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Yes?

9 (19.6%)

Yes.

4 (8.7%)

Yes!

15 (32.6%)

It also contains space ham. (But yes.)

18 (39.1%)

Total Members Voted: 46

[traroth]

I've been reading this comic since 2007 and stayed through the countless changes in tone, plot, art, etc. But if this turns into a furry comic I'm done.

For the moment, it's just one single joke. No need to overreact. I agree the whole thing is kind of cringy, but once in a while, that's ok.

Yes, one single joke I can ignore, certainly. I'm just afraid this is going to be like a regular character trait of hers and the source of many jokes and references. See: Marten's mom being a dominatrix - so in half the strips she's in there's some sort of dominatrix joke. Dale and Marigold like anime which is often referenced when they are present. Steve eats cereal. These all started out as single jokes that then became ongoing things we associate with the character.

I find furries to be deeply disturbing so I just really hope there won't be ongoing furry references in the comic.

Ok, I get you point.

[oddtail]

I've been reading this comic since 2007 and stayed through the countless changes in tone, plot, art, etc. But if this turns into a furry comic I'm done.

For the moment, it's just one single joke. No need to overreact. I agree the whole thing is kind of cringy, but once in a while, that's ok.

Yes, one single joke I can ignore, certainly. I'm just afraid this is going to be like a regular character trait of hers and the source of many jokes and references. See: Marten's mom being a dominatrix - so in half the strips she's in there's some sort of dominatrix joke. Dale and Marigold like anime which is often referenced when they are present. Steve eats cereal. These all started out as single jokes that then became ongoing things we associate with the character.

I find furries to be deeply disturbing so I just really hope there won't be ongoing furry references in the comic.

I think I get where you're coming from, but my reaction is the opposite. As a furry, as I implied in my previous comment, I'd love for there to be a character who's a furry in *any* piece of fiction, especially if the character is not exclusively the butt of a joke or deliberately framed as a freak (like that CSI episode way back when).

Furries have been the Internet's punching bag pretty much as long as mainstream Internet has existed, and I'd like to see someone switch it up in at least in one piece of media.

And for the record - Clinton mom's avatar is mildly unsettling to me. But in my case, the reaction would be the same if the avatar was any generic "super-hot babe", mainly due to contrast in how the character is presented and how she interacts with her fans online. For obvious reasons, the fact that the avatar is a cow doesn't phase me at all.

[Marco]

Ummm - "perfect likeness"?? I'm stretching to find anything about it that describes her adequately - though I suppose she means it ironically ("nudge/wink" to Clinton) 

I mean, Aurelia may be a lot of things, but "ample" isn't one of them   

Believe me, that's not "ample" at all in furry terms.


There are things that just can't be unseen.

[Marco]

If you exist on the internet at all, chances are at least one person is masturbating too you.

If that's true - eww - I suddenly feel the need to have a shower...

Oh god, that probably made it worse, didn't it?! 

Nah, I gess the "eww" part put it in context.

[Rincewind]

...we don't wanna tell him about The Whiteboard, do we?

I want to thank you for that "Whiteboard" link! I'm not usually into "funny antropomorphic animals" comics, but anything with a Polar bear name Doc fighting an eldritch horror spawned by home-made Mountain Dew left in the fridge too long with shaped-charges and other mayhem-producing devices is RIGHT up my alley!

[de_la_Nae]

Yes, one single joke I can ignore, certainly. I'm just afraid this is going to be like a regular character trait of hers and the source of many jokes and references. See: Marten's mom being a dominatrix - so in half the strips she's in there's some sort of dominatrix joke. Dale and Marigold like anime which is often referenced when they are present. Steve eats cereal. These all started out as single jokes that then became ongoing things we associate with the character.

there's a lot of things to unpack here, in this entire thread really, but i just woke up and i'm gonna swing by a bit of these ones, cuz i feel like i'm taking crazy pills to be frank. just gonna throw it out without translating into 'proper' language for now cuz i gotta go

jokes in a joke strip
a many-years spanning career
oh the sex worker but not the corporate ceo or the musician or the baker huh
a hobby involving multiple storytelling genres that is a significant swathe of a country's storytelling output
a fucking meme that Jeph did like TWICE, years apart, but the fans ran into the ground
the lines seem arbitrary at best

[hedgie]

I think that cow jokes just write themselves.  And I can see the avatar and whole online persona as something that she thought of while stoned and since it caught on, just ran with.

[Thrudd]

Oh myyyyyyyy.

