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Bubbles and Faye trying to help eachother heal

Renee and Brun - Odd Couples Don't Get Odder!

Brun Rebuilding Her Life

Clinton and Claire trying to rebuild a few burned bridges

Dora trying to persuade Hanners and Emily to actually WORK (Barn fart! Baaarrrnnn fffaaarrrt!)

Clinton and Brun's incomplete business

[BenRG]

I'm pretty sure that these five options represent the current active plot arcs in Questionable Content. There are a few older ones that I think we may yet get back to like Faye and her big sisterhood with Sam and also Veronica learning how to be a good stepmom (which may restart if Brun is shown spending time at The Secret Bakery and Veronica comes in to talk to her boyfriend).

Me? The one that strikes me as being potentially the most funny is Clinton and Claire trying to resplice a few filial bonds. Just how much trouble could those two get into trying to get a matching tattoo? I'm not sure that there is a big enough metaphor for that one!

[brasca]

Bubbles and Faye trying to help each other heal.  This arc actually makes Faye likable. 

[chaospersonified]

I want more of Bubbles and Faye.

[Tova]

This may be another poll with a clear winner, I am thinking.

[jwhouk]

The odd thing about the Faye/Bubbles arc is that the one area that is helping Bubbles "heal" from her wounds - tea time at CoD - is the one area that has triggered Faye toward relapse.

[WareWolf]

I want more of Bubbles and Faye.

Me too. I'm dying to hear Bubbles' backstory. Not only for the drama but for what it'll tell us about the larger world they're in.

[TheEvilDog]

The odd thing about the Faye/Bubbles arc is that the one area that is helping Bubbles "heal" from her wounds - tea time at CoD - is the one area that has triggered Faye toward relapse.

Then again, by going back to CoD, Faye was forced to face the concept that the world doesn't revolve around her. I imagine that some part of Faye truly believed that CoD would collapse without her and in turn seeing the positive and nurturing environment Faye saw while on a tea trip with Bubbles, forced her to realise that her problems, were hers alone, that she couldn't blame anyone. In a way, the negative energy that Faye brought in was affecting the others, in particular Dora; just as the negative energy the others brought in affected Faye.

There's pain in healing and Faye has felt some, but in doing so, she also learned how steely her resolve actually is.

TL;DR - We're gonna see more Faye and Bubbles healing soon.

[Penquin47]

Huh.  Wonder why Elliott's being so evasive about his other job.

[Oenone]

Maybe he's scared he'll scare her if she knows he can be violent.

[SomeCanadianWeirdo]

Wow, first time we've seen Wil in a long time.  And that's probably the last time we'll see him for a long time.

[TheEvilDog]

Huh.  Wonder why Elliott's being so evasive about his other job.

Because Elliott is the kind of guy who would rather talk his problems through rather than punch them out. Elliot's a big guy, probably has been all his life and he has the general physique of a fighter, so telling people he works as a bouncer straight away gives the wrong impression about him. The thing is, Elliot has a lot of body weight to throw behind a punch and he knows how to handle him. A guy like that, if he gets angry enough can do a lot of damage.

[Neko_Ali]

I am guessing that the door didn't leave when asked.

[chaospersonified]

You know, I never thought about it, but it makes sense that a thick glass beer bottle would not easily break upon contact  a person's soft, mushy face. I'll file that away if it's ever relevant, which it won't be, for me, god willing.

[mad hands murphy]

Big Lad needs a harpoon

[mad hands murphy]

This may be another poll with a clear winner, I am thinking.

I'm backing barn fart as the dark horse candidate

[Clubman8]

You know, I never thought about it, but it makes sense that a thick glass beer bottle would not easily break upon contact  a person's soft, mushy face. I'll file that away if it's ever relevant, which it won't be, for me, god willing.

But don't people in both real life and movies typically bash the bottle over the skull, which is neither soft nor mushy? If the belligerent bargoer used that bottle to break his nose, he wasn't being very smart.

[Tova]

Alcohol is known to have that effect on people.

[MrNumbers]

Thankfully it looks like the bottle was empty.

Had it been full...

[explicit]

You know, I never thought about it, but it makes sense that a thick glass beer bottle would not easily break upon contact  a person's soft, mushy face. I'll file that away if it's ever relevant, which it won't be, for me, god willing.

But don't people in both real life and movies typically bash the bottle over the skull, which is neither soft nor mushy? If the belligerent bargoer used that bottle to break his nose, he wasn't being very smart.

Well starting fights generally isn't smart in the first place. Especially if everyone around can clearly tell that you're in the wrong. And, you know, the guy you're hitting is huge.

