THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: shanejayell on 14 Nov 2021, 16:37
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So Claire gets to co-star as a vtuber. Wonder what her avatar will be?
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'Bovinnia Delavache'
Not gonna lie, that made my day. Sibling rivalry brings out Claire's creativity!
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Poor, poor Clinton. And Elliot is just "Wha...?"
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*pulls up couch*
I'm in. Who wants popcorn?
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Claire is the worst. Ugh. Poor Clinton.
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This seems...unnecessarily mean-spirited of Claire. There's being competitive, then there's embarrassing your brother in front of a large online audience just for kicks (I know they're avatars and nobody knows who they really are -for now- but she's doing it purely to annoy him.)
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Yeah, I sometimes feel like Claire, both in-universe and as far as the comic's narration works, never really gets called out on being just plain mean and unpleasant to Clinton. I don't know if it's the cuteness factor meaning she gets cut more slack or what, and I understand sibling rivalry and that some nasty jabs might be acceptable to an extent, but today's comic makes me real uncomfortable.
Especially given how their mom reacts. I mean, she can't really outright scold Claire on-air, but if she doesn't say anything at all when they go offline, this is gonna be a big "yikes" moment for me. This feels like enabling bad behaviour that almost borders on bullying, and I think dealing with that is part of the job of being a mom.
I dunno.
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This seems...unnecessarily mean-spirited of Claire. There's being competitive, then there's embarrassing your brother in front of a large online audience just for kicks (I know they're avatars and nobody knows who they really are -for now- but she's doing it purely to annoy him.)
Aurelia did immediately shut it down, though.
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This seems...unnecessarily mean-spirited of Claire. There's being competitive, then there's embarrassing your brother in front of a large online audience just for kicks (I know they're avatars and nobody knows who they really are -for now- but she's doing it purely to annoy him.)
Aurelia did immediately shut it down, though.
"now, now, dear" is shutting it down? That's pretty much as flimsy a non-response as I can imagine.
I mean, if Claire stopped, I guess it's all that was needed, but the punctuation ("Now now, dear-") implied to me that this was not the end of the conversation. And implies to me that Aurelia left the sentence hanging and/or was interrupted by Claire proceeding, although admittedly I'm reading deep into this. Maybe too deep.
EDIT: although, given that Clinton says "YOU BETTER NOT" and then says "she's probably gonna (...)", he doesn't seem to think Claire is going to stop now, either. And if he has a reason to think Aurelia's response is not enough to end this part of the conversation, maybe it isn't.
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I agree. :meh:
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I don't get why Clinton is lying to Elliot.
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I don't get why Clinton is lying to Elliot.
Because he doesn’t want to admit he got baked and did a guest spot as an anthro bull on his mom’s definitely-not-a-fetish vtube show and also because he wants to protect Aurelia‘a secret.
But mostly because of the congenital lack of chill.
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But mostly because of the congenital lack of chill.
That can be difficult to defeat :}
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I don't get why Clinton is lying to Elliot.
Because his mom's vtube career is a secret and he's respecting her privacy
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This seems...unnecessarily mean-spirited of Claire. There's being competitive, then there's embarrassing your brother in front of a large online audience just for kicks (I know they're avatars and nobody knows who they really are -for now- but she's doing it purely to annoy him.)
You know that kind of person, that you don't actively hate....but their behaviour makes it really, really hard to actually like them?
To me, that's Claire.
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How does she know what furries are, and not about the horrors of Rule 34, 4chan, reddit, etc, etc?
I'm starting to wonder about these kids. Where did that competitiveness come from? What are the origins of the Claireface?
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I fully support Clinton going off on Claire for this one. Aurelia, too, for not shutting down the stream when Claire started revealing embarrassing personal details like that.
...on the other hand, I can just HEAR the Mommymilkers section of AO3 breaking with the fanfic of just why Lil' Beef has a cowboy phobia, and the hot-but-sweet cowboy who cures it with the power of his love.
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Though I wonder: does Clinton really have a cowboy phobia, or did Claire just invent that on the spot (to 'flesh out his character')?
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Though I wonder: does Clinton really have a cowboy phobia, or did Claire just invent that on the spot (to 'flesh out his character')?