The first thing that came to mind and has set up camp therein, is the costume episode of the Elizabethan era Black Adder where Nursey is dressed as a cow.
"A sad old woman with an udder fixation." to quote the infamously snarky Black Adder.

(click to show/hide)

[Aegir]

Yes, one single joke I can ignore, certainly. I'm just afraid this is going to be like a regular character trait of hers and the source of many jokes and references. See: Marten's mom being a dominatrix - so in half the strips she's in there's some sort of dominatrix joke. Dale and Marigold like anime which is often referenced when they are present. Steve eats cereal. These all started out as single jokes that then became ongoing things we associate with the character.

there's a lot of things to unpack here, in this entire thread really, but i just woke up and i'm gonna swing by a bit of these ones, cuz i feel like i'm taking crazy pills to be frank. just gonna throw it out without translating into 'proper' language for now cuz i gotta go

jokes in a joke strip
a many-years spanning career
oh the sex worker but not the corporate ceo or the musician or the baker huh
a hobby involving multiple storytelling genres that is a significant swathe of a country's storytelling output
a fucking meme that Jeph did like TWICE, years apart, but the fans ran into the ground
the lines seem arbitrary at best

Yeah I guess you're acting like the other things offend me somehow, which they don't.  They're just all things that started off as one-off jokes.  Early 2000s Jeph didn't make Marten's mom a sex worker to be inclusive or accurately reflect the real world or anything like that, but because it was a funny punchline. It was played for laughs. Pointing this out makes me anti-SW? And what, anti-cereal? Is that even a thing?

[Is it cold in here?]

Willy Wonka, in the book, was anti-cereal. Then there are those so hostile they become cereal killers.

Has anyone said "MILKF" yet?

[de_la_Nae]

got a minute from work to bang out a quick response

of course they're as much jokes as anything, which is why i said "jokes in a joke strip", because as it turns out a lot of things are jokes in a joke strip. Aurelia's avatar is as much a joke as anything.

you brought up those examples in a negative-contrasting context with this harmless joke that you literally said you'd walk out forever about, so i don't think it's exactly a stretch to think that maybe, just maybe, you had some negative associations with these other harmless things.
i'm not even trying to accuse of being offended, exactly, though don't think i don't recognize that "acting like" reframe.


right, will try to sneak back off and talk more later, take care

[Aegir]

got a minute from work to bang out a quick response

of course they're as much jokes as anything, which is why i said "jokes in a joke strip", because as it turns out a lot of things are jokes in a joke strip. Aurelia's avatar is as much a joke as anything.

you brought up those examples in a negative-contrasting context with this harmless joke that you literally said you'd walk out forever about, so i don't think it's exactly a stretch to think that maybe, just maybe, you had some negative associations with these other harmless things.
i'm not even trying to accuse of being offended, exactly, though don't think i don't recognize that "acting like" reframe.


right, will try to sneak back off and talk more later, take care

I'm not sure what you mean by "negative-contrasting." I was simply providing examples of character details in this comic that originally began as jokes or to provide material for jokes. One can reasonably infer from the fact that I am still currently reading the comic that I do not find the inclusion of dominatrices, anime, or cereal to be offensive or disturbing.

though don't think i don't recognize that "acting like" reframe.

What are you even trying to say here? I certainly don't recognize it.  Is this a more innocuous way of saying it? "From what you have written, you seem to have misinterpreted that the other things offend me somehow, which they don't."

[de_la_Nae]

not really back, but did want to say that my consternation and concerns are less to do with you, aegir, individually and more with like community and sub-culture levels of stuff, so if you feel especially singled out sorry just you were there and convenient
i'm not actually against singling someone out, mind you, but that's not my broad intention here

[SubaruStephen]

I take a break for a little while, just a liiiiiiittle while.....and what the hell did I just come back to?! 
Am I gonna have to click “I am over 18”? and start using incognito mode?

[hedgie]

Hey, the comic has to live up to its name somehow.

[haikupoet]

That horrifying moment when Clinton realizes that on some level, his mother is younger than he is...

[Salty]

40k subscribers with a constant 3k viewing?

That's...that's not a hobby. That's a revenue stream.

To which I can only say...milk it for what it's worth, ginger lady!

[tbodt]

comic

Let's see, if this is Twitch, she has way more subs than any existing streamer, and she'd be making about $1.6 million/year. Normally you have more viewers than subscribers. I'll assume it was supposed to say "followers".

