THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: Farideh on 20 Jun 2021, 18:18
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New week, new WCDT. No poll because I can't come up with anything on a Monday.
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New comic!
And now all the bread behind Clinton has been toasted.
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Does overheating Clinton smell like pine as well?
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Well cooked nerd.
That was cute....
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Ah yes, the state of mind where even when you manage to say something sexy and boldly flirtatious, you immediately overthink it, get nervous, and ruin your own line. Half the secret to being like Sven is knowing how to turn off the self-doubt. On the other hand, sometimes there's nothing cuter than flirting badly. As Clinton says, it worked.
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Oh Elliot, you were doing so well and then the self-consciousness kicked in.
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I've sometimes wondered if it was possible to "blush to death". In this case, I hope not...
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If only I could find myself a big, soft yet strong boy.
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If only I could find myself a big, soft yet strong boy.
Time to start lurking on the message boards (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4346)?
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If only I could find myself a big, soft yet strong boy.
Time to start lurking on the message boards (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4346)?
...are they recruiting mods
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New comic.
One of them will faint if this keeps up.
...are they recruiting mods
You can never have too many mods.
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Once again, Renee says what we're all thinking....
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Their progress bar toward Fucking is loading as fast as it can
You can see their little color wheels spinning up a storm
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The only question is how is Clinton going to screw this up?
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The only question is how is Clinton going to screw this up?
*shrug*
They're both trying, right?
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I like the boys but "Oh Dear!"
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They might be working on it, but it's best to not have sex in the store: the health department looks down on such acts around food.
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They might be working on it, but it's best to not have sex in the store: the health department looks down on such acts around food.
In my experience, this is what the loo is for.
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Butt stuff imminent
I haven't ever been this hyped about fictional butt stuff
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New comic.
:-D
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:parrot: Anybody placing bets on who’ll be the big spoon? :parrot:
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Criminy!
They're going to have to take this slow so neither of them have an anuerysm.
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They might be working on it, but it's best to not have sex in the store: the health department looks down on such acts around food.
In my experience, this is what the loo is for.
No.
Publib restrooms are often filthy enough without having to clean up coital fluids. Please be kind to the employees and don't do that.
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I hope the post-coital daze is going to be as good as the pre-coital daze!
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They might be working on it, but it's best to not have sex in the store: the health department looks down on such acts around food.
In my experience, this is what the loo is for.
No.
Publib restrooms are often filthy enough without having to clean up coital fluids. Please be kind to the employees and don't do that.
To be fair, my companion in this instance was an employee at the establishment.
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I'm going to use the phrase pre-coital daze
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They might be working on it, but it's best to not have sex in the store: the health department looks down on such acts around food.
In my experience, this is what the loo is for.
No.
Publib restrooms are often filthy enough without having to clean up coital fluids. Please be kind to the employees and don't do that.
To be fair, my companion in this instance was an employee at the establishment.
To those that have to clean the restrooms, a traitor.
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I'm going to use the phrase pre-coital daze
Will it be your new pre-coital phrase
Or are you just going through a pre-coital phase
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I hope the post-coital daze is going to be as good as the pre-coital daze!
Post-coital will be the two of them passed out unable to move with smiles on their faces with Mrs. Augustus trying her hardest to not laugh at the two exerting so much energy that they burned themselves out
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I hope the post-coital daze is going to be as good as the pre-coital daze!
Post-coital will be the two of them passed out unable to move with smiles on their faces with Mrs. Augustus trying her hardest to not laugh at the two exerting so much energy that they burned themselves out
Nah, it will be a painkiller haze because someone stepped on the bottle of lube and they KO’d themselves falling out of the bed.
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"... and meet your cat."
Yay has choosen to visit. Hercules is putty in their hands. Things get awkward.
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To be fair, my companion in this instance was an employee at the establishment.
To those that have to clean the restrooms, a traitor.
I am curious as to what you think sex is like, and yet at the same time I really don't want to know. :-)
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I am curious as to what you think sex is like, and yet at the same time I really don't want to know. :-)
Perhaps they're thinking of May, Sven and the watermelon (https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4008)?
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To be fair, my companion in this instance was an employee at the establishment.
To those that have to clean the restrooms, a traitor.
I am curious as to what you think sex is like, and yet at the same time I really don't want to know. :-)
"Love: the kind you clean up wit a mop and bucket!"
