Weregeek

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Welcome to The Masquerade, Mark.

"You, sir, may be a natural-born Munchkin." —Joel

Mark once was just an ordinary guy with an office job and a blonde girlfriend. Except that every once in a while he had a strange urge to hang in front of a tabletop RPG store and stare at its wares pointlessly... Then one day, after a run in with the local vampire coven and The Hunters, he discovered a mind-blowing truth: there is a secret society out there, The Masquerade... OF GEEKS! And he is one of them, "a human by day and a geek by night"...

Weregeek is a Web Comic written and drawn by Alina Pete and Layne Myhre, first published in November 2006. It has its own site (administrated by Layne's brother Todd). Alina also writes the Journal Comic Moosehead Stew.

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Tropes used in Weregeek include:

• Berserk Button: Don't call Cyberpunk stupid in front of Abby.
  • Or make a crime and travesty of Lord of the Rings in front of Sarah.
  • Likewise it would be very foolish to tell Sarah that fantasy is just for guys.
• Brainwashed: Captured geeks are apparently killed, or brainwashed into regular people, removing any enjoyment from the unique and conforming to be another average joe.
  • Joel's answer is to deprogram them making them remember who they are... and being no better than his enemy tries brainwashing a hunter into a WWE geek.
    • That goes over 'really' well.
• Calling Your Attacks: Parodied here.
• Calvin Ball: You can see an embryonic version of it when the geeks attempt an ordinary card game. Go fish!
  • And later that evening it has matured into full scale Card Game Calvinball.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Justified with Joel, who gives people only enough information to protect themselves. This is because he's the group's dungeon master; it's a habit.
• Cargo Ship: In-Universe between Dustin's D&D game paladin and his armor.
• Closet Geek: Mark. He knows about his nerdiness, but hides it from his co-workers and girlfriend for fear of being laughed at.
• Collector of the Strange: Joel collects unopened soda pop.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Joel's habit of messing with people's brains, Abbie's antics, sometimes Dustin vs. Abbie pillow-fighting. Let alone PCs.
• Cosplay Otaku Girl: Abbie. While she doesn't exactly cosplay anime characters, she is an otaku and has a very elaborate vampiric attire, complete with fishnets, leather, and a fur collar.
• Crazy Prepared: Abbie states during the zombie game that she has been training her entire life for a Zombie Apocalypse.
  • It's been mentioned that geeks in general are this for a Zombie Apocalypse: What other demographic has been making joking-or-not plans for this eventuality and routinely sleeps with a sword next to their bed?
• Deadly Decadent Court: The vampire game.
• Deep-Immersion Gaming: That's what almost entire comic is about.
• Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend: Mark's girlfriend tries to join the geeks for a game night. She's not a geek, but doesn't mind that Mark is one.
  • However, a point of potential drama is that while she knows he's a geek, she doesn't know how bad he's got it. Specifically, he hasn't told her about the whole "weregeeks and hunters" bit.
• Even Nerds Have Standards: The concept is referenced in this strip.
• Face Palm: Demonstrated here in combination with Unsound Effect.
• Fan Girl: Abbie
• Fantastic Racism: The hunters aparently hate the geeks for not being mainstream. They hunt the geeks even when their only crime is increasing market revenue by buying as many collectibles as they could carry simply because they occasionally turning into a shadow creature who would sooner play D&D than attack anyone.
  • This really gives more the impression that 'this' is what happens to the Jerk Jocks who waste high school picking on geeks.
  • It's so bad that one hunter leader chewed out his subordinate for even hinting that he saw a comic book movie.
• Fastball Special: When Mark and Abbie fight a chimera in the D&D game.
• Film Noir: The Shadowrun game is intentionally styled after this genre.
• Funny Background Event: This strip.
• Geek: Every main character.
• Genki Girl: Abbie
• Genre Savvy: Joel has been showing this in the latest arc
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: For bonus points, Sarah's angels look like her PCs: the White Magician Girl she plays in the D&D game for good angel and The Vamp from vampire LARP for bad angel. And her Shadowrun character as a neutral one.
• Guyliner: Mark at the goth club.
• Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: The whole story is about Mark coming in terms with his geekiness with other geeks' help.
• Healing Factor: Joel apparently has one.
• The Hunter: There's a whole organization of them here. They hunt geeks though what they do to them or their background has not yet been elaborated.
  • The Hunter's scientists seem to understand that the Geeks are harmless, but their General Ripper just wants to shoot them and get it over with.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: the resistance accidentally created the "turned hunter" kind
• I Think You Broke Him: "I think I broke the new guy!!"
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Actually happened from dice rolls during a Star Wars gaming session. Abbie said it was just like the movies.
• In Medias Res: The story just loves jumping into the middle of a gaming session.
• Insult Backfire:

Abbie: Dude!! That's... That's nefarious! Joel: Aww, thanks. You're making me blush!