I'm guessing it's something that Claire invented on the spot to go with the cow theme.
It might be analogous to a fear of (for example) doctors.
And earlier about Clinton lying to Elliot. Aurelia told Claire and her significant other. But this implies that Clinton is not allowed to tell his significant other. We haven't been shown a reason why Aurelia would forbid Elliot from knowing. Even if Aurelia had said "Don't mention the V-Log", Clinton could still say that he's angry that his sister is using something private to mock him.
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There's a world of difference between Marten and Elliot right now. Claire and Marten have been dating for something like a year, I think, and Claire is living with Marten. There is every reason to include the established, long-term, live-in partner. They're not married and AFAIK haven't started talking about that yet, but Marten has met the family and been accepted as one of them.
Elliot and Clinton have been dating for a couple weeks. They're still in that new couple stage where of course they're welcome to participate in some family events, but they're still outsiders and should not assume that they're welcome to know everything right away. It takes time to build up that level of integration into the family.
Aurelia is, in general, keeping this secret. She hadn't told her kids until recently. It's way too soon for Clinton to just assume it's okay to tell Elliot - although if he asked first, Aurelia might be perfectly fine with him telling Elliot. Also, Claire asked if it was okay to bring Marten for the unvealing of the secret! :clairedoge:
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Though I wonder: does Clinton really have a cowboy phobia, or did Claire just invent that on the spot (to 'flesh out his character')?
It's so cow-themed, I feel like it has to have been an invention for lore purposes. (I'm also not sure I believe Jeph could've resisted bringing it up sooner if Clinton actually had a phobia that amusing to draw.)
Claire's immediate jump to "Let's embarrass Clinton!" in any public scenario sometimes feels to me like her writer applying the typical sitcom bratty-children-attacking-each-other model of siblings without adjusting for the age or other behavior of the characters, which is weird because it's not like Jeph hasn't shown us other sibling relationships that don't work that way. I also felt this way about their immediate hostility to each other in Coffee of Doom when they weren't even fighting at the time and we've seen them hang out and have casual conversations, but figured it was there for the gag.
It's funny, without Claire and Clinton's history in the comic, I can easily see this just being a story of Claire getting caught up in the idea of creating ~Lore~ for the Mommymilkers cinematic universe without stopping to consider that her brother may see her making up weird phobias and shit for his character as her making them up about him with the character as a veil. Then they would fight, have some of those classic QC discussions about the situation with other characters, and reconcile in a comic with like twenty dairy-themed puns. That's not the story we have, though.
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@ihaveavoice,
We have a rule on this forum about not saying things about fictional characters that we wouldn't say about real people. I wonder if anyone will take Claire aside and tell her that she's hurting Clinton for laughs and that 'it's only for the made-up lore' doesn't in any way justify or excuse her need to make him look bad and feel bad. The fact is that Claire is written increasingly as something of a petty bully and is given a free pass for certain reasons.
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Well, Aurelia warned her.
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Though I wonder: does Clinton really have a cowboy phobia, or did Claire just invent that on the spot (to 'flesh out his character')?
It's so cow-themed, I feel like it has to have been an invention for lore purposes. (I'm also not sure I believe Jeph could've resisted bringing it up sooner if Clinton actually had a phobia that amusing to draw.)
Claire's immediate jump to "Let's embarrass Clinton!" in any public scenario sometimes feels to me like her writer applying the typical sitcom bratty-children-attacking-each-other model of siblings without adjusting for the age or other behavior of the characters, which is weird because it's not like Jeph hasn't shown us other sibling relationships that don't work that way. I also felt this way about their immediate hostility to each other in Coffee of Doom when they weren't even fighting at the time and we've seen them hang out and have casual conversations, but figured it was there for the gag.
It's funny, without Claire and Clinton's history in the comic, I can easily see this just being a story of Claire getting caught up in the idea of creating ~Lore~ for the Mommymilkers cinematic universe without stopping to consider that her brother may see her making up weird phobias and shit for his character as her making them up about him with the character as a veil. Then they would fight, have some of those classic QC discussions about the situation with other characters, and reconcile in a comic with like twenty dairy-themed puns. That's not the story we have, though.
