Marten Reed, an indie-rock fan living in Northampton, Massachusetts with an adorably sociopathiclittle robot, runs into a girl at a bar, Faye Whitaker, a barista who's just moved from Savannah and needs a friend, but adamantly no more than a friend. She then accidentally burns down her apartment building while making toast and needs a place to live— namely, Marten's couch. Before long, he meets Faye's sultry, gothy boss Dora Bianchi, and they have fun, hang out, and joke around.Then, beginning at strip 500, everything changes. The strip eventually got to the point where it shifted from having Marten and Faye as the main protagonists to having a full-fledged Ensemble Cast. And then just when you thought everything was safe, everything changes again at strip 1800. Only this time, where the comic is headed next is even more uncertain.One of the most prolific webcomics out there, with 2000 installments and counting, QC has evolved into a humorous ongoing chronicle of the lives of a group of twenty-somethings, as they deal with life, fall in and out of love, and maintain a healthy level of sarcasm. Would almost be a slice of life comic if the cast didn't include a handful of cute lil' robot sidekicks.QC updates every weekday, with remarkable consistency considering that Jacques has no buffer whatsoever and usually draws the comic—on live webcast—that night. The comic itself can be found here, and the character sheet can be found here.Two print collections are currently out, featuring re-lettered and sometimes re-drawn versions of the first arcs.
Many semi-regular character relationships end up this way, but as it IS a webcomic with Loads and Loads of Characters, this is to be expected to some extent.
Faye, who acknowledges that she used to be "a bitch with issues" but is now just "a bitch" used and sometimes still uses Marten as a punching bag for no reason. It's sort of lampshaded (the trope in general, not Faye's treatment of him specifically) by Marten here. And Faye beats up on everybody, regardless of gender, but when she goes too far she's always put in her place, and she goes to therapy and actively tries to be a less crappy person despite her issues. Marten takes a lot, but he won't let her seriously hurt him, and he often hits back with his own brand of snarking.
The VespAvenger hunts abusive boyfriends, but the main cast doesn't think it's acceptable. They lampshade it by suggesting that a guy on a Harley who beats up abusive girlfriends would be unacceptable, but VespAvenger states she would hook up with such a character.
Momo, a Japanese AnthroPC specifically designed to be animesque, pictured here, here, and here.
Another example is Marigold's adorable little :3 smile in #1465 and #2164.
Word Of God says that one of the biggest influences on QC is Azumanga Daioh. It's not hard to see some of the parallels. He also reads a lot of Yotsuba&! which is by the same author - Marigold even has a poster of her in her bedroom.
Anything That Moves / Depraved Bisexual: Pintsize zig-zags both of these repeatedly. He flirts with/harasses women throughout the comic, steals Faye's underwear, and compliments random women on their breasts, but he has had at least one relationship with another male. Since it was a male robot, it might not count, though. Possibly subverted in that he seemed to actually care about him.
Arson, Murder, and Admiration: Tai thinks that Jimbo's book is "trashy, poorly-written, incredibly sexist towards BOTH genders, and the most entertaining thing I've read all year."
Clinton: JUST YOUR DAD? He helped develop the first true AI! He invented the quasiperpetual myomer! He's the Henry Ford of intelligent machine design! He pioneered sustainable AI-controlled orbital habitats! He designed the microsatellites that keep earth's albedo stable! HE INVENTED THE ROBOT HAMSTER!
Art Evolution: The art style has and continues to evolve, and comparing the newest strip with the first one shows how striking the development has been.
Artist Disillusionment: Jeph generally likes his fans, but he hates his discussion forum due to its tendencies towards Serious Business and Shipping. At one point it got so bad that he openly threatened to delete the whole forum should people keep posting that kind of stuff. He has considerably softened up since then.
Ascended Extra: Angus. He appeared multiple times as a joke character, then popped into focus after Faye dropped Sven. Now he appears regularly, and has important relationships with other characters, particularly Faye.
Short-haired girls. Jeph had to promise when Penelope was introduced not to "cut all her hair off" in an art-style change like he did most of the others (Hannelore once lost nearly all of her hair in mid-conversation with Marten & Steve as Jacques changed his mind on how it should look).
