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Shebly

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RANDY IS ETERNAL

Robot Hamster

[shiroihikari]

It's virtually guaranteed that every prominent fiction will 'acquire' a tenuous cometary tail of slashficcers. regardless of genre, content, or style.

I realized this a long time ago, but it still makes me sad.

[Incitatus]

Re: Sweet-Tits in colour -- I always thought that it was Sweet-Tits in the background of http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1445.  But that may just be me.

[Blood-Tree]

Anyway... the current strip smells like foreshadowing of a HannerDad landing to me, which could be interesting as we don't really know that much about him. As far as I can recall current facts are limited to:

• Legendary Roboticist
• Space-Station Fanatic
• Wealthy
• Not a Family Man but essentially a dutiful parent (robot boyfriends, expensive therapy, etc..?)
• Possibly a high-achieving workaholic
• Capable of performing the horizontal tango with HannerMom

Have I left anything out?

I would be willing to bet that he has cybernetic limbs. I don't recall seeing any in the comic before Clinton showed up, so they must be fairly rare, but if the dude invented robot hamsters then presumably he must be robotastic?

I'm basically suggesting he's Einstein with a robot mustache.

[Is it cold in here?]

There's also "can't stand ex-wife". I think you have it well covered.

[bunnyThor]

You know how some Harry Potter fans think a sexual relationship between Harry and Draco is a cool thing to talk about?

I honestly was not aware that people like that actually existed.

"Slash" pairings are as old as fandom. All it takes is a fan liking two characters, concluding that means those characters should totally bang, and then the urge to either write about it or draw pictures.

Just go to Google Image Search, type in the name of any two characters and "rule 34", and I guarantee you'll get an education into all sorts of people you never knew existed. 

[bicostp]

No, I don't think pairing Slash up with any of the cast would work out too well.

: P

[sluthy]

Anyway... the current strip smells like foreshadowing of a HannerDad landing to me...

Makes sense, since of the main characters'* parents, he's the only one so far not to make an appearance, and I suspect he would be a quite interesting character. The only issue I see is how he would be introduced; given how apparently busy he is, a simple "just thought I'd pop in and see my daughter on the way through" wouldn't work, and I can't imagine Northampton being a central hub of his terrestrial works**.

_{*Can I safely assume that as it currently stands Marten, Faye, Dora and Hannelore are the four central characters? Steve's older than most of them but he only occasionally appears anymore. Angus and Marigold are almost there.
**Just going off what I've seen in QC - I have no idea what Northampton is like, not being American or anything.}

[pwhodges]

(moderator)

And finally, shipping and portmanteau names.  You don't do it in real life (I hope!); it fails to meet the criteria I mentioned under "QC" and "Discussion" above; it fails for the reasons given in the quote just given.  Please don't do it!

Take this seriously.
(/moderator)

 Not being snarky here...I honestly don't understand what the above means? Could you translate please? 

Read the two locked sticky threads at the top of this (sub-)forum.  The rules are laid out there (and the main forum rules linked to) with extensive discussion and elucidation, including a couple of comments from Jeph himself.

-------------

In response to another comment, the moderators do not operate under direction from Jeph; they are chosen by the other administrators and moderators (who include Jeph, of course) to help keep the forums running within the rules and according to their collective sensibilities.

-------------

In case anyone wondered at my absence from this discussion, I have been away on holiday without any Internet access (even in hotels) for nearly two weeks.  I shall be catching up with reading what's been said over the next day or so, and it looks as if I may need to add some further comments.

[Method of Madness]

It's virtually guaranteed that every prominent fiction will 'acquire' a tenuous cometary tail of slashficcers. regardless of genre, content, or style.

I realized this a long time ago, but it still makes me sad.

Why sad?  Sure, it's absurd, but I don't see why it's a big deal.

[Carl-E]

There's nothing wrong with mourning for the state of humanity. 

I do it all the time.  I teach at an open admissions state university.   

[Method of Madness]

Mourning's so unproductive, though.  Why mourn, when you can use the state of humanity to your advantage?  And come on, it's not like it's a new thing, humanity has always been a terrible species.

