Questionable Content/Headscratchers

Female = Crazy?

It doesn't really bug me that much, but to echo the point made below: why are all the female characters variations on the theme of total nutcase? Hanners: severe OCD. Faye: Relationship Issues. Dora: has recurring allusions and hints of deep-deated Boy Issues. Faye's Mum: plain strange. Marten's Mum: fetish model. Hanners' Mum: Corporate Bitch. Penelope: also OCD, plus possible superhero syndrome. Sarah: Eaten by an Allosaurus because she was too boring! Methinks Jeph likes his wacko females. (postscript: not that I'm bagging out wacko females: Normal is boring.)

• Wait, is Faye's mom really that strange? Down-to-Earth (and a little earthy overall) but otherwise she seems very much the deep southern 50-something mother. Of course, she is on meds, but they seem to be working quite well for her.
• How many girls DON'T go through some pretty serious Boy Issues? Dora's may go deeper / have lasted longer (at 26) than most, but her biggest problem seems to be an oversensitive jealousy reflex - which is quite common in the real world.
  • Nah, Dora's pretty much officially crazy.
  • 10%?
• I'd like to take issue with saying Marten's mum is crazy because she's a fetish model. She actually seems quite sane and well-balanced. If you want to criticise any point of her sanity, I'd say threatening to harm her son's roommate and female best friend if she ever hurts him is a much stronger case.
• OK, EVERYONE in Questionable Content is weird. Just call it the ultimate Quirky Town and be done with it.
  • That pretty much sums up Northampton. The town is literally a Weirdness Magnet, I live across the river from it.
  • That sums up all of New England (except Connecticut and Rhode Island). King and Lovecraft just exaggerate a bit.
• Penelope, OCD? Pizza Girl aside (which isn't even confirmed), she seems fairly normal to me. In fact, a lot of humor has been derived from her being much more normal than the rest of the cast.
• This Troper actually thought every member of the cast having varying levels of mental health was pretty realistic. I wonder what they says about his social circle...
• It just applies to everyone, Steve, Angus, Wil, and Sven being main male characters with relationship problems. It comes up a lot because QC is about relationships rather than events (most of the time).

Male = Creepy?

• Why are all the male characters creeps? (except, obviously, for Marten. And maybe Faye's dad, but um. And Steve isn't too much of one, particularly due to character development. But still. Dora's dad, Angus, Hannelore's dad...erm, Amir isn't...Sven...Sven's buddy...Pintsize^10...Winslow's sliding this way...)
  • So roughly half of the characters are creeps? Sounds like a good proportion...
  • So all the men in the strip, except for those who are the focus character, someone's foil, or someone's boyfriend are creeps? Specifically, the two men whose primary role in the strip is to come onto a traumatized woman repeatedly and the subversion of the Robot Buddy are creeps? Aside from Dora's dad...
  • Hannelore's dad isn't a creep, just... weird. Sven's getting better. And Pintsize and Winslow aren't really "guys", although Pintsize is a major creep. So that leaves the male creep count at three or four. Considering that the comic's quickly approaching Loads and Loads of Characters, it's not that high.
    • Hannelore's dad isn't even weird, per se. He's a superscientist. He has a daughter whose life he's been forcibly absent from, whom he knows to have crippling social interaction issues and an aversion to germs. So, he sends her a nice, sterile, easily-cleaned, totally understanding, completely loyal Robo-Boyfriend. Weird? Hell, that sounds like unconditional fatherly love to me. Granted, I give superscience a special pass, but, in this case, it just seems like he's a really caring dad who happens to be a little distant.
  • Wait, Amir strikes me as one of the creepier ones. What was the age difference between him and Nat again?
    • Whatever the age difference, Nat is a college-aged young woman and therefore presumably legally able to consent. It's not like Amir is hanging around high school parking lots trying to pick up jailbait - or for that matter even deliberately going for someone younger than he is. He and Nat met at a rock show that they were both interested in, hit it off and started dating. Age differences in relationships alone do not creepy make.
      • Given that Tai offered to strike up a relationship with Dora's as-yet unborn sister, Amir scores very low on the age difference creep-ometer.
  • Will (Sven's friend) doesn't strike me as particularly creepy. Sure, he writes sexy poetry about some girl he met, but she wasn't meant to see it.
    • Strangely, this has been argued about in the comic itself, which may mean that the author, much like every other denizen of the internet, reads this site. In order to test this theory: what's the deal with Pintsize not having nipples?
      • He does have USB ports, and presumably blanking panels where more USB ports could go. The fact that the latter aren't where nipples would be on a human is neither here nor there...
      • Why would Pintsize have nipples?
  • I don't seen how Angus is supposed to be creepy. A bit weird, sure, but creepy? Not seeing it.
  • I'd like to make a point about Dora and Sven's dad (Mr. Bianchi). He's not a creep, he's jovial. Many Mediterranean dads are like this (my dad probably would have done something similar). He knows his son is a womanizer and he did nothing more than pinch Faye's sides. If she knew Sven well enough to storm in his apartment like that I don't see why he'd assume that she'd very much bother with what he did. He's been shown to be an open guy in other occasions (when Marty went to dinner with Dora's family).

