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troperville

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toys

• Acceptable Targets: Rather few, even in the "alternative lifestyles" department that most authors would parody or make fun of. Jeph once wrote a three-paragraph explanation apologizing to polyamorous people because of some negativity towards a strip where Tai had problems with the concept, and they're a group nearly everyone else mocks freely. Some of the strip's few real acceptable targets include the slutty (Raven is a fool, despite her Ethical Slut explanation, and Sven is shown as a sex-obsessed cad and man-whore), hipsters (especially ones who take themselves too seriously), indie snobs, and stupid people. The gang (and Jeph) use the word "retarded" a lot, but that's a rather realistic depiction of people in their 20s, and that word gets a pass from most.
  • And country music. Sven may write it, but every single character, and Jeph, rip it apart. Given his usual style of apologising for offending people, it's glaring to people who like country.
  • Don't forget people that don't live by the unwritten rules of small independently-owned "alternative" coffee shops. They should just die.
  • For a comic where Toilet Humor shows up quite a few times, it's kind of jarring that the author scolds women for talking about menstruation.
• And the Fandom Rejoiced: When Raven came back after being Put on a Bus for several hundred strips.
  • The Rant for strip 2178 has the author explicitly stating that he's interested in making "a videogame about webcomics". The plural implies he's considering creating the webcomic equivalent of Super Smash Bros..
• Angst? What Angst?: as yet another continuity nod/callback. Sure, after breaking up with Dora in strip 1799, Marten angsted a lot (almost 100 strips!) before visiting Coffee Of Doom again... only to find out Dora wasn't there. Then, after almost 60 strips later, when the two finally talk again, all Marten does is barely mentioning the fact in the second-to-last panel.
• Base Breaker:
  • Faye and/or Dora. There's a large contingent of the fans that love pretty much everything Faye does and still seems to hate Dora for "stealing" Marten from her, and will basically call for anything up to and including her death or being written out of the strip for evils such as not trusting Marten. Meanwhile, a rather smaller group would point out that if your boyfriend had lived for months with a girl he was hung up on, the girl was the one who said it wasn't going to happen but continued to live there, and when it came time for you to move in with said boyfriend he actually argued for allowing his old flame to keep living there, you might just have a right to some trust issues.
  • Marigold, with fans either considering her to be The Woobie who provides witty references to geek culture, or a festering ball of Wangst whose sole purpose is Pandering to the Base.
• Big Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The 666th strip.
  • The "hell ass balls" couch.
  • Strip 1135 features Dora, Tai, and Marten with random mustaches for Cinco de Mayo. Jeph alluded to it on Twitter and forgot to mention it in the daily commentary, so many people had no clue what was up with that.
  • Also, the Magical Love Gentleman strip.
  • Pintsize tries to invoke one for strip 1337, but it mostly falls flat. Later, this fancy dress incident occurs, which seems like it must be a BLAM, except they still have the suits in the next comic...and then this happens.
• Cargo Ship:
  • Momo-tan x anatomically-correct-Sousuke-doll 4eva!
  • Momo x Sven.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Every appearance of Yelling Bird. This is a representative example.
• Fan Nickname: The line often gets blurred between a fan nickname being adopted in-universe by the characters and in-universe nicknames being picked up as second nature by the fans. "Hanners" is probably the most commonly-used one both in and out of the comic.
• Foe Yay: Dale & Marigold over their Serious Business World of Warcraft rivalry. Dale acts like a boy teasing a girl he likes, and Marigold is in the role of the too haughty girl who dismisses him for completely superficial reasons that seem all too likely to collapse someday.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Way back in strip 108, the author states that Dora flashing Marten off-screen will be the "most risque QC is ever going to get". He was wrong.
• Ho Yay:
  • Marten and Steve, starting with this strip.
  • Marten again, commenting on this strip about how great is Sven's butt just a little bit too enthusiatically.
  • Meta-lampshaded here◊... So many happy shippers.
• Les Yay: Faye and Dora - before Characterization Ensued. Hannelore and Marigold currently, despite - and possibly because of - Jeph himself saying that said pairing is not, was not and never will be happening. Then again, when has Canon ever stopped the shippers? Note that they haven't exactly flirted or anything- they've just hung out and played their personality types off of each other.
  • Marten's comment at the end of this strip probably didn't help.
  • See also this Thanksgiving comic.
    • Now a Running Gag on the comic's forum: whenever a new female character appears, someone will immediately ship them with Hanners and make a Portmanteau Couple Name for them.
  • Faye and Dora have still got it. Evidence!
