Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT May 31st - June 4th (4536-4540)

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Gyrre:
Dammit.
Now I'm mad at myself for not just listing a bunch of noncommittal neutral phrases for the poll (i.e. "we shall see", "time will tell", "let's see where Jeph takes this", etc).

If I think of a different poll, I'll swap it out.

Gyrre:

--- Quote from: awkwardness on 30 May 2021, 21:38 ---
--- Quote from: Farideh on 30 May 2021, 20:28 ---When pranks turn into uncomfortable self-actualization.


Which makes me wonder if the new emotions are tied to the new chassis? How much of that is hardware-specific for AIs?

--- End quote ---

He has shown this kind of emotion before, he hides it but Claire has gotten him to emote like this before. I suspect that it's her ability to get you to be a friend and confess things that you can't confess to others.

--- End quote ---
Is it some combination of her personality, innate and practiced ability, and her personal presentation/appearance that allows her to coax out these confessions?

I have people confide all manner of things to me without prompting, so I'm genuinely curious what the authorial reasoning is beyond 'plot'. I'm barely more than 5'5" (165 cm) and wear glasses myself, but I'd wadger I outweigh Claire by around 100 lbs and have much broader shoulders, as I really do have 'big bones' in a non-euphamistic fashion.[1]

[1] Finally got a competent shoe guy, and my shoe size is a US men's 9½ 4E. But I still have to bump up to a 6E width because weird feet. I have to get a men's 2XL labcoat so I can move my arms more than ~10° forward. My labcoat fits like a long trenchcoat and I have to cuff up the sleeves, but I haven't ripped out the shoulders from any of this set of coats, so I'll deal with it.

jesslc:
Some of the comments in last week's thread reminded me of a theory that I've held for quite a while now but haven't seen discussed anywhere yet. This seems to be an opportune time to put it out there and see what other people think of it.

In my opinion, Pintsize has been shifting over time to being Claire's companion AI instead of Marten's. (By "over time" I mean since Claire started staying over at Marten's regularly, before she moved in). In support of my theory:

1) The dynamic between Claire and Pintsize
Eg. Today's comic, Claire approach to Pintsize's attempts to troll her (the birdseed incident, the wolf urine sticky note), the support Pintsize provided when Claire was freaking out about her exams, Claire cuddling Pintsize when she was anxious that she had messed up with Marten. (Actually I think we've seen Claire cuddling Pintsize twice in the past.)

I feel like Claire and Pintsize's dynamic resembles Marigold & Momo dynamic way more than Marten & Pintsize's dynamic ever did. Not that there's just one way to be a companion AI, but some similarities struck me.

2) Do you remember when we learned ages ago that Marten shouldn't have been assigned Pintsize as his companion AI? Take a look at that mini arc again: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2333

Momo says in 2336 that being scared of Gordon would have thrown off the biometrics and Marten shouldn't have been assigned Pintsize as his companion.

Marten is not really an anxious person in my opinion. Sometimes he gets anxious in response to something (eg Gordon on his head) but most of the time he's pretty equanimous. Claire on the other hand does have a tendency towards anxiety which we see fairly often. For that matter, "has no chill" has been one of the defining characteristics of all the Augustuses since their introduction. I think Claire clearly comes across as someone who has worked on her anxiety a lot and manages it quite well most of the time, but it's still there in lots of ways. (Speaking as someone who's been there - in my experience, you don't really stop being an anxious person, you just get a lot better at managing it).

So Marten, who is normally a pretty equanimous person, was assigned a companion AI at least partially based on biometrics taken at a time when he was extremely anxious. Now years later, Marten has girlfriend who has a tendency towards anxiety and she seems to get along with Pintsize much better than he ever did.

Coincidence? I think not.

The part I can't explain so well is that Dora has anxiety issues too. Though I do see Dora's issues as somewhat different to Claire's. In my opinion Dora's issues seem to mostly be around control and trusting people. Whereas I don't think Claire seems to have a lot of trouble trusting individuals, her anxiety is more generalised.

From a meta perspective, we didn't get the reveal of Marten being inaccurately assigned Pintsize until quite a while after he and Dora had broken up. So it probably wasn't until that point that Jeph gave any thought to what sort of person Pintsize might actually be a good companion for. This, of course, assumes the shift I think I've been seeing is deliberate on Jeph's part - it could just be that I saw a pattern where there wasn't meant to be one. But I have been thinking that it might be a deliberate writing choice and I'm definitely going to take the current comic as further confirmation! I mean - can you imagine Pintsize having this vulnerable conversation with Marten? I can't.  :claireface:

Because of this theory, I don't see Pintsize ever leaving the Marten/Claire household. But if they ever end up doing a long distance relationship for some reason, I think Pintsize would probably go with Claire rather than Marten. Say if Claire got offered a 3 or 6 month contract position to cover someone going on sabbatical/maternity leave/etc and it's on the other side of the country. (I don't know if this happens much in the US, but it's not that uncommon here. One of the public libraries I used to work at advertised a position like this once & I've seen other organisations advertising "maternity leave contract" positions in the past too. Since they're not permanent contracts, most people already in the field wouldn't bother applying, so they can be a good way for a newbie to get some experience, maybe even a foot in the door.)

notStanley:
Would Pintsize give up cake batter just because he changed chassis?  I think not.

Shjade:

--- Quote from: Gyrre on 31 May 2021, 02:51 ---Is it some combination of her personality, innate and practiced ability, and her personal presentation/appearance that allows her to coax out these confessions?

--- End quote ---

I'm sure it varies from person to person, situation to situation, etc., but in my experience?

Timing. It's mostly timing.

You can be the most understanding, trustworthy person in the world, and it doesn't mean a thing if they're not in a place to talk about it when you're there to listen. Being that kind of person and being available for those conversations more often increases the odds of it coming up. But unless someone's paying you to listen to them for therapy, I don't think you're generally going to get people to open up through effort on your part most of the time (and might make things worse trying).

Note: I'm not licensed for anything, this isn't Official Mental Health Advice, just my perspective.

Different topic: that's an insightful point, jesslc. Would never have occurred to me, but I can see it. Totally plausible.

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