You could count "girls with issues" into the Appeal-factor as well, considering how nearly the entire cast features them. The men are generally more weird and dumb/confused than neurotic.
In interviews, Jeph has attributed to the high proportion of female characters in the cast to his finding female forms more interesting to draw, in contrast to male forms which are more flat and, in his opinion, boring.
Dora is attracted to women, but has never acted on this during the comic's run, other than jokingly, and it's suggested that all her serious relationships have been men. In a funny coincidence, Dora realized her sexual attraction to girls after seeing pictures of a female fetish model - Marten's mother.
Raven also refers to herself as "bi" in a Tweet, although if she is she does seem to lean more toward the Anything That Moves side of things.
Bondage Is Bad: Averted here. And most other times that the subject of Marten's mother's profession comes up.
Bottle Fairy: Partial deconstruction. Faye adopts many of the traits involved (funny accent- her original Southern one, a more comical, boisterous attitude, etc.), but then comes deconstruction- others become concerned for her alcoholism, and parts of her personality are much more reserved. The rest of the cast are better matches- being college-town musicians and young adults in general, they partake in the booze with great regularity. It's pretty much their token "This is how we introduce people to the group" scene now.
Breakout Character: Hannelore won a character poll by a landslide naming her as the most popular character, shocking the author. Quite a ways for what was a supporting one-note character added to an already sizeable cast.
Dora's response to Raven in panel three of this strip comes up again in panel four of this one. Apparently, Raven is convinced Marten's junk is spectacular.
Now, if the plot wasn't Marten-centric, and Marigold and Hanners weren't background characters, we could count this as a Story Arc, but as this isn't the case, it counts as as a Brick Joke instead.
But Not Too Gay: Though perhaps Jeph might change this with Tai trying to ask out Dora now that she and Marten are separated.
But You Screw One Robot: When Marten jokes that he imagines this is how AI was invented, Hanners says she once asked her father (who invented the technology), but he panicked and avoided answering the question.
Faye : You're my boafregh. My boyfremb. You're my borthreim. You're... you're my boyflingDAMMIT I'M SORRY Angus: No no, keep trying! This is way cuter than I was expecting. Raven: I want a boyfling!
Casanova: Sven, who may need to be upgraded to Memetic Sex God. Even the robots want him. Also deconstructed, as he's been showing signs of maturity (or at least boredom) lately; he ignored an attractive girl trying to pick him up while he was eating, then asked the barman for a fresh napkin because, "this one's got phone number all over it". Footnotes also mention that that may have been the THIRD such napkin that night.
Marten and Dora have at least twice come up with ridiculous stories as to why they were running late, one involving a bunch of Kung-fu monks, another a Deathbot 9000 that Pintsize had insulted on the internet. Marten individually seems to have a knack for winding up in situations like this.
Marigold blurts out what she doing after realizing lying about being in the bathroom instead for that six hours is an Embarrassing Cover Up. Marten and Hannelore don't believe it (would you believe she was eating cookies and watching anime with the head of security instead?), and assume she's having digestive problems.
Catch Phrase: The phrase "Hurr hurr hurr!"- meant to sarcastically imitate laughter from stupid or inane people, has been uttered by nearly all of the main cast at some point. Jacques clearly does it himself, judging by newsposts.
Cerebus Syndrome: The strip started as a boy and his robot, but in no time moved to sarcasm and joking about music and music fans, while developing the relationships between the characters before taking a turn for the dramatic about #500, while retaining the joke-a-day format. Jeph lampshades this in the commentary/news for strip #1481.
Character Blog: Marten, briefly; every major character has a Twitter feed. Hannelore even has her own Formspring.
Hanners, mostly due to her being grossed out and/or freaked out by bodily contact. However, it should be noted that she does have a lot of fetishes and is more than interested in romantics.
Children Are A Waste: This is what all the characters except those which are parents of others, obviously) seem to agree on implicitly. In several cases justified since they came from families where... something went wrong. But apparently not even Marten Reed (for example) seems to think that the world needs another Marten Reed.