Anyway, there's certainly a lot of factors that would go into breaking a bottle. Force, thinkness of glass, how the bottle was being held, squishiness of hit object, but if you were actually trying to win a fight breaking someone's nose is much smarter than hitting someone over the head. You're not going to bleed out/lose consciousness from cuts to the head in that short amount of time and you're banking on being able to concuss the person immediately, which is a lot harder than movies would have us believe.

[hakko504]

You know, I never thought about it, but it makes sense that a thick glass beer bottle would not easily break upon contact  a person's soft, mushy face. I'll file that away if it's ever relevant, which it won't be, for me, god willing.

But don't people in both real life and movies typically bash the bottle over the skull, which is neither soft nor mushy? If the belligerent bargoer used that bottle to break his nose, he wasn't being very smart.

And in real life the skull cracks more easily than the bottle most of the time. The reason why the bottle breaks in the movies are that the bottle is probably made from crystalline sugar which break very easily. See this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Fake-glass-bottleSugar-glass/

[BenRG]

One of the problems with alcohol in large enough quantities is that it basically turns an adult into a spoiled pre-teen who wants it all and wants it now and will fly into a violent rage if he or she doesn't get it. That's why bars tend to need people like Elliott and probably it's also why Brun kept a harpoon under her own bar counter.

At this point, I just want to note that: "So... Um... You like Kiki's Delivery Service?" is one of the cutest attempted ice-breaker lines in the strip to date. I wonder if Elliott is really interested in Brun or if he's just trying to be polite, friendly and welcoming (something that is entirely in-character for him)?

Huh.  Wonder why Elliott's being so evasive about his other job.

I'm guessing that he didn't want to upset Brun or give her the wrong impression about him by telling her that he got involved in a violent incident. However, I think that he would be surprised how phlegmatic she would have been about it.

Additionally, I don't think he was proud about how much damage he did to the door in that collision!

And in real life the skull cracks more easily than the bottle most of the time. The reason why the bottle breaks in the movies are that the bottle is probably made from crystalline sugar which break very easily. See this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Fake-glass-bottleSugar-glass/

There is a long history of actors and stuntmen being seriously injured and even killed because they were hit with real beer bottles rather than sugar-glass replicas.

[Squiddlywinx]

Lady in the background of panel 3 is my new fave character. I really hope she gets more screentime and joins the main cast.

[sitnspin]

In my experience bottles do not break very easily when applied to the human body. Hitting someone in the head with a bottle is more likely to just thump and cause blunt force trauma than shatter the bottle. Glasses, on the other hand, do shatter on skulls. The shape of a bottle is partially self-reinforcing. A glass's open top makes it much less structurally sound. And, yes, breaking someone's nose is a very smart opening salvo in a fight. I'm not a large person, I primarily rely on speed and training in fights to survive, especially against larger targets, which most of them are. Broken noses are extremely painful and disorienting. In a fight you should be trying to end it as quickly as possible. Actually knocking someone out is very difficult. Any single blow hard enough to render someone unconscious is very likely to cause serious head trauma. Crippling strikes, like breaking a nose or damaging joints, is a much wiser move than attempting to knock them out cold.


I apparently get into way too many bar fights for a 50kg girl.

[Gyrre]

Sounds like that "door" flew off it's hinges.


*deposits one hinge replacement kit in the pun jar*

[hedgie]

Why do I think in this case that the gentle giant was more of a splatter[1] than a bouncer.

[1] A splatter uses more force.

[BenRG]

Why do I think in this case that the gentle giant was more of a splatter[1] than a bouncer.

Mostly, these guys want to use the bare minimum force needed to restrain and deter aggression. The problem is that alcohol can dull the pain sensing nerves. Combine that with the aggression needed to start attacking someone in the bar nad it may have been necessary to do... a little more damage than usual to restrain this particular hooligan. I'm talking nerve clusters and possibly dislocated shoulders.

[explicit]

As someone who's worked security at a bar we were told to simply incapacitate. Generally that means holding onto the guy and using your body weight until help arrives. However, I imagine a bouncer who's by themselves would have to deviate from that plan sometimes. I only worked big events so we could simply use numbers and throwing punches was more likely to just get someone else (or ourselves) hurt.

[jwhouk]

Presence, Dialogue, Control Alternatives, Protective Alternatives, and... Deadly Force.

Sometimes you have to escalate.

[Loki]

I want to say I have never seen Kiki's Delivery Service (but it's on my looong to watch list!)

