurt Will, killing everyone inside and destroying the building.
• Laughing Mad: Will, after killing an imaginary version of Mike.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: See the above example for Genre Savvy. Mike drops a line like this, and it never comes up again.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Part 6: PARTY HARD features the first time Will shoots a gun, to kill a demogorgon that was attacking Mike. This signals the beginning of a tonal shift in the comic.
• Limited Wardrobe: Justified, because the two have been away from home for a couple days by now and therefore haven't had an opportunity to change clothes, but Mike and Will are consistently wearing the same outfits for the entire comic thus far.
• Ludicrous Gibs: The demogorgons are often shot into bits, but the most notable instance of this trope is after the orange fursuiter gets crushed to death, she becomes a chunky, bloody paste which Mike uses to draw Will a picture on the pavement.
• Major Injury Underreaction: The two have undergone various injuries over the course of the comic, including, but not limited to:
  • Will coughing up blood.
  • Mike getting a demogorgon's tooth lodged into his head because it tried to bite him.
  • Will getting a tooth punched out and a red eye from a fursuiter at Dave & Buster's attacking him.
  • Various bits of shrapnel being lodged into the skulls of Will and Mike after an explosion.
  • Mike being attacked by Will holding a large piece of metal debris, and most of what the two do to eachother during their fight would result in severe injury.

Most of these are met with little acknowledgement more than a shrug and a laugh, although Will's condition at the Dave & Buster's 1984 Furcon does provoke Mike to set the entire venue on fire.

• Mature Work, Child Protagonists: One Wheat Mark isn't a mature comic per-se, but it's certainly not aimed at children of Mike and Will's age demographic. It's a dark comedy aimed at chronically online teenagers and adults.
• Mood Whiplash: All the time. A large part of the appeal is the wild, "chaotic" energy seen in the way characters will rapidly jump from one subject to the next, resulting in moments where maybe we're getting some romantic development between Mike and Will, and then that's dropped to focus instead of whatever mayhem Mike is about to unleash, or maybe a large monster is about to attack the two. The focus might also shift panel-to-panel from the hatred brewing in Will's heart and Mike's genuine fear of what his friend has become, and comedic levity from Mike trying to change the subject to maintain his funnyman persona.
• More Dakka: Justified in the comic as their problems mainly consist of shootable monsters, less so in the animations which emphasize the violence exchanged between Mike and Will.
• Motive Decay: Although not forgotten entirely, it seems that along the way Mike and Will might have lost sight more than a couple times of why they originally left home: to go to Home Depot.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Mike's attempts at cyberbullying get Russia to actually bomb the United States.
• Nightmare Sequence: A brief one of these every time Will goes to sleep.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Mike. He's lucky Will likes him so much...
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: It's been stated by Ronnie that the comic takes place in Stranger Things 's corresponding 2nd season "and only the second season", meaning that this could be the case for Mike and Will.
• Not Helping Your Case: After kissing him on the mouth, Will struggles to convince Mike that he isn't gay.
  Will: "it was just SATIRE. i'm not gay but i thought it'd be funny if the furry thought i was? like kind of a funny twist of events she wouldn't expect?"
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Mike showing genuine fear at Will's violent moments.
• Plot Armor: To an extent. Police, and other adult authority figures, are never present to punish Will and Mike for their deeds. Instead, the comic allows them to simply be punished by the direct consequences of those deeds. Sometimes. Other times they just go on like nothing happened. For example: when Mike and Will use a pipebomb to destroy a Wendy's, nothing bad happens and they just run away laughing. However, when Mike tweets at Russia from the U.S. Military's computer and threatens an attack, they get bombed and are forced to hide in the bunker as if waiting out the radiation. When they finally leave, the landscape is totally left barren as a result of the nuclear bomb. Also, guns are available to Will whenever he needs one. Or just because.
• Police Are Useless: They don't even exist, seemingly. See above.
• Rage Breaking Point: When Mike and Will are trapped in the bunker, after Mike caused a nuclear bombing from Russia, Will's frustration at Mike's inability to take anything seriously reaches a peak and he hits Mike with a very large, sharp piece of metal debris that he was about to kill himself with before Mike woke up. This cumulates in a fight breaking out between the two, with Will only willing to "Peace Treaty" with Mike after the latter gains the upper hand.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Mike is Red and Will is Blue, with the roles occasionally reversed.
• Red Shirt: Any mortal character that isn't Mike or Will, will likely be killed within no more than 2 parts of their introduction, if not immediately.
• Rescue Romance: Will kills a demogorgon for the first time to save Mike.
• Rule of Funny: The comic's internal logic runs on this.
• Running Gag: Mike going off on a lengthy spiel about something almost completely irrelevant to the current situation, only to eventually be cut off by Will. It's happened about 3 times, once while he was summarizing the movie Tusk (2014), and twice while he was telling a personal story.