This post is not meant to be taken seriously.

[gprimr1]

I could def second the foreshadowing comment. Seems to me you could tie him in with the robotics study from the beginning of the week.

[Nick and Marla]

I've just been hiding from the parts of the internet that I knew would make me sad.

: (

[iduguphergrave]

*Can I safely assume that as it currently stands Marten, Faye, Dora and Hannelore are the four central characters?

I've always thought this.

[Method of Madness]

Can I safely assume that as it currently stands Marten, Faye, Dora and Hannelore are the four central characters?

I'd drop Dora, and consider Marten, Faye and Hanners as the central three...as it currently stands.

[iduguphergrave]

You can't deny Dora's presence. She and Marten dated for most of the strip's run, and even before that she was carrying strips on her own, and she's done so since the breakup already. Even though the breakups over and we're seeing her less, Jeph's still seeing fit to periodically show us her progress as well as Marten's.

[akronnick]

Plus there is a potential Dora/Tai relationship to explore, as hinted at with the strip where Tai visited Dora at CoD with the butterflies and what not.

[Method of Madness]

Did Nick just go there?  I think Nick just went there.

Anyway, I'm not saying Dora's presence isn't felt, but I think she's in the second rung of characters, which consists of her, Angus and Marigold.

[Tergon]

I'm just not seeing it.  Dora's been a major character since basically her first introduction.  Maybe it feels like she's not been in as many strips of late, but there's a perfectly plausible explanation - the comic is following our protagonist, and he's not spending time with her right now.
Any decent "scene" in QC takes at least three or four strips, as I'm sure we all agree, right?  Usually more!  So even though it seems ages if we don't see a character for, say, two or three weeks RL... that much time could be no more than a couple of hours in QC-Land.  Dora has definitely not been removed from the main cast, it's just the way the story is going at the moment.

[pwhodges]

The way I see it, you can't really say that the characters in QC-land fall into different tiers.  They are all imagined to go on with their various imagined existences, while Jeph's eye roams over their landscape and picks out different areas of activity at different times.  Their relative importance doesn't change, only our awareness of them from time to time, through Jeph's choice of view.

[pwhodges]

And all my tape splicing experience made repairing broken cassette tapes pretty easy.

To be really competent, though, you need to have learnt it under pressure, like in a BBC news room; and  to have done fine music editing as well (guess where I worked around 1969-70).

As for cassettes, they could be good enough to supply the master recording for an LP.  A friend of mine recorded a couple of LPs on a Sony WM-D6C cassette machine, and I contributed a track to a CD from my identical one.

[pwhodges]

when you do the whole "(/moderator)" thing, it shouts "I am pulling rank".

He does it for clarity, and because some people asked for that when we started more active moderation in this forum.  I choose not to do it (usually), but hope that my wording brings sufficient clarity in itself.

I didn't see how crazy the forum got, but since massive shifts like that happen so rarely, maybe it's not a horrible thing that the forum reacts when they do occur.

Actually, Jeph had been muttering (in the private admin/mod forum) about possibly closing down the QC Discussion Forum for a couple of years  before last autumn's blow-up - that's how much he'd got to dislike it, and that's why the rehabilitation process will take a long time to be fully effective.

[jwhouk]

Mourning's so unproductive, though.  Why mourn, when you can use the state of humanity to your advantage?  And come on, it's not like it's a new thing, humanity has always been a terrible species.

This post is not meant to be taken seriously.

You're channeling Pintsize again, aren't you?


EDIT: Oh, and according to the count on the Wiki, it's Faye, Marten, Dora, Hannelore, Pintsize and Steve.

[cesariojpn]

Re: Sweet-Tits in colour -- I always thought that it was Sweet-Tits in the background of http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1445.  But that may just be me.

People have also "seen her" in a few other strips outside of the Yelling Bird Canon strips......here, and here.

(moderator)

And finally, shipping and portmanteau names.  You don't do it in real life (I hope!); it fails to meet the criteria I mentioned under "QC" and "Discussion" above; it fails for the reasons given in the quote just given.  Please don't do it!