[brasca]

I thought there was a dress code where everyone had to dress like people in the Victorian era.  Maybe bouncers are excluded since it's expensive to replace their period costumes after every fight 

[TieDyeKat]

I'd suspect that, since Elliott likely works outside the door most of the time, he is exempt from the uniform.

But.... WIL! *swoons*

[Mr. Skawronska]

Presence, Dialogue, Control Alternatives, Protective Alternatives, and... Deadly Force.

Sometimes you have to escalate.

That's a variation of the use of force continuum I have not seen.  Ours is Presence, verbal, soft hands, chemical, taser, hard hands, secondary impact, deadly force.

It's amazing how things change, yet remain the same, over time.

I'm talking nerve clusters and possibly dislocated shoulders.

Yeah.  Nerve clusters and pressure points can be really unreliable against drunks.  Pain compliance can be unreliable against drunks.  Dislocations and destabilizations of critical mobility points ARE effective but tend to come with lawsuits.

As someone who's worked security at a bar we were told to simply incapacitate. Generally that means holding onto the guy and using your body weight until help arrives. However, I imagine a bouncer who's by themselves would have to deviate from that plan sometimes. I only worked big events so we could simply use numbers and throwing punches was more likely to just get someone else (or ourselves) hurt.

Absolutely.  Except nowadays businesses don't want to pay for the manpower.  So they use one bouncer instead of three, and only figure out that this raises their liability in medical claims and lawsuits only after they are financially crippled by them.  Some folks are penny-wise but dollar foolish.  Numbers are by far the safest way to handle situations like that.  Both health-wise and financially.

The worst employers of security are those who don't understand the concept of medical liability in an enforcement context, whose eyes light up with "get something for nothing" when you tell 'em you're medically trained (and they couldn't tell you the difference between CLS, ACLS, EMT, or PMD, and they don't care), not realizing that practicing medicine without a license is a crime and the liability that goes with it trying to get medical personnel who are not properly covered on the cheap, employed (and paid) as security, without medical direction, is a recipe for EPIC disaster.

It's no wonder Elliott doesn't want to talk about his other job.  That fits with everyone else who's done it or doing it who is any good at it.

[jwhouk]

That's a variation of the use of force continuum I have not seen.  Ours is Presence, verbal, soft hands, chemical, taser, hard hands, secondary impact, deadly force.

It's amazing how things change, yet remain the same, over time.

I'm facing a different population than you, obviously.

[Mr. Skawronska]

That's a variation of the use of force continuum I have not seen.  Ours is Presence, verbal, soft hands, chemical, taser, hard hands, secondary impact, deadly force.

It's amazing how things change, yet remain the same, over time.

I'm facing a different population than you, obviously.

Agreed.  With a different set of laws and rules of engagement.  But the similarities are there.  Just different verbiage.

[Neko_Ali]

It might be because of the location and the employer as well as the time period. For instance, when working at department stores when I was younger I was often tapped to assist Loss Prevention when they expected to have trouble because I used to be big and intimidating looking. Our rules were that we had to be entirely hands off unless we were clearly physically defending ourselves and under no circumstances were we to use weapons of any kind. All for fear of lawsuits by people trying to steal from the store. Similarly I applied for mall security work before and the rules were pretty much the same. We were not allowed to carry anything more dangerous than a walkie talkie. Not even tasers or mace. Basically, if we couldn't intimidate someone into leaving via physical presence we had to call the police and let them deal with it. We were never allowed to actually touch someone.

On the other hand my room mate also worked LP and security jobs and was required to be armed while on duty. But they worked in much more dangerous areas. Not only were their issues with shoplifters and employees stealing, but sometimes they had to deal with armed robbery and the like. So again, there are a lot of factors that play into responses. I doubt that Elliot goes armed in part because of his personality. And probably for legal complications. Incapacitating weapons can have odd effects on people who are intoxicated. I can't think of any case I've heard of where a bouncer was carrying. Most of them seem to go for physical intimidation or incapacitation via grappling of by sheer size/weight. And I image Elliot is immune to the dress code because he needs to be clearly identified as security. Hence the big word across his chest.

[gopher]

Finding it difficult to care about tertiary characters when there is PLOT awaiting with more central ones.

[Morituri]

One summer when it was necessary to earn money for the following year's tuition, I worked as a bouncer.  My instructions were to be as gentle as possible but no gentler. 