Universal Sense Of Humor

• It bugs me that every single character in the strip seems to have the same sense of humor. This has gotten better in recent strips, but I facepalmed when Steve met a random girl on the street that was not only able to sass back and forth with him, but was able to do so with jokes about corpses and working at the morgue. Admittedly, that was the low point of this feeling, and Meena's turned out relatively interesting, but still.
  • This troper feels the same way, and also wonders how it is that so many people who've read Dune manage to come into contact. Out of a hundred people, some of them English literature majors, this troper only found 1 guy who'd read Dune --- the guy to whom this troper had recommended the book.
    • Not all of them had to have read the book. This troper got the mom jabbar pun because the original was mentioned on the page for Billy and Mandy.
  • This troper actually finds that QC has pretty impressive characterisation for a strip with such a large cast, each character possessing their own voice and personality quirks (entry above about all the women being nuts: they're all nuts in different ways). Your Mileage May Vary, of course. However, I don't find it too unreasonable to think that a bunch of people who are all meant to get along as friends would share a sense of humour.
    • And not a single one of them has been raped.
  • Hanners and Raven often don't (really) get jokes. (Well, in Raven's case, that just might be a degree of Obfuscating Stupidity). Penelope isn't always amused by the same things the other characters are.
  • Original poster here: given several months to think about it and noting examples such as the above, I again note that Steve's meeting with Meena was the event that stretched my suspension of disbelief the most; after that, I am starting to come around to the characters being more individual than they were, especially nowadays. My original problem was that there was a point where the cast seemed entirely...I don't know what the word is. Swappable? Basically, it seemed like if you hid the art, you wouldn't be able to tell who was speaking, especially in the "sassing back and forth-witty banter" strips. Again, this is something Jeph has worked on via much Character Development, so it doesn't bug me much anymore.
    • Interchangeable. Is the word you want. And yes they are. Very.
  • For what it's worth, The Law of Conservation of Detail applies here. Naturally we only see the interactions with people who can keep up with the main characters, because those are the interactions that are actually interesting.
• The Meena example didn't bug me at all -- it's not nearly so improbable as you would think. That's how I met my last boyfriend, by making dead baby jokes in the mall and he came along and started chipping in. The one that DID hit me as a little "oh come on now really?" was Doctor Corrine. I can't imagine anybody working as a psychiatrist belittling someone's emotional trauma in the first five minutes of the first session.

Not-That-Alternate Universe

• It amuses me how nobody's mentioned the little talking sentient AI robots yet, in comparison to the above.
  • That's because there's an explanation for that provided by Jeph. The world of QC isn't the same as our world. As he said, "You think that'd be obvious with the little robot computers running around, but..."
    • It kinda bugs me just how friggin' similar it is for being an alternate universe, though...
      • That's how the alternate universe theory is supposed to work, right? With an infinite amount of universes, it means there's an infinite copies of our world, each one barely different.
    • Given the little 'bots seem to be the only regular use of super science it sort of seems like Reed Richards Is Useless.
    • The only one that we see, because the story is about the Marten & co. Perhaps the power stations run on cold fusion and there are colonies on Mars. That doesn't impact the characters' day-to-day lives; the lights work when you switch them on, however they're powered.
    • Uh, robots are used for other purposes. Hannelore's dad lives on a space station (where she was raised), there are robot TRUCKS, a sufficiently human body has been created, and that's just top of my head.
    • I seem to recall Hanners saying "I will move to the moon" at one point in response to somebody's creepy joke or something. We assume she is using a hyperbole, but maybe there really are colonies on the moon! It's like saying she'll move to China, it's silly but still possible.
    • Hanner's also made a comment in one of the strips how her father neglecting her was a reasonable price for bringing cancer-killing nanobots into the world, so it's safe to assume that the QC world is rather advanced. Mostly due to Hanner's dad.
• Wait, it's an Alternate Universe? I always figured it was just set Twenty Minutes Into the Future.
  • Given the very contemporary band references, not possible.
    • According to in-comic information the only person doing Alternate Universe science is Hanner's dad, hence the only reason we see anything science-y it's in small amounts. Yes they have bionic robot arms, Anthro PC's, lasars and things but only those things he bothered to make because they were awesome. In the most recent storyline we've encountered a space plane. Surely if space planes were commonplace or known very well the reactions everyone has had towards the space plane would've been different.... No. this was their first time seeing a plane that could fly into space. Clearly this means that all the cool science is being done by this one man and everyone just sorta follows.

Couch Condoms

• Who put those condoms in their apartment couch?!?
  • Almost certainly Pintsize.
  • Definitely Pintsize. Confirmed here.
  • Not Pintsize, they're lambskin (and he must not be lying. That wouldn't be weird enough).
  • The couch excretes them.

Too Late For Drunken Sledding

• Why did he post this comic only after the snow was over? That would have been so awesome, and now I'll spend all summer waiting for it to snow so I can go do that. Damn you, Jacques!
  • Possibly for that reason, so people wouldn't injure themselves and blame him.

Twitter

• The characters all have twitters. This comic is an Egregious case of Webcomic Time. How does that work? Must be an Alternate Continuity.
  • Jeph actually explicitly said when he set up those Twitter accounts that they were non-canon, so that answers that.

