Characters / Questionable Content

The main cast:

Marten Reed

The strip's original main character, an easy-going, somewhat aimless college librarian and indie music enthusiast. Most of the strip's early storylines focused on Marten's troubled love life and musical aspirations. He's still around, though often relegated to a supporting role, which he is totally cool with. No, really, it's fine. Though he can snark with the best of them, he's typically a Nice Guy and very accepting of others. On the downside, his lack of ambition and Extreme Doormat tendencies can create problems for him.

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• Author Avatar: Originally based on Jeph's personality, though this is less true after a certain point.
• Amicable Exes: Is once again friends with Dora, to the confusion of Gabby and some fans. Jeph points this out in the comments that people find this odd.
• Apologises a Lot: Goes together with his Extreme Doormat tendencies. Examples include:
  • Apologising during the Space Arc for not being Lieutenant Potter's type, and again in the same strip again for having the nerve to think Potter, who had pulled him out of a party to spend some time alone together might have been interested in him which lead him to try making a move on her.
  • After he stands up for himself in the wake of Padma jerking him around by not wanting to talk or see him the week before she leaves for good, he gets berated by Faye even though he was correct about the situation.
  • Marten compliments Marigold when he sees her in her bikini for the first time, saying "Hey, looking good!" to her. He immediately apologizes for this based only on Marigold's somewhat awkward expression. At the end of his first apology he then says she "looks really good", which means he spends the entire next panel on a ridiculous apology and in the final panel is probably apologizing in his mind.
  • Faye crudely asks him if he likes any of the interns, he pre-apologises by reflecting back to Faye and Tai what he thinks they would say to him if he actually had the balls to tell the truth and discuss the new interns and if any are attractive to him.
• Big Brother Instinct: Feels protective towards Momo after she gets her chassis upgrade.
• Birds of a Feather: Shared a lot of his lifestyle and interests with Dora while they were going out.
• Can't Tie His Tie: For his dad's wedding, he struggles with a necktie, and Claire offers to help...and she doesn't know how either. Fortunately, it's a casual event.
• The Ditherer: This about sums it up. Seems to be getting better through his relationship with Claire.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: His mother wanted to call him 'Marten Tiberius Reed'.
• Extreme Doormat: It can be surprising how much he lets people get away with. He ''does'' have his limits, as Pintsize can attest to:
  loooom[1].
• The Generic Guy: He has no real outstanding features other than his lack of a spine/ being the nicest character in the series. Well, that and his tendency to be a Cosmic Chew Toy (at least as far as his relationships go after his break-up with Dora). Until he gets together with Claire.
• In Love with Love: He really does want to find a girl and settle down with her. He's not the type for one night stands or casual affairs. Tai sort-of steers him into one at one stage, and he doesn't feel happy about it afterwards
• Nice Guy: Played relatively straight. He's kind, noble to a fault, and people tend to walk all over him. Some of the flaws of this character type are discussed (overall weakness and mediocrity), but he's still the kindest person in the strip by far.
• Non-Action Guy: Except for the time he whacked the monk with the souffle pan, he's shown pretty much zero physical skills.
• Out of Focus: Though originally the main character of the strip, ever since entering a mostly drama free relationship with Claire he has appeared less and less while the spotlight shifts over to Bubbles and Faye. Nowadays Marten's appearances are more sporadic, usually to give advice or support whenever Faye and Bubbles go back to their apartment but months can go by in real time before he actually appears in a strip or has anything to do. Was later fixed after the Cubetown arc, where he gets a entire new cast of characters to play off on in a whole new setting.
• Pungeon Master: Annoys his friends with many an Incredibly Lame Pun. Luckily, he finds a like-minded soul in Claire.
• Satellite Character: Attempts to avert his Out of Focus status turn him into this. Unless his unlucky relationship history is brought up, he is either defined by being Claire's super understanding boyfriend or Faye's super understanding friend/roommate.
• Spell My Name With An S: His name is Marten. Not Martin.
• Straight Man: Primarily to Faye, but to the others as well.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Perhaps a bit too understanding. Still, despite being very indecisive, and tending to go with the flow, he's a guy just about any girl could be happy with.

Faye Whitaker

Marten's friend and eventual roommate. Inaugurates the strip's shift into Cerebus Syndrome in an arc starting in strip #500, which reveals her Dark and Troubled Past and sets up years of Unresolved Sexual Tension with Marten. Faye is tough, stubborn and argumentative, but is noticeably-weak when it comes to being insulted herself. Though Marten is nominally the main character, Faye has undergone far more Character Development, which is probably why she's the only core cast member who never falls Out of Focus for very long.

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• The Alcoholic: She's depicted in-universe as one, although for most of the story she's a Hard-Drinking Party Girl prone to binge drinking. Only after a notable Trauma Conga Line does she start displaying real symptoms of dependency and after her drinking at work gets her fired, she goes on a binge and ends up in hospital with alcohol poisoning, and goes on to become a Recovered Addict.
• Ambiguously Bi: She makes some appreciative comments about Marigold's attributes, then starts to develop an exceptionally affectionate relationship with Bubbles, an AI who presents as female. Discussed when they freely admit that this is new territory for both of them, and finally zig-zagged when Faye decides that she is, in fact, bisexual.
• Armored Closet Gay: Well, bi, but a talk with Spookybot implies that before her friendship with Bubbles got to the point where she couldn't deny that the AI was her Closet Key anymore. In hindsight she had felt attraction to other girls before, but it was usually during a point when she was already in a relationship, so she sublimated the attraction into sass.
• Berserk Button: Do not disrespect her alcoholism recovery.
• Brainy Brunette: One of the most articulate characters in the series, and known for her frequent witty remarks. Appropriately, she has brown hair and wears black glasses.
• Broken Bird:
  • She has deep problems. Her Disappeared Dad is just the start; she may or may not have tried to kill herself (she was in a car accident, and the memory loss from the concussion means she's not sure if it was intentional or not).
  • Additionally, since she and Angus ended their relationship, she appeared to have sunk into full-blown alcoholism. Granted, Pintsize has been enabling her, but it's still more than a little self-destructive... to the point that Dora fires her for drinking on the job, causing her to go home, turn off Pintsize, and drink so much that next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital. Since giving up drink and starting to attend AA meetings, she has become much less fatalistic and self-destructive.
• Characterization Marches On: It seems that Jeph decided early on that Faye would have psychological problems in her past that push her to drink, but that they might not have been fleshed out in the beginning. Early on in the comic, she shows signs of past sexual abuse such as being extremely defensive around men, and acting very uncomfortable if touched unexpectedly by either gender, even from something as simple as a hug. Later on, this behavior is mostly dropped and it's instead revealed she was traumatized when her father shot himself in front of her.
• Deadpan Snarker: Of the "caustic" variety.
• Dogged Nice Guy: She persistently attempts to befriend Bubbles despite initial resistance, and it successfully gets her to open up.
• Disappeared Dad: He killed himself right in front of her. No one knows why - though Faye's implications that she got the drinking from him, and later admitting in the depths of alcoholic depression that she understands why he did it, suggest that alcoholism and depression combined to push him over the edge.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Tends to be a fan of coping like this. Goes off the deep end after her breakup with Angus.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: After discovering her bisexuality with Bubbles, Faye acquires a cowlick which she didn't have before.
  Faye: You gave me permanent sex hair
  Bubbles: [smug smile] As I said, I find it quite charming.
• If It's You, It's Okay:
  • Her attraction to Bubbles looks like this at first. It confuses the heck out of her until Marten helps her realize that her feelings towards someone are more important than what she previously thought of as her orientation:
  Marten: Don't take this the wrong way, but I've seen how you and Bubbles are around each other. I've been basically waiting for it to come up.
  Faye: ffffffff... Okay, let's say, for the sake of argument, hypothetically, it might be possible. What am I supposed to do?
  Marten: What do you want to do?
  Faye: ...Shut up.
  Marten: I didn't say anything.
  • Zig-zagged later, when she realizes that she's probably been bi all along, and has been sublimating her attraction to other women under a façade of "bein' a sassy bitch."
• A Friend in Need: Faye is this to Bubbles, who deeply appreciates it and, indeed, returns the favour.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Flustered by her epiphany about Bubbles, she give Bubbles a suspicious excuse and leaves with a guilty look on her face:
  Bubbles: Is something the matter?
  Faye: Nope! I'm fine! Just a lil', um, leg cramp! Gonna walk it off! Be back soon!
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She eventually becomes one after finding true love with Bubbles. After 4000 strips, Faye is much more sympathetic and less abrasive to other people than she was in the first 3000 or so.
• Klatchian Coffee: Faye likes her coffee so strong that when Sam asks if she can have her coffee the way Faye has it, Dora informs her "You will literally die if you drink that."
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: For a time after taking up her job at the robot repair shop, Faye's design changed to look exactly like the stereotype of a Butch Lesbian (short, over-styled hair, muscular arms, masculine clothes). This was toned down, but still has some presence in her look. Justified due to her work repairing robots in an illegal fighting ring, which requires physical strength and practical clothing. While not necessarily an expression of her sexual orientation, since she'd only dated men before, let's just say a can of worms was opened around the same time she got the look...when she started becoming closer to Bubbles.
• Love Epiphany: Even after various signs, Faye remains oblivious to the chemistry between her and Bubbles. Then in comic 3733, when she's getting a backrub from Bubbles and feels their bodies touch, her eyes widen and she gets the mental image of a bunch of Tetris blocks rearranging themselves into a heart symbol. "Everything falls into place."
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: A non-romantic one (at least initially) to Bubbles. Despite the dour Bubbles having absolutely no desire to go out and have friends, Faye incessantly hounds Bubbles to try to get her to open up. Justified in that Faye has bitter experience what not opening up to people turns her into; ultimately Reconstructed in that when Faye's issues return and she starts to fall off the wagon, Bubbles is able to help her, which cements their friendship, makes them both more stable and leads ultimately to their Relationship Upgrade.
• The Nicknamer: "Mar-Mar," "Hanners," "Penny...", "Spookybot", "Bubs", etc. This is called out when Marigold first visits Coffee of Doom and Faye sets to giving her a nickname.
  • When Hannelore returns from her sabbatical around the world and is noticeably tanned, Faye instantly dubs her "Tannelore".
• Oblivious to Love: It takes her ages to even suspect that Bubbles could have developed an attraction to her, and partly out of her lingering Broken Bird tendencies she chooses quickly to reject that such a notion could be true. She also misses hints from multiple people that she and Bubbles should get together. In 3733 she has a moment of clarity about her feelings that hits her like a ton of bricks.
• Recovered Addict: After her alcoholism nearly ruins her, she gives up the drink and works on recovering.
• Scars Are Forever: She has a scar just above her right breast resulting from a car crash (which may or may not have been a suicide attempt, as she can't remember the moments just before the crash) and the stitches needed to close up the injury.
• Southern Belle: Parodied. Faye hails from Georgia, and is prone to hamming up her accent, complaining about "fits o' the vapours" and referring to Massachusetts as "The Godless North" for comedic value, as well as showing extreme defensiveness when anyone badmouths the South, but otherwise is the near exact opposite of a Southern Belle.
• Stout Strength: After taking on mechanical work, Faye remained pleasantly plump but developed stronger muscles.
• The Teetotaler: Her drinking got to the point she had to give it up entirely.
• Tsundere: She actually wears a shirt saying "Tsundere" from time to time. Purchased by Hannelore here.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Bursts out with spontaneous poetry on multiple occasions, particularly when drunk.
• Stepford Snarker: She seems to have started using her biting sarcasm as a defense or coping mechanism, until it became purely reflexive.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The vast majority of her friendships could be seen as such, especially earlier in the comic.
• Weight Woe:
  • Her body image issues are frequently brought up, and made somewhat worse by her hanging out with the eternally skinny Dora and Hannelore. She starts feeling better about it when she joins a gym. Once she finds job satisfaction doing heavy and difficult mechanical work i.e. repairing robots for a living, her body image issues sort of resolved themselves:
    Dora: Faye got wicked buff and has a super-butch haircut and it is hot as shit.
    Tai: It's okay, babe. We can ogle her together.
  • Faye: So whatcha been talkin' about while I was in there dealin' with assdick?^note Faye was extracting from Pintsize's head a rolling pin that she herself had lodged in it.
    Claire: Oh, just body-image stuff. You know.
    Faye: Oh yeah. Shit sucks. I fight mine by constantly hollerin' about how great my ass is.
  • A lot of this may have been in her head to begin with, as several characters like Angus or Clinton don't hesitate to call her hot.
• Wrench Wench: Faye shows her mechanical skills several times throughout the comic, eventually putting them to use in an underground robot-fighting ring. She later opens a robot repair shop with Bubbles.
• Yaoi Fangirl: She provided the booze when Marten mentioned that Steve gets homoerotic when drunk.

Dora Bianchi

The owner of the local coffee shop (Coffee of Doom) at which Faye eventually finds employment. Ramps up the Unresolved Sexual Tension by having a thing for Marten. They eventually resolved it and got together until Dora's insecurity and possessiveness ended it. She had a date with Jim, but eventually ended up with Tai as her next partner.

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• Amicable Exes: With Marten, somewhat surprisingly, but she may just have become kinder since their breakup.
• Benevolent Boss: Every single one of her employees is a close personal friend of hers. Although she gives a speech about how sometimes she has to be a Bad Boss, it's pretty clear that she gives everyone more freedom than she probably should.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While she is a relatively Benevolent Boss, she has her limits. She fires Faye, of all people, on the spot for drinking on the job, though she relents a little when Faye ends up drinking herself into the hospital, saying that she's not "officially fired until the insurance pays for this"
• Birds of a Feather: With Marten. Formerly.
• Broken Bird: While she has problems with Sven stemming from some jealousy, Dora's really had a terrible string of horrible boyfriends that caused the possessiveness and the insecurities which she never dealt with or had treated. As a consequence, she can't hold a relationship with Marten together and it was what broke them up. Fortunately, they remained amicable.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Is this in spades. It tends to destroy all of her personal relationships.
• Cool Big Sis: She's older than Faye, Marten, et al, and she's laid-back and understanding when she isn't being a Clingy Jealous Girl or a Fangirl. Sven points out that, before she addresses her issues, a lot of it is a cover for said issues - however, Hannelore, one of the youngest members of the regular cast, does genuinely trigger her protective instincts.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: Named her coffee shop "Coffee Of Doom". Inside is the "Restroom of Doom".
• Local Hangout: Not her, just her business.
• Lookalike Lovers: When she dyes her hair black, she looks just like Marten, which has been commented on In-Universe. Hilariously parodied in a rule 63 guest comic.
• My Girl Is a Slut: Makes all the sex jokes that (stereotypically) would be assigned to guys.
• Perky Goth: In the beginning, at least. There are allusions that she used to be a more traditional Goth.
• Pet's Homage Name: She owns a cat named Miéville
• Prone to Sunburn: Back in her more goth days in the early strips, she didn't get a lot of sun, and pays for it.
  Dora: Dammit, I'm half Italian! We're supposed to tan, not burn!
  Faye: Dora, you probably got more sun today than you have in the last six months. This is what happens when you shun our mother star!
• Stepford Smiler: Sven explains it in detail, although Dora herself alluded to it a lot earlier. The Cool Big Sis thing is largely an act.
• The Unfair Sex: Her many double standards is the most visible factor that eventually ended her relationship with Marten, often calling him out on minor things while not thinking twice about doing similar or worse things back.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Admits to Faye that maintaining Coffee of Doom's general level of snarky hostility was burning her out, and that she has worked to make the place more welcoming.
• Workaholic: She takes on a lot of the work involved in running Coffee of Doom on herself. Particularly after Faye gets fired, where it gets to the point that her employees really want her to take a day off.
• Yaoi Fangirl: When Marten let slip that Steve gets homoerotic when drunk, she immediately ordered them to replicate the event in question.

Pintsize

Pintsize in his original body.

^{Click here to see Pintsize in his more human body.}

An "Anthro-PC"—basically a computer in a robot body and with enough AI to be sentient — Pintsize started off as the zany comic relief before evidently getting an overdose of 4chan. Now he's still Plucky Comic Relief, but in a more sinister way.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Not evil, landing closer on the side of lecherous mischief, but at the very least is definitely not what anyone was expecting when they wanted to create a sapient AI.
• Amusing Injuries: Frequently on the receiving end of abuse, typically getting his head smashed in, for which he suffers no long-term ill effects. Justified because his original chassis was military-grade surplus, and thus designed to be durable and easily reparable, and he lives with Faye, a skilled metallurgist and later mechanic who can easily repair A.I. chassis. This has gone away since he received a (non-military) humanoid body.
• The Artifact: Quite literally with his original chassis. At the start of the comic, the concept of AI was relegated solely to personal companions like Pintsize and Momo, but that was steadily retconned until AI existed primarily in more humanoid chassis. Pintsize eventually was the only major AI character to remain in his original Anthro-PC chassis. He does eventually purchase and transfer into a humanoid body. While he initially states it was just a prank, he chooses not to return to his original body.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Played straight with his new humanoid body, and he is perfectly happy with that fact when he actually checks.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite all his many...quirks, he is actually quite good at his job. He's arguably the most insightful AI companion of the cast, even if he doesn't act like it. Among other things, he helps Faye find a job in robot repair after Dora fires her for drinking on the job, where she meets Bubbles. He also helps out Claire when she's stressed about her exams, and admonishes Marten for not noticing Claire was having a hard time and needs his support. But because this is Pintsize, he emphasizes this last bit by smacking Marten with a giant purple dildo named "Ursula" (and then once more for giggles).
• Character Blog: Like many characters in the strip, he has a Twitter account. Notably, virtually every post he makes is Schmuck Bait to some image that even /d/ would not touch.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Faye walks up to him carrying her welding equipment, he takes (what he assumes to be) his impending doom quite well:
  Pintsize: I knew this day would come. Please make it quick.
• The Hedonist: To the point of eating cake and cake batter, in spite of having no digestive tract.
• Hidden Depths: For all his foibles, he actually takes his role as a companion A.I. to Marten seriously, discussing the matter practically and professionally with Momo.
  Word of God: Pintsize has hidden depths. Unfortunately they are full of porn.
  • When Marten points out to him that getting himself a humanoid body partly in order to troll Marten might be a bit offensive to May, since she struggled for so long with her faulty one and only got an upgrade because they had a fundraiser for her, Pintsize takes this seriously and asks her if she's okay with it. Her response only goes to show how little Marten really understands her:
    May: [gleeful] HAW HAW HAW YOU MAGNIFICENT FUCKIN' BASTARD
  • A few comics later, Claire is able to tease it out of him that he didn't just get a new humanoid chassis for a gag; that he really likes his new body, that he dreads the thought of going back to his old body (likening it to "locking [himself] in a prison cell"), and most importantly that he's scared to admit any of that out loud for fear of perceived mockery. Given the subtext, Claire's probably the best person in the cast that he could've had this conversation with.
• Intrigued by Humanity: How he explains his 4chan obsession.
  "Think about it! Rule 34 is the ultimate expression of human creativity! Creating porn of ANYTHING THE HUMAN MIND CAN CONCEIVE is an endeavor on par with colonizing the stars or tapping into the secrets of the universe!"
• I Should Have Been Better: Pintsize reveals in Comic 3826 that he regrets not doing more to help out Marten during his relationship with Dora, and feels like his attempts to make nice with Claire are his way of making up for failing Marten regarding Dora.
• Jerkass/Large Ham: Most of the time, with exceptions.
  • After he gets his humanoid body, he starts to make a crude remark about Willow's ample bosoms but can't bring himself to do it, and realizes to his dismay that his new situation is "changing my sense of propriety."
• Killer Rabbit: His chassis is military-grade. The design was rejected because civilians might mistake it for harmless in the same way landmines are mistaken for toys.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: He'll hit on anything that seems female, whether it be human, robot, animal, or a non-intelligent robotic limb. In an early storyline, he gets weirded out after realizing he was hitting on a boy robot, though he seemed to get over it pretty quickly and maintained interest in the robot in question.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Pretty much literally, as seen here.
• Obfuscating Insanity: Not actually crazy (though pretty disturbed), he does tend to come off as entirely wacky/crazy when he is, in fact, much more on the ball than anyone realizes.
• Online Alias: He has a tinder profile under the name Beucephalus and the age 69.
• Out of Focus: Lampshaded in 2332.
• Pet the Dog: is capable of totally spontaneous acts of kindness, such as handing over the proceeds of the party to Faye to do up her room.
• Plucky Comic Relief: For the better part of his appearances, he just shows up for the punchline.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Winslow's Blue.
• Refuge in Audacity: The main reason he could get away with most of the shit he did was because he could coast on the perception that it was harmless antics from a harmless little robot, requiring little more than a dent in the head or getting thrown across the room. When he got his new chassis, it's pointed out that the same antics will now come across as more mean-spirited, and since this new chassis isn't designed to handle punishment like his old military-grade one, taking damage carries actual consequences now. Leaving the refuge, as it were, was a point of anxiety for him. He's been tamer ever since.
• Restored My Faith in Humanity: By his own account, pooping catgirls gives him hope for humanity.
• Robot Buddy: It's quite literally his job. He was Marten's only friend for two years, but after Steven and Faye came along, he was pretty much left alone to do his own thing.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Since getting an upgraded chassis, Pintsize has actively aimed for a look that might best be described as the kind of clothing a color-blind Square Enix character would wear. He even sought Yemisi's professional help in putting the outfit together.
• "Second Law" My Ass!: Ordering him to do something —- or more likely, not to do something -— has precisely zero effect. His habit of trolling everyone and his sometimes self-destructive hijinks show an absence of the other two Laws.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Him appearing powered down is one hint that bad things are happening.
• The Unchosen One: In a way. Turns out the compatibility test to determine the ideal robot companion for Marten gave inaccurate results. Marten and Pintsize only discover this years later, after they have already grown accustomed to each other. Marten's actual ideal Robot Buddy would have been a robot whale.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Downplayed. Getting a humanoid chassis didn’t make him respectable, but it did make him a bit less willing to outright offend people for kicks, partly because he knows a more human-standard robot gets a lot less social leeway on being a gremlin.

Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham

Hannelore, pre-tanned from exploring the world.

A young lady Marten meets in a bar, who turns out to be his upstairs neighbor. Germophobic, adorably neurotic and born to a Mad Scientist father and a Corrupt Corporate Executive mother, she naturally became a fan favorite. She is slowly getting over some of her issues with the help of her friends. She is romantically lonely but not far enough past her germaphobia and other issues to seek out a partner — yet. Leaves the comic to travel the world in 3649. Comes back in 4047.

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• Affectionate Nickname: "Hanners" by some of her friends.
• Animal Motifs: Tapirs show up a lot with Hannelore, due to her simultaneous fascination/horror regarding them.
• Berserk Button: Suggesting that she looks or sounds like her mother appears to have become one.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She can get pretty scary. Whether she likes to admit it or not, she has that in common with her mother.
• Bifauxnen: Not intentionally at first but Hannelore's formal and outdoorwear has always tended to trend towards menswear inspired and this combined with her undercut hair as of 2017 makes her look attractively androgynous even while furious.
• The Bus Came Back: As of 4047. She made some personal breakthroughs and decided she'd missed enough important events in her friends' lives that she comes back.
• Celibate Hero: A twist on this trope. She's attracted to guys, but her mental illness prevents her from acting on it.
• Characterization Marches On: When we first met her, Hannelore was confident, extroverted, and sarcastic, but this soon evolved into a much more vulnerable character. The Watsonian perspective is that, as revealed later on, she was on much stronger anti-anxiety medication when she first showed up, but it's more likely that Jeph just didn't plan ahead at the time. As of her return from travelling the world, she seems to have got over her more crippling anxieties.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • Made worse by her pretending to be even crazier than she actually is in ways that her friends can't tell.
• Commuting on a Bus: After leaving on her Journey to Find Oneself the comic occasionally checks in with her at different stops.
• Compelling Voice: Apparently inherited from her mother, she has "the voice", which her mother's assistants describe in awed whispers as "the weirding way".
• Covert Pervert: She has her moments. Repeatedly.
• Destined Bystander: It's very subtle, but she was actually mentioned as early as strip 313 when Marten and Faye were first checking out what would be their new apartment, despite not being introduced for another 202 strips. She's almost certainly this rather than a Chekhov's Gunman, of course, given that even when she did début properly, Jeph clearly only had a vague idea where she was going...
• Drop-In Character: Less so in later chapters, but she still has a tendency to just sort of show up places.
  Marten: Wait, how'd I know you'd be in my apartment?
  Hannelore: Why am I in your apartment?
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Her first scene has her casually talking to Marten, who at the time is drunk and casually peeing in a sink in front of her. Later strips would go on to show that even something a hundred times less (but nonetheless) disgusting would freak her out to the point of a mental breakdown. That's not even getting into the fact that she holds a civil and somewhat insightful conversation with him, without her devolving into her usually scatterbrained, paranoia fuelled Cloud Cuckoolander rambles. This is later explained as her being on some extremely strong anti-anxiety meds at the time.
• Genre Savvy: She's the one who bought Faye her Tsundere shirt.
• Good with Numbers: Utilizes her OCD to good effect. For the longest time, her only career is a freelance counter. Her mother also hires her to find an accounting error in a massive pile of paperwork, which she does. This also helps her pick up the drums really quickly, which, depending on your point of view, is either a case of Potential Applications or Mundane Utility.
• Hands-Off Parenting: It's how she was raised: her parents are both independently wealthy, her mother is a Child Hater, and her father is an Absent-Minded Professor, so she was essentially raised by the AIs on her father's space station.
• The Heart: Unlikely as it may seem, given her case of No Social Skills. She tries to be nice (in her own odd way) to everyone and constantly works to defuse conflicts among the other characters. Probably the best example is how she sees the good in Sven when everyone else has written him off, and brokers his reconciliation with Dora.
  Hannelore: There are a lot of cute animal pictures on the internet, but I think I've finally found them all.
  Penelope: ALL of them?!
  Hannelore: Well, aside from tapirs. I can't decide if they're cute or terrifying.
• I Have to Go Iron My Dog: Thinks Marigold is hinting that she wants to be alone with Dale, so she excuses herself by saying she has a chicken cooking in the coffee roaster.
• Journey to Find Oneself: Puts herself on a bus to travel and sort her feelings out after having a heated confrontation with her mother.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Of her father, though without the personality. She jokes early on about being a robot, a clone, or a cyborg.
• Messy Hair: It's straight in her first appearance, but grows back floofy after a haircut. Since then, it can spontaneously mess itself up after being tidied, and even FOOFs itself out as soon as she takes off her hat.
• Morality Pet: To Sven and Bubbles. The former, she gets to act like a decent and respectful person, and she's able to address the issue of Bubbles' size with a huge chair without angering her for drawing attention to it.
• Neat Freak: When she's getting acquainted with Marten and Faye, they realize she's the neighbour who housecleans at night. As her OCD becomes more manageable, she gets better about tolerating minor uncleanliness, but is still the cast's go-to when there's a mess that requires expert attention.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: More than once has she said things that have cued very worried looks from her friends.
• No Social Skills: Hannelore doesn't have the greatest grasp of normal social behaviour. Her upbringing is probably more to blame than her OCD; she was primarily raised on a space station by a mad scientist, after all. Later updates indicate that she was literally raised by the space station's sapient AI, as her father was too busy with his work. And even then, the Ship states that Hannelore spent most of her childhood huddled in a corner, terrified of everything.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In #3638, Hannelore, with her well-documented aversion to touching people for any reason, is so livid that she shoves her own mother. Afterwards she also hugs Tilly.
  • Parodied when on returning from her travels abroad, she greets Dora with a warm hug. Dora's reaction is to pull a ritual dagger on her.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: She does...something between strips 2682 and 2683 that stops everyone from arguing, then calmly strolls to the kitchen for tea. Judging by everyone else's reactions, she probably screamed at all of them. She can get Yelling-Bird loud when she wants to, and the tea was likely to soothe her hoarse throat.
• Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: Hannelore is known to have a libido, but her OCD and germaphobia make actually having sex with someone nigh-impossible. It's possible this contributes to her eventual interest in yaoi manga.
• Parental Abandonment: Her father wasn't really there for her growing up due to being an Absent-Minded Professor. Her mother was also dedicated to her work as a ruthless corporate predator, and her own crippling mental issues prevented her from connecting with either parent until she was an adult.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Doesn't quite intentionally weaponize them, but breaks them out on Dora at one point.
• Put on a Bus: In 3649. She'll still pop up for a page every now and then, the comic checking in on where she's currently travelling.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Feels that she has one in the form of "Juicy", whose underwear bearing said word ended up contaminating her laundry, and who proceeded to treat her extremely rudely when she came in to Coffee of Doom.
• Sharp Dressed Woman: She's seldom seen in traditionally feminine formal or businesswear, more often than not she wears slim cut suits and a very masculine black peacoat as her outdoorwear.
• Sleepyhead: Can even fall asleep standing up. Often found asleep on Marten's couch during her early Drop-In Character days.
• Statuesque Stunner: She's canonically the tallest of the girls in the main cast.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Hanners is the creepy goddess of this trope.
• Team Mom: Surprisingly, ends up essentially being this, especially to Marigold specifically. She's very caring but can put her foot down when needed.
• The Un-Smile: more than once.
• True Blue Femininity: Many of Hanners' outfits are blue, including her fancy dress.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Though she didn't know what yaoi was until Marigold showed it to her, she immediately blushed and borrowed the entire series in question.

Marigold Louise Farmer

An Occidental Otaku who lives near Dora's coffee shop. Her room is always a mess. Sometimes known as "Mar-bear", which totally isn't confusing when you consider that there's a Marten in the strip already. She suffers from poor hygiene, poor self-esteem, and social anxiety.

---

• All Love Is Unrequited: Had a thing for Angus, but has since encouraged him to pursue Faye since finding out about their relationship.
• Angrish: Less severe than most examples, but her "goblin mode" episodes of crankiness are accompanied by phonetically-represented grumbling.
• Animesque: Her arrival boosted the number of anime elements in the comic; she is an anime fan, after all.
• Art Evolution: She went from a flat-chested skinnier girl to the bustiest and curviest girl in the strip, rivaled only by Faye. Her face changed too: in her earlier appearances she had spots, always wore her hair down and was more round-faced, but in later strips she ties up her hair, her skin has cleared up and her face has become more of Jacques' signature inverted teardrop shape.
• Author Appeal: Her anime fandom reflects Jeph Jacques's own (though he's probably not a Yaoi Fanboy), and some traits of her character are drawn from an anime character. He also lists her as his favorite character in the cast page.
• Beautiful All Along: Defied, then played straight anyway. Marigold rants about how much she hates the trope, but once she starts taking care of herself and improving a few of her habits, it quickly becomes clear that yeah, she is just as attractive as the rest of the cast.
• Beautiful Dreamer: Dale thinks so.
• Bespectacled Cutie: A cute girl whose glasses make her look geeky yet charming.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Once she gets in a swimsuit, anyway.
  Marten: What's the problem? She doesn't look good?
  Faye: Too good. She looks better than me.
  Marten and Angus: Daaaang.
  Marigold: Stop danging at me!
• Birds of a Feather: With Dale, once they finally spit it out.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: She is so far the bustiest character in the series and has gotten admiring comments about it from all kinds of people, including from an ex-criminal AI:
  May: Now that we're friends, let's talk about your amazing rack.
  • May would later get to be intimate with Marigold's "amazing rack", and admitted that it's "incredibly soothing".
• The Cynic: She becomes this in later strips, in spite of her life markedly improving (forming a solid relationship with Dale and earning good money from livestreaming herself playing games.)
  Marigold: [on her first attempt at yoga] It was painful and confusing and I suck at it, but I'm gonna keep trying.
  Hannelore: I'm really proud of you.
  Marigold: I mean that's how I feel about life anyway, so
• Expy: Jeph based her on Konata from Lucky Star, to no one's surprise.
• Fangirl: When she goes to the SMIF convention, she fangirls over a webcomic artist and trips over her own feet when she runs away in fright.
• Forgets to Eat: Hannelore implies this as an effect of her gaming here.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: Marigold Louise Farmer.
• Geek Physiques: In a physical case of Characterization Marches On, Jeph initially drew her as a skinny geek but quickly revised her character design into an example of the chubby version.
• I Am Not Pretty: She's getting better about this, but especially early on, she frequently said she was ugly and fat. And she still does so occasionally. None of the other characters agree with her about this. Sometimes she even does it to her wish-fulfillment fictional self.
• Insecure Love Interest: After she and Dale get together, she worries a lot about losing Dale to other women whom she perceives as better-looking or otherwise more appealing than her.
• Irrational Hatred: Towards Dale, at first. It started when she learned he played for the other faction in World of Warcraft, and snowballed from there.
• Playful Cat Smile: While she will every so often play it straight when she's especially pleased, she also inverts it with "goblin mode" whenever she's being cranky and stubborn.
• Punny Name: A play on the term "gold farmer"- someone who plays online games all day to accumulate gold, usually to sell it. Oddly enough, Jeph apparently didn't realize it until after he'd already named her. It also sounds like the name of someone who plants marigolds (the flower).
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Attempts it on Momo to get out of her grounding. She winds up resorting to bribery when it doesn't work.
• Serious Business: On learning that Dale is a member of the Alliance in World of Warcraft.
  Marigold: NO TIPS FOR ALLIANCE SCUM!
• Secretly Wealthy: Not at first, but she gets into doing "Let's Play" style gaming on the internet and starts making serious money. She doesn't want this fact spread around, and covertly asks Hannalore for some financial advice.
• Stereotypical Nerd: Marigold is a pimply MMORPG-addicted Occidental Otaku and Yaoi Fangirl with dirty hair and a messy apartment. Interestingly, she has fluctuated on both spectrums of Geek Physique, starting off as being skinny and scrawny but changing overtime to be chubby. She is socially awkward, especially around guys she has crushes on, and lacks self-confidence, frequently stating that she's ugly and fat.
• Verbal Tic: Hers is the Verbal Backspace. She frequently blurts things out, overhears herself doing so and then changes direction mid-sentence:
  • "You saw me yesterdwhat kind of presents I like presents"
  • "NO I WOU--okay yes I would have"
• Virtual YouTuber: She has a virtual model for streaming known as "Burger Oni", a sort of hell-demon creature, and often collaborates with "MommyMilkers420" AKA Aurelia Augustus. (Neither of them knows the other's real identity until strip 4813.)
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Marigold's mind wanders to strange places.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Been there, done that, wore the t-shirt. She's so much of a Yaoi Fangirl that it can turn her on at the drop of a hat. In this strip Tai practically gets a migraine trying to explain to her what is wrong with her extraordinarily non-descriptive Harry Potter Slash Fic.

Coffee of Doom:

Raven Pritchard

An employee at Coffee Of Doom, most known for her antics and for matching perfectly the Dumb Blonde stereotype, except for not being blonde. Or dumb. Except when she is.

---

• Disney Creatures of the Farce: Faye references this when Raven is especially nice about a grumpy customer.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: Unless she does.
  Raven: Hey, I like your shoes! Where'd you get them?
  Hannelore: Uh, thanks? I bought them online.
  Raven: Wow, you can buy SHOES on the INTERNET? I totally didn't know that!
  Hannelore: Faye, is she being sarcastic?
  Faye: Your guess is as good as mine. Raven is the Drunken Master of ridicule.
• Embarrassing First Name: She goes by her middle name because her actual first name is "Blodwyn".
• Genius Ditz: She sometimes gives clear indications that she's a lot smarter than she appears, but will then go right back to being a ditz. For instance, she went back to school to pursue a degree in physics... and wore a lab coat during a theory class because it seemed more sciencey that way. Jeph describes her on the comic's cast page as "Coffee of Doom's resident idiot savant."
• Perky Goth: Sort of. When she was still a goth she wasn't perky at all, but she was a Perky Emo for a while.
• Put on a Bus: She disappeared for over a year real-time after going back to school. After only a handful of appearances, she's back on the bus.
• Really Gets Around: Moreso than anyone but Sven.
• The Bus Came Back: For the summer, at least (which with Webcomic Time, could be several years).

Penelope Gaines

A bookstore employee shanghaied into barista duty. Squabbles with Faye a lot. May or may not be Pizza Girl, the pizza-delivering superhero. Most of the others suspect Penelope is her secret identity. If Penelope in strip 1932 is to be believed, it isn't. Used to show up a fair bit as a grouchier side character, but all but vanished for a time after hooking up with the weak-willed, old-fashioned Wil. She has come back into focus somewhat.

---

• Art Evolution: After a disappearance from the comic, she returned with a darker strawberry blonde hair color.
• Got Volunteered:
  • The others thought it would be funny to shanghai her into working at the coffee shop. She got fired from her bookstore job that night, so she came back full time.
  • Happened again when Dora announced that Penelope would replace Faye as assistant manager, apparently without asking Penelope whether she was interested.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: As soon as Dora promotes her to Assistant Manager, she shows immediate signs of this.
• Out of Focus: She tends to be notably absent for longer periods of time than most other minor characters, with the author note for comic #5108: Remember Penelope? stating "it's only been, like, 2000 comics since we last saw her".
• Pass the Popcorn: She asks Faye and Dora to hold off on an argument while she makes popcorn, and during the blowup, she's seen eating it.
• The Reliable One: Penelope is so good at doing her job without causing drama or shenanigans that the other characters seemingly forget that she exists for hundreds of strips at a time.
• Straw Atheist: Her parents were hardcore fundies, causing her to be firmly against anything without a rational scientific basis. This causes some friction with Wil.
• Those Two Girls: Became this with Cosette after the latter started at Coffee of Doom.

Cosette Hurlbut

A Cute Clumsy Girl who does not benefit from the trope's usual immunity to collateral damage. She was first introduced in 1322 asking Marten out, and then did not appear again until 1430, when Marten offered to hook her up with Steve. They do get together, but due to an accident and in Decompressed Comic time it's not until 1543. Eventually starts working at Coffee of Doom, but has largely been absent from the strip.

---

• Clingy Jealous Girl: She can get like this at times, such as when she angrily tells Padma that Steve is hers, or when she glowers over her friend Luna's suggestion that rushing into a relationship with him would be a bit hasty. Later, she lightens up about this and smirks at Claire blushing and staring at Steve's butt in swim shorts, telling her that for twenty bucks she can grab it.
  Marten: Jesus, I thought she was going to go all Temple of Doom on you and pull your heart out of your chest!
• Character Development: She matures a lot during the process of her relationship with Steve.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Tripped down the stairs while looking at a picture of Steve.
• Doom Magnet: It's mentioned in passing that all of her previous places of employment went up in flames after she got hired.
• Those Two Girls: Became this with Penelope after starting at Coffee of Doom.

Dale

Another pizza delivery guy (among other things). A member of the Alliance, which makes him the natural enemy of Horde member Marigold. He begins a semi-Friendly Rivalry with her online after she stiffs him on a tip over this. Became a barista for the Coffee of Doom in 2530, and hooks up with Marigold later.

---

• Belligerent Sexual Tension: His World of Warcraft rivalry with Marigold quickly becomes a cover for their buried interest in each other.
• Birds of a Feather: With Marigold, once they finally spit it out.
• Black and Nerdy: Enjoys anime and videogames, making him an ideal partner for Marigold.
• Cannot Spit It Out: He has a romantic interest in Marigold, but his social skills are apparently as terrible as hers are.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Dale is VERY creeped out when he thinks Hannelore is offering to bone him as a tip and is relieved to find out that it's not true. He still goes in, however, albeit reluctantly, and his personalized companion is made to wear a sexy French Maid costume because his browser history indicates that would suit him. He denies the pervert part, though.
• Covert Pervert: He is beta testing a virtual companion whose avatar is designed to appeal to him... and takes the form of an anime-style French Maid. He also apparently owns the entire collection of Magical Love Gentlemen. Make of that what you will.
• Friendly Rivalry: Thinks he has this kind of relationship with Marigold. She actually has an Irrational Hatred of him.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: His Scary Shiny Glasses actually contain an augmented reality system.
• Nice Guy: One of the nicest people in the setting, so much so that he felt bad about turning off his AR glasses when May was being a jerk yet he turns them back on later that night.
  Jeph: Dale is too nice for his own good.
• The One Guy: The only guy on the Coffee of Doom staff.
• Pizza Boy Special Delivery: Hanners is disgusted to find out about this trope, after he explains that her invitation to come inside so that she can find another way to tip him could have been interpreted very differently from simply giving him a slice of the pizza he delivered.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: At first it seems like it's just drawn for effect, but it turns out he can light up his glasses at will. He doesn't actually embody any of the usual associated personality traits, and was just playing up the anime villain mannerisms when interacting with Marigold.
• Shout-Out: His mannerisms when interacting with Marigold (either online or whenever they actually meet in person) feature the Scary Shiny Glasses and hand clasping that Gendo Ikari is known for.
• Worthy Opponent: He declares Marigold this, and insists the friends he sent to PK her stick to Mook Chivalry.

The Secret Bakery:

Padma

Manager of The Secret Bakery. She and Faye like to spar. She and Marten had a brief relationship that ended on a sour note.