Bloodhound Gang: The Bad Touch :-D
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"... and meet your cat."
Yay has choosen to visit. Hercules is putty in their hands. Things get awkward.
Double date
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If this is pre-, then post- they will be incoherent and unable to move for an hour.
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I hope the post-coital daze is going to be as good as the pre-coital daze!
Post-coital will be the two of them passed out unable to move with smiles on their faces with Mrs. Augustus trying her hardest to not laugh at the two exerting so much energy that they burned themselves out
Nah, it will be a painkiller haze because someone stepped on the bottle of lube and they KO’d themselves falling out of the bed.
But how is it post-coital if they haven't had coitus if they knocked themselves out? it seems more like pre-coital concussive foreplay to me ;)
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I hope the post-coital daze is going to be as good as the pre-coital daze!
Post-coital will be the two of them passed out unable to move with smiles on their faces with Mrs. Augustus trying her hardest to not laugh at the two exerting so much energy that they burned themselves out
Nah, it will be a painkiller haze because someone stepped on the bottle of lube and they KO’d themselves falling out of the bed.
But how is it post-coital if they haven't had coitus if they knocked themselves out? it seems more like pre-coital concussive foreplay to me ;)
They carelessly discarded the bottle after applying it then stepped on it getting out of the bed after they’d had their fun.
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New comic.
There is a strong prevalence in this comic of people / AIs either deliberately or accidentally following other people / AIs around :D
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I mean, Hanners used to do that. :-D
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Stalking, lock picking, occasional murder threats... She's a complicated person!
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Probably a little scary to come out of your wandering haze right next to Bubbles.
Intruder detected
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Stalking, lock picking, occasional murder threats... She's a complicated person!
But only to people she cares about...her OCD wouldn't let her do that when it's strangers involved.
Probably a little scary to come out of your wandering haze right next to Bubbles.
Intruder detected
That was my first thought, but her look is one of puzzlement so maybe Faye has domesticated Bubbles to the point of only reacting to intruders if the intruders are an actual threat?
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Theory here: Melon is trying so hard to be nice that she misses the social cues and visual input right in front of her. It's not so much a quirk as it's just her trying hard to be a good person but unknowingly doing something that might be misconstrued as wrong or offensive.
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To be fair, my companion in this instance was an employee at the establishment.
To those that have to clean the restrooms, a traitor.
I am curious as to what you think sex is like, and yet at the same time I really don't want to know. :-)
It's not the sex itself, it's that I've been the one who had to clean up the stall. I have a very strong sense of smell[1], and between the smell of the rancid sweat[2] and the used condoms thrown about[3], I wanted to puke a bit. Hence my emphatic 'no'.
[1] when my allergies aren't trying to suffocate me
[2] 3 to 4 hour gym sock and jock strap and some sort of infection level of stink.
[3] I know it was the restroom at the back of the store, but they still should have been caught sooner.
EDIT: While I hyperbolically state I'd rather cut off my left hand than work retail again, that particular experience is why I'd literally rather cut off my left arm than work at a W*lmart again.
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I am curious as to what you think sex is like, and yet at the same time I really don't want to know. :-)
It's not the sex itself, it's that I've been the one who had to clean up the stall. I have a very strong sense of smell[1], and between the smell of the rancid sweat[2] and the used condoms thrown about[3], I wanted to puke a bit. Hence my emphatic 'no'.
If it's any consolation, condoms aren't really a thing for me, not having a penis and all. And I dispose of any gloves I use. :-)
But, yes, I have no desire to ever go back to working in the service industry.
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huh. who's the guy on the left, new character?
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Martin? He's the original character.
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It's a bit of a running gag on the WCDT that whenever Marten shows up, we wonder who that mysterious gentleman is (since he doesn't appear as often anymore).
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I've got to honestly say that this is my favourite strip of the week so far.
It isn't just because it's light-hearted and isn't trying to sell certain plot threads that I've never liked or been interested in. It's because it's actually quite insightful. 'Walk and talk' has been a staple of QC from the beginning but I do like the little self-aware touch here that, maybe, as a consequence, one of the walker-talkers may end up going somewhere they didn't intend to go... or don't know... and maybe from which they can't find the way home.