Sadly, some people never grow out of it.
@ihaveavoice,
We have a rule on this forum about not saying things about fictional characters that we wouldn't say about real people. I wonder if anyone will take Claire aside and tell her that she's hurting Clinton for laughs and that 'it's only for the made-up lore' doesn't in any way justify or excuse her need to make him look bad and feel bad. The fact is that Claire is written increasingly as something of a petty bully and is given a free pass for certain reasons.
Siblings --especially those with less than two years between them-- tend to have at least one of them like that. Especially if one or both have issues with anxiety, ego or srlf confidence. Though, one would think they'd be past it by their 30s. When they do, they'll may still fall into bickering at the drop of a hat (family stuff with some boomers with a crap childhood).
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Having seen (and written) fanfic, be careful what you wish for....
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Having seen (and written) fanfic, be careful what you wish for....
Ya rly. The Rule 34 fanfic and fanart for Bovinnia is going to be..........vigorous. And is probably going to take great liberties with her anatomy.
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Yes, be very smug about going on the stream just to outdo your brother and in the process make up stuff about him for personal entertainment. I mean, in the grand scheme of things it's probably not a real problem but I'm a bit sensitive about people making fun of each other, especially if it's in public and they don't have any way to retort. If both Claire and Clinton were on the stream so they could openly quibble with each other it'd be another matter entirely.
At least Clinton, lack of chill notwithstanding, seemed to be enjoying his time on the stream on its own without getting the rivalry involved.
As it stands I'm kind of hoping that Claire discovers what her mother was trying to warn her about while Clinton is present.
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Echo'ing multiple posters in this thread, that Claire's (recurring) behavior, especially towards her brother, is making it increasingly difficult to like her. I don't actively dislike her (yet), so I hope in due time she will have some kind of aha-moment about her behavior (I also remember some distinct not-cool moments towards Marten, e.g. when she was told in the bar about Padma). This could come in the form of Aurelia telling her, or somebody else Claire holds in high regard (possibly Bubbles or even Elliott).
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I wonder if this is now going to devolve in a competition of who can make up the most outrageous stuff about the other on Mommymilkers' stream (spawning ever-increasing amounts of progressively weirder/pervier fanart/fic) and Aurelia going from being happy her kids embraced her hobby to wishing she'd never told them...
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New comic.
The Augustus family stick their feet in their mouths so much, I'm surprised they can still walk.
Is that Claire in the background picture, holding a fish?
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DESTROYED
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Ouch....
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The weird thing is that, for a moment, I thought she meant a library job as well ... :psyduck:
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Oof. I don’t see Claire as being a bully here — she made up some stories while pretending to be a calf whose mom has four udders. She was being ridiculous.
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New comic.
The Augustus family stick their feet in their mouths so much, I'm surprised they can still walk.
Is that Claire in the background picture, holding a fish?
Current thought is that it might be a photo of Aurelia, on a campus or day trip some time back. Remember that Claire didn't start transitioning until after high school.
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Siblings --especially those with less than two years between them-- tend to have at least one of them like that. Especially if one or both have issues with anxiety, ego or srlf confidence. Though, one would think they'd be past it by their 30s. When they do, they'll may still fall into bickering at the drop of a hat (family stuff with some boomers with a crap childhood).
Claire and Clinton are in their early 20s. The internet says 24 and 21, which is further apart than I thought they were! That's the age difference between me and my brother. And I would expect that all siblings have at least one or two triggers to pretty much age in reverse, lol. That's normally a behavior aimed directly at each other while in the same place, though. At least in my experience, with a sibling I bitterly fought with at times but would never have thought to publicly humiliate. Not sure if that's on a different scale of rivalry or just a different variety.
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So, it looks like strong anxiety reactions run in the women of the family. All I can add at this point is that Aurelia at no point should act surprised, mention Claire's student loans or act as if she's trying to be supportive of an eccentric idea that disappoints her.
That's the advantages of having a less-complex brain, Marten. Animals do what they do and see no point being embarrassed about it. Humans have something called self-expectations that seem to exist only to torment us!
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Current thought is that it might be a photo of Aurelia, on a campus or day trip some time back. Remember that Claire didn't start transitioning until after high school.
Also possible.