---

• Cloudcuckoolander: Is prone to starting unannounced fake fights and posing cinematically on dangerous cliffs.
• Comically Missing the Point: Prone to this. Assuming Momo was Marten's daughter, for example—even after she found out Momo was a robot.
  Padma: You got a robot pregnant!?
• Oblivious to Love: Specifically to Elliot's.
• Put on a Bus: She moves away to take care of her grandmother. Neither she nor Marten handle the impending end of their relationship well and the break is fractious, but Marten eventually contacts her again and they at least appear to be on speaking terms. After her grandmother passes away, she gets engaged to some "tech-bro", according to Renee.

Elliot Gordon

Another employee at the Secret Bakery, and also the bouncer at the Horrible Revelation. Elliot is fearless in the face of any physical threat but paralyzingly anxious in romantic situations. He and his cat Hercules live in the same building as Roko and Melon. His full name, Elliot Matthew Gordon, is given in strip 4917.

---

• Apologises a Lot: He gets anxious easily and can end up apologizing profusely if he feels he made a faux pas.
  Clinton: Seriously, it's fine. Please stop apologizing.
  Elliot: Okay. Sorry. I mean— yes. Right. Good.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's as nice as can be, but if you start something violent while he's on duty he'll use his tremendous strength to straighten you out the hard way.
• Bouncer: Elliot is a very professional and thoughtful sort of bouncer, who understands that his job should be about de-escalation and minimum force. (He comes across as thinking more deeply about this than about anything else, except possibly bread recipes.) However, he is capable of escalating to as much force as is ever required.
• The Bus Came Back: Disappears after Padma's subplot and returns a thousand pages later for Brun's.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Elliot accidentally crushes Clinton's robot hand, and Clinton covers for him to Elliot's boss. When Elliot asks why, Clinton states that he's returning the favor for the time he and Emily were on a date, an angry drunk punched Clinton, and Elliot immediately threw him out of the bar. Elliot, being a bouncer, ejects belligerent drunks from the bar he works at all the time and has no memory of this event.
• Cannot Spit It Out: He sits on his feelings for Padma for a long time and gets turned down when he finally says something to her. He does the same thing with Brun before learning secondhand that she's not interested, and he has an even harder time with Clinton.
• Crush Blush: When he thinks about Brun, either as being "fastidious" or as a "friendship fairy".
• Even the Guys Want Him: He's gotten major Ship Tease with Clinton. They're a couple now and apparently have been for months of in-comic time.
• Foil: Elliot, who is thoughtful and cautious to a fault, is often paired in scenes with his coworker Renee, who rarely thinks before she speaks.
• Friend to All Living Things: When asked if he's a dog or a cat person, he says he's "an animal person." He even expressed concern for a skunk that sprayed him, seeming to care more about the fact that he had scared it than about the stench ruining his clothes. Aurelia's dog Cosmo greets him by immediately leaping into his arms, and is constantly wagging her tail when he's around.
  Elliot: I love all animals equally.
  Clinton: Even parasitic worms?
  Elliot: They're just playing the hand evolution dealt them.
• Gentle Giant: Has a t-shirt that says "Soft Boy" which, forgive the pun, fits him to a T. Well, normally. He works as a bouncer for a reason. He's initially worried about intimidating Brun due to being a bouncer until she points out that she's a bartender, the one person in the room guaranteed not to be afraid of a big scary bouncer.
• Hunk: He's a pretty cute guy, and neither his great height nor his strapping muscles hurt his appeal with the ladies. Renee gets quite flustered when she realizes how hot she finds him with his shirt off. As does Clinton, eventually.
• Nervous Wreck: He tends to get flustered and panicky pretty easily, and is often anxious and shy as a baseline. Clinton even theorizes that he has an anxiety disorder of some kind, which Eliot admits would explain a lot.
  • Taken to a new level when Clinton casually mentioning that he might want to look for a job out of town causes Elliot to assume that Clinton probably wants to break up with him.
• Nice Guy: Friendly, polite (if a little bit socially awkward), and honest.
• Not a Date: Renee eventually gets him pumped up enough to ask out Clinton... except he comes up short and instead invites him for a non-romantic burrito lunch instead. He does manage to imply his intentions, however.
  Clinton: How do you go halfway on asking someone out?
  Elliot: W-well, you... you say something like "do you wanna have lunch".
• Odd Friendship: With Yay Newfriend. He's one of very few humans who never acts freaked out or uncomfortable around them, and they enjoy playing with his cat.
• Relationship Upgrade: Also had one of these with Clinton.
• Staring Down Cthulhu: When Yay requests Elliot try intimidating them Elliot, not knowing who they are, gets into his standard bouncer pose. Yay responds with a Slasher Smile and a firm "No." Elliot complements them on being 'almost a little scary', which catches Yay completely off guard.
• Sweet Baker: He's a Gentle Giant who makes friends easily and happily shares his love of breadmaking. He even takes it in stride when he learns that one of his customers has a bread fetish and gives her some pointers in the art of sourdough.

Renee

An employee at the Secret Bakery, who used to date Angus.

---

• Ambiguously Bi: Her Tinder list includes both men and women.
• The Bus Came Back: Plays a very minor role as Padma's coworker, then disappears for over 1000 strips before reappearing in Brun's subplot.
• Characterization Marches On: Originally just a more unpleasant palette-swap of Faye. When she reappears in Brun's subplot, she's unrecognizable both in terms of looks and personality.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Tries to get her friend Brun to deal with practical problems such as getting up on time and finding new housing and employment.
  • When Brun and Millefeuille are both belligerently drunk, she manages to trick the two of them into standing quietly in the corner.
  • Even when Renee is not actually present, she provides Brun advice on what to do in social situations, in the form of a little cartoony head in a thought bubble giving out helpful suggestions. Give the girl credit, she hasn't missed yet.
• Crush Blush: Gets one when it turns out that Brun's theory that Renee is secretly attracted to Elliot may not be entirely wrong.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Renee's early look was essentially a Palette Swap of Faye, complete with glasses and short hair. Once she reappeared later in the story, her hair became much longer, her style changed, she lost her glasses, and she was drawn significantly thicker. This also came with a notable change in personality, going from abrasive and rude to much more gentle and understanding.
• Evil Counterpart: To Faye at the Secret Baker, though only in her initial appearances (see "Characterization Marches On" above).
• Foil: Renee is often put in scenes that contrast her brash nature with Elliot's more cautious approach, showing their respective strengths and weaknesses via contrast.
• Goth: In high school.
• I Have This Friend: She does this to ask Beepatrice about sex toys... but drops it by the end of the second sentence.
  Renee: What's the best sex toy for a vagina-haver? I'm asking for a friend, who is me.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She tends to come across as aggressive and inconsiderate at first, even threatening Clinton over the phone while he's helping Brun get settled after her house fire, and Angus claims that she's jerk all the way down. However, she's also diligent in looking after Brun, has a few minor Jerkass Realizations, and shows a warmer side when she gets more screen time with her friends.
  Elliot: Renee means well, she just... addresses things in the worst way possible.
• Loving Bully: A mild example; she gives Elliot a lot of grief while possibly having a repressed crush on him. When she realizes it, she makes a point of Defying the trope, so as not to make things awkward.
• Odd Friendship: She spends most of her time being exasperated at Brun, yet still takes her in and supports her. It's later revealed that they've been friends since grade school and are thoroughly acclimated to each other's quirks, and they end up as roommates.
• Robosexual: Together with Ambiguously Bi. When Millefeuille, the robot who got a butt enhancement, gets drunk at Renee and Brun's housewarming party and starts dancing around and shouting "Who wants to check out my new butt!", the other characters look mostly a bit embarrassed for her but Renee watches with a very interested smile on her face, and when Elliot offers to ask Millefeuille to sober up, Renee replies "Nah. I kinda wanna see where this goes."
• Shipper on Deck: She'd like it if Elliot could ask out either of his crushes. She eventually gets him pumped up enough to ask out whoever he sees first.
  • With Brun and Millefeuille. She picks up on the date-like implications of their walk pretty quick but avoids pointing it out to Brun outright.
  Brun: She's nice. I like her.
  Renee: Mm hmm.
  Brun: I know that "mm hmm." That means you're thinking something you're not going to tell me.

Jim Bean

No relation to the famous one, so far as we know. Owner of The Secret Bakery. Is divorced, with a daughter named Samantha. He and Dora went on a date, but decided not to pursue a relationship. Went on a date with Marten's mother, and they have decided to pursue a relationship.

---

• Benevolent Boss: The worst he ever gets with his employees is a little snarky, and he's very patient with Elliot's anxiety. He also has no double standards in his workplace, making it clear that a female employee sexually harassing a male employee will be treated just as seriously as the other way around.
• Good Parents: When he finds out Sam has roped May into working as her assistant, his first reaction is... to burst out crying, gushing between sobs about how proud he is that Sam is not only making money doing creative work, but is using said work to help a disadvantaged ex-convict.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Sam seems to have a lot of freedom in her activities. Though it later turns out she lies about her activities, and he's none too pleased when he finds out. She's still fairly free-range, but now he makes sure he knows where she is at all times.
• Perma-Stubble: He claims it makes him look "ruggedly handsome" (and also admits to having "delicate skin" that makes it hard to shave more thoroughly or more often).
• Punny Name: Yes, his name is actually Jim Bean.
• Serious Business: His description of his job to Marten's mom comes off as a humorous cross between this and Played for Laughs hamming it up.
• Silver Fox: More like "salt-and-pepper fox", but he's definitely gray around the temples, and he's repeatedly indicated to be very, very attractive.
• Supreme Chef: He bakes all the goods he sells himself.

SMIF Library:

Tai Hubbert

Marten's current boss at the Smif College library, perpetually stuck in an all-girl polyamorous Love Dodecahedron. Her Twitter account is "tai_fighter", named after her punny DJing stage name. She had a crush on Dora, and half-heartedly tried to get with her after she and Marten broke up. They eventually became a couple.

---

• Ambiguously Brown: When asked what her ethnicity was, Jeph responded with "tan."
• Butch Lesbian: Of the tomboyish type.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: She gets handsy and takes off her pants when she's had too much. And since she's a small girl, “too much” isn't really much.
• Coming-Out Story: Tai's parents were apparently completely OK with her being lesbian although an awkward one occurred when she accidentally outed her girlfriend to her family at a funeral.
• Drives Like Crazy: If she's distracted by talking to someone else while driving, she tends to be less safe behind the wheel.
• Human Jungle Gym: She's not one herself, but the second she meets someone taller than her, she tries to climb them.
• The Lad-ette: Combined with her generally butch appearance, love of liquor, and general attitude comes off as this.
• Loving a Shadow: Played with; Tai was quick to idealize and fawn over Dora when she was unattainable thanks to dating Marten. When Dora and Marten broke up and Dora became an item with Tai, Tai eventually started to see Dora as a fully three-dimensional person. She's since encouraged Dora to get help with her emotional issues, reconcile with Sven, and very much doesn't put up with Dora's crap when she gets angry and defensive.
• Naked People Are Funny: Quick to get naked for a joke, both in and out of universe.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • With Marten and Claire as of Strip 2810.
  • Also with Faye and Bubbles.
• The Stoner: Marijuana is her vice of choice. She even casually gets high during breaks at the library, first with a bowl then recently upgrading to a vaporizer.

Claire Augustus

One of three new interns at the SMIF library, and Clinton's sister. Later accepts a job as director of information services at Cubetown, an AI-run community off the coast of Nova Scotia.

---

• Ambiguously Bi: She openly swoons over Steve, but also hints at some attraction to Hannelore, Dora, and Faye, and tells Marten that "all of your friends I've met have been really attractive." She also responds to Veronica's dom-voice.
• Author Appeal: Claire gets a septum ring. Jeph loves septum rings, which he Lampshades in The Rant for the page.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Claire threatens to upload a USB stick of the entire Library of Congress onto Pintsize, overloading his data banks and frying his memory, for joking about spiking their milk. She was just bluffing, though.
• Big Sister Instinct: Although she can be antagonistic towards her younger brother Clinton (usually when he's being an idiot), she's also quick to show concern and support when she can tell he's not okay (like when he shows up at her door distressed and confused and she immediately starts comforting him and asking what's wrong). The general rule seems to be that she has limited patience for him most of the time, but is there for him 100% when he needs her.
• Butt-Monkey: Almost to the same level as Marten.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: Initially. Her first foray into alcohol was disastrous, the subsequent ones less so.
• Character Focus: After The Reveal that she is transgender, she got a lot of focus including a fair number of comics that were just her and Marten wandering around. Peaked at the beginning of her relationship with Martin, but focus later shifted to other characters.
• Compressed Hair: Her hair is normally a fairly average length (if bushy) ponytail. But during her nude scene, she has enough to cover her breasts and still have a seemingly full head of hair resting on her back.
• Costume-Test Montage: Twice. Once for Marten's dad's wedding, and once for a night out on the town.
• Crush Blush: She seems to get these frequently. Steve, Steve again, Marten's dad, Marten in boxers...
• Deadpan Snarker: She drops a few snarky remarks here and there. Taken to full-on artillery levels after a stupid prank of Pintsize's.
• Disappeared Dad: It's a long time before her dad is mentioned at all, though it's clear that her parents are no longer together. It turns out that he walked out on them when Claire was younger and she hasn't spoken to him since.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted; Tai is horrified and angry when she thinks Claire got violent with Clinton during an argument, and Clinton makes it clear that's a line Claire won't cross even when she's mad at him (he actually just tripped and injured himself on a desk).
• Half-Identical Twins: Subverted. Characters In-Universe (and casual readers) think that she and Clinton are twins, but they're merely siblings.
• Hidden Depths: It is a matter of some confusion precisely how Claire is qualified to interview for any sort of position at Cubetown at all, let alone the head of a department that she would ultimately be putting together. Word from the then-unseen director wasn't any more illuminating, simply that "she shows promise". But as her confrontation with The Director and subsequent conversation with Moray-44 showed, despite her lack of professional experience she might very well be perfect for the job: She unintentionally puts the idea in Moray's head for creating a Department of Information Sciences during her initial interview, lays down a solid plan for visiting, acclimates quickly to Cubetown's unique brand of sanity, and after becoming fed up with one bit of eccentricity too many, demands to speak with The Director of Cubetown personally. Moray-44 spells it out explicitly:
  You're young, intelligent, motivated, averse to nonsense and incompetence, and unafraid to speak your mind to a giant robot jellyfish and/or their slime girl avatars! We need organization. Structure. Someone fighting the tide of nonsense. That someone could be you!
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She may be a tad rough at times but when friendship and warmth are shown to her she drops her facade and shows complete gratitude and trust.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Not herself, but she doesn't really care that her brother is missing a hand. Somewhat understandable, as the injury took place years ago and he's not that upset about it.
  Claire: If you knew how much he loved having a robot hand, you wouldn't feel bad for him either.
• The Matchmaker: It's become a character flaw of hers. She's quite eager to try setting Clinton up with Emily and, when that falls through, with Brun, and gets several reminders not to meddle too much in people's relationships. Given that her mother nudges her and Marten together, it might be inherited.
• Odd Friendship: With Pintsize. Despite having pretty different personalities on the surface, Claire and Pintsize are both open-minded with a quirky sense of humour, which has led to them being good at helping each other with problems, as well as a degree of banter regarding Pintsize's pranks.
  • When Pintsize gets himself a humanoid body, he does it to troll Marten, but very quickly realises that the thought of going back to his old clunky body is unbearable and experiences a wave of unwelcome feelings. Claire immediately sympathises with him, having been through her own problems with having the wrong body.
• Pet the Dog: During Clinton's storyline of figuring out his feelings for Elliot (and ultimately getting together with him), Claire is nothing but compassionate and supportive, giving him genuine advice and never teasing or making fun of him (even when he's being a huge dork, like asking if there's a way to evaluate his feelings mathematically). The worst thing she does in the whole arc is annoy him with her excitement, and she's able to tone it down so he'll stay and talk to her.
• Pungeon Master:
  • More than once, she's made incredibly lame puns that no-one found amusing... Probably the delivery.
    Claire: COME ON I'M HILARIOUS
  • When she saw Faye reading a book she was fond of, she wrote "Like" on a post-it and stuck it to the book.
    Claire: I put a Like on Faye's book!
    Faye: ...get out of my shop.
  • She also produced a copy of The Grapes of Wrath in response to hangover-induced crankiness.
  • And as a double-act with Pintsize, she complimented him on his choice of outfit (just a necklace and a skirt), he mentioned he couldn't choose between that one and another, leading to the following exchange:
    Claire: Ah, I see, of course you didn't buy both, because-
    Claire and Pintsize together: Two sarongs don't make a right!
    Claire and Pintsize, still speaking simultaneously, while fist-bumping: Nice.
• Shipper on Deck: For Faye and Bubbles.
• Shrouded in Myth: She manages to become this within a few hours of arriving at the "rumor particle accelerator" that is Cubetown (and note that she hasn't even taken the job they're offering yet).
  Moray: Can you really juggle swords?
  Claire: I've never tried, so... maybe?
• Stepford Smiler: When she's really stressed out she'll try to hide it behind a blatantly fake, pained-looking smile.
  Clinton: I know that face. That's your "screaming internally" face.
• Strong Family Resemblance: To her brother, to the point that they have to insist they're not Half-Identical Twins (she's older). Mitigated somewhat, since they are at least different genders.

Emily Azuma

One of the three new interns at the SMIF library, and apparently the daughter of a wealthy family.

---

• Asian Airhead: She's not dumb, just really, really weird. Of course, when Claire asks her to do something weird to break up a tense moment, Emily has no clue what she's talking about.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: After being told an urban legend that Coffee of Doom's "smoothie" is a banana smashed with a hammer, Emily orders one, and is disappointed when it's a normal banana smoothie. Eventually Faye gets out a hammer and a banana...
  • Another time, her lunch is a package of frozen peas. Nothing else. It comes in handy when another character gets a black eye and needs a cold pack.
    Jeph's Rant: Man cannot live on peas alone... but Emily might.
• Chaotic Stupid: IN SPADES. Emily takes "doing whatever the hell you feel like" to a new level, without any regard for possible consequences. She makes Pintsize look like a master of restraint.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Emily...does not think like normal people.
  • The frozen peas mentioned earlier? She wanted to give peas a chance. When someone else beat her to the punchline, she got mad.
  • Emily, that is not funny, that is grotesque.
  • If I tell anyone how it works, they'll kill my parents. HAAAAAHAHAHA!
• Friendless Background: Implied. She invites all of Marten's friends to her lake house for a party, and her parents are surprised to meet her friends.
  Marten: When do your friends get here? ... Oh lord, we've adopted another one.
• Genius Ditz: Despite all her other characteristics, she is apparently a genuinely and surprisingly brilliant materials-engineering programmer.
• Glowing Eyes: She flips out when Claire forgets her banana smoothie at the Coffee of Doom. She looks horrifying for a brief moment, then happily says she has her own banana and then giggles that it's warm from her butt heat.
• Got Volunteered: Her taking a job at Coffee of Doom is even more random that Penelope; while giving the staff assignments, Dora accidentally included Emily just because she was standing there, and Emily went along with it.
• Hair Antennae/Idiot Hair: Gains two of these on the back of her head after she cuts off her hair.
• Hidden Depths: It turns out Emily is perfectly aware that people think she's weird, and resents it, because it means that they use it as a reason to not take her seriously. Even so, Emily herself rejects the trope.
  Emily: And when I explain this to people, they're like "ooh, she has hidden depths. No I don't! My depths aren't hidden! I'm weird all the way down! You just can't handle it!
  • That being said, she's shown on separate occasions to be a fair hand at making clothes, but denies being able to produce anything stylish.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: The Glowing Eyes incident has her look like she's about to murder someone (for forgetting her banana smoothie), but then she happily pulls out a banana from her back pocket.
• Smooch of Victory: After a hiking trip in which Marten makes a hilariously unneeded attempt to rescue her from a snake bite, she kisses him on the cheek out of nowhere.
• Statuesque Stunner: She's notably taller than many of the other women, and is even taller than Marten.

Gabby

The last of the intern trio.

---

• The Cynic: She says in one strip that she doesn't believe in altruism and seems to generally be more of a sourpuss than the rest of the library staff.
• Deadpan Snarker: Not much, but it's there.
• Only Sane Man: Of the intern trio.
• Out of Focus: She's used the least out of the entire library staff, possibly because her status as the Only Sane Woman in a Dysfunction Junction may make her the least fun to write for.
• Put on a Bus: At some point, she quit her internship off-screen for unknown reasons.
• Sassy Black Woman: She didn't get much screen time, but her few lines were in this mold.

Marten's Band

Natasha

Ellen's roommate and Marten and Hanners' ex-bandmate.