Sara. Created without any real character, she just vanished after Dora appeared. It became a long-running gag that she was "eaten by an Allosaurus", but no characters would ever mention her after the first 100 strips except in one or two Mythology Gags: in 149 Dora mentions leaving Sara in charge of the coffee shop, and her absence is lampshaded here. Also counts as a case of What Happened to the Mouse?.
Steve lampshades one of his first disappearances when he returns in the guest comic 155, coming gasping out of the hall closet. When Marten asks what he is doing there he says:
Steve:What am I doing here?!? I have been locked in the hall closet for months! Didn't you people notice I was missing?!? Why didn't anyone come looking for me?!?
Raven in particular was focusing on scholastic pursuits, and didn't show up for ages, despite once being a huge part of the strip. As of Strip #1939, she's back and appears to be staying for a while.
Arguably Steve as well; he'll play a major role, then not show up for months or years due to post-breakup alcoholism or secret agent recruitment.
Dark Skinned Redhead: Ellen in older strips: exhibit A; now that the other characters aren't so pale, Ellen's skin is not significantly darker: exhibit B; and Tai.
Dead Baby Comedy: Guest strip artists love to make jokes about Faye's father's suicide. Jeph has gone on the record and said that he finds them hilarious.
Deadpan Snarker: Pretty much everyone, sans Marigold. Even Momo gets in on this.
Luna: I saw... I saw a tunnel of light, with my granddad waiting at the end, waving to me... Marten: Jesus, I thought she was going to go all Temple of Doom on you and pull your heart out through your chest!
Most of the T-shirts sold in the store were first worn by members of the cast.
Jeph has released quite a bit of music under the Deathmøle name, enough for several albums, in fact. It's quite good — wholly instrumental post-metal composed entirely by Jeph.
Deus Angst Machina: Parodied in one strip, and it involves bears, aliens, and the Illuminati.
The Singularity happened (offscreen) in the comic, creating a supersentient AI. The other AIs are pissed that they're not part of it, the humans are a little freaked out but getting over it, and the AI itself just wants to talk to people. It tried talking to dolphins, but apparently they're really creepy once you can understand them.
The coffee shop at the center of the series is called Coffee Of Doom. The sign on its bathroom door says "Restroom of Doom!", exclamation theirs, though they once lovingly referred to it as "The Cave Of 40 Asses".
Double Edged Answer: In comic #2067, Faye gives one because she's flustered and has issues about getting close to people.
Dream Sequence: Here, here, and here. To quote Deathmøle Jacques, "I could do one of these dream-comics for every single character and I STILL wouldn't be tired of the conceit. I am so weird."
Drink Order: As with real-life indie coffeehouses, Coffee of Doom customers are advised not to use Starbucks' faux-Italian size names, at penalty of markup. Over-flavored or overly-pretentious drinks are likewise bad ideas. Though if you're hazing a newbie, anything goes.
Drop-In Character: Hannelore lives in the apartment above Marten and Faye and is a frequent visitor, not just there but eventually to the homes of other characters as well. Inverted here where Hanners comes home and unexpectedly finds visitors.
Dropped a Bridget on Him: Early on Pintsize went on a date with another AnthroPC over the internet that he thought was a "girl", but turned out to be a "guy" when they chatted the day after they had the robot equivalent of sex. Though he wasn't bothered about doing it with an anthropc set to male, just surprised because he was pink.
Drowning My Sorrows: Happens quite often, what with all the issues and drama the characters suffer.
In-universe, Faye calls this on suicide jokes. In response, Angus calls it on jokes about Marigold.
Which she inevitably breaks less than two months' worth of updates later. As the linked comic demonstrates, her casually insulting sarcasm doesn't really have an off switch (aside from having her mouth duct taped shut).
All of the other characters have more-or-less normal backgrounds, as far we've been told thus far. Yes, this is counting Marten's mother's job, as that doesn't seem to have caused Marten any trauma other than the occasional bit of needing Brain Bleach. It does seem to have given him a rather less-than-normal outlook on certain things, however.
Pintsize at one point claims his destructive, belligerent and annoying behavior comes from his American locale settings. He does become very civil and even kind when switched to British English language settings. The characters speculate as to how much of that is real personality change and how much is Pintsize being Pintsize.
