Personally, I wish some of the crap floating around in WTC could be siphoned off into its own little cesspools. Not that this is one of those topics. but it has the potential to be.
And Hanners' optimism is one of her more endearing qualities (the naivete seems a little harder to reconcile, to me, but it's a vehicle for the optimism, so I understand why Jeph maintains it). I think it's why all the shipping nonsense irritates me. Concentrating on "who's going to fuck Hanners first" (and that's exactly how all that Hantai bullcrap read to me, and now the Marigold fixation, too) misses the central point of the character. The question, at this point in her life, is not who, of whatever gender, Hannelore is going to have a romantic or even simply sexual relationship with, but can she have one at all? She's got a ton of roadblocks even to having friends, one of which she's overcoming with Marigold. But instead of considering that, we get this wave of "ooo, get with teh sexing."
I think that's why the word 'creepy' gets attached to the Hanners shippers, because it seems like instead of reading the comic and paying attention to what's happening with the character, they're screaming for something to masturbate to. And yes, I'm aware some do this strictly because they think it's amusing, but, to me, anyway, it's not. I can be as amused by perviness as the next person (maybe more so), but not this situation. Maybe later in Hanner's progress, but not now.
In these last few strips we see Hanners trying to be a friend and to extend that optimism (whether she means to do the latter or not) to someone whom it's becoming more and more clear needs both rather badly, much more than she needs (or is ready for) a lover at this point (I suspect sex would be a disaster for Marigold right now). Somehow the screeches of ' Marigold, Hanners, fuck, fuck, fuck' overlaid on that irritate me.