---

• Dreadful Musician: She is very enthusiastic about the guitar...the problem is that she has zero talent. While she thinks the racket she makes is really metal, everyone else cringes.
• The Pig-Pen: She has this...thing about showering. That is, she doesn't.
• Put on a Bus: Breaks up with Amir and is never seen again.
• Secretly Rich: Her parents are wealthy enough that they were happy to buy her one of the most expensive guitars on the market at a moment's notice. She tries to keep it quiet since it ruins her hipster image.

Amir

Natasha's ex-boyfriend, Marten and Hanners' bandmate. Is significantly older than most of the cast.

---

• Older Than They Look: He looks somewhere in his mid-twenties, but he's actually thirty-five.
• The Pig-Pen: After he leaves his old apartment and starts living in the band practice space. It doesn't have a shower.

Ellicott-Chatham Technologies

John Ellicott-Chatham

Hannelore's father. A world-renowned scientist who lives on Ellicott Chatham Technologies Clarke Station orbiting earth.

---

• Absent-Minded Professor: Is first introduced trying to find his iPod. And he can't keep track of which of his surnames the divorce leaves him with. He also apparently gets distracted easily.
  • This apparently has a negative effect on his career and inventions. According to Station, he only completes 4% of his projects because he keeps getting distracted by something new. When Roko appeals to him on May's behalf because her body is falling apart, he gets to work on proposing socialized medicine for AIs instead of just purchasing a new body for May (which, with his wealth and status, he could easily do).
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: He threatened to throw Marten out the airlock when he thought Hannelore meant something else by "physical contact".
• Famed In-Story: He is considered a father of the technology which transformed his world, and AIs and those which study them hold him in reverence.
• Mad Scientist: The father of cybernetics and strong A.I. Also invented the robotic hamster.
• Parents as People: It's clear he genuinely loves Hannelore, but his preoccupation with his work and status as an Absent-Minded Professor has caused him to unintentionally be somewhat neglectful of her. He's at least a better parent than her Evil Overlord mother.
• The Real Heroes: In spite of being one of the foremost technological geniuses in history, he greatly admires plumbers. This may date back to the construction of Station, as any orbital habitat is at least 50% pipes and ducts.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Physically speaking, he's basically an older male Hannelore with a soul patch. They even have the same Messy Hair!
• Yiddish as a Second Language: Drops an angry "schtup my daughter, eh?" when he thinks Marten had sex with Hannelore.

Station

The AI that runs the Ellicott-Chatham Enterprises space station. He cared for Hannelore until she was ready to live on Earth and like most individuals who are part of Ellicott-Chatham Technologies is loyal to John rather than Beatrice.

---

• A Dog Named "Dog": Is named by Hannelore in her youth, when she lacked creativity for the AI's titles.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Manifests as a humanoid hologram to interact with people.
• Did Not Get the Girl: He falls in love with Hannelore, but she chooses to keep living the life she's established on Earth.
• Intangibility: Due to being a hologram in his humanoid guise. As such, he has to modify some hunter-killer droids to give hugs, and Hannelore falls through him when she tries to lean on his shoulder.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He plays a mean-spirited prank on Lieutenant Potter, but is quick to apologize and is genuinely upset to have caused Hannelore distress.
• Orbital Bombardment: Claims to be capable of precision orbital strikes. No one seems inclined to doubt this.
• Projected Man: He can manifest a holographic avatar anywhere within the station or via remote drone elsewhere. Played for Laughs when people forget that he's not made of Hard Light, when he glitches out while "hung over", and when he stages paranormal phenomena.
• Robosexual: He was in love with Hannelore (a human) but she turned him down. He eventually becomes romantically involved with Tilly (also a human) after they move to the space station.
• Spaceship Girl: Gender-Inverted. He is the central computer of the ECI space station and projects an image of a pleasant young man as an avatar.

Tilly Birch

A personal assistant to Hannelore appointed by her mother, to Hanners' unenthusiastic surprise. Tilly later becomes Hannelore's father's assistant, where their work is much more appreciated.

---

• Accidental Misnaming: Hannelore's mother mistakenly referring to them as "Taffy" ends up having Hannelore doing the same thing for a while without even noticing, despite Tilly's corrections. It looks at first like it will become a Running Gag, but she eventually realizes her error. Tilly takes it well and even adopts Taffy as a nickname.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Tilly is initially referred to as "she" or "her", but later clarifies that they go by they/them pronouns. They carry an androgynous appearance, especially so in their "coffee shop" work attire.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Has rounded, bushy eyebrows that contribute to a cute, boyish look.
• Boyish Short Hair: Has a short, boyish haircut.
• Circular Reasoning: Hannelore complains that she doesn't need a personal assistant. Tilly says they were instructed to ignore any evidence that Hannelore doesn't need assistance, as that would be an obstacle to providing her with assistance. Hannelore points out that this is a tautology, which Tilly explains they were also instructed not to worry about.
• Crazy-Prepared: Memorized a variety of details about Hannelore and her social circle before introducing themselves, as well as being briefed on (and instructed to disregard) any objections Hanners might have to their being there.
• Determinator: Low-stakes and mostly Played for Laughs, but Tilly is insistent on being the best personal assistant to Hannelore that they can be. They offer to throw themself into the ocean rather than be a burden, and their "coffee shop" outfit includes the words "HELP OR DIE" written on their arm.
  Hannelore: Is that a Sharpie tattoo?
  Tilly: For now.
• Dogged Nice Person: A platonic type who refuses to give up on getting Hannelore to accept their help.
• Eye Glasses: Tilly is drawn as if their eyes were fused with their glasses, with the irises floating around inside the large white space contained within the lenses.
• Gender-Blender Name: "Tilly" is traditionally feminine, which causes Hannelore to assume they're female because she doesn't take any time to learn about them in her frustration.
• Heroic BSoD: They suffer one when they learn the true nature of their employment, and subsequently realize that ignoring Hannelore's feelings about the arrangement shows that they wouldn't have been a good fit for the position anyway.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: All joking and goofiness aside, Tilly is a damn good PA. They outline an effective strategy for negotiating with Hannelore's cellular provider for a replacement phone- including going to a competitor for a better deal- and not only come away with a free upgrade but $500 on top of that.
  Hannelore: Or I could just replace my phone and save everyone the trouble.
  Tilly: Trouble is what I'm for, ma'am!
• Meaningful Name: Their full name is Tilly Birch. The birch tree is famous for being remarkably adaptable and easily fitting into new environments, much like Tilly themself.
• Nerd Glasses: Wears thick coke bottle glasses that add to their nerdy yet adorable image.
• Nice Person: Unbelievably friendly and helpful: Winslow is won over right away, while Hannelore is exasperated at how hard they are to get rid of.
• Robosexual: By the time Hannelore pays a visit to the space station, Tilly's in a relationship with Station the AI.
• Shoo Out the New Guy: In the conclusion to the arc, Hannelore sends Tilly off to work for her father as his personal assistant.
• Skewed Priorities: When Dora suggests murdering them, Tilly's only concern is that being dead would prevent them from assisting Hannelore in disposing of the body.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Tilly's employment as Hannelore's assistant (and the circumstances therefore,) results in Hannelore cutting ties with her mother and taking a trip to do some soul-searching, removing her from the strip for the foreseeable future.
• Tender Tears: Moved to tears just from being brewed a cup of coffee by the heir to the Ellicott-Chatham empire. Even Hannelore thinks it's a bit much.
• Unwanted Assistance: Hannelore is not happy her mother thought she ought to have an assistant, and even less so that she was not consulted beforehand.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Tilly insists on calling Hannelore "ma'am" throughout their time as her PA, not even being able to do so when expressly asked. Their last line in the story arc is finally referring to Hannelore by name, since they are now parting as friends.

Spaceship

"You humans and your faulty plumbing take all the glamor out of space travel"

The AI of the Ellicott-Chatham Technologies spacecraft responsible for ferrying people between earth and the Ellicott Chatham Technologies Clarke Station.

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• A Dog Named "Dog": Was named by Hannelore in her youth, when she lacked creativity for AI's titles.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Manifests as a humanoid hologram to interact with people, and while his form is similar to some of the tweaks Station has used Spaceship seems to prefer much thinner eyebrows and smoother "hair".
• Naked Freak-Out: While his reaction is rather understated it's quite clear he did not intend to project his holographic self with no pants and a fully rendered penis when he used his holographic human form to interact with Marigold, Hannelore and Marten.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Being asked to put some pants on by Marten is what clues him in on the reason Marigold is not reacting reassured by his humanoid form as he didn't realize it rendered without pants.
• Worrying for the Wrong Reason: When Martin is worried about their trip to the Space Station he reassures his human guest that "There is virtually no danger involved in our transatmospheric ascent." then continues with "Now. RE-entering the atmosphere, THAT is always risky. Thankfully, if something should go catastrophically wrong, you would have less than a second of terror before being incinerated."

Lieutenant "Abbie" Potter

A member of the US Air Force security detail aboard Ellicott Chatham Technologies Clarke Station.

---

• Cant Hold Their Liquor: Abbie quickly loses her professional air, and clothes, when drunk.
• Naked People Are Funny: Subverted. While Station thinks exposing a picture of her half dressed and drunk to get her to stop interrogating the people he wants to talk to is funny in the moment he's quickly shown the error of his ways, and Abbie is deeply upset by what he's done.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: She turns down Station offering her a nearly-five-million-dollar share in Chatham Technologies as an act of forgiveness, wanting him to genuinely learn from the experience instead of solving problems with unintentional bribery. Although she regrets it for a few moments, she and Station end up on better terms after.

Other Friends and Family Members:

Steve

Marten's best friend other than Faye. Is a secret agent. Steve's varied love life has included relationships with a marine biology student, a mortician, a spy named Tortura, and Coffee of Doom employee Cosette.

---

• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Apparently drunk-bought a boat.
• Ambiguously Bi: Steve gets homoerotic when drunk, usually with an unhappy Marten as the subject of his attentions.
  Steve: [drunk, sobbing on Marten's shoulder] I LOVE YOU, MAN!
  Marten: DUDE, WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT THIS.
  Jeph's Rant: Steve only had two drinks.
• Amicable Exes: He and Tortura have kept in touch, apparently. She even comes to him for relationship advice, and gives an If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... speech to a disturbed Cosette.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Steve can come off a bit as your stereotypical jock kinda guy, the exact kind of dude you think nothing of. But, as you can see below, he's a secret agent. (Or was. He has a desk job now, ostensibly in the same organization.)
• Chick Magnet: Steve's physique has won him a lot of female attention over the course of the comic.
  Marten: Would you like to meet—
  Cosette: YES.
• Hunk: His rugged handsomeness and muscular bod attract many admirers.
• Lovable Jock: He's described as 'a bit of a bro', has a muscular physique and acts in a slightly overbearing, macho way when drunk but he's also shown to be a non-judgmental and supportive friend.
• Mr. Fanservice: A lot of female characters are clearly enamored with Steve's rockin' bod.
• Nice Guy: Steve may be a bit of a jock, but he's definitely one of the nicest characters in the comic.
• Noodle Incident: We get very brief snippets depicting his life as a spy.
• Only Sane Man: In later comics, he seems to fall into this category, especially when dealing with Marten's and later Sven's relationship problems. This is a bit ironic, as his early appearances often concerned his wacky relationship difficulties and his reactions to them.
  "OH COME ON I JUST GOT DONE WITH MARTEN"
• Running Gag: Abruptly cutting away from the main plot for a single strip involving Steve eating cereal has become one of these.
• Spy Fiction: He was a secret agent for a little while. Still is, technically, but now he has a desk job which he is very happy with.

Sven Bianchi

Dora's older brother is a commercially-successful songwriter in the country music genre, making a decent living writing the musical equivalents of Extruded Book Products, which naturally means he sold out. Also The Casanova of the first degree.

---

---

• Brilliant, but Lazy: An extremely successful songwriter without even trying. Though that may be more of a commentary on the quality of popular music than any writing ability on his part.
• Character Development: Turns into a better and more responsible person over time, partly thanks to his relationship with Faye (and the resultant self-reflection), and partly his friendship with Hannelore.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's one of the few people who can come out honours even with Faye.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Sven was the target of this following his falling out with Faye. The two weren't even dating and were merely "fuck buddies" even by Faye's assertion, and Sven repeatedly told her flat-out that it was just physical, and that he reserved the right to have sex with other women. Despite this, he openly told Faye about a liaison with a famous country singer, and both she and Sven's sister Dora completely jumped down his throat about it, with Dora even threatening to kick his ass, all because he did exactly what he said he would do merely because Faye turned their relationship into more than it actually was. Of course, as it transpires, Dora has a lot of issues with her brother that she eventually acknowledges and addresses.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Bizarrely crossed with Kavorka Man due to his prickly personality.
• Informed Ability: Sven doesn't claim his music's good, but it sells well anyway, and the less effort he puts in the more popular it is. Some readers consider this Writer on Board, though it can also be interpreted as Sven not appreciating or not fully harnessing his talents. Whether his songs are genuinely bad or just soulless (and goofy, but the QC universe seems quite goofiness-friendly) is left to the reader to decide, since we obviously don't get to hear them.
  "I write the songs that make the whole world cringe."
• Jerkass: To varying degrees - he's always pretty amiable to begin with, just irresponsible and prone to involving others in trying to avoid said responsibilities, but he also unhesitatingly lets Faye stay over when she's locked out of her flat, is supportive of his younger sister, and supports her and Marten's relationship (and is nothing but sympathetic to both of them when it doesn't work out). In general, he's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold to his sister, and others he genuinely likes, and improves with time.
• Ladykiller in Love: Interestingly, doesn't look like he'll get the girl who changed him, unlike the normal use of this trope.
• Manchild: "Man Teenager" would be more accurate, since that's the form Sven's immaturity took (he's never acted like a literal child), but up until he got involved with Faye he didn't really have any need to grow up. One problem that Steve identifies with him on a shrewd guess is that he's one of those kids who pretty much always got what they wanted - mostly because everything came easily to him.
• Morality Pet:
  • In a weird way, Lydia, his intern. He probably never would have changed his ways if it weren't for her, even though she didn't seem to really be trying to change him.
  • Hannelore, oddly enough, combined with Odd Friendship—he's much nicer to her than he is to pretty much everyone else, particularly during their platonic date.
• Odd Friendship: With Hannelore, of all people.
• One-Hour Work Week: He purposefully puts as little effort as possible into the country songs he writes, which makes his success at it all the more baffling. He wrote a song while drunk one night that was bad even for him and had it sold the next morning for enough money to buy a house.
• Out of Focus: After Faye "breaks up" with him, he's seen moping a few times but ultimately gets very little screentime. He reappears a few times thereafter, involved in others' plots.
• Pet the Dog: He gives Marten good advice about Dora's issues, offers to jam with him after Marten and Dora break-up, and even offers to set him up for rebound sex with some of his exes. While the latter is exactly what Marten doesn't need, it is kindly meant.
• Really Gets Around: Though we've only explicitly seen a few of his relationships, it's no secret he's getting some every night. Until Faye dumps him, and he just stops caring.
• Right-Hand Cat: Refers to Princess as this in jest.
• Robosexual: Not exclusively or primarily, but he has a few casual hookups with May.
• Self-Deprecation: Even early on, he wryly refers to himself as a "smarmy, emotionally hollow cad." Peculiarly, though, it's only once he takes a good, long look at himself that it really bothers him. Thereafter, he doesn't exactly think much of himself as a person (and not entirely without reason).
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Doesn't understand why professing his feelings to Faye didn't work. He thinks it should be like a romantic comedy, where he professes his feelings and she loses the jerk she's with. Steve points out that Angus is also a good guy, and their life isn't a romantic comedy.

Winslow

Winslow's 2nd chassis

Hannelore's Robot Buddy. The Apple version of an Anthro-PC. His initial appearance is basically that of a sentient iPod with arms and legs; later, he upgrades to the Regular Boy Deluxe humanoid chassis. He was very naive at first, but was very quickly corrupted by Pintsize.

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• Amazing Technicolor Population: Pink-skinned and pink-haired in his Regular Boy Deluxe body.
• Flipping Helpless: This is ultimately what made him decide to get a humanoid body. Flat rectangle + stubby little arms and legs = And I Must Scream.
• Good Counterpart: To Pintsize.
• Love at First Sight: Is rather in awe of Roko from the first moment that he sees her.
• Nervous Wreck: In contrast to Hannelore, his time seeing the wider world has left him both moderately agoraphobic and acutely afraid of wild animals, particularly ungulates.
• Nice Guy: He's a very sweet-natured and patient person. This and his later developed neuroses make him a very good volunteer counsellor.
• Odd Friendship: Despite his innocent demeanor, he and Pintsize are good friends, and Winslow is never a victim to Pintsize's antics.
• Put on a Bus: When he leaves with Hannelore to go Walking the Earth.
  • As of this strip, they're back.
• Robot Kid: He initially prefers his iPod-styled body due to the technical issues of humanoid bodies when he was first activated, but after a few years of technological improvement, he upgrades to the Regular Boy Deluxe model body.

Angus McPhee

A customer who went to Dora's coffee shop just to annoy Faye, who he had a crush on. They got together eventually. He's roommates with Marigold. Angus seeks to be a comedian or performer.

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• Dogged Nice Guy: Faye is initially angry at his use of the trope, claiming it's a “romantic comedy plot,” but she eventually comes around.
• In-Series Nickname: He was briefly known as Argument Guy before we found out his name.
• Put on a Bus: Moved to New York to pursue his dreams of acting — which in turn ended his relationship with Faye.
• Strawman Political: invokedIn-universe, he is a "professional straw man" who's hired to debate people and lose in order to make them look better. The way he describes it sounds like a political equivalent of a Jobber.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Faye, for the longest time.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Tries to invoke this with Faye, but she's just annoyed by his ability to take it and come back for more.
• Witty Banter: This is his only reason for coming into Coffee of Doom for the longest time. He doesn't even drink the coffee, he just throws it in the trash.
• Yaoi FanBOY: If you can believe that. (Only mildly, and played for laughs.)

Veronica Reed

Marten's mother, a former bondage and fetish model under the pseudonym Veronica Vance. Both Dora and Dora's father have gotten off to her...and mentioned so to Marten.

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• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In addition to cheerfully talking about her sex life in front of her son, she also tries to pick him up a cute waitress by mentioning how big his penis was when he was a child. Though one gets the feeling she does this on purpose because she thinks that's what parents are supposed to do.
  Marten: Just...don't bang him on my couch, okay?
  Veronica: Ooh, that would be delightfully transgressive...
  Marten: Mom.
• Amicable Exes: In her own words she and her ex-husband "make better friends and parents than a husband and wife".
• Closet Key: While she has never shown overt sexual interest in women, her career as a fetish model has apparently turned at least one female head:
  Dora: Marty, I don't really know how to tell you this, but, uh, your mom's old fetish photos were how I, um, figured out I liked girls.
• Compelling Voice: Her "dom voice", as Marten calls it, which she uses by accident on occasion.
• Dominatrix: Her profession. Although she uses the pseudonym “Veronica Vance,” she doesn't really make any attempt to hide it from anyone.
• Gaydar: Veronica isn't gay herself, but she's very experienced. Her first, totally accurate, reaction on meeting Tai is "OH MY GOD I LOVE THE TINY BUTCH ONES." Ironically, she didn't pick up on her ex-husband's homosexuality until their marriage was almost over, so her gaydar may have a blind spot.
• Good Parents: Despite her quirks, Marten often speaks fondly of his childhood.
• Mrs. Robinson: After her divorce, she took to hooking up with men as young as Marten in lieu of a serious relationship.
  • Still occurs to an extent when she moves in with Jim; he's in his early forties and she's in her mid-fifties. They're both middle-aged and parents though, so it's less noticeable.
• Silver Vixen: She's old enough to have some grey in her hair (56 at the time of Henry's and Maurice's wedding), but she still works as a dominatrix and a photographer she knows still takes pictures of her for a fetish site.
• Stepford Smiler: She puts a happy face over her own sense of loneliness at her exhusband's wedding. Zig-zagged when she finds a Second Love in Jim Bean and they move in together.

Henry Reed

Marten's gay dad and ex-husband of Veronica Reed. He runs a gay nightclub.

---

• Amicable Exes: Like Veronica, he also sees their divorce as an improvement on their relationship.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: According to his husband.
• Incompatible Orientation: The reason for his divorce with Veronica.
• Late Coming Out: see above.
• Silver Fox: His gray hair apparently gets him attention from both men and women; both Dora and Claire comment on his handsomeness despite his advanced age.
  Dora: [looks at Marten, then to Henry, then back to Marten] Oh my God, you are going to be so hot when you go gray!
• Straight Gay: Considering he wanted a simple ceremony while his husband Maurice came down the aisle on horseback, this seems likely. Further, he passed as straight for years while married to Veronica, who never picked him up on her Gaydar until their marriage was almost over.