  • Combined with Does This Remind You of Anything? and Lampshade Hanging when Hannelore stays over at Marigold's house.
  • Faye/Tai
  • Now in Marigold & Tai Flavors.
  • And to round it out, Tai/Dora.
  • Since Momo got her new chassis, there's plenty between her and Marigold.
• Memetic Mutation: #1631 went through this with remarkable speed.
  • That's actually from Jeph's Tumblr account.
• Memetic Outfit: Marten's "TEH" shirt and Faye's bearmonster shirt, to the point that they are wearing those shirts on the cover of QC Volume 1.
• Misaimed Fandom: Apparently TV Tropes writers. Based on Jeph's twitter (Sep 4th, 2009) and news posts on the comic main page, he was so upset from Hanners/Marigold Les Yay shippers that he addressed how stupid he thinks that is in this comic. Of course, he also stated that this page is like "every idiotic comment in his forums on one page". Some writers take this website better than others.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If this spoiler
    Read after the arc starting at strip 500!
    Guest Strip were Canon, Pintsize would have crossed it.
  • Same with these two: also non-canon.
    • Guest strips by Randy Milholland. What did you expect, kittens?
  • He may have crossed it here.
    • More like a thoroughly misguided attempt at cheering up Marten. He makes another attempt later that's in a similar vein, but a lot less traumatizing.
• Moe: This is part of the reason for Hannelore's popularity with male fans.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Tapirs....but Hanners is onto them.
  • For the love of God stay off of Pintsize's Twitter.
  • Number 1437. Just... Number 1437. Rainbows are scary in the right context.
  • "MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP!!!!"
  • Pintsize liked it
  • The guest strip for July 19 '10. Gah. Done by the author of Dead Winter, of all people.
  I want to taste your nightmares!
  • Hanners of all people gets one now assuming she isn't kidding.
  • Fifth panel here. Dammit Jeph...
  • Blatantly invoked by Martin's hairstylist's art project. Thankfully it combines this trope and Nightmare Retardant in the last panel.
• Squick:
  • Pintsize's thumb-toes.
  • As seen at CargoShip.
  • Double (and somewhat meta) example: Raven's choice of hair product, and Faye's description thereof.
  • Pintsize's interesting reaction to Marten and Dora's breakup.
• Tastes Like Diabetes meets Moe: ''This'' strip, last panel.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Hannelore's status as The Woobie makes her reaction to Marten and Dora's breakup pretty much a given.
  • And there's the masterful use of beat panels at the end of strip 1642. If you need the strip beginning the chain of events leading up to it, start reading from strip 1628 onwards.
  • The entire Love Confession sequence between Station and Hannelore (starting here and ending here).
• Unfortunate Implications: The assorted robots are intelligent beings who are bought and sold as property. Probably best not to think about that too much.
  • Said robots are perfectly fine with having no civil rights because that also means no legal responsibility for their actions. Given their penchant for wacky hijinks and property damage, they may have made the right choice. Also Clinton's questionnaire asked about a bill trying to be passed to give sentient life equal rights so obviously it's happening but so far in the background we don't hear about it.
  • Author's Saving Throw: In the blogtext for strip #1996, Jeph establishes that they aren't really bought and sold, but rather it's a voluntary contract which the robots can break at any time. The instances of people abusing the robots without their consent still come off a bit creepy, but this is progress.
• The Woobie:
  • HANNELORE. You just want to hug her, except that would only distress her more. Her childhood carves her Woobie status in stone.
  • As of #1483, Momo. "S-SQUIRREL!"
  • Marigold too. So moe.
    • Marigold is starting to go beyond merely woobie-riffic and into outright tragic on a level that would make Faye jealous.
    Angus: You shouldn't like a guy just because he's nice to you.
    Marigold: Why not?
    Angus: Well, I mean, what if he's only doing it so he can get in your pants?
    Marigold: I'd settle for that.
    • And then the follow-up...
    Angus Jesus, Marigold, are you trying to GUILT-TRIP me into making out with you?
    Marigold: What? No, no! I just - no! I'm sorry! *Beat Panel* Would... would that work?
  • As the strip has its source of humour and drama from cruelty to characters, everybody has both their moments as the Butt Monkey and as the woobie. Marten specially, before he and Dora got their break. As Jeph putted it on the author's comment on this Marten-and-Dora-are-Woobies strip: "Awww! Poor Dora. Poor Marten. Poor Mieville, not getting petted by poor Dora."
  • And then in this strip, we see that, despite anything seen around the whammy strip 500, Faye still loves Marten (in the friendly meaning of the word), and the mere thought of him moving scares her to death. You know you want to hug her.