2744: Fanservice

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Fanservice

Title text: I was eventually kicked out of my architectural engineering program because I wouldn't stop referring to HVAC as "the fandom."

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by an HVAC ROCK BAND - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is very similar to 2036: Edgelord and 2654: Chemtrails. In all three of these comics, a modern slang term or just a commonly used word ("chemtrails" was the case in 2654) is used to describe a job, and while the slang or word is technically accurate, it isn't the normally used term for the job. Previously a graph theory PHD was labeled an "edgelord", a reference to how mathematical graphs have edges, but this time a turbine maintenance engineer is called out for doing a lot of fanservice, as in, literally serving/maintaining a huge fan, many of which often use turbines. In the other comic, trails of ant pheromones were labeled as "chemtrails", a reference to how pheromones are chemicals.

Randall has previously touched on wind turbines not being fans, most notably in 1378: Turbine.

Fanservice is the practice of authors to change their characters and/or show characters in movies in ways the audience desires, although this would often go against what the character stands for. It can also refer to other parts of the work, such as excessive use of a nostalgic theme song in a reboot when it otherwise does not make sense.

In the title text, Cueball refers to HVAC (a term for the unified heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems of a given building) as "the fandom." Normally, "fandom" means the group of fans of something, but here refers to a system that relies on lots of fans.

Fanservice is a term often used to describe certain decisions made in TV or film productions that more make some form of knowing nod to the viewers than is strictly necessary to the plot or visualisation of the work. It can just mean inserting obscure details of the work's back-history, to spark gleeful recognition amongst the more devoted fans, or it could be increasing the ridiculousness of character's behaviour (often due to one or other overly contrived reason) to live up to their stereotype. A frequent form of this is the Ms. Fanservics trope, where the more glamorous female characters find themselves in more figurehugging clothing, clothing that actually covers much less of their figure than should be practical or even find themselves shoehorned into a situation where they aren't wearing even their 'normal' skimpy outfit.

White Hat is, in actuality, a person who repairs and maintains air-conditioners, or similar, and thus services fans. He seems quite annoyed by the term that Cueball uses to describe his job. Clearly he has heard this assertion many times before, whether from many different people (who may have thought this was a witty comment) or just many times from Cueball himself.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Cueball stands next to White Hat (apparently a turbine maintenance engineer)]

Cueball: So, I hear you do a lot of fanservice.

White Hat: NO!

[Caption below the panel:] How to annoy a turbine maintenance engineer

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Discussion

I don’t want to be that guy but “I got to the explanation so early that its only 1 sentence!” 172.70.174.43

I also don't want to be that other guy, but while I was composing my "there wasn't anything yet, let's put something there" text, something actually appeared. (Though it just appended my bit, didn't give me Edit Conflict warning.) I'll let someone else mish-mash the useful bits of both fresh-starts together, though. Might be that none of my contribution is worthwhile.

(I took quite a while trying to decide whether to make a joke that if he was a specialist in air-movement devices, without necessarily branching out into any air-conditioning elements, then <something something, insert some useful words here> OnlyFans! So then I obviously eventually decided it wasn't worth it. ;) ) 172.70.90.100 16:47, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

New recurring subject?

First we had 2036: Edgelord. Then we had 2654: Chemtrails. Now we have this comic. They all start with "So, I hear" and end with "How to annoy". So I think that a new recurring subject has been established. I'm thinking it should be called something like "How To Annoy Comics". Silver (talk) 16:40, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Might be best wait for a third one, or more. A category of two is a bit of a stretch. Someone pointed out the prior one, so should be easier to pick up all three+ examples when it becomes a more definite 'thing'.

And if we were to call it "How to annoy" (say) and then the actual third is very similar but actually ends "How to confuse" then the category is already non-descriptive. 172.70.162.46 16:55, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

There are 3 aren’t there? 172.70.38.150 17:40, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

There were two originally (I'd forgotten the chemtrails one, myself, when first thinking of this) and, yes, there's now three identified "So I hear/How to annoy"s. Might have crossed the threshold. But leaving that decision to someone who can do something about it. 172.70.90.253 18:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. --172.70.38.77 18:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I also agreed and could see that there where already 6 comics about how to Annoy. So I think the Category:How to annoy is well named, and should also include those other comics that are not completely similar to this one. And thus I have created the page and made some description. Also this is similar to other categories like My Bobby, fun facts and protip. So I linked to them from the new category and vise versa. --Kynde (talk) 09:26, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. --172.70.42.157 13:29, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Made some rephrasings in the Category (you may have already noticed). I'm also not sure if there should necessary be any "and at this point, we created the category" spiel in describing the category. It seems a bit self-referential.

My ideal way of "explaining the category" would be that the three (or more, given Fan Service is almost exactly the same Cueball vs Annoyed, but with others involved) of the most common form could be listed (chronologically) as being one person saying something that annoys another. If we can be sure it will be promptly updated if/when further core-archetype examples appear (the list of membership is automatic, of course).

Then others (currently Normal + Spiral) could be listed explicitly, if they start to hold similar forms (mathematical plots?), or the fact that there are also other forms is sufficient note. (But this could lead to effectively listing everything twice. Narratively then the auto-list. Breaking out into sub-cats would be better if that got too crazy.)

Ditto with other Categories that have a "And then we realised that..." sort of form. Nicely expounded, often very well written, but I'm not sure it has the right tone. IMO, YMMV. 172.70.162.46 13:43, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Should the connection to 2036: Edgelord be at the start of the explanation? --Purah126 (talk) 19:05, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes. --Kynde (talk) 09:26, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

You know, I always assumed HVAC was "High Voltage Air Conditioning" (though deciding that they should have meant high wattage), i.e. the big strap-on AC units that tends to be found on business/communal buildings rather than a much more simple desk fans and radiators (here in the UK, individual housing tends to not have AC so much, though these days heat-pumps are being integrated into central-heating systems, to look like HVAC units). 172.70.86.128 14:13, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

No, you are thinking of Heating and Ventilation using Direct Current (HVDC). 172.69.138.81 10:53, 3 March 2023 (UTC)