Frequently invoked by the characters, with more than a bit of Western-Massachusetts "alternative" condescension.
Dora Bianchi is an excellent example, albeit one in a committed, monogamous relationship. Still, this characteristic reveals itself by her willingness to address and discuss sexual concerns. Interestingly enough, her being an Ethical Slut doesn't stop her from having relationship issues, for example an almost pathological jealousy and suspicion of any woman who may appear to be trying to steal her man, the uber-example perhaps threatening Cosette with a broadsword for innocently revealing that she had a crush on Marten.
Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Faye and Padma kick off an improvised sparring match here. These are two young ladies who work in coffee shops and just met for the first time, you realise. Just don't try it when she's drunk.
Explaining The Soap: Marigold to Hannelore and Angus with Magical Love Gentlemen
Expy: Jeph has mentioned that he designed Marigold to be essentially "an Anglicized version of Konata from Lucky Star."
Eyes Always Shut: Dave, a supporting character who had a brief stint as Meena's ex-boyfriend.
Face Fault: Momo, whose design is based on a generic "moe" anime character, is designed to replicate these; the classic "sweat drop" is achieved by emitting a viscous fluid from underneath the hair, and it's apparently a bitch and a half to clean out.
Hannelore is considered to be the strongest case of this since it's combined with Characterization Marches On - the circumstances under which she was introduced would be out of character for her now. It's referenced later on when Dora asks Hanners, "If you have OCD, how come you have, like, ten earrings and you smoke?". Hannelore handwaves an answer by saying, "Well, a girl has to have some glaring inconsistencies in her life", but later says that she was on very powerful meds at that time, and can just about acknowledge that it happened on her current prescriptions. The piercings are better-explained here.
Pintsize wasn't always /b/ personified. He used to just be kinda silly. This may be explained by the beginning of the comic, when Marten comments on that Pintsize finally has wifi and can browse the internet as he pleases... presumably leading to the discovery of 4chan and all of its horrors, leading to how he is today.
Faye herself points out that she used to be a "bitch with issues", but now that she's in counseling and getting to the root of her issues, she's "just a bitch".
Flash Step: Practiced by Hanners in this strip, to get out of the way of an impending barf.
Angus: I've literally never seen a human being move that fast.
Flock of Wolves: Minor example, but in this strip, Angus describes his job as a Strawman Political - he's paid to take a side in a political debate and lose. Unfortunately for him, one day...
Angus: The guy I was supposed to "debate" with was a strawman hired by the other side. We spent an hour and a half trying to lose to one another before realizing the rally had been double-booked.
Note the record that Faye is checking out in this strip. It foreshadows into this strip, which forshadows this strip. Which Toto song a character likes most, or indeed, whether a character likes Toto at all, seems to indicate compatibility. Thus, Angus and Faye work very well together thus far, while Marten and Dora have broken up.
Gargle Blaster: The vintage whiskey they bought once. Delicious as it was, it glowed and came with a health warning. A guest strip is also centered around one.
Generic Cuteness: Most of the cast is quite young: early to mid-20s., and the parental characters are somewhat unconvincing. For instance, Marten's mom has facial characteristics similar to the core cast, but with a single wrinkle and an older-woman's hairstyle. Dora's father only manages to look his age because he's portly and bald. And Faye's mom looks like Faye with gray hair. Lampshaded when Dora meets Marten's dad, who looks just like Marten with gray hair and tiny lines under his eyes for wrinkles.
Beat Panel looking at Marten's dad Beat Panel looking at Marten Dora:OH MY GOD YOU ARE GONNA BE SO HOT WHEN YOU GO GRAY Henry: Hear that, Maurice? I'm still hot. Maurice: Smoking, darling.
Grapes of Luxury: Dora considers amending her employees' contracts with this proviso.
Green-Eyed Monster: Dora admits that she's been very jealous of Sven for a long time because of how everything seems to come so easy to him with minimal effort, which factors into her emotional insecurities.
Hollywood Pudgy: Jacques has a tendency to draw all his "overweight" characters as merely Hollywood Pudgy.