S-Z

• Serial Escalation: The comic begins with the premise that Mike and Will are going to Home Depot. Then there's the demogorgons. And the Furcon. And the nuclear fallout that happened in 1984. Supposedly though, the comic is still about them going to Home Depot.
• Ship Tease: The ship of "Byler" is teased throughout, but even after their kiss it's still not confirmed canon of the comic.
• Shout-Out:
  • In part 5, Mike gives a plot run-down of his favorite movie, Tusk (2014).
  • Although it's not within the comic itself, multiple official artworks and even one of the videos directly reference characters from and memes of Breaking Bad.
  • Near the end of this animation, behind Will there are three pictures taped to the wall, depicting Astolfo, a wiki-style warriorcat, and Panty from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.
  • A few seconds earlier in the same video, Mike does the MrBeast intro pose.
  • In part 18, after escaping the secret military bunker, upon seeing the barren nuclear wasteland before them, Mike proclaims that "It's so awesome" because it "LOOKS LIKE FALLOUT 4", and Mike loves Fallout Four.
  • In part 19, Mike's seemingly hallucinated "sneaky link" takes the form of Bambi.
  • Also in part 19, Mike is listening to Lil' Jon in his headphones, so he can't hear Will.
• Silly Reason for War: Downplayed, because The Cold War wasn't fully started by Mike's cyberbullying, but he did cause the Russians to actually attack, by tweeting at them from the U.S. Military's twitter account.
• Slasher Smile: Will sports a very toothy one when he thinks about killing Mike or violence in general, and it can be seen in both the comics and the animations.
• Stuff Blowing Up: In the comic, Mike sure has a tendency to blow things up and/or set thing on fire; Wendy's (pipebomb), Dave & Buster's 1984 Furcon (set ablaze with gasoline and a match), The United States of America (Russian nuclear bomb). And in the animations, explosions are a feature of nearly every one. Will gets blown up by a space satellite, Mike and Will are both exploded by a plane crashing on them, A building blows up behind Mike while he's out getting groceries, and of course, Mike burning down a Pride Parade.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Mike and Will have gone too far from home to turn back now; They must make it to Home Depot at all costs.
• The Dog Bites Back: It is very, very satisfying to see Will outright attack Mike after several parts, illustrations, and animations enduring his torment.
• The Stoner: Mike. He rolls a map into a blunt to smoke it and claims "will look i'm smoking WEED" and later introduces Will to his "sneaky link".
• The Woobie: Will. Overlaps with Butt-Monkey because his suffering is the source of much of the comedy, but he's also just a little guy clearly meant to evoke sympathy in the audience.
• Time-Passes Montage: In part 5, The sky is seen slowly darkening from panel to panel while Mike and Will walk towards their destination. Overlaps with Travel Montage.
• Unexplained Recovery: Most of the times when Mike and Will get mildly or even seriously injured, they can be seen fully back to normal by the next part or even within a couple panels with no explanation of how they healed. At most they'll be shown with blood splattered all over them for the rest of the part. One time Will literally had a tooth knocked out. Once Will hit Mike with a thick piece of jagged metal that was as big as his head. Neither of these injuries were permanent.
• Verbal Backspace:
  Will: "do you like me?"
  Mike: "Yes"
  Mike: "maybe. i'm still deciding."
• Violence is the Only Option: Mike and Will solve most of their problems or even just boredom this way. Including interpersonal conflict.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Mike and Will have a very troubled relationship. They hate eachother, but they've got to stick together, cause they're best friends forever, even if they get on eachothers' nerves. The added romantic component certainly doesn't make matters any better. But it does make it fun to read!
• Weaksauce Weakness: The Mindflayer is apparently susceptible to overheating, despite not physically existing. It often complains to Will over minor disturbances, most of which have to do with Mike.
• Webcomic Time: Lampshaded by Mike in part 4.
  Mike: "get up we gotta go man it's like 3pm and in comic time that means it's gonna be night in like 4 panels"
• Wham Episode:
  • Part 6: party hard.
  • Parts 10-12 also serve as this. It starts as the usual, a random building is encountered (Dave & Buster's, hosting Furcon 1984), and some stuff goes down there that leads to Mike blowing the place up. Then, Mike and Will kiss. This seems to make Mike angry with Will, so Will storms off to fantasize about killing Mike. Mike interrupts this fantasy to show Will something he made: a drawing of Will inside a heart shape, drawn with blood. They have a bit of a moment together, before they discover a secret military bunker.
• With Friends Like These...: Mike and Will.
• Yan Dere: Will has shades of this, in the intersection between his violent urges and his romantic feelings for Mike.
• You Can't Go Home Again: After all they've been through, Mike and Will are never seeing their families again.
• Zany Cartoon: The animations are practically a bloody version of this.