Drinking

• This bugs me a lot. Why does everyone, including Hanners, drink at the drop of a hat? Almost all characters I can understand this for, but Hannelore? Drinking? wouldn't the fact that many people who drink end up throwing up be more than enough to keep her lips from ever touching alcohol? What about the bacteria thing? Really, for the character, it makes absolutely no sense that she'd go out to the one place where there is the highest likelihood of human vomit and public urination: Bars and alcohol-heavy parties.
  • This Troper doesn't drink anything worse than cola, but it isn't exactly an unreasonable version of life in Massachusetts, or much of the United States. Drinking alcohol socially is the norm; it's an unusual outlier to not do so regularly, especially among the 18-30 age group. I say that as someone who's high school graduating class had half of the class nearly miss graduation thanks to an underage drinking bust at a large party, and it would have been more than two thirds if someone of the drunk people had run any slower. Even in Hannelore's case, it's not as unusual as you'd think; drug and alcohol addiction are common comorbid conditions in those with OCD, especially in individuals who attempt to self-medicate.
    • She says it herself, hard liquor is a disinfectant.
  • Plus it's Northampton. Trust me, that's the norm in this part of the state. I was the weird one in high school because I was a teetotaler, and there are no less than 5 colleges in the immediate Northampton area, and the author clearly knows the area pretty well, since a good half of everything reported to the police has to do with alcohol.
  • A related note: In a recent comic (the latest one as of this edit), the only person who does not go out and get drunk constantly is shown to be sad, pathetic and lonely. Now this really, REALLY bugs this troper.
    • This troper would argue that the sad, pathetic, and lonely comes more from her spending so much time on World of Warcraft that she neglects basic hygiene. Besides, she's Character Developing out of it.
      • The only person who does not go out and get drunk constantly is a dirty, pimply, WoW-addicted, Gonk (compared to the rest of the cast, even the old ladies), Otaku of an all-around nerd stereotype. Character Development or not, you have to think about what he's saying here.
      • And don't forget: part of her 'rehabilitation' is learning to drink like a fish.
      • The don't get drunk that often, or at least not that we see. And Marigold is hardly a "Gonk". Besides acne and hygiene issues, she's a generically cute as the rest.
      • That, and her rehabilitation was integrating her into a previously built social group. A group who drinks regularly and socially are going to bring asocial people out to drink.
        • She's getting more and more Generic Cuteness, but compare her now to when she first appeared. And I said "compared to the rest of the cast" anyway; Old ladies in QC look like 20-somethings with grey hair and sparse, transparent wrinkles.
    • Penelope doesn't drink, and she's none of those things. And of those that do, Faye is an alcoholic basket case, Hannelore is insane, and Steve and Marten both regularly drink until they hallucinate.
  • No offense, but the level of drinking shown in the comic isn't really abnormal among twenty-somethings.
    • This twenty-something college student troper could drink the whole cast under the table. Except Pintsize. But yeah, Faye aside they're not exactly alcoholics.
  • More importantly, why is no one telling Faye to drop the sauce entirely? Most of the advice is along the lines of "you need to cut back a bit" or "you need to stop using it as a crutch." No one has a problem with her continuing to drink. I'll grant the AA method isn't necessarily best, but why is no one even suggesting it?
    • Arguments about what makes someone an alcoholic run all over the place, but most likely the better part of the cast don't think alcoholism is her real problem. She's already seeing a therapist and while she may drink more than is really healthy as a coping mechanism, it so far hasn't interfered with her ability to lead a normal life - the trauma of her father's death is much more significant in that respect.
  • Also, why does Hannelore smoke, I mean the entire idea of leaking unsanitary black tar into your lungs that causes disease and serious damage to all of your organs doesn't seem like a very OCD thing to do.
    • OCD, by it's nature, doesn't manifest in particularly logical fashions, so the individual has very little control over what, in particular, upsets them. Given that the afflicted is generally fairly well aware that their obsessions and compulsions are irrational, they may not follow them through to what appear to be their logical conclusions. Or, as she put it, "a girl's got to have some contradictions".
• I thought all these people were being silly until this sequence. After Dora dumps him, Marten - who is tiny - gets through at least a fifth, possibly more, of whiskey (minus a measure or two for Hannelore) in a just a few hours, stays more-or-less upright, and keeps it down until morning. That's a disturbing tolerance.
• Jacques himself still tweets and makes updates about how drunk he is -- he probably still does that a bit, and it's reflected in the social lives of his characters.
  • On his Tumblr recently he made a post about his own alcoholism and rather recent recovery from it.
• Social 20-somethings drink? SHOCK.