Faye arguably averted — she's regarded as a very attractive woman in-universe, but is a bit self-conscious about her weight (her rear end is quite large, but this is seen as a plus by many). Many real people have the same hang-ups, so it's a kind of deconstruction of the trope. Oddly enough, Jacques drew Faye with the same build as Dora early in the comic's run, though this has gradually changed due to Art Evolution.
Marigold considers herself fat as well (despite being thinner than Faye — she has really low self-esteem), so counts in her own mind.
I Will Show You X: When Angus compliments his shy, socially awkward roommate Marigold on her haircut, then slips in an affectionate insult:
Angus: So does that mean you're gonna wash it more than twice a year now? Marigold: (not amused) I'll—I'll wash you more than twice a year! B-because you're a stupid jerk! Who smells! Angus: O venom-tongued maiden! Stay your barbs, I beseech you!
Identical Stranger: Happens in Strip 1932, thus chopping the "Penny is Pizza Girl" theory into itty bitty pieces, if the strip was true as shown.
Faye has always supposed to have been quite curvy and big-bottomed. The first hundred or so strips utterly failed to show this, with no discernible difference between her and Dora. Currently she actually fits: made more notable by the fact that the rest of the main cast are built like bulimics (or at least your average indie concert-goer), with the exception of Marigold.
After Marten is invited to dinner by Dora's parents, Dora remarks that, among other disasters on previous dates, one of her boyfriends was distracted by her mother's particularly substantial endowment — "Imagine my head on Heidi Klum's body", she tells Marten. When pressed for details after the meeting, Marten awkwardly confirms to Faye that Mrs. Bianchi's bust is rather generously proportioned. And yet when we actually see her during the date, her chest is at best only slightly larger than Dora's, and in some panels the difference is almost imperceptible.
Also, for as notorious as Pintsize is about wreaking havoc, he almost never seems to do anything more than be a nuisance while on-screen. But then...
Innocent Swearing: In this strip, after Pintsize tells Hannelore that robot swear words come from mashing on the keyboard, she asks him and Winslow what "qwerty" means. They're shocked.
It Amused Me: Hannelore is up front about being crazy, but she's also more than willing to pretend to be even crazier if it would be funny — much to the confused horror of her friends.
As well as Marten and Dora after their breakup, though she's been the only one insisting it would be an easy thing to do. It took Marten weeks before he could properly deal with it.
Lethal Chef: Inverted, Faye's cooking is fine, she's more of a danger to herself when she is in the kitchen.
Like Reality Unless Noted: As pointed out in strip 2071, everything is exactly the same aside from talking robots and androids. (And low-level superheroes, quasi-civilian space stations, and SSTO space travel. Space owls are apparently also at least a plausible lie.)
Loads and Loads of Characters: A strange example, as it started out as very self-contained with four main characters. Since then, Jeph has had at least twenty be in focus at some point, and several major characters have been Put on a Bus.
Loose Canon: The filler comics, which have their own characters and could be said to exist in a world outside of the main comic, seeing as they have Medium Awareness. Although Sweet-Tits did make a cameo once.
Lysistrata Gambit: Natasha threatens to withhold sex from Amir for a month if he doesn't agree to name the band Deathmøle.
Matchmaker Crush: In the earlier strips, Faye was telling Marten how Dora liked him and Dora was giving Marten advice on Faye.
The Merch: Characters will sport a new funny slogan or t-shirt in a few strips, then Jeph will talk about it in his Info post, then it will show up in the Merchandise section. Doing a massive Archive Crawl, you could see this six or seven times in a short span. It ain't called the "Questionable T-Shirt Factory" for nothing.
Modesty Bedsheet: Played straight most times that two characters are depicted having sex, but averted when two characters are depicted AFTER having sex.
Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls: Two female fanfic writers, Tai and Marigold; Tai's stuff is apparently good (she writes a raved-about Harry Potter piece), Marigold's, not so much. After a near miss where lesbian Tai hits on straight Marigold, the latter seeks to make up for the awkwardness by posting a story to Tai wherein Hermione and Ginny "go all the way."