For some reason, Aurelia doesn't strike me as the person to have pictures of herself up in such a prominent position, but I'm probably just projecting. I'd put up family pictures, kids' pics, ones of me and my husband... But not one by myself.
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Oof. I don’t see Claire as being a bully here — she made up some stories while pretending to be a calf whose mom has four udders. She was being ridiculous.
This was my thinking, too. They're completely anonymous internet personas. I think she was just having fun with it by making up stuff about her brother the MommyMilkers cinematic universe version, not the actual person. Cowboy phobia seems too 'on-brand' for the whole thing to have any actual basis in reality, and it's not as though making up that sort of thing affects their real lives. I saw it as a bit of harmless pretend fun. Clinton was clearly worried that Claire was going to spill real tea of some description, but a degree of paranoia is always his baseline.
I think it's a bit quick to judge before we even know Clinton's reaction, rather than his kneejerk "DON'T DO THAT" in relation to thinking Claire was going to give away real personal stuff.
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There's a world of difference between Marten and Elliot right now. Claire and Marten have been dating for something like a year, I think, and Claire is living with Marten. There is every reason to include the established, long-term, live-in partner. They're not married and AFAIK haven't started talking about that yet, but Marten has met the family and been accepted as one of them.
I mean, Marten did (https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4648) just bring up engagement...
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Oof. I don’t see Claire as being a bully here — she made up some stories while pretending to be a calf whose mom has four udders. She was being ridiculous.
This was my thinking, too. They're completely anonymous internet personas. I think she was just having fun with it by making up stuff about her brother the MommyMilkers cinematic universe version, not the actual person. Cowboy phobia seems too 'on-brand' for the whole thing to have any actual basis in reality, and it's not as though making up that sort of thing affects their real lives. I saw it as a bit of harmless pretend fun. Clinton was clearly worried that Claire was going to spill real tea of some description, but a degree of paranoia is always his baseline.
I think it's a bit quick to judge before we even know Clinton's reaction, rather than his kneejerk "DON'T DO THAT" in relation to thinking Claire was going to give away real personal stuff.
I don't think Clare is a bully either, but I do think her general behavior especially towards Clinton regularly veers into the unpleasant side.
W.r.t. the above (underlining mine): I respectfully disagree. it may seem harmless to make something up as pretend fun for an online persona, but it really isn't.
It's one thing if 2 people agree to have fun with it and make up fun/shocking things for each others' online personas, it's entirely another to do this unilaterally without the other's permission.
Is it his anonymous internet persona? Sure. Does it therefore not matter what Claire makes up about that persona? Yet it absolutely does, because it is his persona, and whatever Claire says about that persona will directly affect how others in the online community will continue to interact with Clinton's persona, and therefore his very real experience when being online as that persona. So yes, it does actually affect a person's real life.
And this is not even getting into the fact that many people develop pretty significant (emotional) connections with their online personas, indeed their personas are extensions of themselves and their online lives are extensions of their real life. As such, just making shit up/spreading rumors/saying whatever about a persona, whether true or not, has a very real effect even if it was meant as 'harmless pretend fun'.
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Yeah, when someone is present incognito as a fictional persona, that *is* an extension of that person, and while it may not be AS bad to make up stuff about the persona as about the real person, it's still pretty bad.
As a person who's met plenty of people only as anthropomorphic rabbits or foxes and whatever, in communities where those foxes and rabits were understood to be as real to the person inhabiting them as they wanted them to be*, I feel pretty strongly about this.
Clinton is not a furry of course (yet), and his streaming avatar is not important to his everyday interactions, so any damage is minor, but the same principle stands.
*Granted, my formative years as a furry were when the Internet was different. But I don't think this aspect of the furry fandom changed that much. People can be a different person on the Internet, and furries (that I've met) seem to treat this constructed identity as serously as the person constructing it.
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Also, not to belabor the point, but it's not up to Claire to decide how Clinton's online character is 'fleshed out'.
Anyway, I'm sure this will be revisited soon enough, likely by Clinton having to remind Claire why this is not really OK.