Assorted Crap

• Why they NEVER connected that Sven got "attacked by a girl on a Vespa" with the attack on Marten and Steve?
  • I didn't make the connection until two or three archive binges
    • Me neither. And it's possible that they just forgot about the vespa-chick -- they can't exactly check the archives for exact words. They just say, "Hey, remember that night when Steve got into an accident and then attacked by raccoons? Haha, that was crazy."
  • Because the former was an FLCL reference, and the latter was a plot thread.
• Maybe I'm easily bugged, but: compare any description of the effect of birth order on personality with the Bianchis' stated birth order and observable personalities.
  • Trends have counterexamples. This bugs you?
  • Also, the effect of birth order on personality are a lot more tenuous than Alfred Adler would like you to believe.
• Why didn't Faye get in trouble for burning down her building?
  • Presumably, she didn't own it, and she wasn't the only one living there (since it's referred to as an "apartment"), but once she moves it with Marten...it's completely forgotten. Really? No consequences whatsoever?
  • Could be he action, but the building owner's liability. Like she started the fire, but it went out of control because the owner insulated the building with flammable material- which is illegal, and the owner would take the blame.
  • It's also possible that "burned down" is something of a hyperbole. Faye has been known to exaggerate. Marten didn't question it, but then, he didn't know Faye very well at that point. I think it's possible that she just did quite a bit of damage to her kitchen and was evicted/had to move out and lost her security deposit.
  • Do we know enough of the situation to really know that she's entirely at fault for 'burning down' her apartment? Oops, I left the toaster on, and the electric socket fritzed...
    • It was all a lie to move in with Marten.
    • Do we know enough of the situation to really know that she's at fault at all for 'burning down' her apartment (and it wasn't just an example of their now-usual joking)? I swear, replacing this point once is Data Vampires, twice is coincidence, three times does/would imply someone deleting or editing my responses.
• Jeph's reaction to his fanbase. The rants near the beginning of the comic seem to indicate that he was thankful/liked them or whatever, but that attitude has done a complete 180 in recent years. Admittedly, having people ship characters when you ask them not to is annoying, but still...
  • Going by his comments on the QC forum and his LiveJournal, a kind of "good-natured trolling" seems to appeal to his sense of humour. Maybe he feels he's Vitriolic Best Buds with his fans.
  • It's also probably some genuine frustration with how some of his fans seem to have a pretty clear "INTERWEBS ARE SRS BIZNZ!" attitude and can't, y'know, take a rather obvious joke. That's what I'm getting from his twitter, anyway.
• It annoys me how Marten, Faye and Dora basically act like Hannelore's parents (this seems to be happening with Marigold as well). They take her out, look after her, make parental decisions about her, that kind of thing. Hanners (and Marigold) are essentially the children with the rest of the cast acting as impromptu parents. Maybe I'm reading into it too much.
  • I think it's just a usual part of a sitcom-style cast: the central characters are normal and "grown-up" with other weirder or sillier ones around them, such as Chandler from Friends as opposed to Joey, or Steve and Susan in Coupling compared to Jeff or Jane.
• Maybe I'm totally missing the point of the whole series or just don't have the right sense of humor. . . but it bugs me that the girls and Faye especially get to beat the shit out of Marten whenever they feel like it. Abuse is NOT okay when it is female on male and Faye needs to learn that. Women do not get a free pass to hit anyone who makes them mad anymore than men do, and Faye comes off to me as a simple bully hiding behind her gender to escape retribution.
  • You're not the only one that reckons she comes off as a sociopath or similar. (Faye also abuses anyone she bloody well pleases - Raven's treatment as the Butt Monkey for her Does Not Understand Sarcasm nature didn't sit well with me.)
  • I think it's worth mentioning that trope titles such Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male aren't saying that that's true, just that this is noticeably present in fiction. Besides that, you do have a point, though very occasionally she gets called out on it.
• Am I the only one who thinks the way Faye reacted to Sven's "cheating on her" was totally unreasonable? Yes, she has every right to stop sleeping with him, but acting as if it was a betrayal beyond her comprehension was just ridiculous. He had outright warned her to her face that he was going to sleep with other people, then when he did, she acted like he had drowned her puppy. And then the way she treats him after that like he's an evil, evil person, unworthy of forgiveness, for doing exactly what he said he was going to do... It seems kind of like she brought it upon herself by continuing their friends with benefits situation and expecting more out of it than he had offered.
  • Perhaps despite Character Development she's still not all that well-adjusted.
  • Why was it unreasonable? She was hurt. She walked out. She got angry a bit later, but didn't direct it at him at all. Then, when next they saw each other, she was cold, but it wasn't until he was an asshole that she wrote him off entirely. When he apologized more sincerely later, we don't see what she actually says, but we know that she agrees to be civil, which is about as much as he could have hoped for. Basically you're suggesting that she's wrong to feel sad and betrayed after someone that she'd been seeing exclusively for months slept with another girl.
  • Of course her reaction was unreasonable, if she was a well adjusted person. She's not. She's got massive issues with trust and allowing herself to be close to men. What's unreasonable is everyone thinking her rabidly banging Sven was "Good for her" in any way, shape or form. She basically used the poor moron to get her jollies off, and to get as close to a relationship her addled psyche could handle. She never once gave a damn about his feelings desires, cares or wants. Nothing about Sven/Faye was healthy for either of them. Sven is *still* trying to get himself back up, not that anyone really seems to give a damn. Sven actually seemed to *care* for Faye, before the whole mess started, least we forget. Just because a guy casually fucks around doesn't mean he's a soulless dick in a glass case.
    • Sven didn't seem to care about Faye (as more than a fuckbuddy) until after he'd banged that writer chick. Points for fessing up, double-points taken for screwing around on Faye with all the self-control and self-awareness of a Seinfeld character. I think he was so used to being an openly shameless man-whore, it never even occurred to him to just not tell Faye.
