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[SomeCanadianWeirdo]

Nah, probably not.  But when I reread this strip today Pintsize's comment certainly stood out.

[Storel]

  Pintsize doesn't even appear in the comic you linked, so I don't understand what comment you're referring to.

[Gyrre]

The long game in regards to what exactly?

If Faye and Bubbles being a couple, then I'd argue he's actually doing something that a lot of fanfic-ers (in general) don't bother with; character development arc. More to the point, showing a character that's pretty much only been portrayed in 'straight' relationships and who is presumably mostly straight slowly work through and develop feelings and attraction to someone of the same sex.

If that's his end goal, then I commend him greatly. Far too often two characters that would sooner kill each other than even kiss get paired together in fics with hardly, if even, any effort to justify it. *glares at Arcee-x-Airachnid and Cloud-x-Sephiroth shippers/ficcers*

EDIT: fixing stupid idotic spelling mistake.

[Aenno]

If that's his end goal, then I commend him greatly. Far too often to characters that would sooner kill each other than even kiss get paired together in fics with hardly, if even, any effort to justify it. *glares at Arcee-x-Airachnid and Cloud-x-Sephiroth shippers/ficcers*

As far as I know, every decent shippers would declare that dynamic in this pairs are ALREADY built on suppressed attraction, so you just need to open their eyes!

[SomeCanadianWeirdo]

The initial post has been edited so it will actually make sense.  Damn posting errors!

[SpanielBear]

Nah, the real long game comes to fruition in 2000 strips time, when after a painful breakup with Claire, Marten turns to Pintsize for some nice, cheerful, porn.

(Joke. Seriously a joke. I neither expect nor want any of this to happen)

[BenRG]

Actually, no, I don't think that Jeph planned Faybles that long in advance. In fact, I'll bet that when Jeph decided to tease his readers with this stuff, he didn't even remember that strip. He's always forgetting stuff that he's done before and having to check his own archives.

[SomeCanadianWeirdo]

I probably should have called this "Pintsize The Prophet." 

[Gyrre]

If that's his end goal, then I commend him greatly. Far too often to characters that would sooner kill each other than even kiss get paired together in fics with hardly, if even, any effort to justify it. *glares at Arcee-x-Airachnid and Cloud-x-Sephiroth shippers/ficcers*

As far as I know, every decent shippers would declare that dynamic in this pairs are ALREADY built on suppressed attraction, so you just need to open their eyes!

The two examples I gave, or the Fay-Bubbles ship?

If the former, Sephiroth is an omnicidal maniac, and Airachnid has done nothing but torture Arcee. If there's any attraction in there, it's 100% one-sided and would result in an abusive relationship at best.

If Faye-Bubbles, that's exactly what I explained Jeph to potentially be demonstrating. It's not enough for a writer to just say that suppressed attraction (a.k.a. "action movie romance"), a good writer shows it through their actions and words.

[JoeCovenant]

My take on the last strip in the recent Faye/Bubbles arc is this:

After all the comments about Faye being oblivious to:
1 - Bubbles attraction to her
2 - (What some people seem to think) Faye's own submerged attraction to Bubbles.

Faye is left alone with her thoughts for the first time that day.
She dwells on all of the things that she had heard, been said to her and probably gave to thought to.
But now her subconscious is playing it all back... and Faye is recognising the comments for what they are.

Her sister, her sister's partner and even Bubbles, making small insinuations that there may be a mutual attraction.

And Faye... dismisses ALL of it.
Now, she may well be wrong about thinking "Bubbles doesn't have a thing for me!"
But that little strip also encompasses Faye's OWN feelings about the whole thing... and as I said, she dismisses it.
Faye may not know what Bubbles thinks, but we now know that she isn't *oblivious* of her own feelings.

So, now that we've seen her work through these thoughts and dismiss them... then surely this *ship* has sailed?

[SpanielBear]

So, now that we've seen her work through these thoughts and dismiss them... then surely this *ship* has sailed?

I wouldn't be so quick to proclaim U.S.S. Faybles a wreck with all hands.

I'm not coming at this as a shipper myself. I like the idea of the pair being a couple, but in the main it's the emotional exploration I enjoy. The point is, I don't think I'm clutching at straws when I say that your reading of "Nah, can't be." isn't the only possible one.

I think it is equally plausible that Faye is dismissing the idea of Bubbles being interested in her. For whatever reason- she finds the idea disturbing, she thinks she isn't good enough, it's just never occurred to her that Bubbles would be interested- these are all possible reasons why Faye wouldn't consider her friend having feelings for her as a possibility.