I just guess Beepatrice was enjoying her time with Claire so much that she didn't really notice that she'd ended up in a different part of town and in someone else's home. It's implied that this happens to her a lot.
It's a bit of a running gag on the WCDT that whenever Marten shows up, we wonder who that mysterious gentleman is (since he doesn't appear as often anymore).
Yeah, a running in-joke that fell flat and stopped even being worthy of an eye-roll about two years ago.
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huh. who's the guy on the left, new character?
I think his name is Steve and he works as a bartender at a weird theme bar?
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Is it just my screen or do some of the panels seem to have harsher aliasing on the line work than others?
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It's a bit of a running gag on the WCDT that whenever Marten shows up, we wonder who that mysterious gentleman is (since he doesn't appear as often anymore).
Yeah, a running in-joke that fell flat and stopped even being worthy of an eye-roll about two years ago.
Love you too, Ben.
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I still think it's funny, honestly.
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Patrol. The word you want is 'patrol'. Always on the lookout for aliens, time-travelers, and espers.
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I still think it's funny, honestly.
Honestly, I never thought it was funny myself.
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Perhaps Bubbles' threat detection did not wake up because Beepatrice was brought in by one of the house members? Would have been different for un-escorted strangers.
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People bringing guests home is nothing out of the ordinary. Now, if Beeps had wandered in at 2 in the morning...
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People bringing guests home is nothing out of the ordinary. Now, if Beeps had wandered in at 2 in the morning...
They’d have obliviously asked ‘Hannelore’ what woke her up that early and only realised their error after they were back in bed…
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It's just as well his last comment wasn't going to be "your anatomy", or we'd be calling them Tijuanas...
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New comic.
Well, that's interesting. We were wondering if Pintsize's new body would cause him to change his behavior, and indeed it has. Which is quite fascinating when you think about it. For an AI, how much of their personality is their programming, and how much their chassis? For humans, how they look influences their behavior. It seems to be the same for AIs.
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One wonders if 'Fullsize' had unknowingly activated a Decorum subroutine when the body switch happened? :-D
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This is a perfect example of why I was so resistant to the original change to Pintsize. It's not just a body swap. He's literally a different character. Pintsize minus Chaos Goblin is...nothing we've seen in the comic before. There have been flashes, but he always goes back to causing trouble.
Maybe "resistant" is the wrong word. I've pretty much gotten used to it. But the point stands: he's not really Pintsize anymore.
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But the point stands: he's not really Pintsize anymore.
True statement. He's basically a smarmier Blue Winslow now.
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This is a perfect example of why I was so resistant to the original change to Pintsize. It's not just a body swap. He's literally a different character. Pintsize minus Chaos Goblin is...nothing we've seen in the comic before. There have been flashes, but he always goes back to causing trouble.
Maybe "resistant" is the wrong word. I've pretty much gotten used to it. But the point stands: he's not really Pintsize anymore.
Maybe that's why Pintsize has changed? If Chaos Goblin is all he is - well, that's pretty one-dimensional, isn't it? Maybe Jeph wants to see if he can portray Pintsize as a more mature, more complete prankster - rather than just "wacky hijinks", pie-in-the-face stuff. In other words, same motivation, just a deeper perspective on the whole prank process.
I foresee a more sophisticated and subtle prankster... :evil:
Speaking of subtle pranksters - has Pintsize ever met Yay?
OTOH, maybe that wouldn't be a good idea...nope, forget that I ever said anything...that's beginning to sound too much like "crossing the streams"....
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I've been predicting he'd change his behavior, but not to this degree. "Tits" is suddenly off limits for him? Because his new body came with a built-in conscience? Really more than I can accept.
EDIT: Keep in mind that Pintsize once humped an espresso machine, with Dale and Faye watching, with no hesitation or shame. Go from that (https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2574) to making a casual reference to tits being over the line.
Not fond of his smug, "I'm being so funny and inappropriate" face in panel 2. That's not really a Pintsize thing. Granted, his range of facial expressions used to be pretty limited, but his tone was much more gleeful and not self-aware (or at least pretending to be not self aware).
Also, is Iris not allowed to have ANY sense of humor?
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Perhaps Bubbles' threat detection did not wake up because Beepatrice was brought in by one of the house members? Would have been different for un-escorted strangers.
