THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: warownslife on 02 Nov 2016, 23:44
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After my binge, I have been thinking of whether or not anyone besides her brother and marty know about claire. I would like nothing more to see the shitfest that steve, faye and maybe pintsize would give marty for it. Cuddled with the potential awkwardness of dora and the sure fire of momo, may and momo's owner (name slips by me).
I just binged so i was wondering if perhaps I had missed it and it got swept under the rug so as not to offense claire (which i doubt, of course, it'd be out of character to let it go by without some sorta comment)
Either way, New to the forum a bit, don't know if its alright to just have a thread about a character. If so, I should have made a thread about May.
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I would like nothing more to see the shitfest that steve, faye and maybe pintsize would give marty for it.
Then you are reading the wrong comic.
Also I know a couple of trans people personally, and that kind of behaviour doesn't typically happen in real life. Not amongst my friends anyway.
(BTW Emily also knows)
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Answering seriously: We know that Claire told Emily that she's trans a way back and she has also more recently told Bubbles and Pintsize. Pintsize's reaction was particularly interesting and it probably says something about how differently AIs (who can swap bodies basically at will if they have the right resources) view issues like dysphoria, sometimes making them seem a bit insensitive.
I'm guessing that, in the 3 month or so time slip we had a while back, Claire must have told Faye, if only to clear the air of any potential awkwardness when Claire is spending more and more time at the apartment.
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After my binge, I have been thinking of whether or not anyone besides her brother and marty know about claire. I would like nothing more to see the shitfest that steve, faye and maybe pintsize would give marty for it.
The aim of the treatment of Claire in the comic is to show how transgender people can be dealt with using normal human respect; so something like that will absolutely not happen.
You can read much, much more about transgender people and the problems they are faced with in current society by reading the big threads on the subject in the Discuss! part of the forum.
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We do know the characters are big on inclusiveness. I can readily imagine them accidentally saying the wrong thing but they're not the kind of people who would ridicule Marten over his girlfriend's medical history.
Back to the original question, generally speaking if you tell a "secret" to three people you've told it to everybody.
I was about to say "especially if one of them is Pintsize", but he does seem to have a grasp of what matters and what doesn't.
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Currently, the list of those we actually KNOW Claire has told is fairly short. Whether there are others she (or others) have told 'Off Camera' (so to speak) is unknown. There may be others, but at this point it seems that group that knows is mostly, I would surmise, made up of the immediate close group around her - and undoubtedly other members of the Augustus family.
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…the 3 month or so time slip we had a while back…
Fifteen months, I think. Dora's hair couldn't have gone from a pixie cut (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3116) to shoulder length (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3126) in just three months.
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I would like nothing more to see the shitfest that steve, faye and maybe pintsize would give marty for it.
Considering the amount of shit that Faye has put Marten through; drunken headbutt to the nads, numerous punches to the shoulder, drinking herself into a hospital bed to name but three occasions, Faye giving any sort of shit about Claire would be hugely hypocritical and against her character.
Same with Steve, with his close call with jail with his first girlfriend in the comic, the coroner girlfriend who dumped him and married her ex in the space of a panel, and Cosette, Northampton's answer to Inspector Clouseau, would reek of hypocrisy if he made any sort of trouble about the fact that Marten's girlfriend happened to be trans. If anything, Steve would be like "Eh, my best friend has a girlfriend and he's happy. So I'm happy. Let's go drunken sledding again!"
Pintsize.....okay he might say something. And probably end up taken apart and dumped in several locations around the apartment. Or worst case scenario, sent back to the Companion organisation.
In the end, I think the ones closest to Marten would just be happy that Marten is happy.
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I would like nothing more to see the shitfest that steve, faye and maybe pintsize would give marty for it.
Considering the amount of shit that Faye has put Marten through; drunken headbutt to the nads, numerous punches to the shoulder, drinking herself into a hospital bed to name but three occasions, Faye giving any sort of shit about Claire would be hugely hypocritical and against her character.
Do you really think that Faye doesn't give a shit about Marten?
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AprilArcus,
Welcome back! We've missed you!
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I would like nothing more to see the shitfest that steve, faye and maybe pintsize would give marty for it.
Considering the amount of shit that Faye has put Marten through; drunken headbutt to the nads, numerous punches to the shoulder, drinking herself into a hospital bed to name but three occasions, Faye giving any sort of shit about Claire would be hugely hypocritical and against her character.
Do you really think that Faye doesn't give a shit about Marten?
In the end, I think the ones closest to Marten would just be happy that Marten is happy.
Faye is basically Marten's best friend, probably closer to siblings than friendship. Of course she gives a shit about him.
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Back to the title of the thread, of course all the other characters know of Claire. How could they not know who Marten's girlfriend is?
They may not know her medical history but that's only one of many things to know about her.
