At least a few readers were confused by the last panel, so just to be clear: Shanna is not doing anything to Carol but staring her down. She’s just been verbally hammering at Carol’s swollen growth of guilt until it finally burst.

Here’s a brutal fact of life. I hate that it’s true, but I can’t deny it. If you’re dealing with someone who’s been brainwashed, there are times you’re going to have to get rough, emotionally speaking, because “rough” is what they’ve been trained to respect, whether they know it or not. You don’t need to keep it up as long as the original brainwasher, and you can be kind before and after. But Shanna would not have gotten any good result here just by gently telling Carol to respect herself.

Not that Shanna’s faking anything here. This speech is very her, especially “e-life” and “sky orcs.” But aside from her issues with fandom, she has few illusions about who she is. Life is less about making big changes to yourself and more about learning to use who you are.