Mundane Utility: One of two possible explanations for caped superheroes who deliver food. A third explanation, speculated about in-universe, is that they are special superheroes whose specific power is delivering food.
Mushroom Samba: "When you say big words, smoke comes out of your nostrils."
My Hair Came Out Green: Raven tries to bleach her hair blond to appeal to Sven, but instead it comes out "all orangey and gross", so she has to settle for dyeing it neon-pink.
Naughty Tentacles: Inverted by Pintsize's doujinshi, "Butt Castle," which is eighty pages of tentacle monsters being raped by schoolgirls. Note that he has published 17 previous volumes. Also played straight with Pintsize's present to Momo-tan.
Nobody Over 50 Is Gay: Averted. Marten's dad, Henry is happily engaged to a guy named Maurice. Also, seeing as he got married and had a son before coming out, he must have figured out his sexuality pretty late in life.
Nobody Poops: Frequently averted with the girls. It's not unusual for their bodily functions to be acknowledged, and Tai was actually shown on the toilet at an . . . inopportune moment.
Female example here.Justified because she did have an actual nosebleed the comic before and she blew a blood clot. The fact that this is a Justified Trope is Lampshaded by the comic title.
Hannelore goes out with Sven just to see what dates are like. Nothing romantic or sexual is expexcted to happen, and it doesn't.
Tai follows Marigold back to her apartment on what she thinks at first is a date, until she offers to kiss her.
Not Good with People: Marigold and Hannelore, type 1. To a much lesser extent, Dora and Faye, type 2.
The Not So Harmless Punishment: Hanners is checking some bookkeeping for her Corrupt Corporate Executive mother, trying to find the source of an error. Faye asks her what will happen to the employee who made the mistake once he's found, and Hanners replies that he'll be fired.
Faye: That's not so- Hanners: Out of a cannon, into a volcano. Faye: Oh.
Odd Friendship: Marigold and Hannelore. One's a shy, sullen complete slob, the other a perky, hyperactive clean freak with OCD. They've become the best of friends.
Off Model: As an artist with an evolving art style Jeph produces comics from time to time where single characters look a bit strange and then return to their normal self in the next one.
When Marigold is introduced, her first words are "Damnit Angus, I told you I have a raid!". Sure enough, it is later revealed that recurring character Angus is her roommate. Dora even says "I thought she said your name earlier!" as if there was only one person named Angus in the world.
And, of course, literally, since there's only one Steve in the cast.
Steve; once a major character, he'd all but disappeared for a year, leading many readers to e-mail Jacques asking about his whereabouts, leading in turn to a Lampshade Hanging strip and a request from the cartoonist to stop asking. The worry was he'd been Put on a Bus. It wasn't the first time, either; early in the strip he disappeared for nearly a hundred pages. Then again, it is Webcomic Time... He returned a few months after a Lampshade Hanging, having had some rather interesting adventures while he was gone.
The above-mentioned Angus McPhee also qualifies, though this is arguably justified by Faye's and Sven's frenemies-with-benefits relationship. He then started appearing as a semi-regular again, and has finally become a regular character, while Sven has slipped into the background somewhat.
Raven has fallen into this as well, as she has not appeared for a long time (between strip 1510 and 1939).
Deathmøle, which finally returned in strip 1985.
Owl Be Damned: Faye blames owls when people wake up after being knocked out by her twice, in strips 150 and 1819.
Paid For Family: Referenced - Hanners once admits that she's secretly worried that the rest of the cast are just skilled actors paid by her (ludicrously wealthy) parents to give her the illusion of a normal life. Faye's response: "Well, if we WERE, we wouldn't be allowed to admit it, so there's not much point in worrying about it, is there?".
Perky Goth: Formerly Dora, although Dora and Raven each abandoned the goth look a long time ago now.
Dora: (listening to music) Why do I suddenly want to dance around giggling like an idiot while a smiling man in a white suit throws confetti at me? Faye: That feeling is what we non-goths call "happiness". This record is its most condensed form. It is like a crack-rock of pure joy!
Pet Homosexual: Scott, Tai, and probably any future bosses Marten will have.