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Faye is basically Marten's best friend, probably closer to siblings than friendship. Of course she gives a shit about him.
Sorry, I just reread your post and realised that I completely misread your sentence "Faye giving any sort of shit about Claire would be hugely hypocritical and against her character.". Apologies.
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Answering seriously: We know that Claire told Emily that she's trans a way back and she has also more recently told Bubbles and Pintsize. Pintsize's reaction was particularly interesting and it probably says something about how differently AIs (who can swap bodies basically at will if they have the right resources) view issues like dysphoria, sometimes making them seem a bit insensitive.
My archive-fu has failed me, when did she tell Pintsize?
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My archive-fu has failed me, when did she tell Pintsize?
At the time they were talking about cosmetic body modifications. Pintsize looked forward to the day when humans could casually swap bodies the way AIs could and physical identity would become so interchangeable as to be meaningless. Claire told him that this somewhat trivialises what she went through in terms of body image. Pintsize's reaction showed that he already knew about her trans status by that point.
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Here we go, it was Strip 3185 (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3185). As I say, Pintsize's reaction suggests that Claire's status wasn't a surprise, so she must have told him some time previously. If she told Pintsize you can be sure she's told Faye too (IMO, at least).
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Here we go, it was Strip 3185 (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3185). As I say, Pintsize's reaction suggests that Claire's status wasn't a surprise, so she must have told him some time previously. If she told Pintsize you can be sure she's told Faye too (IMO, at least).
To me, that strip looks like the first time she told Pintsize. If he already knew, why would she have to say "Look, I'm trans"? And why would Marten say "That conversation did not go the way I was expecting it to"? I think he means "I didn't expect Pintsize to be calm and respectful when you told him you're trans."
Edit: Now, it's possible that Pintsize already suspected it and that's why he wasn't surprised.
And yes, welcome back AprilArcus! 8-)
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I wouldn't say that he already knew, or that he was unsurprised. It's more that any reaction he might have had to the news would have been overridden by the message that Claire has just given him, which appears to have altered his world view. Given the kinds of AIs and people Pintsize no doubt meets on a regular basis, the news that Claire is trans would be interesting but unremarkable compared to the mental dressing down he's just accepted.
If he'd been given the news in other circumstances, he probably would have reacted specifically to the news. But probably in a relaxed manner, just as Marten was pretty relaxed when Claire told him.
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Here's a thought.
Would Claire being trans even matter to Pintsize or to any AI in general? AI existence is a different experience to our corporeal mindset. We know that AI can just upload themselves to a new chassis, even if the experience can be strange for them (Winslow in the BotFriend chassis comes to mind) so would they even have the same hangups about bodies like we humans do? Or would they simply see Claire as fitting her own chassis to suit her own needs? (Yes, I realise it is a rather blunt metaphor and probably doesn't do the process any sort of justice but sometimes subtlety can be lost quite easily).
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I've wondered about that too.
What's remarkable about Pintsize is that he didn't react based on his self-education, which seems to consist mostly of Internet porn.
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That's probably the 'specific reaction' that Tova referred to.
I can't decide if May would be obscenely fascinated, or surprisingly empathetic, what with identifying as a jet fighter and all...
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From May I'd expect both actually.
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What's remarkable about Pintsize is that he didn't react based on his self-education, which seems to consist mostly of Internet porn.
Let's just say that Pintsize does not, I think, have any sexual hang-ups of any kind.
If anything at all fazes him, I'd be surprised.
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Well another fact is that Pintsize is an android with a military grade chassis. He might be able to analyze physiological readings and already knew she's trans.
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I've wondered about that too.
What's remarkable about Pintsize is that he didn't react based on his self-education, which seems to consist mostly of Internet porn.
What would be really remarkable: Jeph ends QC with Pintsize outing himself as an avatar of a global super-sentience that proclaims that watching all the porn is actually the most efficient way to get to the bottom of 'the human question', and supports that statement by revealing astonishingly elegant and profound philosophical insights.
Following that revelation, the humanities experience record enrolment numbers and human contribution to technological advance grinds to a halt for lack of people willing to do hard science & engineering. AIs have to take up the slack, and it turns out the singularity happens not because of runaway AI, but due to all the humminz obsessively debating porn all the time.
Northampton is subsequently identified as the cradle of a philosophical movement that ushers in an age of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The Catholic Church is closed in 2043. 'Kabbala' becomes a naughty word.
Also: 42
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If this was true though, then wouldn't the answer to The Question be 69?
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If this was true though, then wouldn't the answer to The Question be 69?
Nah 66, turns out 42 was in Hexadecimal and Hugs was the answer all along
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QC and RL Northampton are both very inclusive places. I don't that Jeph would ever take the comic in that direction though I confess it would be an interesting story arc.