    • Actually, if you recall, he wasn't going to tell Faye, until his intern forces his hand by threatening to tell her himself if he doesn't.
    • Faye didn't exactly need to give a lot of thought to Sven's "desires, cares [sic] and wants" when all he seemed to be interested in was getting to screw her on a regular basis. Clearly in hindsight it seems evident that he did actually care about her for more than that, but at the time, this troper doubts that even he had any idea of that.
    • As for none of Faye's friends intervening... in this troper's experience, it can be very easy to kid yourself into thinking something's good for a friend if they clearly want to do it (or keep doing it) and they're not obviously suffering or immediately about to suffer from it. Besides, the situation wasn't quite as appalling as you've read it. Faye DID have physical intimacy issues to overcome, and even if doing so didn't necessarily overcome her emotional intimacy issues, that doesn't mean it's bad thing for her to have done so; and remember that the very tendencies that made Sven a bad choice ultimately were also what made him available to her in the first place. Besides, although we don't get to see the whole picture, there were some pretty clear hints in previous strips that Faye was getting frustrated sexually, so given the likely improvement to her overall temperament, just "[sic] getting her jollies off" wasn't really in itself such a bad thing after all (and even if it was, makes her friends' not trying to make her stop it all the more believable).
• It bugs me that the Jeph spent a good three paragraphs trying not to step on the toes of polygamists but apparently considers TV Tropes " every single idiotic comment from my forums distilled into one HTML document". I understand that not everyone is going to love this site,but they usually give valid reasons why. It also bugs me that I'm taking this so personally.
  • It might be that having put up with the incessant shipping and other comments that really stuck in his craw and led him to say that he was close to just deleting the forums altogether, seeing someone assemble "every single idiotic comment from my forums ... into one HTML document" was like having it weaponised. So he was hardly going to take it well; it's just a shame it coloured his impression of the wiki.
  • This troper was under the impression that that was just his opinion about the actual QC page, not the entire wiki itself.
  • Does it say something about us that we have put that quote on the QC page?
    • Yes. That we are awesome.
      • Just to note, TVTropes is the second most frequent referer to QC (the first one being QC itself, so it doesn't really count). Sweet irony.
      • Webcomic makers are known for being classy- didn't you get the memo?
        • Jacques is extremely touchy, yet is extremely liberal. It's a nasty mix. This is why he goes out of his way to avoid hurting anyone's feelings if they're on the left side of the spectrum, or typically gain sympathy from them. Polygamists, gays, lesbians, pornstars, fetishists, any possible minority, etc. People with psychological problems (who tend to draw more sympathy from the left) are joked about, but get sympathy. But nerds somehow are fair game, as are retarded people apparently, as he really loves using the word "Retarded" to describe people he doesn't like. What's particularly funny is how defensive he is over being criticized like that. This wiki wasn't even that negative of him -- he just didn't like the Shipping & a few criticisms!
        • I'm really liking the idea that all "people with psychological problems" are automatically leftist, while nerds are, by contrast, right wing.
          • well it's ironic then,(Op here)as I'm a black nerd with brain damage,but I don't think I've ever seen him not try to offend minorities,as the ones that show up are never heard from again.
        • That bit came out wrong. I meant that leftists are generally more likely to show sympathy for psychological problems (just look at which parties actively support programs for the disabled, mental or otherwise). Nerds are not right wing by definition (I find the opposite more true myself), they're just outside the spectrum of sympathetic people.
        • Jacques is touchy? This troper always gotten the impression that, whilst his annoyance with certain parts of his fanbase is genuine, most of the rest of the time he's just fooling around (trolling, in less flattering terms), and in the case of his real irritation, one can at least see where he's coming from.
  • Wait, so belittling what someone does in their free time on the internet is as bad now as insulting a person's romantic way of life? Not saying that Jacques' opinion of TV Tropes is justified (I'm here, aren't I?), or even that he didn't overdo the political correctness with the polyarmorists, but still, priorities people.
  • I know right? The Wiki is clearly done in PHP and definitely not pure HTML format (though a certain amount of HTML is necessary for the internet, generally).
• Angus is introduced as someone who comes to COD purely to get insulted by Faye. Every. day. Angus sees Faye in a bar, goes up to her, and bugs her. She tells him to go away. He refuses. She TOSSES HIM ACROSS THE BAR, and he GOES BACK AND GIVES HER HIS NUMBER. Later, when Faye ends up dropping Sven, Angus is somehow a wonderful and not-at-all creepy guy, beloved patron of COD,and a close personal friend to our heroes. WHAT. THE. HELL. This isn't character development! This isn't even character derailment! This is Jeph Jacques arbitrarily turning someone into a different person for no reason at all! And it's not the first time he's done it, either. Look at how he put Marten's bandmate on a bus by suddenly making her a spoiled bitch DESPITE ACTIVELY SHOWING HER BEING UNCOMFORTABLE WITH HER PARENT'S WEALTH IN AN EARLIER STRIP. Meena SUDDENLY seemed to get over ALL her issues with her Ex for no real reason, probably because Jeph couldn't be bothered to continue that storyline and thought making Steve a secret agent for no reason was funnier.
  • Angus' interest in Faye is never suggested to be healthy, by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that, as the characters get to know Angus, he seems less weird because it's easier to dismiss a stranger as a freak than someone that you know. Natasha has always been self-centered (for example, getting excited by the prospect of Hannelore's blood making her guitar look awesome) and really, being uncomfortable with being rich doesn't mean that she's completely awesome all the time. You don't have to be stuck-up to be a bitch. As for Meena... well, Rule of Funny. She's a briefly seen love interest to a secondary character. You might as well complain that it's out of character for Sara to be eaten by an allosaurus.
  • Also, Angus was always at least liked at CoD. He bought drinks every day to say the least. He was never CREEPY, he just enjoyed his banter with Faye. And guess what, the rest of the cast (and the reader) gets to know him better and he's actually a nice guy. And about the bar thing, it's called audacity. He's proud enough and confident in himself to have the guts to do that. Plus, Faye and he aren't total strangers, so he kinda knows what to expect.