In the meantime, poor Claire for getting this reaction from her mom. Aurelia's reaction is understandable of course, but not helpful given Claire's anxiety/uncertainty about finding a library job :(
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Interesting, same author's comment on the same day for QC and SP. And I see where Claire's facial expressions come from.
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New comic.
Marten will cheer Claire up, but who will do that for Aurelia? Petting Cosmo is always good, but still. Maybe Clinton will come over to complain about his sister and Aurelia can offload on him.
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....... Do any of you have siblings?
Moreover, siblings within 2 years of your own age?
A lot of this scans like the answer is 'no'. Maybe it's because I'm from a highly dysfunctional family.
EDIT: I'm not saying that this degree of sibling rivalry is natural or 'normal'. Nor am I defending it. I'm just saying that I understand it and have seen plenty of IRL examples (both related and not). A common thread is very much some form of family dysfunction.
And from what we know of their father, he was a PoS.
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My brother is 18 months older than me. If he treated me the way Claire treats Clinton, I don't care how chaotic our childhood was that led to us becoming best friends because then we wouldn't have to either leave our best friend or have them leave us in two years, we'd be seeing each other at holidays and that's it.
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Something tells me that Marten has a long evening ahead of him trying to manage Claire's reaction to this. Most importantly trying to help her reject her fear that she is a failure and a disappointment to her mother. (Of course the real one disappointed in Claire is Claire herself.)
"No, Claire, quitting your job after one day won't help anything!"
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Siblings --especially those with less than two years between them-- tend to have at least one of them like that. Especially if one or both have issues with anxiety, ego or srlf confidence. Though, one would think they'd be past it by their 30s. When they do, they'll may still fall into bickering at the drop of a hat (family stuff with some boomers with a crap childhood).
Claire and Clinton are in their early 20s. The internet says 24 and 21, which is further apart than I thought they were! That's the age difference between me and my brother. And I would expect that all siblings have at least one or two triggers to pretty much age in reverse, lol. That's normally a behavior aimed directly at each other while in the same place, though. At least in my experience, with a sibling I bitterly fought with at times but would never have thought to publicly humiliate. Not sure if that's on a different scale of rivalry or just a different variety.
There is certainly some level of vindictiveness in how Claire handled herself on the stream but I feel it is subconscious rather than deliberately malicious and it reflects the fact that both Claire nor Clinton have a lot of repressed issues between themselves which haven't yet been resolved and this in turn will lead to very irrational behaviour, passive aggressive behaviour as well as repeated attempts by one to get the attention of the other regardless of whether that attention is either positive or negative. One or both will crave that even if it makes either one or both of them miserable in the process and because they haven't really been shown the concept of seeking positive attention (e.g. enjoying coffee, lunch or dinner together or with friends, talking about stuff without the need to put down or demean the other, etc) then that cycle will continue.
It is possible for brothers and sisters - even those closely tied by age - to co-exist without constantly needing to compete, bicker or even engage in full on negative behaviour. As a foster parent, I've seen siblings transition from a very fraught and negative relationship to an overwhelmingly positive one but that only happens when that behaviour is identified and worked out of the system and unfortunately when you have a parent figure who herself has significant behavioural challenges then that is going to be difficult to do. I feel that rather than helping, Aurelia ends up enabling Claire and Clinton's mostly negative relationship with each other.
A clear example of Claire's rather negative behaviour towards Clinton by the way: Her need to call give herself the nickname "Devanche" which, as one viewer pointed out, is French for "of the cow" which to me is a clear dig at her brother and a passive aggressive way of saying "I'm closer to Mom more than you are, SUCK IT, BROTHER!" Theres a clear insecurity and need for one to make themselves look the more authentic child than the other there and that would probably mean we'd be sitting down with her for a few hours to work out why she felt the need to do that, her feelings towards her brother and so forth. Theraputic parenting helps ;)
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Theraputic parenting helps ;)
Unfortunately, Aurelia's strategy seems to have been 'get high and hope the problem goes away'. It isn't working, as she just realised in today's strip.
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Indeed. Aurelia's key issues are:
- Avoidance - attempting to ignore a problem or a stressful situation and hope it goes away and/or changes for the better by itself.
- Deception - deliberately concealing something or an activity which, even with all the wilful ignorance in the world bordering on the deliberately obtuse, would cause confusion or even rejection from one's peers.
