| abstract | - The main, or at least central, character of the strip, Marten is an aficionado of indie music who starts off the story by running into a girl named Faye. A few strips later, her apartment building has somehow burned down and she moves in with him.
* Author Avatar (originally if not recently)
* Big Brother Instinct: recently towards Momo-tan
* Blue Eyes
* The Generic Guy
* 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.
* Briefly averted HARD here.
* Non-Action Guy
* Spell My Name with an "S": His name is Marten. Not Martin.
* Straight Man (comedically as well as sexually) Marten's friend and eventual roommate. Inaugurates the strip's shift into Cerebus Syndrome by asking Marten flat-out whether he is attracted to her. Hilarity Ensues, not to mention Unresolved Sexual Tension.
* Broken Bird
* Deadpan Snarker
* Disappeared Dad
* Hollywood Pudgy: Jeph comments on this in a newspost within the first couple hundred strips; he specifically says that she really isn't fat, but she has a bad body image, partly because everyone she hangs out with is skinny.
* The Nicknamer
* Tsundere: She actually wears a shirt saying "Tsundere" from time to time. Purchased by Hannelore here.
* Yaoi Fangirl Dora Bianchi (The Other Dora) 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.
* Base Breaker: Got a strong opinion on Dora and her relationship with Marten? Back of the line is thattaway.
* Benevolent Boss
* Bi the Way
* Broken Bird: She approaches Faye levels.
* Clingy Jealous Girl: At least has bouts of it.
* 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 Fan Girl.
* Doomy Dooms of Doom: Named her coffee shop "Coffee Of Doom". Inside is the "Restroom of Doom".
* Local Hangout: Not her, just her business.
* My Girl Is a Slut: Makes all the sex jokes that (stereotypically) would be assigned to guys.
* Perky Goth: In the beginning, at least.
* Stepford Smiler: Type A. 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.
* Yaoi Fangirl 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.
* Adorkable: C'mon. Look at her be awkward in the oversized sweater!
* Asexual/CelibateHero: A twist on this trope. She's attracted to guys, but really only enough to fantasize about them.
* Beware the Nice Ones: She can get pretty scary.
* 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 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.
* Cloudcuckoolander
* Made worse by her pretending to be even crazier than she actually is in ways that her friends can't tell.
* Crazy Awesome: Normal people just give a simple refusal when they're asked out by a slimeball. Hannelore somehow channeled the voice of an Elder God...
* "Why are you on the ceiling? HOW are you on the ceiling?"
* 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
* Ensemble Darkhorse: Quite possibly the most well-loved character in the strip.
* (spoilered for your sanity) Perverse Sexual Lust: ...yeah, we went there. Besides, Jeph went there first.
* Genre Savvy: She's the one who bought Faye her Tsundere shirt.
* Good with Numbers
* The Insomniac
* Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: though without the personality.
* Messy Hair: It was straight when she first showed up, then she cut it off, and afterwards, for as long as it's been long enough to do so it's been floofy.
* It just seems to be this normally, to an insane degree. In this comic, her hair starts off neat and tidy, but by the FOURTH PANEL, it's right back to messy.
* Actually, come to think of it, in most comics where she has neat hair, it's usually messy again by the end.
* Moe: Like you wouldn't believe!
* Neat Freak / Super OCD: Although she's getting better. She has the classic obsession with cleanliness, and counting to a lesser degree, and she is also scared of everything.
* 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.
* 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.
* Sleepyhead: Can even fall asleep standing up. Often found asleep on Marten's couch during her early Drop in Character days.
* Suspiciously Specific Denial: Hanners is the creepy goddess of this trope.
* Team Mom: Surprisingly, ends up essentially being this, especially to Marigold specifically.
* The Un-Smile: more than once.
* The Woobie
* Yaoi Fangirl 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.
* The Ditz, unless she isn't.
* Does Not Understand Sarcasm
* Embarrassing First Name (Blodwyn)
* Awesome McCoolname - Raven is her actual middle name.
* Obfuscating Stupidity - Occasionally comes across as merely pretending to be ditzy.
* Bunny Ears Lawyer - She eventually 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. Not all the ditziness is obfuscating, apparently.
* 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 - Hasn't been seen for over a year of real-time thanks to going back to school.
* The Bus Came Back. For the summer, at least (which with Webcomic Time, could be several years).
* Really Gets Around - moreso than anyone but Sven. 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 Comic Relief, but in a more sinister way.
* AI Is a Crapshoot
* Anything That Moves: Zig Zagged.
* Evilly Affable: Not exactly evil, but definitely amusingly twisted.
* The Hedonist: To the point of eating cake, in spite of having no digestive tract.
* Intrigued by Humanity: How he explains his 4chan obsession.
* Jerkass / Large Ham: Most of the time, with exceptions.
* Nightmare Fetishist: Pretty much literally, as seen here.
* No Yay: People who go on his twitter often have this reaction.
* Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Winslow's Blue.
* Robot Buddy
* Second Law, My Ass
* Squick: Originally, Pintsize was a physical manifestation of chaos, but lately he's pretty much shifted Out of Focus to the point where his sole purpose is to cause this in the readers.
* Also, his twitter. Cannot stress this enough, do not go there. It will not end well. You have been warned.
* Wacky Guy: Well, robot. 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 a Casanova of the first degree.
* Big Eater: Mentioned here.
* 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.
* Ladykiller in Love: Interestingly, doesn't look like he'll get the girl who changed him, unlike the normal use of this trope.
* Man Child: "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.
* Multiethnic Name: Mother was of Swedish descent, father Italian. Mother insisted on a name from the old country. hence, Sven Bianchi.
* Really Gets Around An anime fan who lives near Dora's coffee shop, and is roommates with Angus. Her room had serious cleanliness problems. Sometimes known as "Mar-bear", which totally isn't confusing when you consider that there's a Marten in the strip already.
* Adorkable
* All Love Is Unrequited: Had a thing for Angus, but has since encouraged him to pursue Faye since finding out about their relationship.
* Animesque (Her arrival has 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.
* 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.
* Cat Smile
* Expy (Of Lucky Star's Konata, can you believe)
* Fan Girl
* Full Name Ultimatum: Marigold Louise Farmer.
* Hollywood Homely
* Hollywood Pudgy
* 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.
* Meganekko
* 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.
* Serious Business: On learning that Dale is a member of the Alliance in World of Warcraft.
* Wrong Genre Savvy (Marigold's mind wanders to strange places.)
* Yaoi Fangirl (Been there, done that, wore the t-shirt)
* 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. Angus McPhee, formerly known as Argument Guy A customer who goes to Dora's coffee shop just to annoy Faye. He has a crush on her. Currently moving up to a bigger role.
* Dogged Nice Guy
* Strawman Political: Not in the comic, but he says he's paid to debate people and lose to make them look better.
* Unresolved Sexual Tension: with Faye, for the longest time.
* They Do
* 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
* Yaoi Fanboy, if you can believe that. (Only mildly, played for laughs.)
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