17: What If

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What If

Title text: I once made an anniversary card for my then-girlfriend with this layout.

Not to be confused with Randall's new what if? blog.

Explanation

This comic features a man and a woman in a romantic setting, surrounded by a fractal combination of love and doubts; a Sierpinski Triangle-like arrangement based on the Apollonian gasket construction. Three circles are drawn tangent to each other, then additional circles are added which are tangent to three existing circles (without overlap), ad infinitum.

Randall's character design wasn't yet fully settled. Considering that Megan arguably was introduced two comics ago, and that the man has some hair, the couple might or might not be interpreted as Cueball and Megan.

Transcript

[A large black circle with white bubbles inside it, filled with hearts, question marks, and stick figure couples.]

What if this isn't everything it should be?

I'm not even sure how I feel

What if I'm making a mistake?

Trivia

• Original Randall quote: "One of my best friends just got engaged. I really, truly think they're going to be very happy together." The friends this referenced are Scott and Sarah
• This is the sixteenth comic originally posted to livejournal. The previous was 16: Monty Python -- Enough. The next was 18: Snapple.

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Discussion

We can infer that it ultimately wasn't everything it should be? Firstly, then-girlfriend could also mean current wife (remember the title text is Randall speaking, not Cueball).

Also, I think that the Fractal nature of the card is to reflect that all these questions, and the actual attraction depicted pictorially, will always be a part of the relationship, staying the same at all "levels" - which, to me, IS the romance.

Randall wrote "then-girlfriend" in 2005-2006, and only got married in 2011. 128.211.198.17 21:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

How is it known that Sarah and Scott are the ones that got married? It's not on the LiveJournal post or in the comic/title text. For that matter, Sarah is only "mentioned" on two pages, this one in un-cited trivia, and another in one-off dialogue; how is it known she's even a friend of Randall's? Would love to either add this information to their pages if it's supported, or remove the clutter if it's unsubstantiated. - jerodast (talk) 13:06, 21 December 2012 (UTC)