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Death

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Certainty

Uncertainty

Life, man

People you meet

Humanity in general

Family

Work

Cleanin waffle irons.

Something not mentioned.

[Kugai]

Improbable

[jwhouk]

So, Marten is now home with the two girls he is most shipped with. What happens next?

Pintsize says/does something coarse.    31 (18.1%)
More people arrive.    10 (5.8%)
They talk about music.    4 (2.3%)
Awkwardness, that's what!    15 (8.8%)
Alcohol will be consumed.    27 (15.8%)
They will leave shortly to head someplace else.    5 (2.9%)
Romantic feelings will be expressed.    11 (6.4%)
Romantic feelings will be denied.    13 (7.6%)
Marten will be a punching bag.    12 (7%)
Claire will say a bad pun.    29 (17%)
Hannelore will mention her OCD ways.    14 (8.2%)

Total Members Voted: 69

[DSL]

Improbable

But he has a Heart of Gold.

He's just ziss guy, you know?

[hakko504]

[westrim]

Since JW went and posted poll results, I made a new one. I can't change the number of options, so oh well.

[pwhodges]

Poll permissions are a bit funny; as far as I can see, you could just side-step the restriction by deleting the poll and creating a new one - but now you'd lose any votes already cast, of course..

[Is it cold in here?]

Is today supposed to be a comic-free day? It's post-convention, but there's nothing from the buffer and no guest strip and nothing on Twitter.

[pwhodges]

I just guess he's having an extended sleep-in.  Comic-free days have never happened deliberately - at the very least he throws up a filler panel.

[westrim]

Why does Jeph sleep like a night shift worker, anyway? He regularly generates the comic between 12-6 am eastern time, which means he's likely asleep afternoons/evenings.That's all kinds of wrong as far as circadian rhythm goes.

As far as the poll goes, I didn't consider that, but I'll try it next time.

EDIT: Oh look, a comic!

[bhtooefr]

Some people simply find that they run on a weird sleep schedule relative to everyone else.

I work best when I sleep from 03:00 to 11:00, but my employment doesn't allow that.

And, Marten, Claire's right, it is pretty complicated (even if Claire doesn't know how complicated). 

And, I see Marten has terrible taste in beer. Damn nasty IPAs... 

[pwhodges]

Jeph's always had a history of sleep madness, among other things.  It's been better controlled recently than at some times in the past, I'd say.

[ankhtahr]

My natural rhythm is longer than 24 hours. If I really go to sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I'm not tired anymore, the time I go to sleep shifts by about 1.5 hours a day. Not really practical. (Now I just wait for somebody to post the relevant xkcd. I definitely want to try that one time.)

[Akima]

Claire recognises that relationships are like the TARDIS. Always bigger and more complicated on the inside than they look from the outside.

[Mr_Rose]

Heehee. "Random IPA" is classy IPA…

[muon]

Holy shippers, Batman. Claire's comment in the last pannel is rather telling.

[Lubricus]

Do we know what Claire's living arrangements are? Maybe she'll move in if Faye leaves... 

[Jazzmaster]

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY

I was wondering when this would be brought up again...

[techkid]

My natural rhythm is longer than 24 hours. If I really go to sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I'm not tired anymore, the time I go to sleep shifts by about 1.5 hours a day. Not really practical. (Now I just wait for somebody to post the relevant xkcd. I definitely want to try that one time.)

You mean this one?

[Nepiophage]

. Except Pintsize, it can go make out with the waffles.

I don't think Pintsize would like being called "it". On the other hand, maybe he deserves it.

[pwhodges]

You mean this one?

I actually worked a shift pattern almost exactly like that for three months at the BBC (in the External Services section).  It was hell (as the mouse-over suggests) - but there were people who had made it their life and loved it.

[TimO]

It's natural for the bodies "free wheeling" sense of a day to last longer than 24 hours.  The body essentially resyncs to a daily schedule with the sunrise/sunset cycle, so the natural duration has to be longer than the physical one, otherwise you'd start feeling tired before sunset actually occurs.

