Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT 7-11 January 2019 (3911-3915)

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Case:

--- Quote from: Cornelius on 07 Jan 2019, 23:26 ---On the other hand, I think the point Case tried to make was also that there is not necessarily one central conflict in QC, or overarching plot. Which is probably true. We don't need to hold onto the story as it started, as that's ended; we're still in its continuity, but the story has gone elsewhere.

--- End quote ---

"Yeah, what Cornelius said."  :-D


--- Quote from: Tova on 07 Jan 2019, 18:46 ---I think that this throughline has in fact set up an expectation among the QC audience that there will be dramatic arcs within the overall setting of the daily slice of life. And I get the impression occasionally that one is being set up. Often, I don't comment on this when it appears to be magically resolved because it is always possible that Jeph is playing the long game. He certainly did that with the slow burn of the Marten/Dora relationship, where they would 'talk it out' periodically and it would kind of appear that the issue was resolved, but of course it was not. And while Jeph has resolved the external conflict of that story, the internal ones largely remain.
--- End quote ---

True. Then again, such is life. People leave things unsaid, and then the chance to say them is gone, conflicts never get resolved etc. Don't get me wrong - I hated Lost for pretty much that reason. But that's not the expectation I have when I engage with QC. Maybe it's really just that: I'm willing to tolerate more lose ends, unresolved conflicts etc. than some other folk, because that is congruent with my experience of (un-sliced) life.


--- Quote from: Tova on 07 Jan 2019, 18:46 ---I think in the case of the current storyline, people have begun to expect - as I guess you've seen - that Jeph is preparing to tell a story that is a metaphor of the experience of gender dysphoria. I know at least a couple of people expressed a hope for something along those lines. The most recent comic appears to suggest that, in spite of somewhat slipshod counselling, this may not happen after all - that, to paraphrase Lemon, she will simply be fine. And HEY LOOK THERE IS A NEW COMIC it also does look as though the changes to her new body are pretty minor. I am still holding out hope that the story might still follow through with its promise. In the words of Roko, maybe we just need to give the comic a moment here.
--- End quote ---

Actually, I think it was just one poster who expected/hoped for a gender-dysphoria metaphor: Yours truly. (ZoeB was kind of ambivalent, iiirc)  :-D

Otherwise, nothing to add, except maybe one wild idea:

I have a hunch that our perception of the comic is warped because we're not reading it the way it's 'supposed' to be read. We come here, more or less daily, read one comic, and then bicker and deconstruct that one comic for a whole day.

That's not the way you read the comic when you first discovered it, was it? Many people's first post in the introduction-thread is something like "Hi! *pant* I just finished binge-reading from start to 3271 and BOY! And there's a forum, too! Shiny! Hi guys!" That's pretty much how was for me - four days of gleeful binge-reading, and ever since ... time ... has ... slowed ... down ...

And people who buy the books don't read the comic in that page-by-page-overanalysing-for-a-day style, either.

We're perceiving the comic in a sort of bullet-time. And we use that 'extra time' to come up with endless speculations (and expectations) of how the plot might continue - some have even made a sport out of predicting the next comic. That's not how you'd read the thing if you'd read it from start to current comic - you wouldn't have the time to speculate so much.

Maybe the intensity of the "frustration of expectations (purportedly set up by Jeph)" is, to some degree, owed to us having too much time to think about what to expect next.

Near Lurker:
...was Crushbot's insurance that generous, or did she just make a really bad decision for an unemployed former cop?

...hell, since it was implied she got a flat payout, even if it was that generous, she just made a really bad decision for an unemployed former cop.

BenRG:

--- Quote from: Near Lurker on 08 Jan 2019, 06:03 ---...was Crushbot's insurance that generous, or did she just make a really bad decision for an unemployed former cop?
--- End quote ---

It's implied that, Crushbot's insurance was that generous. Lemon's only caveat was that most tech blogs reported that the Philomena-G wasn't worth the extra $20k but Roko felt that a near-death experience left her deserving the very best model and a butt tattoo.

I doubt that Jeph will ever let us know what it is but I'm hoping that the logo is something utterly ridiculous like a winking double-thumbs up with tongue poking out emoji or something similar.

Mr. Doctor:
Well, call me weird or whatever but if I had the opportunity to get the same (or almost the same) body after a devastating accident, I would totally wanna keep at least a part of my former body just out of morbid curiosity. Talk about a conversation starter!

hakko504:

--- Quote from: Near Lurker on 08 Jan 2019, 06:03 ---...hell, since it was implied she got a flat payout, even if it was that generous, she just made a really bad decision for an unemployed former cop.

--- End quote ---
Now, on the other hand, how much money does she need? Rent, electricity, water, internet. No food. Well, except bread for 'the birds'. Her salary as a part of the policeforce should have enabled her to save some money each month. Even assuming that she hasn't been a cop more than a year or two, she should be OK for a few months at least, maybe as much as a year or two depending on salary and rent. I think she sees this as her last big spending point before a longer time of being careful with money, and while the money she added for the model G could have kept her alive for a couple of months extra, she's not worse off now than she was before the accident, and in a newer body.

Speaking of rent: If many AIs have their own apartment now, shouldn't that cause a shortage of homes? We've seen both Roko and Melon&Arthur have their own places. What about all the others that have frequented Union Robotics? Some of course co-habit with humans, like Momo, May, Bubbles & Winslow with human sized bodies, and AFAIK all small bodied AIs like Pintsize. How many AIs exist in this universe anyway? How many humans?

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