It's possible, but it seemed more of a shock than acceptance of it. Bubbles has lessened her edge a lot since she and Faye became close so to me it's a non-reaction learned from reactions of others. Plus there was no reaction from Marten which is a bigger indication that it was OK as if he was upset then she'd react.
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I want to pity Pintsize as his big joke backfired yet again and he's having a crisis of conscience over it.
The plus side might be him seeing Rokko and May at some point, the bad side is e have to feel sorry for Pintsize for having to mature.
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The fuck is this? The other AIs swear without problem and May is wildly inappropiate all the time.
Why the heck was Pintsize defanged?
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Okay, this is basically what quite a few people were worried about. To me, at least, there is no reason why this new chassis should change Pintsize's sense of propriety. Jeph very obviously just wants to change the character and is pulling reasons out of thin air to do so.
Am I the only one who would have found it funnier and more interesting if Willow had disarmed Pintsize by thanking him for the compliment and then using completely the same level of 'appropriate language' to compliment him about his new chassis? It would have made a nice life-lesson, explained why Pintsize was trying to change and still been in-character with no arbitrary changes!
Oh, by the way, I'm pretty sure that Jeph is setting up Pintsize/Willow.
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Stalking, lock picking, occasional murder threats... She's a complicated person!
But only to people she cares about...her OCD wouldn't let her do that when it's strangers involved.
Probably a little scary to come out of your wandering haze right next to Bubbles.
Intruder detected
That was my first thought, but her look is one of puzzlement so maybe Faye has domesticated Bubbles to the point of only reacting to intruders if the intruders are an actual threat?
For quite some time before Faye, ANY intruder into her personal space was more that likely a threat of some sort. Heck, remember the time early on when Bubbles put her fist through a wall when Faye was needling her?
It's less "domestication" than "interacting with people who aren't raging arseholes." (And let's face it, Faye would be a TERRIBLE person to task with domesticating ANYTHING. :-P )
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The fuck is this? The other AIs swear without problem and May is wildly inappropiate all the time.
Why the heck was Pintsize defanged?
Perhaps that chassis came with a profanity filter installed, preset to PG, and Pintsize unknowingly wasted his one F-bomb for the day when he stubbed a toe getting used to moving in a body with proper limbs?
Okay, it's a stretch, but it gives me an excuse to link to this vaguely related comic. (WARNING: contains canine nudity.)
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00203.htm (http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00203.htm)
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New comic.
Well, that's interesting. We were wondering if Pintsize's new body would cause him to change his behavior, and indeed it has. Which is quite fascinating when you think about it. For an AI, how much of their personality is their programming, and how much their chassis? For humans, how they look influences their behavior. It seems to be the same for AIs.
Claire's talk with him may have helped to.
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Nice to see in the years since last time I was active on the forum nothing's changed with regard to some people jumping to wild conclusions and forecasting doom and gloom. xD
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To be honest I have been wondering how sustainable the previous version of Pintsize really was these days. I think this may not even be a primarily creative decision.
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To be honest I have been wondering how sustainable the previous version of Pintsize really was these days. I think this may not even be a primarily creative decision.
Yeah, honestly, a lot of Pintsize's antics were just straight up sexual harassment and assault and only didn't stand out as incredibly gross and uncomfortable to the majority of readers because he was small and silly looking, and I certainly wouldn't call it a bad thing if Jeph was looking at that and thinking, hm. This isn't feeling so harmlessly funny to me anymore. I was kinda hoping that Pintsize would just sort of be like, "Eh, addressing women by their tits or whatever doesn't feel amusingly transgressive to do in this body. It just feels like being an asshole," rather than having his behavior forcibly limited by some protocol included in his new chassis. It seems like the sort of conclusion he'd come to, like when he realized having May sit on his face didn't do anything for him. That said, whatever keeps me from having to watch a now much more human-looking character that we're meant to like treat women the way he always did as a wee chaos gremlin, I'm all for it.
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One wonders if 'Fullsize' had unknowingly activated a Decorum subroutine when the body switch happened? ;D
Time to check out which settings he can change! 😁
I was kinda hoping that Pintsize would just sort of be like, "Eh, addressing women by their tits or whatever doesn't feel amusingly transgressive to do in this body. It just feels like being an asshole," rather than having his behavior forcibly limited by some protocol included in his new chassis. It seems like the sort of conclusion he'd come to, like when he realized having May sit on his face didn't do anything for him.
