Questionable Content XV: I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS! I Told You This Thread Was Weird

[Morquard]

No, this is actually an evil clone sent by her mother to influence and drive Hanner's friends away from her, so that when she actually returns, she has nowhere else to turn than her! MuahahaHAHA!

[Rodin]

Unfortunately, she seems to have contracted the same "body shape shifting" disease as Dora. Complications from butts disease, no doubt.

Seriously, compare how she looks here to one of the most recent times we saw her.. Or a little further back to catch her when Jeph was still drawing her regularly.

The only way to actually identify her in the current comic is the hair, and even there she looks more like May.

I realize I keep going on about this, but I just really really hate the current art style. There's only a handful of characters who look like they should.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I dunno, she looks quite similar to me in terms of body style and proportions as the last times we saw her, and I'm willing to handwave any differences away with "she's been very active in a way that she wasn't prior".

[VoxRationis]

I think part of it is just that the character design is shifting back towards the disproportionately large heads that typified the very beginning of the script, as part of the cutesy, more stylized artwork that's become general since Hannelore's last appearance.

[Max_Killjoy]

Original Hanners -- https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=517

Other characters for comparison -- https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=516

Dora and Raven have looked a lot alike off and on as the art has shifted.

[Kato]

I'm glad we're back to arguing over art shifts instead of other things
So I guess we'll get a lot of Hanners in the next few weeks? Not that I'm complaining but I expect he'll have to fill in the non-patreons to some degree on what has happened.

Also, yes, magic Kris is magic. And it's totally not the real one or Jeph wouldn't have denied it! The art shift is just a convenient excuse, the real one is probably buried somewhere in the desert.

[Gnoman]

She's been 'cured' of one problem, her phobic avoidance of physical contact. Let's not pole-vault to conclusions just yet.

Besides, making breakthroughs after leaving your familiar environment for a time and breaking out of your normal ruts isn't exactly unbelievable, particularly when she was showing small bits of progress in that direction already.

[John Cribati]

Besides, making breakthroughs after leaving your familiar environment for a time and breaking out of your normal ruts isn't exactly unbelievable, particularly when she was showing small bits of progress in that direction already.

Not to mention this was one thing she was already starting to "get over"- she hugged Marten in a similar manner because she was excited about getting her first job and was a bit surprised with herself over it. This is basically a natural progression that you could expect after a few months of soul-searching.

[Willie the Duck]

Not to mention this was one thing she was already starting to "get over"- she hugged Marten in a similar manner because she was excited about getting her first job and was a bit surprised with herself over it. This is basically a natural progression that you could expect after a few months of soul-searching.

And latrine shoveling.

[mucat]

And latrine shoveling.

So, Hanners, why no hesitation in hugging Dora?

Hannelore: <monty python accent> "She hasn't got s**t all over her." </monty python accent>

[Morquard]

Not to mention this was one thing she was already starting to "get over"- she hugged Marten in a similar manner because she was excited about getting her first job and was a bit surprised with herself over it. This is basically a natural progression that you could expect after a few months of soul-searching.

Don't forget deliberately and planned hugging her father on his birthday

[PhantomFox]

I do like Hanner's moment here, although you could expand it out to Fear in general. Fear is a healthy warning system, but letting it control you doesn't get anything done. Healthy fear teaches RESPECT for dangerous things, unhealthy fear teaches TERROR.

[Keltest]

I do like Hanner's moment here, although you could expand it out to Fear in general. Fear is a healthy warning system, but letting it control you doesn't get anything done. Healthy fear teaches RESPECT for dangerous things, unhealthy fear teaches TERROR.

I just hope that Jeph doesn't use this as a reason to totally abandon all the neuroses that make Hanners interesting. Let her keep her OCD and stuff, just don't have her karate chop people for touching her unexpectedly.

[Max_Killjoy]

I just hope that Jeph doesn't use this as a reason to totally abandon all the neuroses that make Hanners interesting. Let her keep her OCD and stuff, just don't have her karate chop people for touching her unexpectedly.

I'm a bit put off by the implied assertion in the comic that not liking to be touched means something is "wrong" with you and that you need to "fix" yourself or get "help".

[Keltest]

I'm a bit put off by the implied assertion in the comic that not liking to be touched means something is "wrong" with you and that you need to "fix" yourself or get "help".

Hanners went a bit beyond "not wanting to be touched".

[Max_Killjoy]

Going by today's comic, it goes a bit beyond the "touching" thing.

In a way, this pisses me off more than any of the sophomoric political soup-boxing.

Way to "cure" the neuroatypical character and reduce her different mental processes to "something she needed to get over", Jeph.

Wow.

[PhantomFox]

Going by today's comic, it goes a bit beyond the "touching" thing.

In a way, this pisses me off more than any of the sophomoric political soap-boxing.

Way to "cure" the neuroatypical character and reduce her different mental processes to "something she needed to get over", Jeph.

Wow.

It's a bit premature to say that she's 100% 'cured'. If done well, she'll still be herself, but with a new mental tool to help her deal with the stuff giving her anxiety. She'll probably still have the same problems, but will be more equipped to deal with them. If done poorly, yes, she'll lose a lot of what makes her herself. But it's too early to call that yet.

[Keltest]

Going by today's comic, it goes a bit beyond the "touching" thing.

In a way, this pisses me off more than any of the sophomoric political soup-boxing.

Way to "cure" the neuroatypical character and reduce her different mental processes to "something she needed to get over", Jeph.

Wow.

This is hardly a new development. As others have pointed out, her general levels of anxiety over things have been decreasing over the years.

[BRC]

This is a tricky area, and I'm not sure how much I think it will be handled well.

