3261: Side Effect

Side Effect

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Title text: Brace yourself--the chirp gets pretty weird.

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Explanation

This is one of 46 incomplete explanations: This page was created by sensitive medication and HAS SIDE EFFECTS. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Beret Guy tells Ponytail about the new medication he’s using, with the entirely precedented side effect of sensitivity to Sun exposure and the far less normal sensitivity to gravitational waves. At first she replies that those side effects are normal, then does a double take and is confused about the second effect. Then, when she realizes, Beret Guy starts to exhibit the stretching and squishing of a gravitational wave, but by obviously visible amounts. Beret Guy's hat also stretches and shrinks, indicating it could be a part of his body, which contradicts the idea from an earlier comic that it is stapled to his head. (Or perhaps it's part of the strange power the medicine makes him exhibit.)

This is probably the most extreme example to date of Beret Guy being peculiarly sensitive to minuscule external forces. However, rather than showing concern for his body rapidly changing shape, he instead enjoys the feeling, saying 'Whee' in the last panel.

"The chirp" refers to gravitational waves during the end-stages of black hole collision, during which expansion and contraction of the waves increase in frequency to the point where they alternate extremely rapidly (the term comes from how it sounds when the gravitational wave is represented through sound). This would cause Beret Guy's body to also change form repeatedly and rapidly.

Transcript

[Beret Guy is standing to the right of Ponytail.]

Beret Guy: This new topical medication makes me extra sensitive to sun exposure and gravitational waves.

[Beret Guy's arms are out.]

Ponytail: Oh yeah, that's a common ...wait, what was that last part?

Beret Guy: Here comes one now!

[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is stretched out in height.]

[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is now shorter and wider than he was originally.]

[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is now stretched out in height again as he was in the third panel.]

Beret Guy: WHEEE!

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Discussion

FIRST COMMENT! YZ100 2:07, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

I do believe this takes the cake from Doppler Effect as my all time favorite. Jjj (talk) 02:43, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

The Doppler Effect one was a good one. YZ100 (talk) 2:51, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

I tried my best to add a little bit of an explanation, it’s probably not very good and it’s certainly missing some stuff, but at least there’s something now.IllegallyNamed (talk) 03:01, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

even the hat changes. I guess its part of him Student Driver (talk) 03:22, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

I've added a (probably massively incorrect) detail on "The chirp". Someone with better understanding of black holes will probably need to amend it! 161.65.236.209 05:46, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

His beret expands and shrinks because it's stapled to his head -- his head underneath it is expanding and shrinking, dragging the top of the beret with it. 142.134.94.223 16:23, 20 June 2026 (UTC)
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