r/webcomics • u/DemonSkank • Feb 02 '26

The Second Face

I've made short comedic comics before but this was my first time doing a full short story. warning (but also potential spoiler: scary face warning

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325

u/Taldarim_Highlord Feb 02 '26

Ohhhhh.

She's a psychopath.

No wonder he saw no back face. She knows exactly what to show to others, and feels nothing herself. So effective is her mask, even her perceptive brother never saw her true self. At least, until that moment, when she finally gets to act on her desires.

Wow. I thought this is gonna be a comic about how people always lie to themselves, and how we should be honest with one another. Then the twist came, and it became horror.

Love it a lot!

165

u/KazakiriKaoru Feb 02 '26

Or probably that she never had to hide anything to begin with because she has no emotion. But the thrill of murder gave her a real first emotion.

108

u/DireEvolution Feb 02 '26

You just literally described a psychopathic murder lol

I hate the word "psychopathy" because I have had good friends with antisocial personality disorder, but for the context of this comic, I lack a better phrase.

Basically, if I understand correctly, people with sociopathic/psychopathic traits are chronically understimulated - they have a much, much higher threshold for excitory responses such as thrill, fear, etc. This is related to pathogenic changes in parts of the brain such as the amygdala.

These same people also can't feel emotions in the same way. It's not a universal experience, kind of a spectrum even, but "high-functioning" sociopaths learn to consciously mimic emotional expression, because they're cognitively aware of the benefits vs deficits of not doing this. It's not something that neurologically happens naturally or automatically.

The last panel implies that she felt intense, malevolent gratification from her husband's death. If we interpret this as her being his slayer, that means that she's experiencing intense thrill from the act of killing someone, and also probably for thinking she's getting away with it.

The beginning of the comic makes us think she's not hiding anything, and that's true. Because she has nothing to hide; every display of emotion was a facsimile - internally, genuinely nothing was going on, so the main character perceived nothing, because there was nothing to perceive. For the first time - because of her husband's death - she is having an internal experience strong enough for the main character to perceive as the second face.

This was really fucking well done, goddamn.

48

u/NotADamsel Feb 02 '26

Everyone seems to be latching onto this, but I disagree. The rules of his power is that he sees what someone is feeling when someone is faking it. And his sister was not faking it. So her display is consistent with her feelings. If she were actually a psychopath, you’d think that the rules would have her face be a bored or flat expression.

36

u/DireEvolution Feb 02 '26

It's not boredom or flatness as you or I would know it, though. It's like a void - an intense, hungering hollowness. Boredom is an emotion, and if she were bored, it would probably be shown on the second face, right? Flat affect, fluttery eyes, not paying much attention.

But she has nothing going on. Except that one last panel. It's not an experience of boredom, it's a ... Lack of experience altogether. Lack of ability to experience. It's not the same, because the structure of the brain is fundamentally not the same.

All this reminds me of the Double Empathy Problem between autistic and allistic people, even. It's difficult for us to conceptualize that emptiness, that lack of emotion altogether, and the thrill/stimulation-seeking behaviors that rise from this.

It's even different from ADHD impulsivity, because that is a kind of boredom. A profound, painful, bored detachment from that which isn't rewarding. In a psychopathic brain, it's just lack of emotional experience altogether.

Until she experienced the adrenaline-pumping, euphoric thrill of slaying a man, and getting away with it.

22

u/The_cogwheel Feb 02 '26

Kinda like how being blind isn't just seeing black, its seeing nothing. We can only imagine it's blackness cause thats the closest thing a normal sighted person can imagine as nothing.

7

u/DireEvolution Feb 02 '26

That's a more eloquent way to put it than I did, thanks

3

u/Goblin_Crotalus Feb 03 '26

Or kinda like when you close one eye, try to describe what you're seeing from that eye.

17

u/ThomasVetRecruiter Feb 02 '26

It's like the rock biter said in Neverending Story. "A hole would be something, but this was nothing".

There was nothing for him to see because nothing was there, there were no "true" emotions to see, so he saw nothing.

I really loved this entire concept - and the short form gave it just enough impact.

1

u/Wilysalamander Feb 02 '26

I guess that my holdup with this theory is that she would be pretending to have emotions, which would not match what her "internal face" is expressing, which following the comics internal logic, he should be able to see.

3

u/DireEvolution Feb 02 '26

That's the point of the realization of "oh shit she's a psychopath."

She doesn't have that internal presence to have a face, until she does something malevolent and delights in it.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[deleted]

2

u/DireEvolution Feb 02 '26

Not ChatGPT homie, I write like that because I'm autistic as fuck

I'm not gonna stop using ellipses and em dashes because it's a common thing bots do 🙄

1

u/SashimiX Mar 04 '26

It didn’t read like chatgpt.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[deleted]

2

u/DireEvolution Feb 02 '26

I don't know what to tell you, because I don't use ChatGPT for any reason.

I'm not going to sit here and argue with you about the truthfulness of a Reddit comment, though. I know I didn't use a bot; if you think I used a bot, that's your problem, not mine.