    • An nice guy with an unfortunate habit of talking off the top of his head when flustered, leading to occasionally coming across as extremely tactless.
• Strip 35: Is Faye talking about escapades in high school, or is this just a Retcon / Characterization Marches On?
  • Well, she never said she was a virgin. Although she could've been implying more experience than she actually had in order to mess with Marten.
    • In fact, at one point she specifically discusses loosing her virginity in the back of her high-school boyfriend's car.
  • Huh. High school, I guess.
• Why have they still not made Hannelore's "I'm OC Delightful" shirt into merch? This OCD suffereing QC fan WANTS IT SO BAD!
  • Screw that, what's needed is "I am the prettiest princess" in men's sizes.
    • That would defeat the purpose.
• Angus's job bugs me. Advancing causes you believe in by pretending to be on the other side? Way to stifle reasoned debate. Describing it as "Stephen Colbert incorporated" isn't right, since at least he's honest/blatant about it; it's more like "Emmanuel Goldstein incorporated," a "quiet those bastards at any cost" strategy wholeheartedly endorsed by every other character and the author.
  • It was a one-shot joke that appeared in a single strip.
• Wait, Toto wrote songs other then Africa?
  • ...yes?
• Seriously, the thing happening with Dora's "trust issues" right now. As though, what, it's totally ludicrous to be upset that her boyfriend is on the couch with a girl, both in their underwear, while they used to be really really into each other? Especially considering that in QC's webcomic time it's only been something like a few months since then.
  • A boyfriend that she's known for a while and bloody well everyone in her social circle acknowledges as too nice for his own damn good? A friend she knows is still dealing with relationship issues step-by-step, just got out from a bad experience with her brother, and who she herself was trying to get to hook up with another guy (and saw said friend's reaction to said guy)? What's totally ludicrous is that she so very easily believed that two of her closest friends would just turn around and betray her the very night one of them gets over her hang up about relationships to go on a date. She knows all that but still refuses to even consider for one moment that it's Not What It Looks Like and does not even give them the chance to explain. A "few months" is no excuse as a few months equals several weeks, which in turn are composed of seven days each. And she interacts with them frequently for all that.
  • Especially since she's seen for herself how Martin really wouldn't be the cheating type, her refusing to even think that maybe she was mistaken was what was ludicrous. Also, compare the way Dora reacted to the way Faye reacted in a strikingly similar situation.
  • Both Marten and Faye are sick of her shit, and it seems this arc will be addressing her issues and her supposed entitlement to overreacting and it being justified.
• Wangst. Everyone. Enough so that it may reach Narm levels, may break Willing Suspension of Disbelief or even worse...no, that's really it. Also, the suicide of her father was very very poorly executed. Ignore any and all puns, they were unintentional.
  • You know, QC HAS taken a turn for the dramatic, but hey, let's count our blessings. At least the narm isn't as bad as It's Walky!, or, God Forbid, Anders Loves Maria.
• Why is it that every time some proper drama looks like it might occur, it's defused a strip or two later? Marten is offended that Faye just told Angus about her issues after all the hoops she made him jump through? No worries, he's just that much of a nice guy. It's Status Quo Is God at an accelerated rate: not enough happens so that we get properly worried. A storyline is supposed to have a beginning, middle, and end. The current trend in QC is beginning, defusal. Unpleasantness happens in real life, and it's being solved way too easily right now.
  • Hopefully he'll bottle his rage/anger/annoyance and explode at her again in the future. No-one is that good of a guy to just take that shit and barely even care about it.
    • Personally, I like how it was done, in the end. I was as annoyed as anyone with the incessant "We have an argument, oh but now we chat to other friends and then make up" events that were going on, because it was literally seven or eight times that happened. But now it looks like they were all mere band-aids, which I think is realistic. Actually, when I put up the Strictly Formula entry I mention that exact thing -- lots of real people act this way, putting band-aids on the situation, until someone blows up.
    • Faye is the Broken Bird and so she is treated as if she is not truly responsible when she treats other people badly. She relies on you, she needs you, she's not self-sufficient, she's emotionally needy but pushy enough that you don't feel like you're taking advantage of her. Much easier to let her get away with everything and then take out your minor issue blowups on someone that is actually capable of functioning on her own, like Dora.
• Why are all the males in this comic such unassertive weaklings? Seriously, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM just rolls over and takes all the shit the women dish out. They let their girlfriends push them around physically, mentally, and emotionally, and they never stand up for themselves. Marten I can understand, as it's obviously intended as part of his character, but the rest? Is this the norm in Northhampton, or is spinelessness considered a good character trait in New England? (This troper is from the Southwest). Either way, I just don't get it.
  • I'm not saying it's Author Appeal... I'm just saying it's a possibility.
  • To be honest, I'm really not seeing it; the only character other than Marten that really fits is Will, who has been established as something of a Man-Child and so prone to bowing to pressure. Amir, Steve and Sven have never exhibited particularly doormattish behaviour, and while Angus has occasional shades of it, that's largely because he is (now) dating Faye, and he's as likely to come back with a sharp retort as to just roll over. And, yeah, there's Dave (Meena's room-mate, ex and now supposedly fiancée), but, in his case, that was a running joke.
• How can Marigold afford a WoW account?
  • She doesn't have a job or visible means of support.
  • She could have some kind of online employment.
  • It's actually mentioned in some of the initial "Marigold visits CoD" comics that she's the webmaster for her dad's website. Not much other detail is given, but assuming that her dad has a popular/lucrative website it's not unreasonable to believe that he'd be able to pay her a living wage without it being nepotism or her leeching off of him.
    • Also, a couple of times it was mentioned she does other freelance website work.