Take this seriously.
(/moderator)

 Not being snarky here...I honestly don't understand what the above means? Could you translate please? 

Read the two locked sticky threads at the top of this (sub-)forum.  The rules are laid out there (and the main forum rules linked to) with extensive discussion and elucidation, including a couple of comments from Jeph himself.

Mind explaining this then?

[TheEvilDog]

when you do the whole "(/moderator)" thing, it shouts "I am pulling rank".

He does it for clarity, and because some people asked for that when we started more active moderation in this forum.  I choose not to do it (usually), but hope that my wording brings sufficient clarity in itself.

I think what Method of Madness meant was that the (/moderator) thing kinda detracts from the seriousness of when a moderator steps in. I'm not telling you guys what to do, but on several other forums I'm on, I've seen the moderators have a little comment in their signature along the lines of "I'm a moderator, when I need to, I use this colour to show I'm being serious."

It grabs a forumite's attention, and is a visual reminder that the mods are watching the forums. And it does get the point across.

[DSL]

Cesariojpn, that guest strip extrapolates from something Dora said about her collection of VV posters and so Is more than an unreasonable ship.
As for the rest of this discussion, "Jeph's house, Jeph's rules" seems simple enough to me. Plenty of other places to play, even places "devoted" to QC, for those who wanna slash, call Jeph a Nazi (yeah, I stumbled on one) or whatever your little spleen desires.
But If that can't be made to work, I would with reluctance understand the decision to take this forum out behind the barn and shoot it.

Edit for clarity.

[pwhodges]

Mind explaining this then?

That's not the forum.

I think what Method of Madness meant was that the (/moderator) thing kinda detracts from the seriousness of when a moderator steps in.

People see it differently, it seems.  I find colour more intrusive than "moderator" brackets (especially on our gray background), and too shouty, or even divisive.  In any case, there is a visual reminder in the coloured stars; and if someone doesn't get a comparatively discrete message, we go to PMs quite quickly rather than making too much of a public thing of it.

[Mr. Doctor]

I've been away from the computer in a while so I just want to say this:

The last 2 panels in the 1904 strip has some of the cutest hannelore faces ever, the face makes me kind of sad though, it's weird... I really admire Jeph for making such a mix of emotions "just" with some comic.

Same goes tom 1905, I feel sorry for her.

[ecstaticjoy]

hilarious... funny..  sad..  such a great scale of emotions in one week..

amen, sister

[DSL]

I agree, especially about 1905. For me, what elevates that particular strip is panels 4-7. If you leave them out and just go 1-2-3-8, it's a funny enough gag, but 4 through 7 give us Hanners 's not-entirely- unexpectrd disappointment in/exasperation with her dad, then surprise, hope and finally her been-here-before exasperation.

I do wonder whether dad's question at the end was worried (typical dad) -- or hopeful. One does get the impression Hanners is just one more experiment to this guy.

[gprimr1]

I'm interested in Hannerdad's comment it it means he thinks he is capable of having sex, but sometimes, a banana is just a banana.

[Is it cold in here?]

Maybe he's worried that another mad scientist was doing genetic engineering experiments on her. She thought that was possible in strip 1119.

[bunnyThor]

As for the rest of this discussion, "Jeph's house, Jeph's rules" seems simple enough to me. Plenty of other places to play, even places "devoted" to QC, for those who wanna slash, call Jeph a Nazi (yeah, I stumbled on one) or whatever your little spleen desires.
But If that can't be made to work, I would with reluctance understand the decision to take this forum out behind the barn and shoot it.

Color me dubious.

I've been around webcomics for a while, and I've hardly ever seen forums devoted to a webcomic that were not originally created by request of the artist. And most of those that are created are locked down eventually. And those that aren't locked down either turn into spammer-filled ghost towns, or become social groups that are almost entirely estranged from the webcomic that spawned the forum.