Earlier comics seemed to treat Hannelore's various anxieties with a decent amount of respect. They were certainly framed as Inconvenient in many ways, but she was usually portrayed as a fairly healthy young woman who just had strict boundaries and coping mechanisms. It was understood that you Don't Hug Hannelore, but she wasn't portrayed as a Bad Friend, or as a Tragedy that she didn't like physical contact.


But...okay, so, it's possible to respect somebody's anxieties and phobias as something that doesn't need to be "Fixed", and still celebrate those things going away. If Hannelore was a real person who came back and said "I had this experience, and now this thing I used to have major anxieties about doesn't bother me anymore", I would call that something to celebrate.

But, she's a fictional character, which means that she's inherently going to be seen as some sort of stand-in, and this comic is going to be taken as a suggestion. "If you have OCD, go stand in some Yak Poop and scream until you get over it". Maybe that's not fair to Jeph, but it's gonna happen.

[Kish]

And I thought it was pretty clear from the moment Hannelore was introduced that she considered her obsessive-compulsive disorder a negative she wholeheartedly wished was gone, not a neutral difference.

[Morquard]

Ok, right now it seems like he's going with "Hugs are just hugs, poop is just poop, yaks are just cows" So far I can get behind that. But if that continues with "junk is just stuff, germs are just germs and spiders in the coffee are just extra flavour" it will quickly become over the top. What would be next then? "Sex is amazing, meet my new boyfriend"?

Yes she's been getting better. But at some point the miraculous "cure" of "go find yourself" becomes ridiculous.

[Yuki Akuma]

The idea that a neurodivergent character should stay the way she is, and never pick up new coping mechanisms or progress as a person just because she is 'the neurodivergent one', is appaling to me.

We are not set in stone, never to progress or cope with our illness. We change and grow as people. Neurodivergent characters should do the same, or they aren't properly representative.

Also: it is something to be fixed. It's not fun, to be constantly anxious and afraid of stupid **** nobody else really cares about. If I could go shovel yak **** for a week and be cured I would fly out to the monestary and start shoveling tomorrow. I'm incredibly happy for Hannelore that she's learned to cope with her mental illness, even if she does happen to be a fictional character.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Jeph has severe OCD himself - as do I, in fact - and as a result this is one of the few deep issues where I think he's got enough experience to not screw it up.

Also, Hanners basically just put herself through exposure therapy, which does kind of work. This is remarkably believable and actual character development.

[Rodin]

It helps that she had already been doing a form of this by working at Coffee of Doom. The general public are disgusting, and we see her getting filthy doing the job on a couple of occasions.

So I'm prepared to hold judgement here. It's another step beyond where she had already developed, that's all.

[Wraith]

Way to "cure" the neuroatypical character and reduce her different mental processes to "something she needed to get over", Jeph.

I have to admit, my first thought on today's comic was an internal translation of what it looked like Hannelore was saying: "Turns out, if you just stop and think about it logically, you can just NOT have OCD any more!"

I realise that may have been premature of me, and possibly overly-cynical. Hopefully Jeph will go on to show that this is just part of Hanners' progress, rather than her just being miraculously cured... But I'm not going to be hugely surprised if he does end up closer to the latter.

Jeph has severe OCD himself [...] and as a result this is one of the few deep issues where I think he's got enough experience to not screw it up.

Just like he was also qualified to handle addiction, white privilege and (in his own words) autism and did a stellar job on those story-lines, too?

[Morquard]

Also, Hanners basically just put herself through exposure therapy, which does kind of work. This is remarkably believable and actual character development.

Oh yes totally she did, and it can work. The problem from a storytelling perspective I have with it is "Hanners vanishes from the comic - 2 years later she reappears and is now fixed". We didn't get to see that process and character development.

But yes it's also too early for a final analysis and judgment here, after 2 comics

[Shadow of the Sun]

Just like he was also qualified to handle addiction, white privilege and (in his own words) autism and did a stellar job on those story-lines, too?

Brun as an autistic character is very well done, actually. This is coming from someone who is, you guessed it, also autistic. The addiction/alcoholism? Also done quite well. I've never been an alcoholic, but I'm a problem drinker/binge drinker so...

[Rodin]

And white privilege is something that strikes me as very difficult to write about "from the inside". It's difficult to look at the advantages you receive by existing as the person you were born as, and even more difficult to write about.

I thought Faye's alcoholism in particular was handled very well. We see that she has a drinking problem and that her friends are concerned about it long before it came up as a storyline in its own right. We see her drinking at work and her coworkers being concerned about that long before it became a critical issue. And her drinking problem slowly got worse over time. We've seen her take a lot of effort to get clean and stay clean, and it still crops up as an issue in her daily life from time to time.

Even if it wasn't fully realistic (which I'm not saying either way as I don't know), the storytelling was pretty good and my opinion of it has only improved over time. Something that hasn't proven true of the social issues that Jeph has tried to tackle.

[John Cribati]

Jeph's "problem" is that he's heavy-handed and obvious about things. Which is 90% to do with the fact that this is a comic and that mieans that, on principle, most topics are 1)dumbed down for ease of understanding and/or 2)exaggerated for effect. Should everything be dumbed down or exaggerated? No. Do I have a problem with it? Meh. It's case-by-case.

[Wraith]

Brun as an autistic character is very well done, actually. This is coming from someone who is, you guessed it, also autistic.

That one was more to do with the fact that he is self-diagnosed. I accept that was my own fault, I should more accurately have put the emphasis on "qualified" as much, if not more than, the writing itself. The point I was trying to make being that most of his "qualifications" are personal anecdotes and wikipedia pages, rather than reliable expertise.