That might still happen. Did Pintsize change because of his new chassis, or did he get a new chassis to better reflect his growth? He might be in denial a bit here and wanting to 'blame' his body for his propriety.
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The fuck is this? The other AIs swear without problem and May is wildly inappropiate all the time.
Why the heck was Pintsize defanged?
Pretty sure the change has to do with the fact that Jeph no longer wants to write a male-presenting character making sexual comments towards the female cast as being funny - same reason why he also phased out Faye's cartoon violence. The comic has evolved a lot since the days when AIs were little more than talking objects that could be dismantled and used as a cereal bowl and that sort of humour isn't considered funny nowadays anymore.
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The fuck is this? The other AIs swear without problem and May is wildly inappropiate all the time.
Why the heck was Pintsize defanged?
It's called "growing up". I'm not especially religious any more, but I certainly remember this quote: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.
In my own personal case, I realized I was a 'grown-up' when I stopped cutting through people's yards. Growing up in the city, it's just something one does, and it's no big deal because its 'just kids'...but if you do it as an adult, it's trespassing. It's creeping. It's not a good look. KNOWING that makes all the difference. I could still do it, but it is now a conscious decision to do so, with risks weighed and considered, not an unselfconscious in-the-moment thing. Does consciousness ring a bell?
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Perhaps Bubbles' threat detection did not wake up because Beepatrice was brought in by one of the house members? Would have been different for un-escorted strangers.
Bubble's threat detection didn't trigger because Beeps wasn't a threat. Bubble's perception (sensorium and analytic capability) is sophisticated enough to verge on psychic in this regard. Even a drunk 2am rando would probably get the "looming appearance" surprise and (depending on said person's reaction) either given the scare of a lifetime or gently redirected on their way. A genuine threat (something a little too heavy for this strip, like the neighborhood serial rapist deciding he wanted a piece of Faye) would be immediately dealt with harshly and decisively, possibly fatally (again, depending on the would-be rapist's reactions and a lot of intangibles). But this is a lighthearted strip, set in a "good" town, so that sort of unpleasantness really isn't going to happen.
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The body isn't literally changing his sense of propriety, it is being IN the new body that his changing his sense of propriety, ala the change in circumstances and perception. As others have said, it's growing up. And honestly, I worry about folks who feel put upon by there being LESS sexual harassment in the series.
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Apart from anything else, he’s had a literal change of perspective. As in, he’s face-to-face with everyone else all of a sudden, rather than face-to-knee.
Or knee to face if he’s being particularly trying…
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I was kinda hoping that Pintsize would just sort of be like, "Eh, addressing women by their tits or whatever doesn't feel amusingly transgressive to do in this body. It just feels like being an asshole," rather than having his behavior forcibly limited by some protocol included in his new chassis. It seems like the sort of conclusion he'd come to, like when he realized having May sit on his face didn't do anything for him.
That might still happen. Did Pintsize change because of his new chassis, or did he get a new chassis to better reflect his growth? He might be in denial a bit here and wanting to 'blame' his body for his propriety.
I like this notion. Perhaps Pintsize will return to his former body and discover it just doesn't feel 'right' anymore. Thought at first it would be like Roko's struggle with 'Oopsie-Guard' but this would be a more mature direction for the comic.
( is willow eating grape jelly out of the jar )
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I mean that is almost literally what he's saying in the strip. He's not complaining about programming, he's complaining about psychology and propriety.
He might as well be saying "curse this new height" or "curse this new perspective", it ends up meaning the same thing as "curse this new body" in context.
Edit: I just noticed my current forum rank and haha, oh dear, "FIGHT YOU" isn't exactly the best accompaniment to trying to convey a meaningful position xD
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The male experience of becoming aware you are a threat even by accident is not an easy one but it is the easier one.
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This is a perfect example of why I was so resistant to the original change to Pintsize. It's not just a body swap. He's literally a different character. Pintsize minus Chaos Goblin is...nothing we've seen in the comic before. There have been flashes, but he always goes back to causing trouble.
Maybe "resistant" is the wrong word. I've pretty much gotten used to it. But the point stands: he's not really Pintsize anymore.
Personal growth and change are major themes of the comic. Pintsize has been showing signs of growing up for quite a while now.