• Does anyone else not really like Dora much any more? Okay, at first the whole insecurity thing was an acceptable flaw, but the last arc with her going all insane about Marten and Faye just put her in "Unreasonable Bitch" for me -- and I'm guessing our friend Mr Reed would agree. There was a perfectly good explanation, and Marten is a really honorable dude, but of course all she did was go flying off the handle. Seriously, one more outburst like that and I will hate her. This is either some kind of character assassination or...I dunno, but I'm hoping there's something else Jacques is trying to show.
  • I've always liked Dora. I saw her as being unreasonable in the last arc, but I thought that she made amends when she apologized. You have to remember that 1) Marten is Dora's first "nice guy" boyfriend. All her other boyfriends were douches who cheated on her, so while her behavior was unreasonable, it makes sense when you think about her past and 2) Marten used to like Faye. A lot. In fact, Marten probably would have ended up with Faye if not for her "dad issues". So, it's possible that Dora could be insecure since she feels that she's the second choice.
    • There's that, and the fact that Faye has openly admitted that if everything was going well, 'she'd be the one in there with Marten' (I'm probably misquoting for the worse here, but still). Combine that with the fact that Faye did sleep with her brother semi-impulsively, the fact that they're in their underwear....I'm not sure. At the very least, I definitely don't think Faye had any right to yell at Dora the way she did.
    • What Faye said was that "if you had answered the door, it would've been you instead of Marty." Faye was looking for someone to talk to and Marten happened to be there. Dora massively overreacted, period, and Faye went up several notches in my book for calling her on it.
    • It's gotten even worse in recent strips. First, she doesn't bother to tell Marigold that Tai will probably hit on her, and then she looks at Marten's porn even though he doesn't want her too.
    • Also when he calls her out on her double standards, her being able to do whatever she wants without any consequences but Marten having to jump through all sorts of stupid hoops for her, she flips out and walks out on him.
      • This Troper isn't going to speculate on how far ahead of time the break-up was planned (although I suspect the foreshadowing had started at least by the Toto conversation), but Dora's double-standards are established relatively early on. After she flips out over Marten getting a haircut without her prior approval, later on she decides to change her style and dye it and explains to Faye that she doesn't have to consult him over something so minor.
  • I would like to point out that Faye has caught Martin in a similar position with a complete stranger, but instead of immediately thinking "Omg Martin's fuckin' another girl!" she is all "Well I know this looks bad, but I'm gonna assume that it's wacky misunderstandings and let you explain before flying off the handle." This is right after coming out to Martin about her issues and her dad's suicide, so if somebody as fucked up as Faye can step back from the situation enough to appreciate that it's probably not what it looks like, Dora comes off as really, REALLY unreasonable and bitchy. It was around there when I personally realized that this relationship was gonna end in the crapper.
    • • The relationship is over now. They might get back together, but it seems unlikely.
• Strip 207. Faye says she cut a vein, but blood only spurts like that if an artery is severed. What do you mean, "stop being such a pedant"?
  • Lots of people don't bother to differentiate between the different blood vessels.
  • Faye may not know which it is, and was half-joking anyway, there's no blood actually spurting.
    • We don't see blood spurting, but there is blood on the kitchen ceiling. How else would it get there if it wasn't spurting?
      • She could have flailed a bit when she realized the blood was actively flowing and more hurriedly tried to grab a dishtowel, or even just flailed in panic while trying to find the towel.
• Jeph seems to be physically incapable of drawing overweight people. His "chubby" girls like Faye and Marigold are just normal women, probably thinner than an average American woman themselves, who think they are overweight because their universe is populated by anorexics and stick-figures. I mean, look at how he draws GabeNewell, it's crazy. Is it so hard for an average-to-large person be seen as attractive in this comic?
  • Honestly? I think he just lacks the talent. And I mean that in the best way possible: the man has never taken an art class, and has basically been groping blindly in order to get his art as far as it is today. Doesn't he still trace his backgrounds?
  • On a similar note, this is "Captain Backhair"? Seriously? And as little as he has on his back, why does he have less on his chest and arms?
  • And now we have "Chunky" Bro. It carries a bit of Unfortunate Implications when everyone who isn't hipster-thin is presented as having a weight problem.
  • Curiously enough, Jeph Jacques himself is about as chunky as "Chunky Bro" in real life (I've met the guy at a Con) -- he's no fattie, but he's way larger than Marten, Sven or even the decently-sized Angus. Maybe he doesn't like that in himself, and it's reflected in his work?
• Hannelore, Miss OC Delightful, smokes? And it's Handwaved with the quote "A girl has to have SOME glaring contradictions in her life"? Get the hell outta here.
  • See under the drinking example above. OCD isn't logical. And it's not just handwaved with that, later she is talking about how she started in spite of her OCD. Doing something she was afraid of, and all that.
    • Fair enough. Officially deBugged, with my thanks.
• The Irony Cafe. Yeah, great idea, hilarious, but how could they possibly stay in business? The vegans they advertise to wouldn't eat there, but they wouldn't get many non-vegan customers except for the occasional "I hear these guys piss off vegans, awesome" guys like Martin and Faye. So they've lost the people they advertise to, the people who are friends with vegans and are told that this place is terrible, and the people who aren't vegan but think that taunting them is a dick move and avoid the place out of principal. It's not a very good business model, is it?
  • To be fair, this was only the 14th comic. Yeah, it is a good point, but I think this is more an example of Early Installment Weirdness than anything. Jeph was probably figuring out just how zany his comic was going to be at that time.
  • Also, in their region, veganism has made enough inroads even in the real world that non-vegans can often be seen in vegan restaurants - presumably more in the more liberal QC world. Of course, that would probably make their premise more offputting, but ehhh...
  • As a conservative troper who loves meat and hates vegans, I would eat every goddamn meal there.
• Back in an old strip, the author said one of the things he would never do was a "Wacky Misunderstanding", where it wasn't what it looks like. He seems to have forgotten that with the whole "Walked in on Marten and Faye hugging in less-than-desirable clothing plot.
  • I would argue that that wasn't particularly wacky. It was a manifestation of Dora's very real trust issues. And it was one of the major contributing factors to their breakup. If anything, it was a deconstruction of a Wacky Misunderstanding.
    • What about Faye with Sven's manager?
      • Again, not really a Wacky Misunderstanding. That one was about FAYE's issues -- the dude she supposedly is not interested in outside of the bedroom is seen around town with some random lady? Making supposedly not-interested Faye barge into his apartment and then freak seeing her there and making a fool of herself? Yep, she doesn't care about him at all, in no way is she denying her feelings and she is totally fine with just having a casual physical relationship.
• Okay, does Jeph have AIDS or something? Webcomic cartoonists tend to be a pretty sickly lot for some reason, but if you read the posts accompanying his strips, you'll find that strips constantly come with some kind of an "I'm sick" tag. There is no way a human being could be ill this often unless something was seriously wrong with his body.
  • Some people simply are susceptible to flu and other minor viruses. Likewise, overexcerting yourself can lead to health problems. That's the professional disease of a dedicated webcomic-artist.
  • I think I actually remember one Rant where Jeph pretty much said 'I was wondering why I was always getting sick, until a friend said "Dude, you travel round the country every other week and shake hands with hundreds of people. It's surprising you're not sick more often".'
• Okay, teeny tiny one here, but why is Martin the only one being drawn with tired bags under his eyes post-breakup? Clearly Dora took the split pretty hard too, so Martin's not the only one who was affected. Then why doesn't Dora have any visual indicator of sulky-sadness? It's just that every time I look at Martin I am smacked in the face with 'This dude just got his heart broken! He is so sad! Look at how miserable he is now!' but nothing like that from Dora, unless she's actively crying or talking about being affected. I get that it's probably because girls are supposed to be pretty no matter what, but it still kinda bugs me.
  • Probably because you're not supposed to sympathize with Dora. As much as Jeph seems to sometimes hate his fanbase, the whole breakup storyline has been pretty hardcore catering to the Dora Hatedom, and thus by giving visual cues to Marten to make him more sympathetic and not adding them to Dora, they can sit around on the forum saying "See! That heartless bitch broke his heart and made him miserable, and she doesn't even care enough to not be pretty!"
  • Actually, in the recent strips, Dora has bags under her eyes just as much as Marty. It seems pretty clear that she's a wreck too.
    • Really? Which strips are you talking about, because I just went for a quick look through them thinking I might be blind, but the only strips with Dora having eyebags are the one or two where it's because it's super-early in the morning and she's yawning. And of course I didn't mean she wasn't a wreck or anything like that, I know she is feeling pretty cruddy about it, it's just that the visual cues are there to remind you for Martin but not for her despite them both probably being about at the same level of crap-feelery.
  • Plus: Makeup. Chances are Martin's not wearing any and Dora is. That would make a big difference.
  • Plus... sometimes some people can just take things better than others. Not everyone should react the same way. In fact, Dora not reacting as badly makes sense, it only because she's busier. Seems counter-intuitive (that the busier person would seem less tired) but Dora is running her own business and has much less time to simply mope than Martin. Everything seems to point to her reacting better (even though her date ended because of Martin) it's still more forward progress than Martin's made.
    • ... okay, given what's happened with Padma, that last statement's no longer true. But he's lost the bags anyway
• Why does Marigold have long hair? Most women I've known with lifestyles like that have short hair, just because of how matted and nasty it could get. It's visible to a degree in the comic, but with what we know about her hygiene, it really should be much, much worse. Especially in a comic that's so often made fun of for women with short hair...
  • I could see Marigold just being so lazy that she never goes to get her hair cut.
  • Also... some women have longer hair. Not... really a Headscratcher...
• Exactly how... accurate... is Momo's new chassis? Barbie Doll Anatomy or not?
  • You definitely need to ask Jeph that, on as many contact mediums as possible. Get other people asking, too, so that he doesn't miss that people are interested in it.
• So Sweet-Tits' tits...is it just me, or are they not really that sweet?
  • I wouldn't know, I've never tasted them.
• Are the unique names part of the Alternate Universe thing? The names of characters are far from common: Hannelore, Sven, Marigold, Angus, Penelope, Wil (with one L)...we might even be able to count Dora, since that's antiquated enough. Marten and Faye are the closest to "normal" names out of the main characters, as is Steve, although his appearances are not nearly as frequent as they used to be. What are the chances that so many uniquely-named people would cross paths and become a cohort of friends in our universe?
  • Dora, Penelope, Sven, and Angus all sound more "normal" than "Faye" to me, and Wil with one L is less strange than Marten with an E.
  • I always thought Wil was a shortening of something, like Wilhelm or something. Eh. Also, Angus is a pretty popular name, as are Dora, Penelope, and Marigold (though the last two might be a little old-fashioned). Sven is a pretty reasonable name, if not necessarily for someone of Italian descent. Also, he was born in the U.S. (and so, probably, were his parents) so that's not really a factor.
  • In our universe we have people named stuff like Willow, Parker, Jazzmin, and Stefani. I really don't see the problem with Penelope or Sven.
• Two things:

1. 1. Why would Hannelore's dad's name be Ellicott-Chatham at all? I'm not entirely familiar with the American legal system, but from what I know it's the wife who adopts her husband's surname. If he's John Ellicott, then his wife would be either Mrs. Ellicott or Mrs. Chatham-Ellicott. If there's something that says you can hyphenate it however the hell you want it, that'd answer the question.
   2. Why does an AI even have shares in a company, let alone over half a billion dollars?

• • Two answers:

1. 1. From what I've heard, the married couple may choose who takes whose name.

• • • To expand on this, the wife taking her husband's last name is a standard social convention, but it's not (and never has been?) a legal requirement in any American jurisdiction. Also, in most American jurisdictions, even a single person can go by any name they want, as long as they're not doing it for fraudulant purposes.

1. 1. AI have been granted civil rights long before this scene happens. A whole strip was dedicated to making this clear. As for why he'd want them, presumably for some of the same reasons as why a human would want them.

• Why did Dr. Corrine take Hannelore off whatever she was on back in the 500s? She seemed to be doing a lot better!
  • I have three possibilities:

1. 1. The meds were causing weird side effects that we (the readers) weren't shown. Hannelore was taken off them for her own health.
   2. Hannelore was (seemingly) capable of handling herself fine, rendering the meds unnecessary. Perhaps Dr. Corrine figured she'd been on them long enough.
   3. Hannelore asked to be taken off the meds. I just got off some heavy-duty anti-anxiety stuff myself, and the reasons is that I wanted to try living without what I felt to be some kind of crutch. Or Hanners just didn't like some of the things she wound up doing while medicated.

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