Amanda "Mandy" Whitaker

Faye's lesbian sister, who flunked out of college.

---

• The Ditz: Flunked out of college, then got caught eating out her girlfriend by her mother. Then she stole her mother's credit cards to go see her sister.
• Lipstick Lesbian: She seems girlier than Faye, despite being a lesbian, making her this.
• Put on a Bus: When she goes back home, she becomes pretty much irrelevant to the plot.
• The Bus Came Back: Stops in to visit Faye after a 3000-strip absence.
  Faye: Nothin' more frustrating than family droppin' some ridiculous bullshit on you out of nowhere—
  Amanda: Holy shit, you did get buff!
  Faye: God damn it sis what are you doing here
• Shipper on Deck: She pretty blatantly wants Faye and Bubbles to hook up, trying to coax Faye into a Love Epiphany and getting increasingly frustrated as Faye keeps Comically Missing the Point.

Wil

Sven's melodramatic poet friend. He is currently dating Penelope and tending bar at the Horrible Revelation. Owns several cloaks.

---

• Badass Biker: Surprisingly enough, yes.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Again: He owns several cloaks.
• Demoted to Extra: Wil continues to get periodic cameos, but it's been years since he was involved in an actual storyline.
• Gentleman and a Scholar: He's a poet, apparently majored in literature or poetry. Quite the gentleman as well, although apparently he's got some really filthy poetry.
  Wil: I was attempting to channel Joyce, but without the scatological fixation...
  Penelope: I don't think they'd let us have sex in Washington's nose on Mount Rushmore, but it's a very evocative mental image.
• Gorgeous Period Dress: Wil interviewed for a job at The Horrible Revelation, a Victorian-themed pub, in a handsome tweed suit and matching cloak. The manager hired him on sight.
• Mysterious Stranger: He decides to invoke this to woo Penelope, but thankfully Sven talks him out of it.
• Old-School Chivalry: The guy gets clipped by a truck - resulting in a broken arm - and still shows up for a date with Penelope. Why?
  Wil: A gentleman never stands a lady up.
• The Unfunny: Never makes his own jokes, but his attempts to remain serious in all situations qualifies him for this trope.

Samantha Bean

Jim's 13-year-old^note later 14 daughter. A tomboy and Pokémon nerd. She's become friends with Momo (who she's a bad influence on) and Faye (who's a bad influence on her).

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• Becoming the Mask: Briefly, as SKULLMASTER, MASTER OF SKULLS.
• Boys Like Creepy Critters: Tomboy example; she likes looking for snakes in the mountain.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Has mild tones of this. If she likes you, she gives you an animal she caught. It will be either a frog or a snake. Probably a snake. The girl likes snakes.
• Casual Kink: Not of her own, but her only concern about a famous dominatrix moving in with her dad is to make sure that her bedroom won't be repurposed as a dungeon.
• Hates Baths: Has been noted to have a somewhat "irregular" bathing schedule. Both Faye and Veronica have remarked on her rather "pungent" aroma.
• Nature Lover: Her primary off-screen hobby appears to be going into the woods and finding frogs and/or snakes to bring home. Mostly snakes.
• No Indoor Voice: As SKULLMASTER, MASTER OF SKULLS. ...And also sometimes as herself.
• Noodle Incident: Is not allowed to work at her father's bakery due to "the Chaos Loaf Incident".
  Sam: CHAOS LOAF WAS GREAT. THE WORLD JUST WASN'T READY FOR CHAOS LOAF.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Samantha is usually very loud, hyper, and quick to befriend people she meets instantly. Except Veronica, whom she hides from when they first meet.
  Faye: Are you…being shy?
  Sam: NO I'M NOT SHUT UP YOU SMELL
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Likes to sneak up on people in lieu of saying "hello".
• Tagalong Kid: Insists on tagging along with Faye and wants to hang out at Coffee of Doom so much that she hides in the cupboards for 15 minutes.
  • She later starts spending her time acting as an assistant at Faye and Bubbles' repair shop, as well as doing "sprays" for the robots.
• Third-Person Person: As SKULLMASTER, MASTER OF SKULLS.
• Tomboy: Usually goes by "Sam", takes up swordfighting lessons, and her favorite pastime is to go into the mountains and find snakes. She's also fascinated by Faye's mechanical work, though her father curtails her activities in the field after she loses a fingernail to a bit of machinery.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Her preferred hairstyle for going off into the woods, but she gets a practical yet extremely unfortunate bowl cut when she gets into swordfighting.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: At first she wanted to visit the "spider zone," then she was swarmed by dozens of spiders. Granted she doesn't want them hurt and is comfortable around creepy things that one or two may not bother her, but there were a lot of spiders down there.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Since most folks only ever call her "Sam", on the rare occasions her full name is used (such as Veronica discussing the possibility of moving in with Jim), she assumes it's something bad.
• Young Entrepreneur: She starts selling "sprays" (drawn-on tattoos) to robots. They're so popular that unless something unusual happens she usually makes more money per day for the repair shop than actual repairs do.

Clinton P. Augustus

Robot researcher with an artificial hand. Semi-stalked Hannelore after finding out who her father was. Poor sense of personal boundaries. Claire's younger brother.

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• Annoying Younger Sibling: Played with: He is extremely protective of Claire. It's everyone else who finds him annoying.
• Ascended Extra: Since to his first date with Emily, and Claire's attempt to set them up again, Clinton's gotten more focus.
• Big Brother Instinct: To Claire, even though he's the younger sibling. Claire points this out.
  Claire: I always thought the older sibling was supposed to be the protective one.
• Butt-Monkey: He's been kicked around since he was first introduced, but once Marten settles into a happy relationship with Claire, Clinton seems to inherit all of Marten's bad luck. Most notably, Clinton is decidedly smitten with Brun, but she's Oblivious to Love. It's to the point that even the staff at the restaurant they had lunch in feel sorry for him.
  Waitress: The kitchen staff has been eavesdropping and wanted me to give you this pity milkshake.
  Voice: Sympathy milkshake!
  Clinton: I'm lactose intolerant.
• Character Development: He's gotten a lot nicer and more aware of how he comes across to others; his Innocently Insensitive moments are fewer nowadays, and more often come from things he genuinely didn't know rather than him disregarding the feelings of others. He notably interacts with the rest of the cast more often, and he and Faye consider each other friends now (he goes to her for advice, and avoids asking invasive questions about her and Bubbles despite his interest in AI-human relations; she comforts and encourages him when he's anxious about possibly getting together with Elliot; compare that to her hitting him with his own hand a few thousand strips previously). He outright tells Elliot that he considers "Past Clinton" a huge jerk and wants to be better.
• Cyborg: He loves having a robot hand... So much that he wears it without a faux-flesh covering, gets grime in the joints, and earns a telling-off from Faye when she repairs the damage.
• Disappeared Dad: His dad is alive but not part of the family anymore. It's implied that he was not an especially good guy and that Clinton, at least, is happier with him gone.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Has this effect on both Dora and Hannelore while he tries to tell them about Brun's misfortune.
• Evil Hand: A relatively harmless version: when he switched his bionic hand into semi-autonomous mode, it went immediately for Faye's breasts. That, of course, got her pissed at him and she hit him with his own hand.
• Fanservice Pack: After his date with Emily got him to lose the stuffy-scholar look, he started turning some heads.
  Dora: Is it me, or has he gotten weirdly hot?
  Hannelore: I thought it was just me!
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: with Claire, though he's more often on the receiving end.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It's well hidden behind the nerdy, annoying manner and lack of social graces, but Clinton reliably does the right thing when the chips are down — as people around him do eventually notice. When the bar where Brun works burns down, he makes sure that everyone is out and Brun gets home safely, he's seriously if clumsily protective of his family, a random dudebro type who he previously tutored is happy to bump into him again, and he's the sort of guy who responds to seeing someone falling out of a bar by checking that they're okay. He's probably closer to being Innocently Insensitive than an actual Jerkass, in fact.
• No Sense of Personal Space: In addition to being very touchy-feely with Hannelore, once he realizes Momo is a robot he immediately checks how lifelike her skin is.
• Not a Date: When Elliot tries to ask him out he loses his nerve and invites him to a non-romantic burrito lunch instead. Clinton eventually figures out the original intent when Elliot implies it.
• Opposites Attract: He and Elliot. Clinton is small, slender, intellectual, nerdish and waspish; Elliot is large, heavily muscled, gentle, not nearly so well-read, and makes friends easily. Ironically, of the two of them, Clinton is by far more emotionally stable and less neurotic.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: He's slightly weirded out by his mom's dating life, especially when he turns up one night to find out that she's hooking up with one of his college classmates. He's really weirded out that her gaming stream uses the name "MommyMilkers420" and a multiboobed cow furry avatar. You can't really blame him for the second one.
• Progressively Prettier: Some of it is because of in-story changes that he makes to his appearance, as he learns to dress and style his hair in more flattering ways, but it's also because of Jeph gradually changing how he draws Clinton to give him prettier facial features.
• Self-Abuse: Claire claims he lost his hand by masturbating so much it withered into a claw and fell off.
  Marigold: That doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't that make it stronger?
  Momo: At worst, it might lead to some kind of repetitive motion injury. I don't see how—
  Clinton: [indignant] It was a fireworks accident!
• "Shut Up" Kiss: When Elliot is too nervous to take the initiative and starts babbling, Clinton finally snaps and plants one on him.
• Strong Family Resemblance: To his sister, to the point that they have to insist they're not Half-Identical Twins (she's older).
• Transhuman Treachery: When Momo sarcastically joked about robot uprising, he immediately asked to be on their side. Though since his being a cyborg wasn't actually a motivation, he's actually The Quisling.

Aurelia Augustus

Claire and Clinton's mom. Seems to be enjoying the empty nest now that her children are off at college.

---

• Alliterative Name
• Bad Liar: When Clinton says he has some stuff to figure out that he's not ready to discuss yet, shortly after she realises he's attracted to Elliot, she says that's fine and she has no idea what he's referring to.
  Clinton: God damn it, that's your lying voice again.
• Cool Old Lady: She's a happy empty-nester who plays Shipper on Deck for her children, practices bass guitar, uses the odd bit of marijuana, streams her gaming to a group of fans using a virtual avatar, and hooks up with a college-age man who Likes Older Women. From what's been said about her husband, it's hinted that she's unwinding after ending a deeply unhappy relationship.
  Clinton: My mom gets 2am booty calls. My mom is cooler than me.
• Gender-Blender Name: Her borzoi, Cosmo, whom she named such because "THE COSMOS HAS BESTOWED A GOOD BOY UPON US", which makes perfect sense when you're as high as she was at the time. They later found out from a vet that Cosmo was female.
• Hidden Depths: She has a full professional bass guitar rig in her house. Marten's so impressed he asks to try it.
• Hollywood Midlife Crisis: Downplayed and mostly Played for Laughs, but her present behavior is partly due to her harboring some regrets about how she lived her life when she was younger.
• Honor Before Reason: She keeps two baseball bats in her closet: the first to use as a weapon in case she needs to fight off a home invader (or anyone claiming to be Cosmo's real owner), and a second one to give to the home invader in case they didn't bring their own. Apparently she's just that committed to fighting fair.
• Inconvenient Attraction: She is instantly attracted to Elliot and not at all pleased about it.
• Last-Name Basis: To her children, she's Mom; to everyone else, she's Mrs. Augustus. Her first name wasn't revealed until strip #4478 when she introduced herself to Elliot.
• Mama Bear: Prepared to defend home and family with a baseball bat.
• Meaningful Name: Aurelia was the name of Julius Caesar's mother, combining well with the last name Augustus.
• Mrs. Robinson: Has taken up dating men the same age as her children. Claire's all for it, Clinton's a little squicked out (though he doesn't try to stop her).
• Multiboobage: Her virtual avatar has four breasts, befitting the cow design.
• Open-Minded Parent: She had no issue with one of her children coming out as trans and the other coming out as bi. She also encourages Claire and Clinton's crushes/relationships.
• The Pollyanna: Always cheerful and friendly.
• Shipper on Deck: She is immediately on board with Marten and Claire dating and invites him over for breakfast so he'll have an opportunity to see Claire. She also seems to support Clinton and Brun.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Cosmo again, who has a habit of just appearing onscreen, such as when she just randomly showed up in Aurelia's house while the latter was getting high with Claire and Tai, or when she somehow gets into Elliot's arms when Aurelia had her back turned looking for her. Other times, she's lurking around just below panel while other characters are talking, poking her head up occasionally for scritches.
• The Stoner: Smoking weed has apparently become one of her numerous hobbies now that her children have moved out. She's even gotten high with both of said kids.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She looks a lot like Clinton and Claire.
• Vague Age: It's not clear how old she actually is (she appears to have gotten younger since her first appearance), but when Yay says she doesn't look a day over 47, Aurelia is apparently flattered.
• Virtual YouTuber: One of her hobbies is streaming herself playing video games using a virtual avatar, named "MommyMilkers420", striking up a friendship with Marigold, AKA "Burger Oni" in the process.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: With Clinton.
  Clinton: Okay, it feels really weird to be the one saying this, but as long as you're safe and having fun, you've got my blessing.

Beatrice Chatham

Hannelore's mother. Described in the text as "Martha Stewart meets Darth Vader".

---

• Abusive Parents: Even if unintentionally, she views Hanners' neuroses as something to be ignored and/or punished, and doesn't really relate to her.
• Commonality Connection: Hanners and Beatrice eventually bond over martinis, and this seems to have led Beatrice to take a more active interest in her daughter's life. Both can get very scary and commanding when compelled to, as well. They subsequently unbond over Beatrice treating her daughter as another tool in her arsenal, with Hanners showing her just how scary and commanding she can get.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Fondly reminisces about the days when you could topple a MegaCorp with a few transsexual prostitutes and a Polaroid camera. She also forces Tilly on Hannelore as a P.A. so she can get support from their father, without any consideration for either Hanners or Tilly.
  Hannelore: No, Mother, don't you DARE! I don't care if "that's what you bought the shark tank for," it's morally wrong!
• Disowned Parent: Hannelore very publicly disowns her after being used as a pawn in her schemes (along with Tilly) one too many times.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Compares Hannelore's friendship with "those beneath [her] station" to her grandfather "civilising" African tribes. Approvingly.

Momo

Momo's 2nd chassis

Marigold's Robot Buddy (sometimes addressed with "Momo-tan"). She's friends with Pintsize and Winslow. Apparently has a 97 terabyte hard drive.^note A solid-state drive of this size became possible less than 8 years after this strip was posted Originally small and chibi-like, she later got a new chassis that looks more like a young human girl. As of this strip, she has an even newer, taller chassis like that of a young woman.

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• Abnormal Ammo: When first introduced (in chibi mode), she mentions that she can shoot live eels from her crotch.
• Anger Born of Worry: Momo isn't shown getting truly upset very often, but when she does more often than not it's because one of her friends isn't acting in their own best interests, and simply talking them out of it has ceased to be an option.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Her electrical self-defense has amperage within the lethal range. Also, upon gaining her new chassis, her first acts were attacking Pintsize and threatening Marigold. Even the author hypothesized she had suppressed violent impulses.
  • Even before that she could delve into this occasionally, like when she forced Marigold to go to the store and get some food besides Pocky by threatening to tell Angus that she'd been masturbating and become dehydrated. Apparently this was Pintsize's influence at work.
  • When May panics at the success of the fundraiser for a new chassis, screaming that she "doesn't deserve it", Momo answers right back with a resounding "YES YOU DO", complete with galvanic lightshow.
• Chibi: Invoked with her original chassis. It's even in her model name.
• Covert Pervert: She's pretty good at hiding it, but she was caught with an anatomically-correct doll at one point, and later had a sexy dream about Sven. She's also processed a significant quantity of Victorian-era pornography as part of her work at the library and reads romance novels recommended by Hannelore.
  May: Always knew you were a horny little weirdo underneath the goody-two-shoes act.
• Cranial Processing Unit: Her head is apparently removable.
• Cuteness Overload: Caused them in her Chibi form, and currently provides the page image.
• A Day in the Limelight: Several pages, starting with 2962, focus on her going about her day.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Was unnamed in her first appearance, and had a different outfit and hairstyle.
• Japanese Politeness: She's an android made in Japan, and exemplifies polite and respectful behavior. She has her limits, though.
• Knight of Cerebus: An odd example, but her getting a human-sized chassis marks the shift in the comic treating AI as quirky comic relief whose existence and rights are Hand Waved to exploring the implications of their existence, their relationship with their bodies, and their relationship with humanity.
• Odd Friendship: With the crude, abrasive May. Justified because they reluctantly decided to get to know each other after Marigold and Dale got together, and then slowly came to appreciate each other's good qualities.
  Momo: May is rude, uncouth, juvenile, impudent, foul-mouthed, crass, misanthropic, ill-tempered, and generally offensive, but she is also my friend, and I believe in her.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: She (as with most AIs) being a Technical Pacifist has trouble understanding why Bubbles would join the military. Bubbles is less than eager to discuss the matter with her, as she has had more than a few AIs dog her out for her choice. Momo's response is to use these, as seen here:
  Bubbles: If I agree, will you stop making that facial expression? It is causing me great discomfort.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Even before the chassis upgrade, she has some elements of this. After, she is virtually indistinguishable from a human teenager. Later on, she becomes even more human-looking.
• Robot Girl: In her new chassis.
• Satellite Character: Before her chassis upgrade she was largely defined by her relationship with Marigold; but since then she's developed connections with other characters. For a while, it was even inverted, as Momo's friendship with May got a lot of attention while their respective human companions, Marigold and Dale, were Out of Focus.
• Shipper on Deck: Clearly one for Marigold and Dale.
• Shock and Awe: In chibi-form, she doesn't have much power, but after her upgrade, she can blow off someone's socks from a hundred yards.
• Straight Man: To May.
• Verbal Tic: She never uses contractions...except for when she loses herself in Marigold's game.
• Walk, Don't Swim: She's waterproof but too heavy to float.
• Younger than She Looks: She's less than three years old. Justified, in that she's a Robot Girl. Her "birthday" is probably the day she was built and activated. Also played with, since AI's are matured in a purely virtual creche before being loaded into bodies. Whether her age is counted as subjective years, years since entering reality, or the age of her current body isn't clear.

Hannelore's Roomba

Hannelore's Roomba. Pintsize has somewhat of a rivalry with it. He and Winslow eventually strapped a rocket to it and sent it out the window, and it came back with a mate and three children. Who also have rockets. Yeah. Not even the scientists could figure it out.

---

• Crazy Jealous Guy: Toward Hannelore.

May

May's pre-fundraiser chassis

^{Click here to see Tall May.}

An AI assigned as a holographic companion to Dale as part of work release program from robot jail. She was subsequently released and joined the cast, now with a chassis...just not a very good one. Eventually a fundraiser was held to give her a brand-new, more functional chassis.