- Social anxiety and social awkwardness.
- A subconscious need for attention leading to abnormal behaviour - This is kind of reflected in her social habits and her sudden vtubing career as a cow. She too is seeking attention from her children, even if its wholly negative and whilst on the outside she seems non-plussed at the negative reactions she garners from both Claire and Clinton, inside her subconscious knows exactly what its doing: get a reaction and therefore get attention.
All of the above means the three of them really need some kind of therapeutic intervention.
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....... Do any of you have siblings?
Moreover, siblings within 2 years of your own age?
A lot of this scans like the answer is 'no'. Maybe it's because I'm from a highly dysfunctional family.
EDIT: I'm not saying that this degree of sibling rivalry is natural or 'normal'. Nor am I defending it. I'm just saying that I understand it and have seen plenty of IRL examples (both related and not). A common thread is very much some form of family dysfunction.
And from what we know of their father, he was a PoS.
TO answer your question, yes I have 6 (half)siblings and there generally is 2-3 years between any. Also quite dysfunctional. But while I do know that this type of behavior between siblings happens, I don't condone nor accept it as normal.
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Indeed. Aurelia's key issues are:
- Avoidance - attempting to ignore a problem or a stressful situation and hope it goes away and/or changes for the better by itself.
- Deception - deliberately concealing something or an activity which, even with all the wilful ignorance in the world bordering on the deliberately obtuse, would cause confusion or even rejection from one's peers.
- Social anxiety and social awkwardness.
- A subconscious need for attention leading to abnormal behaviour - This is kind of reflected in her social habits and her sudden vtubing career as a cow. She too is seeking attention from her children, even if its wholly negative and whilst on the outside she seems non-plussed at the negative reactions she garners from both Claire and Clinton, inside her subconscious knows exactly what its doing: get a reaction and therefore get attention.
All of the above means the three of them really need some kind of therapeutic intervention.
There is a lot to unpack here, but I haven't really seen much in the way of social awkwardness or social anxiety from Aurelia, although I admit I may just not be remembering. ALl instances of Aurelia I remember have been with either Clinton or Claire, and never have I seen an indication of social issues with her.
I am wondering why you call her behavior "abnormal". Perhaps you simply mean different from what the average middle-aged single mom tends to be interested in? Her behavior seems perfectly normal to me, if perhaps outside of what we would expect from somebody in her position. That's really more on us and our preconceived ideas of what people might/should engage in, though.
Edit: I do agree there are quite a few signs of Aurelia avoiding issues. As far as 'deceiving', she didn't deceive or conceal it from her kids, and there is literally 0 reason for her to go around telling people what she does in her spare time, just like I don't go around telling people what online forums I visit.
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The whole family, in general, has issues. Mind you this is QC, everybody has issues...
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There is a lot to unpack here, but I haven't really seen much in the way of social awkwardness or social anxiety from Aurelia, although I admit I may just not be remembering. ALl instances of Aurelia I remember have been with either Clinton or Claire, and never have I seen an indication of social issues with her.
I am wondering why you call her behavior "abnormal". Perhaps you simply mean different from what the average middle-aged single mom tends to be interested in? Her behavior seems perfectly normal to me, if perhaps outside of what we would expect from somebody in her position. That's really more on us and our preconceived ideas of what people might/should engage in, though.
Edit: I do agree there are quite a few signs of Aurelia avoiding issues. As far as 'deceiving', she didn't deceive or conceal it from her kids, and there is literally 0 reason for her to go around telling people what she does in her spare time, just like I don't go around telling people what online forums I visit.
My view is that her first dropping herself in it in regards to her comments about Claire getting a job followed by her reaction both to Claire after they left indicates to me that she is 1) unintentionally being socially awkward and 2) catastrophising to the point where she's attempting to self medicate with cannabis to ease her anxiety. In this example, she quite clearly instantly goes straight into catastrophising about what Claire might think about what she had just said - to be fair Claire has also done the exact same thing though more about what people might think about her continued inability to get a job in her chosen job field. Thats social anxiety. If you instantly freak out internally and disassociate because you think that you might have offended someone - regardless of what that person might actually think - then thats social anxiety and awkwardness.