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Okay, this is basically what quite a few people were worried about. To me, at least, there is no reason why this new chassis should change Pintsize's sense of propriety. Jeph very obviously just wants to change the character and is pulling reasons out of thin air to do so.
Am I the only one who would have found it funnier and more interesting if Willow had disarmed Pintsize by thanking him for the compliment and then using completely the same level of 'appropriate language' to compliment him about his new chassis? It would have made a nice life-lesson, explained why Pintsize was trying to change and still been in-character with no arbitrary changes!
I can't really imagine old Pintsize reacting negatively/uncomfortably even if someone had complimented him using derogatory language, to be honest.
The body isn't literally changing his sense of propriety, it is being IN the new body that his changing his sense of propriety, ala the change in circumstances and perception. As others have said, it's growing up. And honestly, I worry about folks who feel put upon by there being LESS sexual harassment in the series.
Pintsize wasn't around much, so we didn't see much sexual harassment from him anyway. I'm just not looking forward to the storyline about growing out of sexual harassment. It's not an objectively terrible storyline, I just personally find it kind of exhausting.
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It's also the case that the strip itself has matured as well. Chaos Goblin being lewd and offensive and getting punted to the Moon with a hearty "DARLING NO BAKA!" is just sooooo played out. And also much more extreme Looney Toons "cartoon physics" than what the current state of the QC-verse can accommodate. Back when this strip first began, when it was decidedly more cartoony, you probably could have had Pintsize pull off the Wile E. Coyote schtick of running off a cliff and successfully treading air until he happened to look down and realize his predicament...but now? Even in his old chassis, no. By abandoning that chassis, he is (and Jeph is) abandoning that cartoon-physics "plot armor" invulnerability. Pintsize is actually vulnerable now, in ways he has never been...and he's realizing it. He can't BE that Chaos Goblin who gets punched thru a wall after poking the bear, he will actually take damage and have to pay for his repairs (or Marten will), which will be expensive, even with Faye and Bubbles giving the "friends and family" discount (unless it was one of them who was riled up enough to punch him). In the early strips, it wouldn't have mattered. The money for repairs would have just been there. Or maybe one wacky get-rich-quick quest to get a million electrum pieces, which would then all immediately be spent. The QC verse isn't like that any more, AI aside, it's much more "real" now than it was when it began, an inevitable consequence of its longevity.
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I'm just not looking forward to the storyline about growing out of sexual harassment. It's not an objectively terrible storyline, I just personally find it kind of exhausting.
Funny, cos what I find exhausting, as a woman, is being sexually harassed and having it treated as a "joke" and no big deal.
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It's called "growing up".
It's also the case that the strip itself has matured as well. Chaos Goblin being lewd and offensive and getting punted to the Moon with a hearty "DARLING NO BAKA!" is just sooooo played out. And also much more extreme Looney Toons "cartoon physics" than what the current state of the QC-verse can accommodate. Back when this strip first began, when it was decidedly more cartoony, you probably could have had Pintsize pull off the Wile E. Coyote schtick of running off a cliff and successfully treading air until he happened to look down and realize his predicament...but now? Even in his old chassis, no. By abandoning that chassis, he is (and Jeph is) abandoning that cartoon-physics "plot armor" invulnerability. Pintsize is actually vulnerable now, in ways he has never been...and he's realizing it. He can't BE that Chaos Goblin who gets punched thru a wall after poking the bear, he will actually take damage and have to pay for his repairs (or Marten will), which will be expensive, even with Faye and Bubbles giving the "friends and family" discount (unless it was one of them who was riled up enough to punch him). In the early strips, it wouldn't have mattered. The money for repairs would have just been there. Or maybe one wacky get-rich-quick quest to get a million electrum pieces, which would then all immediately be spent. The QC verse isn't like that any more, AI aside, it's much more "real" now than it was when it began, an inevitable consequence of its longevity.
Pretty sure the change has to do with the fact that Jeph no longer wants to write a male-presenting character making sexual comments towards the female cast as being funny - same reason why he also phased out Faye's cartoon violence. The comic has evolved a lot since the days when AIs were little more than talking objects that could be dismantled and used as a cereal bowl and that sort of humour isn't considered funny nowadays anymore.
Lol, sure. We just had a comic about firing dildos out of a cannon, May is cruder than Pintsize and everything Melon.
