Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT Strips 3506 to 3510 (19 June to 23 June 2017)

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truestatic:

--- Quote from: danuis on 21 Jun 2017, 21:32 ---I'm a bit confused... Padma and Marten had a weird ending? I thought it was just "Oh, I gotta go west, this was fun!".

--- End quote ---
Oh the weirdest. She was like "maybe I'll hang around a few weeks longer" and he was like "Yippee!" and then she was like "oh man I'm catching feels hardcore and now I'm leaving what a bummer" and he was like "lol it couldn't have happened at any other time i used to be a dick" and then she was like "I'm delaying our date. cancelling our date. not returning your calls." and then he was like " :-(" and then she was like "hey I've been too busy to tell you I've been too busy, and now I'm leaving earlier than I thought rather than later, actually. Like tomorrow. you wanna bang one last time or..." and then he was like "pass.  :meh:" She ghosted him and he was hurt by it, and then he almost certainly hurt her back when she tried to reconnect before she left.

Not a great scene.


--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 21 Jun 2017, 22:15 ---Any chance Claire was putting on an act to tease Marten? She should have resisted the temptation, agreed, but I can see her side too.

She could also be insecure. We've seen her jump to conclusions about relationships before.

(Hey, I can get to be a pedant by distinguishing between a pedant and a pendant).

--- End quote ---
I definitely read teasing as being at least part of the motivation here, but I think she was also very interested in finding out what she could about this chapter of his life that he evidently hasn't been very open about with her. That sort of teasing seems normal to me, and the curiousity seems healthy.

brasca:
Teasing is fine, but fishing for information in a way that will make your boyfriend feel uncomfortable can cause friction.  At least Claire wasn't doing this behind Marten's back and she has insecurities as an excuse.

pwhodges:

--- Quote from: neurocase on 21 Jun 2017, 21:28 ---Claire was speeding down Asshole Highway, but suddenly banked off at the Insecurity exit instead. And apparently she also spoke to Dora? I'm glad to see a resolution to this, but I definitely feel like we jumped a column.
--- End quote ---

And we got to be shown two normal, imperfect characters, rather than the improbably perfect couple that they have largely been depicted as up till now.  Good job, Jeph!

BenRG:
I just want to point out here that this is not a 'happy ending'. Claire has ripped a band-aid off of a very, very big wound in Marten's past. I think that he was genuinely troubled by how things went with Padma and, if Lt. Porter, the security chief on the space station, hadn't called him out on it, I think he would have kept running from it for some time. Having his current girlfriend probing with a relative stranger about it probably was very upsetting and it will likely take him a while to recover his balance.

It is also not a 'happy ending' in that we also see Claire has never got over her betrayal complex that her father's behaviour planted in her psyche. No matter how much she tries to fight it down, there is still, still a part of her that is expecting betrayal from Marten and she can't shut it up no matter how hard she tries. In this, talking to Dora could be a good thing and it could be a bad thing. Dora could have talked about how she's had to fight and ultimately overcome her own insecurities to make her relationship with Tai work, which could give Claire hope. Alternately, she could just frame it as a flaw in Marten's personality: "Oh, he can't handle women with insecurities!" This would only make Claire feel worse.

For what it's worth, it says a lot about Marten and their relationship was that it was his first instinct to comfort Claire. It (unfortunately) says a lot about Claire's emotional troubles that panel 4 really clearly suggests that she's surprised that he did so.

It's kind of weird, and horrible, how these demons in your past can come chasing out of the dark with little or no warning and start tearing at your current life and relationships.

Y'know, people here and especially on the Subreddit accuse the Marten/Claire relationship of being 'too perfect'. I hope that this mini-arc settles this. They both have their demons and flaws; these past two strips remind us that, if they didn't keep working to maintain their relationship, these flaws would probably tear them apart very painfully.

Near Lurker:
The first panel gave me chilling visions of the breakup.

...I kind of hope this ends in Claire getting Padma's number.  Although that would mean humanizing tech bros.

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