Usually I was able to de-escalate things without violence.  Being alert to situations that could turn into violence and being there before it starts is the best way to do the job. Often you can stop a fight just by listening to people and asking nonjudgmental questions in a friendly way until one or both (or all) realize that fighting over it is stupid.  Otherwise a simple reminder that it was my job to prevent fights or stop them would often convince them that it wasn't the right place or time to fight and somebody would go away angry (but under their own power and without violence).  If that didn't work I'd just do what Wil is doing in this frame and tell somebody they needed to leave. 

If it went beyond that my usual next move was to just wrap my arms around someone, hold them too close for them to kick me, and just keep squeezing harder until they quit giving me trouble.  Incidentally I can squeeze harder than most people are prepared for or even can believe. It controls most situations, doesn't leave injuries, and facilitates carrying them out the door.  And weirdly, a lot of people, even drunks, grow calmer when restrained.  A couple of female patrons even propositioned me as I was carrying them out (I appreciate the thought, ma'am, but I'm way too sober for that tonight...). It only got as far as landing blows on a few occasions when there were more than just two or three people involved and they had already escalated to violence.

Of note, it really, REALLY matters for that job who the bartender is.  We had a couple guys on whose shifts people were mostly calm and happy and didn't fight, and one guy on whose shifts it was just miserable and you never knew which direction it would come from. Guess which one didn't know when to cut people off and guess which two made four times his income in tips.  Also guess which two usually had more people in the place and having a good time and which one got fired halfway through the summer.

[Method of Madness]

Finding it difficult to care about tertiary characters when there is PLOT awaiting with more central ones.

How is this not plot? If anything, I'm finding this new Elliot/Brun arc more interesting than the Faye one.

[TheEvilDog]

Finding it difficult to care about tertiary characters when there is PLOT awaiting with more central ones.

If you just want the same characters in the same pattern of shenanigans, I'm pretty sure the Garfield archive is still functioning.

Who is to say that Brun or Elliot are just tertiary characters?

Elliot was the one who gave Marten the push to go out with Padma, if only for a brief fling, but it did help raise Marten's confidence after the break up with Dora.

Characters be they secondary or tertiary, often carry far more plot significance than the main characters, who usually react rather than initiate.

[explicit]

I enjoy the breaks from the main characters sometimes because otherwise the comic would get stale without constant drama - which is annoying in of itself and the reason why I stopped reading DoA. If the same characters are just goofing and making jokes all the time they blend into each other way too much so it makes it so things have to forced unto the MCs, which, at least to me, gets tiring.

[Kugai]

Nice to see Wil again, even for a single panel

And I'm guessing that guy had to be 'Made' to leave in the end



I'm loving the dynamic between Brun and Elliott

[Method of Madness]

Explicit, you think DoA doesn't have enough drama?

[explicit]

Explicit, you think DoA doesn't have enough drama?

I meant it had way too much and because the characters were always doing the same things when not in drama related strips it stopped being funny to me. Like, in order to keep it interesting Willis forced over-the-top drama all the time, which turned me off from the comic. There's that tipping point between "interesting drama" and omg stop it already.

[Oenone]

Is the girl in the background of panel three grown up KiKi???

[heyjames4]

Speculation: the belligerent door did not leave under its own power. Eliot feels bad over putting a man down, but came to work at the bakery anyway.

[Tova]

If you think the comic spends too long away from the central characters, then you'd have to consider rethinking your premise, wouldn't you?

The comic has changed, and would more accurately be described as having an ensemble cast these days.

Any single blow hard enough to render someone unconscious is very likely to cause serious head trauma. Crippling strikes, like breaking a nose or damaging joints, is a much wiser move than attempting to knock them out cold.

Tangentally: a couple of recent incidents in Sydney of deaths caused by head trauma (more from the head hitting the ground, if I remember correctly) from an unprovoked single-punch assault lead to so-called 'one-punch' laws.

Then there are the controversial CBD lockout laws, but that's an entirely different kettle of fish...

[MooskiNet]

There is an entire world in the words "Not really, no."

Elliott is one of my favorites.

[Is it cold in here?]

Being alert to situations that could turn into violence and being there before it starts is the best way to do the job. Often you can stop a fight just by listening to people and asking nonjudgmental questions in a friendly way until one or both (or all) realize that fighting over it is stupid.  Otherwise a simple reminder that it was my job to prevent fights or stop them would often convince them that it wasn't the right place or time to fight and somebody would go away angry (but under their own power and without violence).  If that didn't work I'd just do what Wil is doing in this frame and tell somebody they needed to leave. 

Goodness. Sounds like my job.

[Thrudd]

Sounds like that "door" flew off it's hinges.

Mayhap it may even have suffered defenestration.

[Tova]

I hope the window is okay.