Put on a Bus: According to Word Of God, the following characters have been permanently written out of the strip: "Sarah, Ellen, Nat, any chance at happiness for Marten." There are other cases where this is averted, as some characters will disappear for extended periods of time only to reappear hundreds of strips later.
The Rant: Sometimes rather long and detailed, frequently an indecipherable drawl.
Rapid-Fire Comedy: Sometimes. It's supposed to be a gag-per-day format, aside from strips about relationships and angst. Most jokes are supported by snide comments from somebody else present in the same panel. If the strip features no beat panels and buildups, it can make each panel like that.
Real Life Writes the Plot: A week of unplanned guest comics ran in late October and early November 2011 due to an extended power outage caused by the late-October snowstorms' damage to what were already temporary post-Hurricane Irene repairs to the Western Mass power grid.
Rule of Funny: Most of the crazy stuff that happens, but Hannelore's obsessive-compulsive disorder deserves special mention since, as an OCD sufferer himself, Jacques can hardly be said to have not done the research.
Most vehemently, Marigold/Hannelore, complete with Lampshade Hanging (and Take That) here and more Heavy-Handedhere. Jeph strongly dislikes how "Shippers" invade his forums and try to randomly place homosexuality upon his straight characters.
Faye/Marten. Although put on hold before The Talk and his relationship with Dora, it was specifically sunk here,two strips later, and thesetwo.
Tai/Dora (with perhaps a smidgen of Foreshadowing of a few strips ahead) here, yet another unlikely lesbian pairing, although for once both canonically like women, at least.
Though given how Tai acts once Marten and Dora break up, whether the ship is really sunk is debatable.
Shown Their Work: Fans from the Northampton area are continually impressed by the backgrounds of the city, since anyone familiar with the real Northampton can recognize the slightly-changed version of real places.
Show Within a Show: The manga/anime Magical Love Gentleman; Marigold is a serious fan, and introduced Hannelore and Angus to it.
Slut Shaming: Inverted when Faye sleeps with Sven, she freaks out and calls herself a slut while her therapist reassures her that sex doesn't have to be bad and a casual relationship could be just what she needs.
Spock Speak: Faye did this in the early strips, partly to disguise her Southern accent and partly as a defense mechanism. It went away when she was drunk, and has been phased out completely as she's gotten a better grip on her issues.
Strictly Formula: Mostly averted, though because of its day-to-day life storytelling qualities, the same situations pop up with great frequency. One of the most common plot threads in the series was Dora freaking out on Marten over something, Marten reacting negatively, the two talking to other people about their argument, then both apologizing and making up (this has happened about five times in major arcs thus far). Steve has gone through a few "has awkward hook-up with new girl, they awkwardly go through the first stages of a relationship, then they break up" storylines so far. This is largely Justified considering it's mostly Slice of Life, and real couples do do this sort of thing all the time.
Hannelore has regular therapy sessions, and Faye started seeing Hannelore's therapist.
In the wake of Dora and Marten's breakup, Faye demanded that Dora see a therapist because of the stupidity of her reason for the breakup, which she eventually did.
Took a Level in Badass: At first, it was assumed that Steve's 'bus trip' was the result of a drunken stupor. Then he was more or less validated with this.
Vomit Discretion Shot: Plenty, usually associated with all the drinking everyone does.
Webcomic Time: Some stretches of years can be nailed down to a few days thanks to a particularly long stretch of 'later that day' or 'the next morning'-type events; problematized further by up-to-the-minute music references. When creator Jeph Jacques was asked about this on the comic's forum, he replied "You know how glass isn't actually a solid, but an extremely viscous liquid*
Faye occasionally getting called on what a bitch she's being or some action of hers is probably all that's keeping her from sliding down the slippery slope towards being a complete Jerk Sue. Of course, since a Milholland Relationship Moment almost always turns her into a Karma Houdini, just how much she avoids it may be a matter of opinion.
Marigold, first seen wearing a "YAOI ZONE" shirt, and whose favorite mangas, anime, and fanfiction (as well as several of her own efforts at fanfiction) are yaoi.
And now, Hanners. To quote Deathmøle Jacques, "This cannot be good."
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