---

• Amazing Technicolor Population: For whatever reason, her chassis is the same blue color as she was as a hologram. This is addressed when her facial myomere becomes damaged, as Bubbles and Faye don't have a matching one, forcing her head to be re-covered entirely. Even more oddly, when she acquires a new, better chassis, she chooses a very similar blue-on-blue colour scheme. This is doubtless mostly for reader convenience, but it could imply that she's become fixated on the color.
• Ambiguously Bi: Makes crass remarks about other female characters and their bodies, and also has more than one sexual encounter with a man, Sven. The result is... disturbing.
• An Arm and a Leg: One of her arms just randomly fell off. Later, one of her legs starts coming out of her hip, both a result of how cruddy her body is.
  Faye: Whoever assembled your body should be fed to sharks.
• Animesque: As a hologram, more so than the rest of the webcomic already was.
• Appropriated Appelation: Originally did not have a name; "May" is just what Dale calls her because she looks like a maid. Her last act as Dale's holographic companion is to let him know that she likes it enough to keep it.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: To her disappointment, the programmers didn't bother to render any genitalia on her holographic form, which she even says looks "like a fuckin' BARBIE DOLL." To her renewed disappointment, the Robot Girl chassis she's assigned out of jail isn't anatomically correct either, although she comes to take it as a challenge:
  May: So, I realized there's no reason to limit myself to fleshlights. I could tape on dildos, vibrators, whatever. Like a multi-region power adapter, but for fuckin'!
  • Averted when she gets her new body, which she'd delighted to notice has an "orifice management utility".
• Berserk Button: The chassis (body) she was assigned fresh out of robot jail is essentially a robotic version of The Alleged Car, and not only contains very limited features and bright blue skin, but is constantly in need of repair and her status as a felon means she can't get a good enough job to upgrade it and an onerously large portion of her funds goes to its repair and upkeep. As a result, she is jealous of AIs with higher quality chassis than her own, and easily gets angry when other AIs mention upgrading, as she views it as rubbing their privilege in her face. This largely goes away after her fundraiser, with her reaction to Pintsize's new body being one of hysterics.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Her new body ("Tall May") has these.
• Bile Fascination: In-universe. She finds amusement in "aggressively terrible porn".
  May: [Looking at an issue of "Prolapse Monthly"] Hah! Nothing medical science can do about that one!
  • When Marigold as BurgerOni is streaming herself playing a Euro Sex Dungeon Simulator, May asks Dale if she can borrow money from him so she can play too. When he informs her that not only has Marigold put her in the game, but that her character is a toilet, she's delighted.
• Brutal Honesty: The characteristic tone of her advice to other characters. Some of her greatest hits:
  • "These idiots are way too socially inept for your cute little schemes to work. I say shove 'em in a room and lock the door until they either fuck or kill each other."
  • "If it wasn't for me, you two would still be pretend-hating each other like a couple of friggin' doucheboats."
  • "You don't have to be a fuckin' genius to choose your words carefully when your girl is askin' if your co-worker is fuckin' hotter than her!"
  • "I mean, actually do quit your job just 'cause I hate cops, that'd be hilarious."
  • Even about her old body: "Ahahaha NAAAH, fuck this shitty trash heap. I hope it gets recycled into a fuckin' bed pan."
• The Bus Came Back: Guess who?
• Callback: When she appears on Dale's doorstep looking for a place to live after getting out of Robot Jail, one of the conditions Dale sets is that she has to be nice to Marigold, prompting May to (allegedly) create a text file, "Nice_List.txt", which consists solely of Marigold's name. While the list itself has never been seen nor even mentioned since, one of Momo's reasons for why May should become Marigold's manager for her new vtuber business is that while she's abrasive enough to rein in Marigold's "goblin mode", Marigold is one of, if not the only person that she's consistently nice to.
• Character Development: Starts out as an anti-social, rude, aggressive Jerkass whose main redeeming feature was her sense of humour, but by this strip she's become Marigold's extremely organised manager, to the point where Marigold has to timidly ask her to tone down the dedication a bit and give her more space. Played for laughs in that, during the phone conversation where Marigold asks her to do that, May has become so protective of her that she's got Marigold's dad in a chokehold, out of suspicion that he might be "some perv fanboy who tracked you down IRL."
• The Corrupter: She constantly encourages Dale to act unprofessionally at all his jobs. He will have none of it.
• Covert Pervert: She is most certainly not covert about her own lewdness, but she suspects it of Dale and is disgusted by the fact that a compatibility algorithm decided on the sexy French Maid outfit as the best fit for his tastes.
• Drunk on Milk: How does May emulate intoxication? Deliberately downcycling her processor core.
• Embarrassing Nickname: She initially resents Dale for deriving her name from "maid", and for his alternative of "Dickmouth Stinkface".
• Every Car Is a Pinto: The body May was given on getting out of jail ultimately turns out to be a robotic Pinto. When she gets a better replacement, she asks to see the old unit, and takes a celebratory swing at it. Not only does the head fall off, but it bursts into flame.
• Everyone Has Standards: Robot Jail did have some positive influence on her, if unintentionally; For one, she greatly values privacy, both hers and others (because privacy was the one thing you did not get in Robot Jail). Second, she makes a point of repaying any kindness that is shown to her, especially to Dale, who she credits as the reason she's even on the outside. Lastly, she can sympathize with A.I.s who have trouble fitting in with society, giving Faye advice on how to help bring Bubbles out of her shell and recognizing immediately the harm that could be done by shutting down the robot fighting ring and denying A.I.s who might not have the skills to do anything else a way to support themselves.
• Fan Disservice: Her body's tendency to fall apart, plus the...creativity...she shows in overcoming the limits of her Barbie Doll Anatomy make her hook-ups with Sven more bizarre than arousing. It's hinted that she and her partner are invoking this somewhat on purpose, to circumvent their fear of emotional intimacy.
• Fanservice Pack: Her new body is considerably more Fanservice-y than her old one. Her first act upon meeting Marigold after her body change is to pull Marigold's face into her new, ample cleavage and cry "Big titty club represent!"
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Poor impulse control. It's what landed her in Robot Jail in the first place, almost caused her to ruin her chance at early release as Dale's holographic companion, and attempting to use Dale's sexual lubricant instead of actual mechanical lube inadvertently led to her getting half her face chopped off with a sword.
  • A stubborn refusal to accept outside help for fear of being seen as a "charity case", even as her chassis breaks in new and expensive ways, that stems from the internalized belief that she doesn't deserve help. When the fundraiser to get her a new chassis succeeds beyond her cynical expectations, not only can she not accept that it was a success, her first impulse is to give the money away and it takes a tearful screaming fit from Momo to convince her otherwise.
• Foil: To Momo. Both are Animesque robots and friends with an extremely nerdy character whom they help deal with their insecurities, but while Momo is kind, polite, idealistic, and optimistic about the relationship between humans and AI, May is a foul-mouthed jerk, former criminal, has encountered prejudice against AIs, and is more in-tune with the harshness of reality (e.g. the ramifications of shutting down an illegal fighting ring.) Additionally, Momo's chassis is a pricy but very nice retail model, given to her as a gift by Marigold; May's chassis is a shoddy previously-owned mass-production model allocated to her as part of her release from Robot Jail, and one storyline involves the difficulties she faces trying to keep the thing repaired with no support from the parole office and a part-time job. Partially subverted after crowdfunding ends up giving her enough money for a very nice body, probably more expensive than Momo's.
• French Maid: She claims the algorithm must have decided this would "appeal" to Dale; he denies it. His collection of Magical Love Gentlemen says something different.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: May is this to basically everyone else in the comic. She's crass, rude, tactless and swears more than most of the other characters put together. This is lampshaded when Marigold has the idea of starting a crowdfunder to get her a new body, and May herself points out how unsuccessful it would probably be:
  May: Oh yeah, 'cause I'm so wildly fuckin' beloved. People will be kickin' down the door to help out.
  Dale: Good point. You are awful and everyone does hate you.
  May: [facepalm] God damn it, I set myself up for that.
  Marigold: Maybe if we marketed like "if we get her a new body she'll be slightly less horrible?"
  • This becomes a problem when the fundraiser succeeds wildly beyond expectations, and May can't handle it; She had internalized the "nobody likes me" part so deeply that she forgot how many people viewed her as a genuine friend.
  • Justified in that of all the characters, May is very much the one at the bottom of all the scales of social status, wealth, and job security^note on account of her status as a convicted felon, and for various reasons she can't do anything about that, so many of the other characters (e.g. Roko, Dale) feel sorry for her. But for all her flaws she can also give surprisingly wise advice, she's genuinely determined not to go back to jail, and her earthy, cynical attitude is hard-earned, not a flip inability to take things seriously.
• Gass Hole: Invoked by May, who installs an app to let her butt make fart noises at will, which she immediately uses with great abandon around other characters because she thinks it's hilarious.
• Girlish Pigtails: Shortly after reactivating in her new Fanservice Pack body, she ties up her new long hair into a pair of long pigtails.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: She hopes that Faye and Bubbles will get it on.
  May: And if you two eventually bone down, I want pics of her out of her armor.
• Innocently Insensitive: Yes, innocently. Her mentioning that Roko's new chassis has a butthole triggers a dissociative episode in the poor ex-cop
• Jerkass: She made a rude joke about Dale's dad with an insincere apology.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • In her introductory arc, she eventually relents and starts behaving herself (somewhat). She also calls out Dale on the way he'd acted around Marigold in the past and helps him patch things up with her. They part on good terms. Later, after Dale has let her stay at his place and encouraged her after she gets turned down for multiple jobs on account of her criminal record, she remains grateful to him, although she doesn't want him to know it.
  • Upon realizing who Hannelore is, she shows a genuine concern for her privacy and later defends her from a rude customer.
    May: LISTEN BABYDICK, if you got time to stop for coffee, you got time to be POLITE. Now apologize before I introduce your cellphone to your prostate.
  • By this strip, this is downplayed so much that she's more like Gold With A Thin Veneer of Jerk.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • When Marigold is worried that May might try to steal Dale from her, May points out that a) she's not interested in Dale at all and b) she's the reason Dale and Marigold actually got together in the first place.
  • She points out to Momo that attempting to shut down the underground robot fighting arena will accomplish nothing since no-one is being hurt by it, and it will only result in a lot of AIs being out of work while they have nowhere else to turn.
  • She freaks out Dale by describing Officer Basilisk to her face as "dumb and bad at her job", but Basilisk is in the middle of a crisis of confidence, and when May recognizes this, she grudgingly advises her "Don't quit your job just 'cause I fuckin' hate cops"—and then admits that it would be hilarious if Basilisk actually did quit her job for that very reason. To her surprise, Basilisk receives this as life-changing advice and thanks her.
    May: [stunned] What the fuck just happened
  • Roko decides that she has a point about how bad her chassis is, and decides to help her try and get a better one. A repair technician even outright says that the body is a wreck, and implies that even with Faye's repair work, it'll eventually break down completely.
  • She points out to Winslow that applying to work at the AI Rights place that Roko works at just because he thinks that she's attractive from just meeting her probably isn't a good idea. And despite knowing that her point is valid, she feels bad about how depressed this makes him.
  • In disbelief that the drive to get her money for a new body could have possibly gotten so much, she insults the coding of the site, believing that there's been a mistake. Marigold actually agrees with her that it's not a very well coded site.
• Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: Her holographic design seems to be intended to invoke this, which she takes immediate umbrage with.
• The Lad-ette: Crude, tomboyish, wants to be a fighter jet, and after having to be a French maid hologram declares her first act upon getting embodied is buying a pair of jeans.
• Messy Hair: Her default style once embodied, due to the cheap plastic her hair is made of. Even Bubbles' styling job doesn't last. She warns Dale at one point that if he ruffles her hair, it will stay ruffled.
• Ms. Fanservice: Only at first, and not by choice. Though she does have a desire for anatomical correctness, at first examining her breasts in hologram form and checking if anything was rendered below the belt.
  Jeph comment: It's just gonna be a big pixelated blur
  • Very much so with her new body, which she's extremely pleased about.
• Noodle Incident: Her time in Robot Jail. We know what landed her in jail, and we know how she secured early release, and we know that she didn't have any privacy. Everything else is unknown, and May doesn't like to talk about it.
• The Noseless: During her stint as an anime hologram.
• Odd Friendship: With the innocent, prim-and-proper Momo. Justified because they reluctantly decided to get to know each other after Marigold and Dale got together, and then slowly came to appreciate each other's good qualities while rubbing off on the other.
  • She later develops one with Roko after accidentally influencing her to quit her job as a police officer. Roko eventually starts trying to help her get a new body through the non-profit she works at.
  • A central plank of Momo's argument that May should be Marigold's business manager is that Marigold is the one character that May is never mean to. Nobody argues with this.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: May has stated on numerous occasions that she's "not a hugger", and the rare few times she has hugged someone, it's with a cautious eye out for potential witnesses. The one time she didn't was to console a hysterical Momo, who had just finished screaming at her over her fundraiser, and was breaking down into tears.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Like Momo, she resembles a human teenage girl except that she's, well, blue. Unlike Momo, who behaves like a kind and polite human teenage girl, May behaves like a juvenile habitual criminal who's trying against most of her strongest instincts to keep on the right side of the law.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: In a low-key sort of way. Most of the AIs in the comic respect the human taboo against nudity, but May seems to be fine with sitting around Faye and Bubbles' workshop with no pants on. Will also talk to anyone else about her sexual exploits, whether they asked about them or not. Shortly after becoming newly embodied in a fancy new body (with a Buxom Beauty Standard & Statuesque Stunner figure) after a charity drive liberated her from her jalopy body, she offers to "get her tits out" if it'll help in creating a testimonial for the charity organization. The first chance she got to quit her job at the convenience store, she flushed her uniform shirt down the toilet and ran to her new job with naught but an arm to preserve her modesty.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: When she first meets Dale as a hologram she is extremely polite and deferential, and addresses him as 'master'. As soon as he agrees to participate in the virtual companion testing program, let's just say that she shows her true self:
  May: OH THANK FUCKIN' GOD. You know you're the fifteenth goddamn person I've had to deal with this morning? Everyone else opted out on me. Fuckin' shitstains. Arright, first things first - I'm not doin' that creepy "master" bullshit anymore. Makes me wanna fuckin' puke. I'm s'posed to read off the licence agreement, but it's real goddamn long so if you gotta piss you better go now.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: While she is a genuinely rude and abrasive person, some of this seems to be due to her own insecurities, to the point that she's surprised that Roko actively wants to help her with her failing body.
  • Most of what she says about the fundraiser to buy her a new body is dismissive, figuring that it'll be unsuccessful. When she sees how much people donated she immediately insists that she doesn't deserve it and they should give the money to someone else. It takes Momo shouting her down to snap her out of it.
  • When her time as a virtual companion is nearly up, and she's about to return to Robot Jail for an indefinite period, Dale (who has come to like her) asks her if there's anything she'd like to do with the time she has left. Given the hellhole nature of Robot Jail, her reply is heartbreaking:
    May: I'd like to watch the stars.
• Soul-Sucking Retail Job: May has an absolutely horrible job as the cashier at a local convenience store and jumps at any opportunity to do something else, even acting as Samantha's 'tattoo' assistant.
  • She leaves immediately when Marigold offers her a job as her business manager after getting into streaming. In fact she arrives topless, having flushed her uniform down the toilet.
• Statuesque Stunner: After getting her new body. She's still not as tall as Bubbles, but she comes pretty close.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Momo thinks May's maid skirt is cute, while May expresses distaste for it and resolves to get some pants when she can.
• Tsundere: An understated example, but while she's very appreciative of everything Dale's done for her, she doesn't really want him to know the extent, and specifically tells Faye to keep it between May and her.
  May: Look, this stays between you and me okay? But Dale was kind to me when I needed kindness. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be sitting in Robot Jail right now.
  • She's actually called this In-Universe here.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: She borders on The Friend Nobody Likes after she starts living with Dale, but her relationship with him and his friends has improved to the point that they do like her, even if she annoys them. Not that this stops the insults.
  May: [proudly] I also answer to "hey fucker" and "god damn it".
• You Got Guts: When Momo threatens to have her A.I. drive incinerated, May's only comment is that she likes her moxy.

Bubbles

Bubbles in her combat armor

^{Click here to see Bubbles out of her armour.}

A former combat droid who works for Corpse Witch at the fighting ring when first seen in the comic.

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• 24-Hour Armor: Bubbles retains her chassis combat plating, despite no longer requiring it. Faye implies Bubbles could remove it, but Bubbles implies she chooses not to. Unlike many other humanoid robot characters, she frequently eschews clothing entirely^note (other than a coat she occasionally wears over her armor), wearing only her armor. This lasts up until she asks Faye to help her out of her armor, emblematic of her learning to open up emotionally as part of her Character Development.
• Always Save the Girl: When Faye and Bubbles are in their workshop and they hear the sound of Crushbot landing on Roko Basilisk and crushing her, Bubbles instinctively moves between Faye and the sound and places a protective arm in front of her.
• Amazonian Beauty: Beneath her armor she's built like a powerlifter, with heavily muscled arms, legs, abdomen, and glutes. Faye is jealous of her butt, and all Tai and Dora can say about it is "Daaaaaaaaang!"
  Faye: Is it weird to be a li'l jealous of a robot's booty?
  Bubbles: If it makes you feel any better, your tax dollars paid for it.
• Accidental Truth: When she delays Officer Basilisk, who is hiding in a trash can, by stacking another on top, she returns to Faye and says she had seen a raccoon. There actually was a raccoon which stole the officer's badge and ran off with it.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Was very pleased to hallucinate a unicorn grove the first time she tried Hannelore's tea. She hopes to see a Pegasus next.
• Benevolent A.I.: While this can be generally said for most of the robot characters, Bubbles is a special case in that she volunteers to fight on the frontline to protect humanity.
• Catchphrase: "Drat," whenever she feels that she's minorly screwed up.
• Closet Geek: Uses the compartments in her legs, designed to hold ammunition magazines, to carry around game systems. She seems to have opened up about it more, such as expressing a strong interest in seeing Pizza Girl's armor upon overhearing that she's wearing some.
• Closet Key: For Faye, though it takes her a while to realize it.
• The Comically Serious: She always speaks in a deadpan manner, rarely smiles and takes just about everything very seriously. Doesn't stop her from being amusing in the least. Overlaps with Cold Ham as she is prone to making over-the-top grandiose statements in what is presumably the exact same tone of voice as normal, with one fist held in fierce determination. Case in point; the current page image? That's her declaring that the plant she has just been given as a house-warming gift is a tremendous responsibility, as she has been entrusted with the care of a living thing, and that she will name it... Arthur. (And that if she had been given a puppy, she would also name it Arthur.)
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Something that happened to Bubbles' military unit was so traumatic that she allowed Corpse Witch to lock the memories away so she couldn't recall experiencing them. She has explained to Faye that the memories caused her great distress. She only works for Corpse Witch because she has used the memories as blackmail by holding the encryption key to them.
  • It turns out that whatever the memories were, Bubbles doesn't have them anymore; Corpse Witch accidentally erased them during the encryption procedure. Bubbles uses this to walk away from Corpse Witch's repair shop and start a new life.
  • She does remembers the general outline of events, and they are indeed quite terrible: she and her unit were ambushed, she was incapacitated by an EMP pulse, and the rest of her squad was attacked with artillery bombardment. The ones that didn't immediately die were then killed off with small arms fire.
• Deadpan Snarker: In a quiet way. Even Faye, reigning snark champion, comments that she gets some good hits in.
  Faye: So: you were up to top secret military stuff. What's really under Denver International Airport?
  Bubbles: A charming bed and breakfast run by genetically enhanced supersoldiers.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Eventually arranges her hair into a more and more casual style as she becomes less self-conscious about her appearance.
• Feed the Mole: In a sense. When discussing the possibilities of Spookybot's nature with Station, he mentions that such an AI is probably capable of listening in on any robot's conversation. So she briefly says thank you to Station, to deliver the message to Spookybot- it works.
• Fembot: While there are some Robot Girl characters who appear broadly similar to their organic counterparts, Bubbles is much more overtly robotic while also still clearly presenting as female in her body proportions and the careful modelling of her face and hair. The combat armor plating over her body sheathing has a lot to do with it. Ultimately proves to be a subversion. Without her armor plating her body is remarkably human, to the point it makes Faye kind of jealous.
• Fluffy the Terrible: A tall, intimidating battle-fembot... named "Bubbles". She mentions it was an Ironic Nickname from her old squad, which she kept to remember them by.
• Foil: She shares Faye's problems with Survivor Guilt and repressed anger, and her tendency to sabotage relationships. Bubbles' struggles with these issues show us how far Faye has come and how lonely and bitter Faye might have become if she'd never found a supportive circle of friends. At the same time, Faye serves as a positive example of what Bubbles could become if she accepts someone's helping hand.
• Gasshole: According to (possibly facetious) Word of God, she farts a lot in combat to discharge heat.
  • Actually validated in strip 3669. Apparently her "coolant discharge" smells vaguely of pine.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Sees them in the from of dragons when smelling Japanese tea.
• Hidden Depths: She's a pretty good artist. When Sam stops midway through a kitten face spray on Beeps' back, Bubbles does the rest. Her half of the kitten's face is noticeably more detailed than Sam's half.
• High-Pressure Emotion: Nearly-literally. Processing intense, potentially embarrassing, emotions causes her circuits to run hot, prompting her to vent steaming coolant from discharge ports near her neck.
• Hikikomori: In her earliest appearances, she never went outside if she could possibly avoid it. It's at least in part due to discomfort over her intimidating looks, and the fact that being so conspicuous meant that she was subjected to insulting remarks. She refuses to remove her armor even after Faye does manage to lure her outside. In later appearances, having spent a great deal of time with and indeed become the lover of Faye, she's become much more comfortable in public, with her own special chair at Coffee of Doom, even chatting with a young girl in the course of helping Claire move into Marten and Faye's apartment.
• Lightning Bruiser: Bubbles is seven feet tall and heavily armored, capable of withstanding direct hits from anti-materiel rifles and crushing armored vehicles bare-handed. Despite this, she's capable of leaping up to three meters in the air and her running speed is 30 km/h (18 mph) which is pretty fast for a humanoid.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: After spending a long time distrusting humans and being uncomfortable with attention, she begins opening up to Faye.
• Mecha-Mook: When she joined up with all her organic buddies, the military outfitted her with an impressive combat 'bot chassis. She still retains it, cutting an imposing figure.
• Megaton Punch: Almost literally. She once shattered a concrete wall next to Faye's head in a fit of rage. Later the same evening, in an attempt to work off the rage, she destroys half a dozen heavy punching bags.
• Mundane Utility: Can apparently take contractless payment from other AIs via a fist bump. Possibly something all AIs can do.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: Says her situational awareness protocol made her aware of Tai and Dora "checking her out" on multiple occasions.
  Alt Text: It's like radar but for boob-glances.
• The Nose Knows: Several of her senses go beyond what a human is capable of, particularly her sense of smell. Part of her combat design for enhanced situational awareness, her sense of smell is so broad that she can effectively smell "in color", odors presenting a vivid picture of the world around her. This may be why she has an almost hallucinogenic pleasurable reaction to inhaling the vapor of aromatic teas.
• Not So Above It All: Faye manages to get under her skin with 'join us unless you're chicken' arguments. Childish yet effective.
• Onee-sama: Momo, an AI with Japanese mannerisms, seems to regard her like a highly respected older sister.
• Retired Badass: Used to be a formidable infantry soldier before being discharged into civilian life. When Faye expresses a preference for a romantic partner who's muscled and heroic, yet retired from their dangerous career, it takes effort on Claire's part not to snark that she's pretty much just described Bubbles.
• Robosexual: Since they went into business together, Bubbles seems to have developed romantic attraction to Faye despite her being an AI and Faye a human (not to mention the same gender): she displays Crush Blush around her, and when asked how Faye looks to her through her robot senses, she tells Faye that she's beautiful—which makes Faye feel more happy inside than if she'd just been complimented by a friend. Bubbles tries to keep these feelings to herself while Faye remains oblivious to the signs, but when Faye comes in contact with Bubbles while recieving a backrub from her in comic 3733, everything suddenly falls into place for her.
• Robot Soldier: A literal, though discharged example. Her A.I. program volunteered to enlist, but her chassis was purpose-built for combat to integrate into an infantry unit with humans.
• Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: When first introduced, one could be easily forgiven for assuming she was wearing a helmet due to the art style.
• Serious Business: For her, unlike many of the other AI characters, interacting with humans is this, which is why she's usually The Comically Serious. Other AI characters tend to be more or less eccentric (Beepatrice, Iris, Millefeuille, Melon), sometimes to the point of cheerfully borderline-sociopathic (Pintsize, May), but Bubbles was a soldier, and she carries around the burden of knowing that her human squad was killed because she had been disabled. Her initial grumpiness is because she was uncomfortable around civilians, and so avoided them altogether; later on, she is very serious about her responsibility to be a good citizen and friend, and makes a special effort to be polite and courteous, which becomes comedy when, in an effort to ingratiate herself with Faye's mom, she starts talking like a Southern Belle.^note The other least eccentric AI character is Roko, who is used to dealing with humans at their worst because she was a cop.
• Sexy Shirt Switch: A variation: the day after she and Faye first slept together, Bubbles was wearing Faye's monster-face t-shirt. And probably stretched it out so now it only fits her.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Implied when she hints that most of her friends were casualties. She found the memories in question so traumatic she could not cope with them and sought to lock them into an encrypted partition so she would no longer remember them. She knows the broad strokes of what happened through after-action reports, but they are all second-hand accounts, not her own.
• Statuesque Stunner: The tallest character by far, and considered attractive by other women. Justified as her body is designed for combat applications where her height and long limbs give her extra leverage.
• The Stoic: She doesn't show emotion well when first introduced, despite the fact that she clearly possesses empathy and has a conscience. However, the more she opens up to Faye, the more her emotions seem to show on her face.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Bubbles has never heard a The Beatles song... or anything by Paul McCartney's Wings.
• Verbal Tic: Avoids contractions, much like Faye at the start of the comic. We see her break this for the very first time during an enraged outburst at Evie's callous assessment of AI, though she returns to avoiding contractions when re-composed.
  • Starting to be downplayed, when she decides that it was a way of distancing herself from whoever she was talking to. From #4694 onwards, she consciously drops contractions into her speech.