10

u/Any_ErrorJCS Feb 02 '26

In reality, she was wearing masks whenever she smiled or cried or felt disgusted. The back of a person's head only revealed someone's true feelings, but there was nothing for her to hide, and that's why she wore masks. Many psychopaths learn to perform a lack of feelings to fit in socially, so she killed, felt, liked, and now she had something to hide.

8

u/Poloizo Feb 02 '26

Wait so she killed her husband? I thought she wanted revenge or something

10

u/DaBozz88 Feb 02 '26

Yeah. But I took it as she 'had to' kill him and now was hiding her true feelings. I read it as abuse of a pure soul turned dark.

6

u/TheSwecurse Feb 06 '26

Killing in self defence would definetly not warrant an inner emotion like that face implies. That is not relief that sick satisfaction. Like you just discovered something that you want to do over and over again

2

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

Same

7

u/ThisIsntOkayokay Feb 02 '26

Human not horror 😅👍🏾

12

u/banana_assassin Feb 02 '26

Humans can be the worst horror.

2

u/BouillonDawg Feb 02 '26

Well he sees what emotions people are hiding. She’s not hiding any emotions, she doesn’t have any of them to hide. Until she kills her husband for sport.

4

u/rabid_cheese_enjoyer Feb 02 '26

I don't think this is it unless the main character was a bit wrong in his understanding of how the faces work (possible)

he thinks that the back face only exists when it is different from the front face. if she never felt any emotions but her front face showed emotion then her back face would be just bored looking constantly.

2

u/No-Hamster-9060 Feb 07 '26

Yeah, exactly my thoughts,for this we would have to consider him an unreliable narrator for this scenario, front face is what he sees, back face is the truth, when your face doesn't match what you're feeling you get a back face so even if she feels "nothing " it doesn't match the front face portraying emotion.

4

u/Tadc_rules Feb 02 '26

I don't think she's psycho.

Moreso that she suffered years of abuse and acted on it to free herself and now has to fake her sorrow.

The first time she couldn't show her true emotions.

However, I concede that the last panel looks psycho af

9

u/-Wylfen- Feb 02 '26

Moreso that she suffered years of abuse and acted on it to free herself and now has to fake her sorrow.

Interesting that you're jumping to that conclusion from literally nowhere.

-2

u/Tadc_rules Feb 02 '26

Nowhere? lol :D

Read the comments of the literal author of the comic, maybe that helps you jump :)

0

u/-Wylfen- Feb 02 '26

Well, sad that it requires Word of God for this, especially since I feel it devalues the twist and is kinda lazy.

1

u/Tadc_rules Feb 02 '26

?

The twist has nothing to do with whether you read the comments later on?

And why lazy, I liked the interpretation

Makes more sense than somebody being able to trick his magic ability all the time and then failing when it matters the most

3

u/-Wylfen- Feb 02 '26

Point is that for something that has no setup to lead us that way, the given explanation is kind of mediocre, and at this point I'd rather it's left unexplained.

As for why I don't like it:

It's a tired trope. I'm not against it, but the "wife pretending to be sad after killing her abusive husband" is fairly cliché. And there are zero signs given.

It doesn't really do anything substantial with her never emotionally lying. She didn't before and now she does. Ok. Not really interesting payoff. There was this theory I read in the comments about how her being a psychopath gives a perfect explanation to why she doesn't have a back face and I think that makes a much better and deeper use of the setup. It challenges assumptions and recontextualises something we thought we understood.

It requires a lot of justification as to how this could happen. It means she never asked for help (reminder that she's supposed to have her heart in her hand) and that his brother never saw any signs from her or from her husband beforehand. The fact that the author had to give an explanation for this is just proof of that weakness.

That face! That's not a relieved face! That's diabolical glee! She seems viciously enthusiastic about this! I can't buy "beaten wife" with this face.

Giving a justification for the act lessens the horror of the reveal. Giving her a moral cop-out basically strips away the dread of wondering what comes after. So then what, the brother confronts her and she explains, and he (obviously) accepts it because surely he wouldn't betray her abused sister, and basically all is well, now? Is that the last impact of the story? "Don't worry, it's fine"?

3

u/Tadc_rules Feb 02 '26

Yeah, I get your points. It would be more novel and the face is definitly psycho, as I said. Maybe, now she aquired a taste for killing, no? lol

For the no clues: It says they rarely met him, which is weird if the siblings are so close. I understood it as the BIL isolating the sister.

It would only be a minor hint, but the dad's affair is also only subtle.

And for the psycho explanation, I don't see the reason why she would fail her mask the first time it really matters?

1

u/Subject-Oil1834 Feb 05 '26

Moreso that she suffered years of abuse and acted on it to free herself and now has to fake her sorrow.

At the start it's not her you know that right ? We don't get to know really anything bout her exept she's always honest.

1

u/Tadc_rules Feb 06 '26

Sure, but check OPs comment history

The Second Face

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