Her behaviour regarding her vtubing channel is abnormal not because her chosen hobby itself is outside of the norm but because of how she's ended up doing it. Loneliness feeds a desire to get attention from those nearest which leads to abnormal behaviour in order to get said attention. To put it another way, if Aurelia decided to start a baking youtube channel I doubt that would have garnered as strong a reaction from either Claire or Clinton compared with essentially delving into furrydom and therefore subconsciously Aurelia would not get the attention it feels it needs.
Being deceptive isn't just flat out lying to someone, it can be someone doing something which people might find displeasing under their noses and when challenged arguing that because they haven't explicitly lied about it so therefore no harm no foul. TL;DR you don't have to lie to be deceptive. As an example, a child might decide to take a toy to school even thought the school has a no toy policy. The child doesn't declare that he/she has a toy to the parent or the school and for a month or so he/she happily comes and goes with the toy in their bag. When the toy is eventually discovered and the child challenged, he/she explains that because they have been taking that toy into school for so long they thought it was OK knowing full well that isn't the case. Thats deceptive behaviour.
To put this into Aurelia's case, consciously she might not be all that clear on the ins and outs of what she is doing or aware that her appearing as a 3D cow with multiple breasts might be on the fringe of what society might find tasteful. However, subconsciously, she's overtly doing this 1) as a way to alleviate boredom and 2) to garner a response and therefore attention from those nearest to her when her hobby is eventually discovered.
As a note, none of this means that any of the Augustus family have serious mental health issues, these are things which challenge us all be we neurodiverse or neurotypical. Its just up to us to recognisise our negative behaviour and try and work on ironing things out is all :)
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If Marten could just have taken his head out of his ass, his intervention might have avoided this sad situation. You're not just a bystander, Marten!
Around here, we say: Il n'y a pas de sot métier (there is no stupid trade).
Also: Claire, give yourself some slack. Trying to make a living while looking for the job of your dreams is something most people have done one way or another.
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If Marten could just have taken his head out of his ass, his intervention might have avoided this sad situation. You're not just a bystander, Marten!
Around here, we say: Il n'y a pas de sot métier (there is no stupid trade).
Also: Claire, give yourself some slack. Trying to make a living while looking for the job of your dreams is something most people have done one way or another.
Got to ask; what could Marten have possibly said or done in that moment that would have actually helped?
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"Yeah, my ex gave her a pity job so she'd have something to do while she waits for a library job!" Then Aurelia's off the hook for her faux pas because Marten's is so obviously worse, and Claire's laughing at how Marten is obviously joking... right? Right? This wasn't just a pity job from the ex? And then Claire has something new to focus on, but one Marten can more easily talk her down from ("Who cares why she gave you the job? Penelope's got her job because Dora and Faye basically bullied her into it and she was in such a bad mood from it she got fired from her other job, and Emily just happened to be there when Dora was issuing post-Faye changes and Dora just included her in things on accident. Giving you a job because you're her ex's new girlfriend and you need a job while you wait for positive results in finding a career in your field is downright normal, for her. I promise, it's not pity, and people get jobs that way all the time.")
Probably not the best of ideas. Non-intervention in this one was perfectly fine on Marten's part.
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Comic's up.
Yeah, Claire has a lot to unpack here.
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Ah, drama. :D Mind you, a LOT of folks I know aren't working in their prefered field...
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It's healthy to express your emotions.
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Yup, she's full on catastrophising and lashing out at Marten. Mostly because she feels she's safe enough with him to do that as she feels she isn't going to go anywhere.
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She's kinda lashing out at herself.
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Like I said yesterday, Marten has a lot to do to offer care and support and get Claire out of her self-loathing despair rut. It probably isn't going to be easy or enjoyable and I think he'll look back on today's strip as the fun and easy part!
How could this get worse? Clinton appears and chooses this time to deliver a "Why you suck" speech as Claire disappears below the surface of the Ocean of Despair.
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....... Do any of you have siblings?
Moreover, siblings within 2 years of your own age?
A lot of this scans like the answer is 'no'. Maybe it's because I'm from a highly dysfunctional family.