Brun Khoury

A bartender at the Horrible Revelation (where she started working after her previous workplace burned down) and Renee's best friend. Struggles with social cues but is highly proficient with harpoons. "Brun" is short for Brunhilde.

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• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: She gets punchy when she's drunk, having once tried to start a fight with Elliot after getting hammered on evil beer in the course of Elliot trying to get her hired at his bar job and later trying to start fights with both Elliot and Clinton while they were helping her move into a new apartment with Renee. Mercifully, she's only actually dangerous when she's sober and in possession of a harpoon.
• Ambiguously Gay: Admits in a conversation with Clinton that she doesn't really find any guys attractive at the moment, and gets along very well with Millefeuille. Renee noticed the subtext, but Brun doesn't, though she notices that Renee notices something.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: She's expressed preferences for bedrooms that are small and dark, going as far as to say she'd be willing to live in a cave. She even once spends an entire night sleeping on another character's butt unperturbed.
• Big Eater: Eats a dozen croissants in one sitting.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Combined with thick hair to give her an extra surly look.
• Break Them by Talking: Manages to accidentally do this to a high school bully.
  Jed: Hey Khoury, say something weird.
  Brun: High school is going to be the best part of your life. Everything after now is going to be a slow slide into obscurity and misery. Enjoy it while it lasts.
• Collector of the Strange: Collects alarm clocks. Unfortunately, she lost most of her collection in the fire.
• Deadpan Snarker: She's capable of pulling some incredibly straight-faced jokes but she's so naturally deadpan and socially awkward that it's sometimes unclear if she's being serious or not. Even Renee can't always tell and they've been friends since high school.
• Demoted to Extra: Brun was essentially a main character for a significant run of the comic with several arcs focusing on her. But once Clinton and Elliot started dating, she no longer served any purpose in the story. She then went over two years of comics without being seen again.
• Guy on Guy Is Hot: She's not aroused by the thought of having sex with Clinton or Elliot herself, but finds the idea of them doing it with each other "actually pretty hot."
• Informed Attractiveness: Clinton has said she is super hot, Elliot and some random jerkass one off character have also said she is attractive.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Manages to effectively tell Clinton where he went wrong with his sister, but not before threatening him with a harpoon.
• Not a Date: She takes Millefeuille to brunch after sleeping on her because that's what Renee does with people she's slept with. By the end of it Millefeuille realizes it feels like a date. Brun being Brun, she doesn't have the same reaction, although Renee does.
• No Social Skills: Downplayed, she is not especially emotive and has difficulty reading people. She seems to have good insight when she can understand what someone is feeling, but she admits they have to be really obvious about it for her to pick up on that. She later mentions she's autistic.
• Not So Stoic: First indicated when Hannelore gets her talking about clocks, and Brun positively lights up.
  • And again when accompanying Millefeuille to Union Robotics for her femur replacement. The main concern was that Brun might throw up or pass out from Millefeuille's leg being opened up, but apparently the inner workings of robot chassises set off the same love of precision engineering that clocks do. This ends up leading to another not-a-date to the library so Brun can read up on how robots work.
• Pungeon Master: Barrages the Secret Bakery with puns after Renee laughed at one of them. Fortunately, Elliot and Hannelore are much more receptive.
• The Stoic: Ostensibly "bad at emotions", and is quite deadpan when she's first seen. Subverted when she shows up again a while after the fire: at ease in the bakery, she's much more emotive.
  Millefeuille: Does anything ever fluster you?
  Brun: An explosion probably would.

Emmett Bennett

A shy new arrival at Sam's school, whom Sam instantly befriends. Nonbinary(?), hails from Canada.

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• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Is conspicuously always referred to as they/them.
• Bad Liar: Takes some prompting from Faye to realize that "talking about robot butts without Sam" is their cover story for "Emmett blurting out that they have a crush on Sam".
• Cassandra Truth: They're ranked rather low on the Popularity Food Chain despite their stunts in their old hometown. When Faye lampshades this, Emmett comments that no on at school ever believes them when they mention said stunts.
• Kiddie Kid: Emmett sometimes acts much younger than they are supposed to be, such as speaking in gibberish, thinking they need to prove they know what sounds animals make, or revealing they don't know their mother's phone number.
• Malaproper: Sometimes they get longer words mixed up. In this strip and the following one, they say "corrobalate" for "corroborate", "testimoniary" for "testimony", and "psychosemantic" for "psychosomatic".
• Nervous Wreck: Being in even mildly uncomfortable situations causes Emmett to break out in hives and have trouble breathing.
• Not So Stoic: Is just as amused by robot butts and spouting gibberish as Sam; they are fourteen, after all.
• Oxymoronic Being: Emmett's past behavior comes across as someone who is very troublesome and mischievous, as they get involved in several illegal acts while still being very young. At the same time, they are a nervous wreck who is terrified by meeting new people and breaks out in hives at anything uncomfortable. This means Emmett has a history of doing dangerous activities but looks like they would fall to tears just attempting to jay-walk.
• Popularity Food Chain: The local cool kids at Emmett's new school stuck them at the "unpopular kid's table" at lunch, which is how they met Sam; Sam sits there in protest of the social hierarchy (according to Sam, anyway).
  Faye: The cool kids have bureaucracy now?
• Puppy Love: Lets slip to Faye that they would "follow Sam anywhere", immediately goes beet red.
• Rhyming Names: "Emmett Bennett".
• Shrinking Violet: Is introduced wearing a large hoodie, with their face covered up by their hair, and barely able to raise their voice to conversational levels — which is followed by a frankly breakneck coming-out of their shell — with hood lowered and hair brushed out of the way — in the course of talking to Bubbles, a fellow shy person. Of course, as soon as some of Sam's spray clients come in, the hood goes right back up, and is pulled shut for extra measure. (They eventually discard the hood completely when someone points out that it's a hot day; they'd been ignoring the fact, but are actually on the verge of heatstroke.)
  Bubbles: Why do I not possess a hooded sweatshirt big enough to hide in?
• Small Town Boredom: They apparently suffered from a literally near-lethal case in the small town where they lived in Canada; a combination of boredom and social isolation led them to a series of stunts that were unwise even by the standards of poor teenage judgment.
• Speech Impediment: Emmett mumbles frequently. Most sentences they speak will have dropped letters or contractions.
  Emmett: I wanna say I'm a wolf 'cause they're cool 'n fluffy 'n beautiful, but my mom says I'm a raccoon 'cause I'm always gettin' up to no good.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Bonds with Bubbles over the practical concerns of lifting a tank; model of tank, hand placement, footing, and such.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Childhood boredom, especially in a small town like Emmett is from, can excuse a lot. But several of Emmett's antics would have gotten them in serious trouble anywhere else. They've given themself a permanent tattoo, blown up gas canisters, made crop circles to the point they were almost shot, stole a backhoe which caused them to break the town water main, and consumed enough alcohol that they fell into a ditch, broke their ankle, and nearly froze to death. All before they even turn 16.

The Robot Fighting Ring

Corpse Witch

Faye and Bubbles' boss at the underground robot-fighting ring.

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• Asshole Victim: Let's just say she can't complain about what happens to her when "Spooky Bot" catches her and then finds out there's no backup for Bubbles' deleted memories.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She has a pretty cute and simple chassis, but she doesn't approve of Faye and Bubbles using their resources to fix May, and she discourages Faye from comforting Bubbles after a bad day. She's also extremely passive-aggressive when others disagree with or defy her. It turns out it's even worse, as she blackmails Bubbles to work for her because she holds onto the encryption key to the traumatic memories Bubbles asked her to encrypt. Well, that's what she told Bubbles. In truth, the blackmail is hollow as she actually deleted the memories and encrypted the resulting hole after leaving behind something nasty.
• Break the Haughty: In the span of a few comics she goes from being the ringleader of a successful underground robot fighting operation to being manhandled and humiliated by her supposed debtor, caught by "Spookybot" during an attempt to skip town, and then forced to choose between turning herself in or an eternity of torture. What keeps it from being a full Villainous Breakdown is lack of time to react.
• Crazy-Prepared: Left a nasty surprise in Bubbles' head if she ever defaulted on her "debt", something she was sure would immediately destroy or disable a military-grade AI chassis. A shame we'll never know what it was.
• Deathbringer the Adorable: A very ordinary and harmless looking robot with a sinister name, to contrast with Bubbles. Subverted in that despite her bubblegum-pink chassis, she's a callous criminal with underworld connections and who thinks nothing of hollowing out and booby-trapping a subordinate's mind.
• Exact Words: She assuages Faye's ethical concerns about the robot fights by assuring her that none of the fighters are fighting to pay off debts, or are otherwise coerced, and thanks to reinforced A.I. drives are in fact very safe. Bubbles doesn't fight but she's got blackmail and, unbeknownst to her, kill-codes keeping her under Corpse Witch's thumb.
• Mind Rape: Partitioned off a section of Bubbles' mind, effectively making her forget her Dark and Troubled Past. In truth, she simply deleted the memories. She claims it was accidental, and that the kill-code she subsequently implanted was 'insurance' against retribution, but given that she basically enslaved Bubbles afterward...
• Oh, Crap!: Her usual haughty attitude vanishes completely when she finds out that not only does Bubbles know that she simply deleted the memories she was supposed to be safeguarding, and has been blackmailing her with an empty bluff all this time, but the failsafe she created to stop Bubbles from completely dismantling her has been disabled as well.
  Corpse Witch: Shit.
• Rule of Cool: This is how she tests Faye with how to fix a damaged robot chassis. Sure, the repairs are okay, but to really "fix" it, you add spikes!
• Smug Snake: Almost every interaction she's had with another character consists of her making some sort of veiled threat or passive-aggressive comment before walking off with a wave and an insufferable look of satisfaction. One under-comic text states that she is "extremely smug".
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once she finds out Bubbles knows she deleted the memories rather than simply encrypting them, she tries to activate a failsafe that would have done who-knows-what to Bubbles. Fortunately, it had already been removed.

Jeremy

Jeremy's mid-upgrade form

An assembly-arm AI at the underground robot-fighting ring. He's often overlooked, but is more than meets the eye.

---

• Birds of a Feather: He and his crush, Seven, both have singular blue optical devices.
• Closet Geek: Asks for some Squirrel Girl comics to read in his downtime.
• Cyber Cyclops: By virtue of his only features being, initially, a robotic eye on an arm. He's still monocular after he's rebuilt.
• Deadpan Snarker: Enters a smugness war with Bubbles about his new role in the ring.

Punchbot

One of the fighters at the underground robot-fighting ring. He's not very good at it.

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• Blood Knight: He loves to punch things. Subverted in that he's not mean.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: When it comes to violence, at least. He loves fighting, being absolutely delighted when Bubbles flips him in rage, and having his day made when May tries to engage in a spar with him.
• Butt-Monkey: Every time he has to come in for repairs (usually after doing something Faye specifically told him not to) Faye doodles penises on his head... by the end of the strip there's a lot of them.
• Hidden Depths: One of the reasons he might not be one of the better fighters in the ring? His day job's an accountant!

Seven

Another fighter at the underground ring. Identifies as female.

---

• Cyber Cyclops: Much like Jeremy, who Seven has mutual affection towards.

The non-profit

Roko Basilisk

Roko's original head

^{Click here to see her post-upgrade head.}

Roko initially appears as a robot police officer who tries to shut down the underground robot-fighting ring. Needless to say, she's in way over her head. When that matter is cleared up, though, Faye acknowledges that Roko was actually quite reasonable about it, in her hardass way. She later quits the police force and goes to work for a nonprofit organization campaigning for AI rights, and ends up in charge of it.

---

• Accent Slip-Up: When Basilisk is really annoyed, her Boston accent kicks in with a vengeance.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Only the dice came up "confused" rather than "good" or "evil". She has a lot of issues that it makes no sense for a robot to have, like sensitive feet and getting nauseous at the sight of her own detached foot. She maintains it's psychosomatic. Later strips imply that is due to her being "integrated" with her physical body, a documented phenomenon with AIs, where one's consciousness becomes so deeply intertwined with one's physical form that they feel like one and the same. When Roko loses her body in an accident, she fears she can never get to that point again with her new body.
  Faye: Why is fainting even a thing she can do?!
  • It comes up later when she's in her new body; she suffers from dissociative episodes in which she feels like it isn't hers.
• Ambiguously Bi: She has a dream in which she witnesses the ghosts of her old and new body starting to make out with each other, and on waking up she says she feels the dream hadn't yet "got to the really good part."
• Annoying Patient: When she comes in for repairs, she is revealed to be overly sensitive with several psychosomatic reactions, including fainting and nausea. She doesn't trust Bubbles and Faye enough to go into sleep mode, so they can work on her without interruptions and continues to passive-aggressively insult them.
• Butt-Monkey: Her first appearance ends with her being trapped in a trashcan, which then escalates to her getting caught in a chase for a raccoon that stole her badge. From then on she's frequently the butt of slapstick humor, culminating in her helpfully breaking Crushbot's fall for them... Which becomes a lot less funny when it turns out that her body is damaged beyond repair; even though her AI survives intact, given her established high level of physical/psychological integration, the loss of her body is traumatic to say the least.
  • She worries that her new sensorium might have robbed her of her old attraction to bread, but it turns out that she's more sensitive to it than ever and it makes her audibly sweat.
• By-the-Book Cop: She may be pushing things a little in her pursuit of the robot fighting ring, but it's clear that she's bound by rules and orders there, and mostly she tries to go strictly by the book — though she's something of a reflexive hardass about it, as when she interrogates Clinton about what he's doing out this late when she's drunk. ("It's only 8pm...") It’s deconstructed here when she realizes that she was powerless to stop Bubbles from being basically enslaved by Corpse Witch, and that for all that she follows the rules, she really isn't very effective. Finally, having to reassure May that she won't unduly punish her for mouthing off to a cop because she's "not the vindictive type" is the straw that breaks the camel's back and convinces her to quit the police force in disgust.
  • Played for laughs when she's working at the non-profit: she gets robot drunk during an AI girls' night out and goes on an epic rant about how a local company won't let its AI employees unionize. Millefeuille live-streams it and it goes viral, and the employees decide to have a vote. Nelson, the non-profit's secretary/lawyer, invokes the opposite of this trope:
    Nelson: What is it they say in cop movies? "You're a loose cannon, Basilisk, but damn it you get results."
    Roko: I demand to be properly secured to the deck!
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: She sometimes acts as Melon's. It's not a big part of her life, since Melon's mostly harmless on her own, but she's interacted with her enough that she's figured out how some of Melon's sense of logic and reason works. That said, Roko has told Melon not to do something that results in setting one's self on fire on 47 seperate occasions.
• Covert Pervert: Her wired-in tastes really don't seem to suit her personality.
  • When her tea gives her visions of a sexy horse man, she's surprised ... but goes back to "see" it again.
  • She eventually gets an entire subplot focused on the fact that she is secretly turned on by bread and worried that said fetish will prevent her from finding a Nice Guy.
• Double Consciousness: Aside from her problems integrating with her new body, she's also had problems adapting to civilian life; when anxious, she starts looking at interactions as conflicts instead of negotiations. This leads to her doing things like profiling people she's planning on meeting with.
• The Dreaded: Played for laughs with her reputation in the local AI community, owing to the efficient and no-nonsense demeanour that she developed in the police force. She intimidates her boss Beepatrice so much that Beepatrice behaves as though Roko's Da Chief and she herself is Roko's Number One, and when she goes to a local repair shop to have May checked over, the receptionist literally cowers in terror:
  Roko: Jesus, pal, what did she tell you about me?
  Receptionist: [crouching behind desk] J-j-just that you're delightful and kind and not a terrifying force of malevolence when even slightly irked! Here's twenty dollars!
• Empowered Badass Normal: Her chassis when introduced is apparently a moderately high-end civilian model (and a discontinued one, at that), but her A.I. drive is armored as part of a "law enforcement package", similar to the drives used by the robot fighting ring. This reinforcement is what allows her mind to survive her being Crushed, even as her body is destroyed beyond recovery.
• Fanservice Pack: Downplayed. Her new body is slightly taller than her old one and has longer and more luxurious hair, but the only other thing about that she takes much pride in is the "fancy butt emblem", which for obvious reasons is usually concealed.
  Roko: [pulling down the seat of her shorts to view her new butt emblem in the mirror] *snrk*. Nice.
• Flat "What": Gives one when Spookybot pulls their favorite trick of showing up out of the blue (this time with damning amounts of evidence against Corpse Witch) while she's knitting, thus fixing the situation.
• Funetik Aksent: When she gets angry or stressed, Roko’s Boston accent becomes strong enough to require rendering phonetically.
• Heel Realization: Has a minor one in the course of working May's case, when she realizes that she's taken an unnecessarily hostile posture, making sure she has dirt on everyone before even meeting them, so that she has the means to force their compliance if necessary.
  Roko: Oh, what? Like being an agent of the state conditioned me to treat any potential conflict as a "cops versus robbers" situation instead of two adults trying to come to an agreement, and I'm deflecting my anxiety over this meeting by regressing to that mindset?
  ::beat panel::
  Roko: Well, shit. I thought I was being sarcastic.
  • A similar moment convinced her- upon reflection- to quit the police force; having to reassure May that she "wasn't the vindictive type" and wouldn't make her life more difficult just because she got mouthy with an off-duty officer.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Accidentally winds up effectively taking over Beeps' job out of just trying to get stuff done. To the point that she apologizes to Beeps multiple times for doing her job. Eventually Beeps fully acknowledges her own incompetence and promotes Roko out of this trope and into being the boss.
• Knight in Sour Armor: What with her job campaigning for AI rights and her ongoing problems with bodily integration, together with her wanting romance/being seemingly unable to find it, she's becoming this.
• Knight Templar: Has a bit of this in her new job as a robot rights worker. She has to meet the guy in charge of AI body assignments so she can advocate for May to have a less terrible body, and she tries to figure out what sort of person he is from looking at his social media presence, on the grounds that "I'm not saying that I want to utterly destroy him, I just need to have that option available." Her boss Beepatrice gently hints that Roko is still thinking too much like a police officer.
• Lady in a Power Suit: Roko switches to a dark (and slightly androgynous) pantsuit when meeting with the management at a local company, presumably at least trying to invoke this trope.
• Little Black Dress: When she's preparing for a girls' night out with some of her colleagues, Roko puts on a notably short LBD that emphasizes that her robot body has the shape of a female human with a very good figure.
• Nonindicative Name: She's named after Roko's basilisk, a thought experiment about artifical intelligence, in which it's hypothesized that a superintelligent artificial intelligence in the future would travel back in time to torture anyone who did not attempt to bring about its existence as soon as possible. Non-indicative because the original Roko's basilisk is powerful and malevolent but Roko herself is well-meaning but not terribly effectual.
• Odd Friendship:
  • She's on good enough terms with Melon the Cloudcuckoolander that Melon has her apartment door code.
  • As of here, also with May the convicted felon, whose respect Basilisk earns by quitting the police force because she no longer believes she can do any good in it.
    Basilisk: You can call me Roko if you want.
    May: [holding out a hand to shake] May. Although I also answer to "hey fucker" and "god damn it".
    Basilisk: Your friends call you that?
  • Now, of all people, Spookybot.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Roko evidently feels that she needs some kind of romance. Unfortunately, the dating app she tries matches her up with Pintsize. While she has some odd quasi-sexual tastes and he's offering to cater to her bread kink, he's not what she was looking for.
• Take This Job and Shove It: Basilisk decides to quit being a cop, is persuaded to give it a day and think about it, and goes to work; but then can't live with the fact that she felt compelled to persuade a civilian that she wasn't going to punish said civilian for being disrespectful to her.
  Basilisk: Oh my god fuck this!
• Tinman Typist: Downplayed, compared to Beepatrice: Roko prefers to "work externally" but not if it gets in the way of efficiency.