But QC is now so grown up you guys, we're so cultured and sophisticated now, wow, totally.
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And here I was just thinking Pintsize hadn't gotten around to turning off any left-over subroutines this chassis had enabled in its previous life. Speaking of which, how do we know this was an ethically harvested chassis?
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Lol, sure. We just had a comic about firing dildos out of a cannon, May is cruder than Pintsize and everything Melon.
But QC is now so grown up you guys, we're so cultured and sophisticated now, wow, totally.
It's not about being cultured and sophisticated, it's about acknowledging that sexual harassment jokes aren't funny and Pintsize needs a different shtick. Dildo cannons, Melon's hijinks, and even May's crudeness aren't really in the same ballpark, or likely to make people as uncomfortable.
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Lol, sure. We just had a comic about firing dildos out of a cannon, May is cruder than Pintsize and everything Melon.
But QC is now so grown up you guys, we're so cultured and sophisticated now, wow, totally.
It's not about being cultured and sophisticated, it's about acknowledging that sexual harassment jokes aren't funny and Pintsize needs a different shtick. Dildo cannons, Melon's hijinks, and even May's crudeness aren't really in the same ballpark, or likely to make people as uncomfortable.
Or it's Jeph realizing that he needs to stop going down a path with a character that will cause people to stop paying him money...I don't buy change in him at all, he read the room and saw that sexual harassment was never funny and needed to change a character before it bit him in the ass.
Sorry if that upsets people, but I don't buy a sudden change like this without there being a big reason behind it.
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And here I was just thinking Pintsize hadn't gotten around to turning off any left-over subroutines this chassis had enabled in its previous life. Speaking of which, how do we know this was an ethically harvested chassis?
FBI: "You recently obtained an AI chassis from an individual known as "Internet Jerry". He is known to us as a suspected trafficker in stolen and sub-standard chassis that do not comply with U.S. software and cyber-security regulations."
Pintsize: "Oh sh**..."
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Or it's Jeph realizing that he needs to stop going down a path with a character that will cause people to stop paying him money...I don't buy change in him at all, he read the room and saw that sexual harassment was never funny and needed to change a character before it bit him in the ass.
Sorry if that upsets people, but I don't buy a sudden change like this without there being a big reason behind it.
Why does it have to be 'a big reason'? It's a rare occurrence that people have just one reason for doing things. Jeph has grown up and matured over the years which is reflected in his comic. The OTT hijinks, violence, harassment etc have been toned down a lot, which I am personally pleased with. Faye using Marten as her personal punching bag (and Marten being so weirdly OK with that) never sat that well with me.
That being said, it is Jeph's comic and he can write it as he sees fit. We can make our own choice as to whether or not we want to read it, and in that way the creator and the audience provide feedback to each other. If Pintsize becoming more mature in-comic is a direct result of readers saying 'I am not comfortable with Pintsize's antics', is that a bad thing? Must Jeph's motivations be 'pure' for the end result to matter?
I feel that there are multiple reasons driving the current Pintsize arc, and the Patreon income being jeopardised might be one of them. I honestly don't care. I am just interested in seeing where this is going, and Pintsize becoming more fleshed out (pun not intended) should provide plenty of good comic material over the years.
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Lol, sure. We just had a comic about firing dildos out of a cannon, May is cruder than Pintsize and everything Melon.
But QC is now so grown up you guys, we're so cultured and sophisticated now, wow, totally.
It's not about being cultured and sophisticated, it's about acknowledging that sexual harassment jokes aren't funny and Pintsize needs a different shtick. Dildo cannons, Melon's hijinks, and even May's crudeness aren't really in the same ballpark, or likely to make people as uncomfortable.
Or it's Jeph realizing that he needs to stop going down a path with a character that will cause people to stop paying him money...I don't buy change in him at all, he read the room and saw that sexual harassment was never funny and needed to change a character before it bit him in the ass.
Sorry if that upsets people, but I don't buy a sudden change like this without there being a big reason behind it.
This isn't an either/or. Behind every character motivation is some author motivation for writing the character in just that way.
I wouldn't be surprised if Jeph did read the room and see that sexual harassment was never funny. I mean, you say that like it's a bad thing. It doesn't seem that way to me.