EDIT: I'm not saying that this degree of sibling rivalry is natural or 'normal'. Nor am I defending it. I'm just saying that I understand it and have seen plenty of IRL examples (both related and not). A common thread is very much some form of family dysfunction.
And from what we know of their father, he was a PoS.
TO answer your question, yes I have 6 (half)siblings and there generally is 2-3 years between any. Also quite dysfunctional. But while I do know that this type of behavior between siblings happens, I don't condone nor accept it as normal.
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I'm not condining it either. Just stating I understand it.
The closer two siblings are in age, the more vicious it becomes.
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She's kinda lashing out at herself.
He's definitely collateral though. I think of him as a tree trunk being swept away in a mudslide: the mudslide didn't cause the trunk to topple or anything but its just along for the ride at this point.
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Nope, still can't sympathize or like Claire. Take a long look Martin, this is most likely what you'll be dealing with multiple times in the future.
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Oof. I don’t see Claire as being a bully here — she made up some stories while pretending to be a calf whose mom has four udders. She was being ridiculous.
This was my thinking, too. They're completely anonymous internet personas. I think she was just having fun with it by making up stuff about her brother the MommyMilkers cinematic universe version, not the actual person…
Comic 4655: “Turn it back on. Anything he can do, I can do better.”
Comic 4656: “So who wants to hear embarrassing stories about my dumb little brother?”
Even if we set aside all the previous examples of Claire bullying Clinton, her behavior here is absolutely bullying/cruel. Unprovoked she both has to try and one up him AND the first thing she does is insult him and share embarrassing stories. That’s not adding background, that’s just being a jerk.
Claire is increasingly unsympathetic, and while I expect the QC cast to be flawed, id much rather we spend time with just about any other characters at this point than Claire.
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She's kinda lashing out at herself.
He's definitely collateral though. I think of him as a tree trunk being swept away in a mudslide: the mudslide didn't cause the trunk to topple or anything but its just along for the ride at this point.
He'll manage. It's kind of part of the package deal of relationships. You're not always seeing your loved one at their very best.
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She's kinda lashing out at herself.
He's definitely collateral though. I think of him as a tree trunk being swept away in a mudslide: the mudslide didn't cause the trunk to topple or anything but its just along for the ride at this point.
He'll manage. It's kind of part of the package deal of relationships. You're not always seeing your loved one at their very best.
Of course, I agree with all of that. But that isn't to say that there isn't an opportunity here to focus on self improvement. In this case, he's absolutely right to start yanking on the emergency brake of this catastrophising train. She's getting almost frantic at the moment so Marten is right on the money to step in like he is.
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Not everyone gets to fulfill their dreams. Talk to Penelope. While I’m sure it would be a disaster I’d like her to feature into a plot.
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Your attempt is doomed, Marten. The Claire freakout train has no brakes.
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I kinda want to avoid getting involved this time as I have in the past, put I also kinda want to pull the emergency brakes on the catastrophising train in this very thread.
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No brakes on this one either.
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Not everyone gets to fulfill their dreams. Talk to Penelope. While I’m sure it would be a disaster I’d like her to feature into a plot.
That’s why despair.com sells this (https://despair.com/products/potential).
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Does anyone know how close Clinton is to graduating? ...because I can see a potential Claire meltdown that would make this one look trivial, if Clinton graduated and then slid straight into his dream job... :psyduck:
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A couple of years away, I'd say? Since Claire just graduated, and Clinton is younger than her.
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She did post-grad stuff, though, so he could be getting his BS at any time.
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I believe Clinton is also working on post-grad. He was in classes with Emily and he's working on his thesis.
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Thaks for the correction.
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Clinton is about 22 I believe - I know it's been at least a year since we met them, since that was Claire starting her summer internship at the library and now Claire has graduated. A typical American progression would be that he's just finishing his bachelor's degree (graduate high school at 18/shortly before 18th birthday, and then four years of college for undergrad).
Given his interests and career goals, it would not surprise me if his undergrad graduation wasn't that big a deal to him because he's going straight into his graduate program. It's also possible that he managed to finish his bachelor's early and spent the past year on graduate work, or that he's doing a complicated program that will take an extra year of undergrad (multiple majors or dual-enrollment with undergrad and graduate work that will end with a master's degree).