People have actually tested this with rooms that remove any information about the day night cycle (ie no windows), and with no other way of knowing what the time is.  People naturally sleep a few hours longer than 24, and their sense of time gradually slips out of phase with those outside the test area, who are staying with the 24 hour day.

Does Pintsize precede his interjection with "TLDR"?  In context that probably makes sense, but the lettering is a little unclear, and I'm not sure I'd generally quite use it in that fashion.

[snubnose]

Marten is shipped with Hanners and Claire ?!? 

Claire I can see ... remotely.

But Hanners ?!? Even without the OCD issue, I just cant see that pairing.

[bhtooefr]

It's certainly been shipped, though. I guess it's potentially plausible that Hanners could fall for Marten if she got over her OCD, but I doubt it, and I think Marten wouldn't go along with it.

[GarandMarine]

Holy shippers, Batman. Claire's comment in the last pannel is rather telling.

....I don not see that at all... like no ship bait any where in this comic.

[DSL]

Potential here for a Hanners -vs. -Claire Deathmatch -- who will emerge as Marten's Insightful Friend?
We have two people of more-than-average insight, difference being Hanners is "interested" -- she's a close friend by now and wants things to work, but it takes berserk-button level of input to get her to say something (and then, well, put that shit away, son, because she's sick of it). Claire is the opposite -- seems to be equally insightful, but her social "disadvantage" (if you want to call it that) is that she's less inhibited about speaking her mind. At the moment, she's taken over Hanners' role as the Spock -- the insightful outsider.

[Mr_Rose]

Aha! I see what Jeph's up to now!
He's slowly making a reverse-harem manga; here's Marten as the typically clueless dork surrounded by adorable girls but, unlike the prototypical story, they aren't all fighting over him for various inexplicable reasons but are instead utterly unavailable for equally various reasons. Next thing we know, Emily will move in as marigold's flatmate when Angus leaves (and Momo will never be on time for work again) then Claire will turn out to be enough of a neat-freak herself to pass Hanners' stringent inspections and move in upstairs. Slowly the entire apartment complex will be occupied by increasingly adorkable girls until finally the foxgirl cyborg mechanic with the beam-cannon arm and a pet robot hamster arrives and the building collapses under the weight of d'awww.

[GarandMarine]

Rose`s theory is now my head canon.

[Zebediah]

Only problem: Angus and Marigold don't live in the same apartment building as Marten, Faye and Hannelore.

[jwhouk]

Only problem: Angus and Marigold don't live in the same apartment building as Marten, Faye and Hannelore.

WE ARE WORKING ON THAT TECHNOLOGY

[Carl-E]

They're just up the block. 

[GarandMarine]

Man Momo has had a SERIOUS personality change since then.

[DSL]

Only problem: Angus and Marigold don't live in the same apartment building as Marten, Faye and Hannelore.

WE ARE WORKING ON THAT TECHNOLOGY

Simpler than that: Faye will burn down Angus and Marigold's apartment building on the night before she and Angus move to New York. Damn toasters.

[Latias]

But Hanners ?!? Even without the OCD issue, I just cant see that pairing.

I guess it's potentially plausible that Hanners could fall for Marten if she got over her OCD,

OCD has nothing to do with the ability to feel attraction. Just for the record.

[Jazzmaster]

But Hanners ?!? Even without the OCD issue, I just cant see that pairing.

I guess it's potentially plausible that Hanners could fall for Marten if she got over her OCD,

OCD has nothing to do with the ability to feel attraction. Just for the record.

Perhaps not, but I believe it's been said in the comic itself that Hannelore has a multitude of issues, not just OCD.  I believe it's her glaring issues with physical contact that has made a romantic relationship impossible for her up to this point.  She has gotten better but I still do not remember her actually making physical contact with anybody affectionately, and on purpose.

And speaking of hanners, I kind of miss her acting like a crazy stalker.  Or at least pretending to.