The "big reason" behind the change in Pintsize's behaviour is right there in the text; according to Pintsize's speculation, which is likely to be accurate, it is the chassis change that has somehow influenced his behaviour.
Whether you buy that or not is up to you, obviously. It seems justifiable to me, but the bare fact of a motivation you've ascribed to Jeph, whether or not it happens to be correct, does not have anything to do with how believable that plot point is.
And by the way, no need to be "sorry" -- I don't think anyone else ought to be especially upset if one reader doesn't like a strip. That's your prerogative.
As an aside: it's bemusing to me that people are assuming that just because Pintsize has pulled himself up in a single instance, that he will never be crude in any way again. That seems unlikely.
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The male experience of becoming aware you are a threat even by accident is not an easy one but it is the easier one.
Seeing a ~6'5" angry yelling customer hastily step back from looming over my boss as I dashed from halfway across the store in 3 or 4 bounding steps was certainly something else (I'm only5' 5"). It was the first time I really realized just how stocky I was and that my hands and shoulders were a lot broader than they were as a teen.
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I'm just not looking forward to the storyline about growing out of sexual harassment. It's not an objectively terrible storyline, I just personally find it kind of exhausting.
Funny, cos what I find exhausting, as a woman, is being sexually harassed and having it treated as a "joke" and no big deal.
I feel like you're insinuating that I don't find that exhausting? I said that what I appreciated about Pintsize was his lack of presence in the comic. I also do not like the sexual harassment, it just had less focus than this is about to.
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This is why I don't like change. It changes things.
It's going to take me a while to get used to a Pintsize with some maturity but I welcome the opportunity.
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Seeing a ~6'5" angry yelling customer hastily step back from looming over my boss as I dashed from halfway across the store in 3 or 4 bounding steps was certainly something else (I'm only5' 5"). It was the first time I really realized just how stocky I was and that my hands and shoulders were a lot broader than they were as a teen.
I'm now visualizing you as a Tolkien-type Dwarf.
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"Faye needs to stop insulting and casually assaulting people. It's not cool or funny, it's just rude."
"Pintsize needs to go back to insulting and sexually harassing people. He's not cool or funny unless he's rude."
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FWIW, I never had a problem with Faye for the exactly the same reason that I never had a problem with Pintsize: They're nonphysical fictional creations and nothing they do has physical reality. I can smile at a witty wisecrack and acknowledge a well-constructed joke without feeling an impact on myself. I shake my head at ill-behaved characters but rarely feel a personal stake in their actions.
Don't get me wrong. In high-stakes storylines, I do feel an emotional connection and wonder what is going to happen next but I try to avoid letting something written by a stranger feel like a personal attack in any way. Even if that means that I have to step away from the keyboard and think about it for a few minutes to remind myself that I have so small a stake that it is ludicrous to feel personally upset.
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Faye and Pintsize are different characters, with different issues. You can't really conflate them.
Faye's actions bothered me because she was an adult human. I expected adult behavior from her. Pintsize has always been a child, with a child's appearance and a child's understanding of the world, over-the-top sex stuff not withstanding. Faye frequently bullied people. Pintsize never did.
Pintsize never actually hurt anyone, or tried to hurt anyone. He was rude and grossly oversexed, but it was impossible to take his sexual suggestions seriously because he inhabited a barely humanoid body with no actual sexual organs. Or fingers, for that matter. The same sexual suggestions in his current body carry a more plausible element of threat to them, even if his sexual organ is apparently a USB A slot with an extension cable.
At this point, I don't particularly want the old Pintsize back. His gags usually weren't offensive, but I can't say they were all that funny either. I'd say most of the actual humor came from how other cast members reacted to him, or talked about him. I do think the transition is difficult to accept because it's such a dramatic change.
On an unrelated note, I think "tijubas" is a perfectly good slang term for breasts. It's no sillier than "boobies" or "knockers."
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Seeing a ~6'5" angry yelling customer hastily step back from looming over my boss as I dashed from halfway across the store in 3 or 4 bounding steps was certainly something else (I'm only5' 5"). It was the first time I really realized just how stocky I was and that my hands and shoulders were a lot broader than they were as a teen.
I'm now visualizing you as a Tolkien-type Dwarf.
More or less. I've even got the barrel chest.
I have to wear a 2XL labcoat so I can move my shoulders and the damned thing goes just past halfway down my calves.