One hallmark of this is art style. If you look at the more recent characters in GPF -- Ki's parents, Mercedes De La Croix, and even Trent -- they're done in a cartoonish/Superhero style first seen in the Gamester and CRUDE. If, on the other hand, you look at Dwayne and Nick... and then go all the way back to the very first GPF strip, back in 1998... they look exactly the same. No pupils, wide circle eyes, Nick's ridiculous pontoon boat feet.... as a result, it looks like General Protection Fault is currently set in Toontown, where realistic human beings walk by Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, and we're supposed to just accept that this is the way things are. For another... critical stupidity on the part of the cast that we could forgive when the whole thing was just a lighthearted romp becomes criminal in the post-CRUDE battle world. When Dwayne, whose willing blindness over Trudy literally cost him his business, got him thrown into prison for insurance fraud and arson, and who ultimately had to fight for his life and the lives of the world, decides to hire Trent -- an equally unctuous marketing director who once literally tried to drop a safe onto Dwayne's head, it doesn't make the reader think comedic hijinks will ensure. It makes us think that Dwayne is retarded and has no business owning a business, and one day his daughter Sydney will be wandering the streets, destitute and doing horrible things to survive. And sure enough, Trent is now suing GPF pretty much because he's a bastard, period. We leap over to Trudy on the run, and God help me it's compelling. It's sometimes beautiful -- one really gets the sense of a dark soul reaching for the light, living in the Hell she has created... and then we have a series of strips that parodies the Matrix for no good reason.

And then, there's Nick and Ki.

God help me, there's Nick and Ki.

There is no longer even the slightest glimmer of tension between Nick and Ki. There was once, when there was Trudy in the mix. But Nick made his choice. Tension over. Back before Surreptitious Machinations, there was a truly ham handed attempt to add "sexual tension" when Ki, seeing Nicole pregnant, had her "womb twinge" and nearly went nuts trying to get Nick to fill her full of baby. (Yeah. I think I read that story on Alt.Sex.Stories when I was twenty-two too. It disturbed me then, too. And that was... Jesus, that many years ago?) Now, they're virgins by choice (well, at least they're not having sex with each other. Ki used to go without panties while wearing skirts -- I have to assume she wasn't a nun) and have settled into the most boring routines of marriage -- sexless, joyless connection for years and years and years. This culminated, as you the readers know, with Nick finally asking Ki to marry him in the most pathetically afterschool special-ist plotline ever conceived in a webcomic. Ki's father, who has been a stubborn xenophobe all her life (he still calls her by the name he wanted to name her) proves to be a racist bastard, literally assaulting Nick when he asks for Ki's hand and sending him to the hospital. Then, Ki goes in, has about five minutes of arguing with her father... and he completely reforms, apologizes to Nick, gives his consent and blessing and accepts Nick into the family. It was literally minute twenty seven of a television sitcom and we needed to have Jan Brady learn the true meaning of being a sister, in time to be all better!

(Through this whole plotline, Darlington protested to people responding badly to Oshiro's literally terrible characterization by saying that the plot wasn't over yet -- give it time! Honestly! Only the payoff was simply a setup to let Trudy see Nick propose to Ki... and then leave, in tears, without even swearing revenge. In other words, it was Surreptitious Machinations all over again -- "come on back when the plotline is over! You'll see then!" Only we didn't see anything.)