[Masterpiece]

Heehee, I like Pintsize in todays strip

[Tulpa]

So what is Claire drinking there? I can make out a KE.

[Zebediah]

Cake. Claire is drinking Cake. Obviously. 

[Loki]

I suppose it's delicious and moist?

[KOK]

Perhaps not, but I believe it's been said in the comic itself that Hannelore has a multitude of issues, not just OCD.  I believe it's her glaring issues with physical contact that has made a romantic relationship impossible for her up to this point.  She has gotten better but I still do not remember her actually making physical contact with anybody affectionately, and on purpose.

She did hug Marten once. It was a surprise to herself, a pleasant surprise.

[Kugai]

Only problem: Angus and Marigold don't live in the same apartment building as Marten, Faye and Hannelore.

WE ARE WORKING ON THAT TECHNOLOGY

Simpler than that: Faye will burn down Angus and Marigold's apartment building on the night before she and Angus move to New York. Damn toasters.

I KNEW the Cylons were around somewhere!   


But Claire moving in with Marten?

Too obvious, even for Jeph.

[Zebediah]

No, the idea someone had of Marigold moving in with Marten was better. And then Claire and Emily can take over the lease at Angus and Marigold's old place.

Good god, are we really apartment-shipping now? And am I taking part in it? I'm going to go get a drink. 

[Kugai]

Harvey Wallbanger?

[Zebediah]

Make that two drinks. Both of them coping mechanisms.

[Valérie]

My sincere apologies, pwhodges.

As for Faye being "Put On A Bus". It might not affect the story greatly if her character arc has been developed to it's fullest as some might suggest, but to me it would still be very weird not having her there.
Like having a sore tooth pulled. It might be gone for good reason, but it still feels very strange to lick the empty socket. (I think this is a much worse analogy than I intended.)

[Loki]

A belated "welcome, new person!"

I am not sure about Faye being put on a bus. I mean on one hand it means more screentime for others; on the other hand, it's the Pugnacious Peach! I like her!

[Is it cold in here?]

Losing The Pugnacious Peach would be like taking hot sauce out of a recipe?

A lot of shipping is failure to realize, perhaps from lack of life experience, that there truly are emotionally close people in a non-sexual way and even a non-romantic way. Hannelore said very early on that sexual activity was psychologically out of the question for her, but even aside from that she and Marten don't even have a "pure and chaste from afar" set of feelings going on. They are nonetheless very important to each other.

[Zebediah]

Yeah, I'd say that Marten and Hannelore have something like a brother-sister relationship. My own son has something like this with a friend's daughter - granted, he's 8 and she's 5, so a romantic relationship isn't really an issue right now, but my son has said repeatedly that he wants his friend to be his little sister. Both of them are only children, so it's the closest thing to a sibling relationship they have. Likewise, Marten and Hannelore are both only children, so if they want siblings they have to adopt their friends.

[pwhodges]

I have split the discussion of the meaning of words used as insults into a new thread in the Discuss! forum.  As a result, one post about the comic got in the wrong place - so here it is:

But to the comic. Today's was really, really interesting. How long has it been since Marten's spoken about his old feelings about Faye without it being about Dora's insecurity? I'm not sure if we're just being reminded that they had an intense history or whether some of those old feelings are floating around still. I thought I'd groan at the thought of revisiting Marten/Faye but I actually find myself a little excited. Maybe because I love the angst but I like the messiness of their relationship that they've forged into a workable friendship and I think that's the source of Marten's conflict. It's nice to see him sharing with Claire too. My best case scenario is that we'll get a call from Amir and we'll be back on band stuff, I want them to do a gig so badly, it'll be awesome (or terrible, either way, great to read).

[DSL]

This from a so-called "advice" column in one of my client papers:

Sure, platonic friendships can exist. But I assume they only survive in an unrealistic parallel universe where all humans are unattractive, sexually inept, and emotionally absent.

Good lord.

[Mr_Rose]

Time to fire the head cannon, methinks. Nothing quite like grapeshot to the face for solving problems.