Back in the days of USENET, you had nothing except unmoderated forums on every conceivable topic. Today almost none of those exist, for good or bad. I'm pretty sure if Jeph shut down this whole she-bang tomorrow, we would not see another forum created off-site. Yes, some forums might devote a stray thread or two to a strip that generated some controversy. But there is not a large enough fervor nor a large enough fanbase to have a dedicated fan site spring up and actually be used. Questionable Content is not Justin Bieber. If this site shut down, people would mostly just shrug and dedicate their fannish energies to the other six dozen webcomics forums that they frequent. (Well, the people on the social part of these forums might be a bit more devestated, but that's a whole different kettle o' fish.)

As it is, I'm not sure which other forums you are talking about. My Google-Fu failed to turn up anything except one thread in the Penny Arcade forums, a few mentions in the xkcd forums, one thread on the badwebcomics forum, and not much else.

[SJCrew]

I guess this comic goes to prove that Hanners' dad really does care to some extent, he's just married to his job. Haven't all of our folks been guilty of that to some extent? Give him a second chance, Hanners. :(

[SJCrew]

The way I see it, you can't really say that the characters in QC-land fall into different tiers.  They are all imagined to go on with their various imagined existences, while Jeph's eye roams over their landscape and picks out different areas of activity at different times.  Their relative importance doesn't change, only our awareness of them from time to time, through Jeph's choice of view.

True, but I understand the perspective of those who feel some QC characters are garnering more attention than others because they play a larger role in the storyline (read: agree 100%). Marten is the main dude in this shebang, no two ways about that, and so are Faye and Hannelore. Jeph has put much care and attention into crafting their backstories the way you haven't seen in second-string characters like Steve, Wil, Penelope, and Angus, who not only don't show up as much as the main trio, but also haven't received anywhere close to as much character development.

I'm not sure if Jeph has any plans to go into greater detail on what these guys were like pre-QC or how they'll grow over the course of the comic, but it's very much possible for certain characters like Dale and Marigold to become main characters, plotwise; it just hasn't happened yet. Which is why they're considered second string. I mean, just try and say that a character like Blodwyn Raven, who hasn't appeared in a single strip for months, is on the same level as our main trio.

[Akima]

I'm late to the party (I've been away) but as an exercise in expressing emotion through drawing, Thursday's and Friday's strips were lovely. The body-language, expressions etc. work so well with the story-line. And yes, Hanners is adorable, but we've had quite enough "daww"-ing already, so I'll move on.

What I'm wondering, is how Hanners' satellite-phone works. How does the ear-piece attach to her ear? I suppose it is large enough for an ear-hook to be hidden behind the circular body, but that would be no fun at all. Some sort of local adhesion field, perhaps? Also, if JE-C can pack all the "works" needed to phone a space-station in Earth orbit into that little gadget, he's definitely way ahead of the otherwise mundane communications technology in the QC-verse, so it could just be a wireless headset for a larger unit somewhere else.

There really isn't all that much to discuss, unless you want to get into the subject of how all of the characters were brought up in abusive and/or traumatizing environments and are now having to learn how to cope as adults.

True of the characters, but actually also true of everyone. Possibly what makes QC so fascinating.

I don't understand the preoccupation with "ranking" QC characters. QC is storytelling, and why would anyone expect all the characters in a story to have "equal time"?

Edit: Fixed stupid spelling mistake.

[gprimr1]

I imagine that the phone is connected to a regular land line and it goes through a gateway to be sent up to the satellite.

Modern day satellite phones work the same way. You get a number, someone calls you on a land line, and it goes to a terrestrial gateway to be sent up to the satellite network.

Iridium, one of the big names in satellite communications has civilian gateways in Tempe Arizona and Italy and a military gateway in Hawaii.

The funny part, is if it were Iridium, Hanners call would cost about 4 dolllars a minute.

[Is it cold in here?]

Maybe it's VoIP.

The headset can't end in an earbud, that would be unsanitary. A cellular adhesion field would be fun, and maybe Hannelore's skin is clean enough that she'd be OK with it.

[akronnick]

I would think the sophisticated part of the link would be at whatever Hannerdad uses as his space station's ground control link (Houston, as it were.)

As this is the case, Hannelore is probably using whatever she uses for her phone, landline, cellular or VoIP, and she's calling another phone.

[Carl-E]

Dad?  Can you hear me now??

[akronnick]

Good!