• Knight Templar: The Hunters
• LARP: one of the games the geeks play is a live vampire LARP
• MacGyvering: Abbie's Shadowrun character Twitch is a Techno Wizard, and manages to combine this with blatant Pyromaniac streak into one piece of Comedic Sociopathy.
• Machine Monotone:

Twitch's drone: hello. let's.play.a.game.

• The Masquerade: Geeks hide themselves within the society, acting as if they were ordinary students and office workers, to avoid the Hunters' attention.
• Mysterious Watcher: The ominously lurking hunter.
• Non-Malicious Monster: The geeks really, yeah they's turn into sinister looking shadowy figures if presented with a first edition Han Solo figure, but outside of an intense game of D&D they have yet to be seen attacking people or acting with any sort of malicious intent.
  • The only time you see them get violent is when they are being attacked by hunters.
  • Or when Joel forgets to tell Eric that the larpers weren't really vampires.
• Not a Zombie: Mark's first encounter with the "zombies" IRL.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Actually, there are no vampires in the comic, just a few geeks who are very good at portraying them...?
• Petite Pride: Right after Katie and Sarah are busy complaining about how exspensive it is having to buy custom bras so they fit they glare scathingly at Abby who says she can just pick up from the rack at Wallmart for a fraction of the cost.
• Plot Parallel: Both Jess and Sarah get to be the odd one out in the social circle of the other (Gaming Night and Girls' Night, respectively). They are both mildly weirded out.
• Private Eye Monologue: Mark gets to pull it off in the Shadowrun game.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Hunters. Well, the Delta Team, at least. It starts showing here when they start developing actual personalities and stop being regular old Mooks.
• Reference Overdosed
• Retcon: Originally, Mark's half-orc had STR 20 but has since been dwindled to more realistic (under Dungeons & Dragons rules) score of 19.
  • Under 3.5 and 4, a Half-Orc (+2 Strength mod) with 20 STR is perfectly realistic under the point-buy system. Munchkinny, sure, but legitimate.
• Running Gag: "TEN POUNDS OF POCKY!"
• Screw You, Elves: Abbie's Elven Rogue, having been raised by humans, thinks her own race a little haughty.

"The Tai Shan monks had better manners than you idiots do, and ten times the wisdom."

• Serious Business: Gaming is very serious business for weregeeks, but it goes quadruple for Joel.
• Shallow Love Interest: Subverted with Mark's girlfriend Jess, who turns out to be much more perceptive and open-minded than she first appears like.
• Shout-Out: This comic has a display case showing off a couple of "Erf" miniatures, including a few dwagons, gwiffons, and marbits.
  • The page also features Pintsize, The aptly-named Red Robot from Diesel Sweeties, Helix from Freefall, Serenity, and the Starship Enterprise.
  • And one of the Schlock Mercenary ships.
  • And a few half-obscured Daleks.
  • All the decorations on the Christmas tree.
  • And a model of Pintsize.
• Squee: Mark and the Talking Guy do this at the idea of flying an X-Wing against the Empire...
• Squishy Wizard: Sarah's mage in the D&D game.
• Stone Wall: Dustin's paladin in the D&D game.
• Stop Helping Me!: Abbie's PC Twitch (we mentioned Comedic Sociopathy already, right?):

Twitch: (to Aeon) ...you're wearing body armor, right? [...] Author: At least she remembered to say sorry... Remember chummers -- when you "accidentally" blow up your teammates, always apologize afterwards. It's good Shadowrunning etiquette.

• Tempting Fate: What could possibly go wrong?
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Abbie and Sarah.
• V-Formation Team Shot: At the end of chapter 17. "We'll teach those Hunters that you don't mess with GEEKS!" Not the straightest example, though, since the leader is not in the middle of the formation but on the side.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Silver is to werewolves what Tax forms, Red tape, insurance ads and C-Span is to geeks.
• We Have Been Researching Phlebotinum for Years: The series begins with Mark drooling at a look on dice and being chased by The Hunters. He is saved by Joel and the others, who explain to him that he is a weregeek, just like themselves, which is why he was being hunted. It is much later explained that Joel, in fact, is the leader of La Résistance hunting the Hunters and he knows much more about them than he tells anyone.
• We Work Well Together: Happens to the player characters in the end of the Shadowrun arc.
• Wham! Episode: Strip 2011-05-10 sees Joel wounded while fleeing from a Hunter, then bursting through a window where the rest of the gang is dining. And it looks like it's a Real Life section this time.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Here.
• With Catlike Tread: Abbie in the D&D game.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Sarah and Abbie's discussion of Merlin is rather telling.
• You All Meet in An Inn: This.
• You Have Failed Me...: Textbook example, complete with Shoot the Messenger.
• Xanatos Gambit: This is how Joel captures The Hunter here: either the Hunter grabs his hand, putting himself into Joel's power, or he falls into the net below. The second part worked.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Mark runs into a horde of "zombies" after a vampire game session (who are discovered to be normal people doing a charity "zombie run" on Halloween) and the gang later reenacts it with a zombie movie game.