I could even go further, and say that her expression in panel 3 looks disappointed that she feels she has to shut down the idea. But that would be tenuous.

The point is, that strip doesn't really elucidate any of Faye's feelings at all. At least not as clearly as you're suggesting. It just says in response to a word salad "nah, can't be." That's... actually pretty ambiguous.

(A hypothetical example of this:
A: "I think your friend C is attracted to you."
B: "Nah, can't be."
A: "Don't be dense, it's true, she told me so herself!"
B: "You're serious? Wow! Oh my God that's wonderful!")

It's not that I think you're definitely wrong, I just think we aren't at the stage of launching the lifeboats.

[Is it cold in here?]

It is still afloat but the crew still think they're on dry land.

Which leads to another thought. A ship sailed by people who don't even know they're on board it is likely to encounter serious difficulties even and especially after it launches.

All the other possibilities are open but somehow I've wound up convinced Faye is in denial. That's from someone who didn't see any real chance Faye would have feelings for a lady robot.

[JoeCovenant]

So, now that we've seen her work through these thoughts and dismiss them... then surely this *ship* has sailed?

It's not that I think you're definitely wrong, I just think we aren't at the stage of launching the lifeboats.

S'why I framed it as a question... 

[BenRG]

FWIW, lots of people have noted that Dora practically jumping Marten the minute Faye was out of the picture is the anomaly. Usually, Jeph's romantic plots tend to take hundreds of strips to reach any sort of conclusion

[pwhodges]

She'd been ogling him from the first time they met, though, so it didn't seem that extreme at the time.

[SpanielBear]

So, now that we've seen her work through these thoughts and dismiss them... then surely this *ship* has sailed?

It's not that I think you're definitely wrong, I just think we aren't at the stage of launching the lifeboats.

S'why I framed it as a question... 

Apologies, I assumed the question was rhetorical.

Which is why I answered it. 

[JoeCovenant]

So, now that we've seen her work through these thoughts and dismiss them... then surely this *ship* has sailed?

It's not that I think you're definitely wrong, I just think we aren't at the stage of launching the lifeboats.

S'why I framed it as a question... 

Apologies, I assumed the question was rhetorical.

Which is why I answered it. 

??
Isn't the point of rhetorical questions that they are not there "to be answered"?*
 

*(Not Rhetorical)

[SpanielBear]

So, now that we've seen her work through these thoughts and dismiss them... then surely this *ship* has sailed?

It's not that I think you're definitely wrong, I just think we aren't at the stage of launching the lifeboats.

S'why I framed it as a question... 

Apologies, I assumed the question was rhetorical.

Which is why I answered it. 

??
Isn't the point of rhetorical questions that they are not there "to be answered"?*
 

*(Not Rhetorical)

Yes, I was mocking my own instinctual pedantry. 

[JoeCovenant]

So, now that we've seen her work through these thoughts and dismiss them... then surely this *ship* has sailed?

It's not that I think you're definitely wrong, I just think we aren't at the stage of launching the lifeboats.

S'why I framed it as a question... 

Apologies, I assumed the question was rhetorical.

Which is why I answered it. 

??
Isn't the point of rhetorical questions that they are not there "to be answered"?*
 

*(Not Rhetorical)

Yes, I was mocking my own instinctual pedantry. 

At least we're agreeing on something ! 

[Is it cold in here?]

The Twelfth Commandment, before budget cuts reduced the number to ten, was going to be "Thou shalt not take thyself too damn seriously".

[OldGoat]

The Twelfth Commandment, before budget cuts reduced the number to ten, was going to be "Thou shalt not take thyself too damn seriously".

Okay Chilly, I'll bite - what was #11?   

[JoeCovenant]

The Twelfth Commandment, before budget cuts reduced the number to ten, was going to be "Thou shalt not take thyself too damn seriously".

Okay Chilly, I'll bite - what was #11?   

"Thou shalt not take unto thyself an eleventh commandment."

[SpanielBear]

"And lo, when thou reacheth the land across the seas far to the south, thou shalt find a beast with the beak of a duck, the body of an otter, the eggs of a chicken and the venom of a snake. THOU SHALT NOT SPEAK OF THIS."

[NemesisDancer]

The Twelfth Commandment, before budget cuts reduced the number to ten, was going to be "Thou shalt not take thyself too damn seriously".

Okay Chilly, I'll bite - what was #11?   

"Thou shalt not talk about Commandment Club."