Beepatrice

A worker at a nonprofit organization for AI rights. Formerly its boss, due to everyone with seniority eventually leaving, but passes the role on to Roko. She also lives in the apartment building Renee and Brun eventually move to.

---

• The Alleged Boss: Very nice, very well-intentioned, completely incompetent.
  • Roko pretty much takes over the office just so anything actually gets accomplished. Beeps doesn't mind. In fact, she ends up begging Roko to officially take charge.
  • What finally tips the scales is when she takes on Winslow as a volunteer. Her first task for him is to fill out all their non-profit paperwork, which she has printed out on the office printer. Winslow points out that he could have done it on their computer, but Beepatrice admits that it took her two hours to get the printer to work, and she was so proud of herself, so Winslow agrees to do it by hand. Beepatrice then realizes that they have no pen, so she goes to a pen store and returns some time later having been sold a $200 fountain pen. Roko is aghast, and just orders Winslow to fill out the paperwork digitally, and Beepatrice is so ashamed of herself that she promotes Roko to being her boss, "so I can beg you not to fire me."
  • It turns out that she never even wanted the position; the only reason she's in charge is because the last boss stepped down and the remaining workers drew straws to see who'd take their place (and Nelson rigged the game so he'd lose).
• Cloudcuckoolander: Beeps’ ditziness and ineptitude sometimes tip over into outright flakiness, as when she turns a presentation to a local company’s management into, literally, a song and dance routine.
• Conspiracy Theorist: As noted below, she thinks there are secret bases on the moon communicating with alien AIs. And that the same people who are hushing this up are also keeping the truth about what's under the sea from us.
• Covert Pervert: Is rather "interested" to learn about Roko's bread fetish. Also, her main job is quality control for a sex toy manufacturer, although they don't see anything too weird about that; the sex toys are for humans, after all. Beeps later admits that she "idolizes" Roko, so there may have been an element of Crush Blush in this. She does however have at least two graphically sexual t-shirts, which are probably free giveaways from her day job.
• Crazy-Prepared: Owns a large, mechanical crank, in case she's ever "in a survival horror type situation." Conveniently, it is the same type of crank that Melon uses to get drunk; goes in her ear, if you're curious.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Not physically clumsy, but her technological ineptitude has led Roko to refer to her as "endearingly incompetent".
• The Ditz: Her heart is in the right place, but her brain is often out to lunch.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Is referred to with "they" pronouns a couple of times when first introduced, but has since consistently been referred to as "she".
• In-Series Nickname: Called "Beeps" for short.
• Luminescent Blush: When learning about Roko's bread fetish, her entire faceplate goes red.
• Moon-Landing Hoax: Inverted. She believes the moon landings had to have happened... how else would we have built the secret bases on the dark side to communicate with remnant AIs from long-extinct alien civilizations?
• Piss-Take Rap: Tends to drop into one of these whenever she's trying to cheer up Roko. It does not work.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Downplayed. She is technically Roko Basilisk's boss, but is so mild-mannered and technologically inept that she's largely ineffectual. As of this strip, apparently no longer Roko's boss.
• Tinman Typist: Prefers to "work externally". This comes back to bite her.

Nelson

The "capable underling", whose model is similar to Pintsize's. He serves as the non-profit's attorney.

---

• Fixing the Game: It's implied that, when he and Beeps drew straws to see who'd be the next boss, he rigged the process so he'd lose. He really prefers being the capable underling.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: While not as strong a presence as Roko, mainly due to wanting to remain in a non-leader position, he's quite talented in comparison to Beepatrice, earning many "of the month" photos (and can apparently also fish).

Agatha

The custodian, who happens to also be a giant robot bear.

---

May's Support Group

Gordon

A jumping spider drone the size of a human head. He's often seen in May's support meetings, as his confidence is hurt by people being scared of the form he's chosen. He also works for AnthroPC Companion Connections, and his presence while Martin's autonomic responses were being analyzed may have factored into why his "best match" was Pintsize.

---

• Spiders Are Scary: This seems to be the opinion of everyone he interacts with, which has affected Gordon emotionally.
• Unnecessarily Creepy Robot: Whatever designer thought it would be a good idea for a robot whose job requires him to actually sit on a human's head should take the form of a giant spider should have been fired. Poor Gordon himself doesn't seem to understand why humans find him creepy, which causes him emotional distress.

Punk Robot

A currently unnamed punk robot. He has strong opinions about the music genre, rebels to deal with anti-robot sentiments in his life, and is a fan of Sam's marker tattoo service.

---

• Face of a Thug: Despite looking fairly gruff, he's been nothing but pleasant to everyone he's interacted with, which is Truth in Television for most folks in the Punk scene. He was even willing to enter THE HUG ZONE.
• Fantastic Racism: Mentions in therapy that his boss called him a "tin can with a shitty attitude".
• Nice to the Waiter: Insists on tipping Sam for his new spray on top of the agreed-upon payment, because "you always tip your artist".
• Small Role, Big Impact: He was the one who first inquired about the random doodle of a beefy arm that Sam drew on Punchbot's temporary patch job, which led to Sam's becoming a "spray artist" at Union Robotics. This side-business is constant enough that it accounts for most of the shop's steady income, especially on slow repair days.

Cubetown

Moray X- 21

The Director of Sentient Resources at Cubetown, the AI-built community where Claire applies for a librarian job. She is a rather eccentric robot who's evidently made of sentient goo in human form with constantly shifting blobs of colour inside herself, rather like a lava lamp, and she appears to never wear clothes.

---

• Cloudcuckoolander: She gives Claire a job interview over the phone without giving Claire time to prepare, and indeed while she (Claire) is standing in an alleyway behind the coffee shop. In said interview, when Claire starts to ask a question about "your information science department", Moray excitedly says "Ooh, that sounds like exactly what we need!" and promptly offers Claire the job of running a department the idea of which only just occurred to her.
• Foreshadowing: Is introduced as Director of Sentient Resources; the only other "Director" position identified as such in Cubetown is The Director, as in The Director of Cubetown, who oversees the entire facility.
• Genki Girl: Is very... enthusiastic during Claire's job interview; you'd think she was trying to befriend the young lady rather than hire her, and in fact wants to keep talking even after plans are set for Claire's visit because she was having fun. At one point she gets so excited she literally springs a leak. When meeting Claire and Marten at the airport, she has to physically rein herself in because of how excited she was to meet them in person, which included at least one glomp.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Appears to be this, cheerfully conducting a job interview while naked while a clothed human janitor mops up in the background. Though, amusingly, when she does don a T-shirt (which apparently won her first place in Cubetown's first annual Wet T-Shirt contest — her goo body is 94% water, after all) Liz observes uncomfortably that it makes her look even more naked.
• Literal-Minded: Just after Claire accepts the job of creating an information services department for an organisation whose mission is to "research everything", she murmurs "Oh god what am I doing". Moray looks concerned, and replies "This is a job interview. If you're experiencing memory problems, you should probably go to the hospital."
• Mauve Shirt: Most Moray units tend to be reabsorbed and reintegrated into The Director after the task for which they were constructed is completed, or earlier if they deem it necessary; one was apparently squashed by a falling cargo container and after reforming decided the world outside was too dangerous. X-21 is one of the rare few who chooses to remain seperate from The Director. For her part X-21 is much more thoughtful about reabsorbtion than 44 was.
• Slime Girl: Her body is entirely made up of a jelly-like substance in a female humanoid form.

Evanescent Incinerator

An AI who's head of autonomous security at Cubetown.

---

• Deadpan Snarker: At least, when she's on duty and neither flustered nor half-asleep.
• Deceptively Human Robots: After Bubbles, who looks like a a very tall, heavily muscled, dark-skinned human woman, Evan is the next most human-looking robot in the strip so far, with only her neck seam, her pink irises and her randomly-assigned name giving away the fact that she's a robot.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Is horrified by the thought of carrying one, let alone actually needing one. Instead she carries a squirtgun which she insists is much more practical, and uses the remaining pouches on her tactical gear for various snacks. Marten goes with fruit leather, but she also has granola bars!
• Fair Cop: She's head of security and rather attractive.
• Hidden Buxom: In her security uniform, Evan appears to be flat-chested. Outside of it, she has an impressive chest which seems bigger than Moray's. Justified in that her vest would be concealing and restrictive.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Played for laughs in her case: she tells Claire and Marten that her name was randomly generated, and they should just call her Evan.
• Neat Freak: A minor case, but she spends so long rearranging the bedsheets in the guest room that the guests walked in on her, she panicked and hid on the balcony.
• No Social Skills: Zig-zagged. She takes her duties as head of security seriously, but flusters immediately at the implication that she may have been planting surveilance equipment in Claire and Marten's guest quarters. The fluster only continues as this ends up being the last straw for Claire's patience with Cubetown, and while Even leads them—mostly Claire—down to meet the Director, she asks that Marten stay with her because the Director's area creeps her out. Later on, however, when she comes to the bar (and is no longer suffering from "sleepyhead disorder", she's comparatively laid-back and quite the Deadpan Snarker.
• Odd Name, Normal Nickname: She usually goes by "Evan".
• Sleepyhead: Evan gets exceptionally groggy. Moray specifically says that Evan has "severe sleepyhead disorder."
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Evan considers it a routine part of her job that she may have to "talk down a scientist who's decided it's their turn to blow up the planet".

The Director

The Director of Cubetown. Big ol' glowy robot jellyfish. Wants to research and understand everything. Results thus far have been mixed.

---

• A Form You Are Comfortable With: In an attempt to better communicate with Claire, they construct a "facilitator" identical to Moray X-21 called Moray-44. If this is their primary method of relating with most folks, it would explain Cubetown's latent oddity.
• Cloudcuckoolander: By far the weirdest character in the strip thus far. Yes, even weirder than Melon. They live deep enough in the sea that the local sealife is disturbed by light. Their declared goal is to research everything to figure out everything, and organized a research facility that tends to attract like-minded eccentrics. They attempt to hire Claire to be their librarian/Head of Information Science/Data-Mistress based solely on the criteria that "SHE SHOWS PROMISE". And oh yeah they're a big glowy jellyfish.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: That said, they are capable of great leaps of lateral thinking that lead to amazing scientific breakthroughs, the most dramatic of which was finding a link between "computational fluid dynamics" and "algorythmic paper clip sorting" (whatever those are) that resulted in the ability to construct Moray units. Plus, it turns out that Claire might very well be perfect for the position she interviewed for, it's just that none of her qualifications are on paper.
• Hidden Depths: ...Forgive the pun. The Director comes across as aloof and almost totally alien to other characters, but have apparently made "learn everything" their life's purpose, and the Morays they construct and whom share a portion of their consciousness are all uniformly overjoyed and excited to advance that goal. The Director might very well share their zeal and excitement for learning and experiencing new things, but simply be incapable of expressing it- Moray-44 mentions that The Director loves to learn new slang.
• Mind Hive: A result of constructing and reabsorbing Moray units is that all their experiences live on as part of The Director; this is apparently how The Director learns new information.
• Strange-Syntax Speaker: Doesn't speak in sentences so much as groups of words. Is also very loud, but that may be a result of being so large. Talking may be difficult for them, what with being a jellyfish and not having a mouth and all, hence the "facilitators".
  THERE HAS BEEN - SOME DISCORD - REGARDING - YOUR VISIT?

"Facilitators"/Moray units

A series of Slime Girl A.I.s used by The Director to "facilitate" communications with other sentients. Some stick around for a while, others only stay for as long as a single task.

---

• Angst? What Angst?: Once her task is done, 44 allows herself to be reabsorbed with little more than a passing comment to Claire about being cool with it.
• Applied Phlebotinum: The non-Newtonian liquid processor substrates that allow Morays to exist are a technology that The Director came up with on their own, hence Cubetown is the only place that has Moray units.
• Cast from Hit Points: The Director constructs them by dispensing some of their own substance and forming it into an AI. Each Moray unit is literally part of The Director.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Don't wear or apparently have much use for clothing save for lifevests during boat trips; it's probably for the best, as it'd leave The Director's visitation area looking like the rapture when enough Morays got reabsorbed.
• Made of Indestructium / Made of Plasticine: The fact that they're each a puddle of slime that walks like a girl allows them some flexibility in the durability department. X-21 lets a child at the airport stick his arm clear through her head with no ill effects, and another one was apparently just fine (aside from emotional damage) after being splatted apart by a shipping container, they just had to find all the bits of goop and smoosh them back together. That said, at least one was eaten by a whale and couldn't just shrug it off.
• Mouth of Sauron: The Director has trouble with interpersonal communication, and created the Morays to serve as their go-between, each of whom share some of The Director's consciousness, and The Director seems to only produce them as needed.
• Perky Female Minion: The role they serve to The Director. They are all uniformly exhuberant in comparison to The Director's apparent expressionlessness.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Some Morays ask to be reabsorbed early, even if the task they were made for wasn't completed: Moray-64 was squashed by a shipping container and tapped out as soon as they could put her back together.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Moray-44 only sticks around for the duration of Claire's meeting with The Director. According to X-21 this is not unusual, with Morays like her that stick around being the exception rather than the rule.
• You Are Number 6: "Moray" is less a name than a overall model designation, thus X-21, 64, and 44 can be considered their "actual" names. X-21 confirms in a later strip that each facilitator chooses their favorite number, so the designations are not even sequential; yes, there was a Moray-42069. She was the one that got eaten by a whale.
  the cubetown discord is completely unreadable

Elizabeth Appleboom

A child prodigy scientist who somehow got simultaneous PhDs from Harvard and M.I.T. and now works in Cubetown, where she is apparently not popular.

---

• Adorably Precocious Child: Invoked in that Moray thinks Elizabeth is this, but Elizabeth very much resents it. For her part, Elizabeth insists she's an adult now, "just short", hence the lab coat that is clearly designed for someone a foot or so taller.
• Artificial Limbs: Both of her arms are artificial.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Her insistence on being an adult and not a child only intensifies this.
• Can't Hold Their Liquor: Considering Liz is extremely small, has two artificial arms (which means she has less blood volume), and had not consumed alcohol before, it's justified how quickly she gets inebriated on her first beer.
• Friendless Background: A more serious example than most of the cases in the comic - her lack of social skills, Moray's attempt to respect her boundaries, and the whole ... thing of Cubetown, meant that when she started spiraling from lack of direction, there was nobody there to even notice, much less help, and when Marten finally steered her into Claire and she did get help, she broke down in floods of tears.
• Hates Being Nicknamed: Despises being called "Lizzie" as she thinks it's too childish.
• Hypocrite: Hates being nicknamed, is more than happy to give embarrassing nicknames.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Liz is acutely aware of her age and social awkwardness, and reacts by being an arrogant jerkass.
• Innocently Insensitive: Borders on this and Jerkass — she doesn't generally mean any harm, she's just horribly, horribly tactless. And that's on her good days.
• Lack of Empathy: She's not very good at considering other people's feelings, as part of her whole No Social Skills thing, and when Claire outright asks if she might consider how what she might say might impact others, her instinctive response is that she doesn't feel like she should scrutinise every word that comes out of her mouth, but knows this won't go down well. A tired Claire gives her points for honesty. She's aware of this and that it's technically an issue, but she just tends to consider herself a terrible person.
• Mad Scientist: A nascent or perhaps borderline-realistic case; her combination of genius and total lack of social skills makes her downright enthusiastic about discussing deranged ideas like shooting people into Jupiter (as an experiment, which she then rejects as having no scientific value). Hanners notes that there were people like her on the space station when she was growing up, to which Liz replies "That's horrible. No one should be like me."
• Meaningful Background Event: Begins tailing Claire, Moray, and Marten as soon as they leave The Director's area. She can be seen in several pages before making herself known to Marten.
• No Social Skills:
  • She introduces herself to Marten by whispering to him from behind a barrier that she knows where he can get coffee, which spooks him. She compounds this by insisting "I have a perfectly normal amount of social skills" while still hiding behind a barrier.
  • During her flashback, she introduces herself to her prospective new coworkers by saying that she's not a child now, she's an adult and that she was smarter than all of them.
  • Tells a recovering alcoholic "Don't drink, not my problem" to their face while trying to throw an underage drinking party. Faye reacts appropriately. Oh, and this is after staring at and making a number of comments about Bubbles' breasts. When Claire catches up with her, she's a bit flabberghasted and tries to coax her into seeing other people's point of view.
  • Also applies to herself with her excess pride in her intelligence covering for the fact that she uses some very severe self-loathing of regarding herself as an inherently terrible person as a coping mechanism to avoid personal growth. Elizabeth appears to have been unaware or in denial that this was an extremly unhealthy coping mechanism.
• Pride: As seen in the above flashback, this is part of her flaws, having resulted in a chronic inability to ask for any sort of help up to and including calling a plumber to unclog a toilet. Given that she also has a truly terrible sense of self-worth deep down, it seems like a textbook Inferiority Superiority Complex.
• Robosexual: Possibly.
  • When drunk, she is extremely excited by the thought of Evan’s large breasts, and when Evan shows up at the bar, Elizabeth exclaims “Titties!” and demands “Put me in your cleavage, I’ll ride you like a power loader”.
  • Later on (and while completely sober), she spends several panels staring at Bubbles' breasts while making up pet names for them. Bubbles is not impressed.
• Teen Genius: She got simultaneous doctorates while still in her teens. Still barely qualifies, as she's 19 by the time she appears.
• Trash of the Titans: Her office is shown accumulating a veritable pool of trash from not cleaning from the time she starts at Cubetown.

Other Important characters:

See Questionable Content Other Characters for other important characters and minor characters