[shanejayell]

Well, that's a thing (still). *lol*

[Farideh]

Good on you, Aurelia! The cow avatar still makes me go a bit  , but you do you

[mneme]

Does anyone know what the black thing she's holding in her right hand is?

Game console controller.

Thanks -- I see it now!

[Shmee]

Thoughts:

I'm so glad things have finally progressed with the Elliot/Clinton dynamic!

I'm so sad that Clinton will never be attracted to anything or anyone ever, for the rest of his entire natural life, after this streaming session with his mother.

[Sorflakne]

It's been way too long since this comic had a nice "get the popcorn!" arc.

[Gyrre]

Yeah, this feels appropriate given Clinton's dawning realization in the third and 4th panels.
[It started playing while reading the comic.]

[Magniras]

Huh. Apparently my 1k+ estimate was conservative. But damn, 3k of your 40k viewers watching is a good ratio.

[neurocase]

comic

Let's see, if this is Twitch, she has way more subs than any existing streamer, and she'd be making about $1.6 million/year. Normally you have more viewers than subscribers. I'll assume it was supposed to say "followers".

Yeah, I had the same thought. And if you had 40k subs but only an average of 3k concurrent viewers, that'd be strange. But 40k followers and 3k concurrent actually does track, more or less.

For anyone not in the know, vis a vis streaming, following someone's stream is just a case of hitting the 'follow' button. As you might expect, being a subscriber or sub to a streamer involves a monthly fee.

[de_la_Nae]

I take a break for a little while, just a liiiiiiittle while.....and what the hell did I just come back to?! 
Am I gonna have to click “I am over 18”? and start using incognito mode?

i mean, there was nudity and the like within the first hundred strips, give or take. groping, cheesecake, sex toys, violence, drug abuse, sex.... these have been a part of QC since the beginning.

a fully-clothed bit of transhumanist eye candy, after all this time, after everything we've been through being what's causing such a... visceral trend of reactions, that's.

that's a lot of what i'm trying to get at, in general. a lot of people are mostly joking. i hope. and like, we should be able to joke and have fun and enjoy the silliness of this! there *is* silliness here, there is joyousness here!

but

she's not even in lingerie. she's just a little risque, just being different and playful and attractive in a way outside her over-culture's assigned "respectability" role for her, as a middle-aged mother. the current of disapproval and condemnation through fan reactions here and elsewhere, while not nearly as bad as it could be, well it's a damned familiar taste, i think, to women and to minorities in general, who find ourselves often enough subjected to it in our own lives when being harmless.

so that's where a lot of my frustration and sadness is coming from, here in this thread recently. why i'm bothering to type a bunch. cuz we were feasting together, communal joy together, and now that familiar poison turns sweet wine bitter on my lips.

edit: and it's far, far, far from the first time in this community and fandom

[hedgie]

We can just try to moove on from the silly stuff.

[Mordhaus]

[BenRG]

I'm wondering if Clinton's real problem is that sudden realisation that his mother is Internet Famous. We know that he can be something of a fanboy sometimes; maybe he's having difficulty squaring his feelings for his mother with his urge to worship at the feet of a Streaming Star?

[APersonAmI]

No one is being hurt, so I'm mostly fine with this. Slightly put off by the way the similar skin and eye tone make them melt together eldritchly.

People treat Anthropomorphic animals strangely. I've never undestood that.

Aurelia should definitely have explained that there'd be three thousand people watching before starting the stream, though. Informed consent is important.

[Fuzzlepuzzle]

I don't care about the streaming or the audience or her avatar, I'm uncomfortable that she guilt tripped her kid into hanging out with her and then immediately tried to get him on her stream without telling him anything about it. Popping in on your mom's stream when she's got like twenty viewers is a much different situation than being watched by three thousand people. Learning that this is a revenue stream for her, and having him on is likely to cause a boost in donations, makes it feel even more exploitative.

And jfc, someone can enjoy being sexy or flirtatious or whatever and still understand and respect their children not wanting to be directly involved in it. Aurelia can do whatever she pleases on her own time, but she's being really inconsiderate of Clinton. And this isn't the first time.

[Shjade]

Popping in on your mom's stream when she's got like twenty viewers is a much different situation than being watched by three thousand people.

While true, it's not like he's actually being watched by any of them.

I don't think he needs to worry about anyone recognizing him on the street as a cow.

[Torlek]

True, but now Clinton has to live with the knowledge that someone, somewhere is furiously masturbating to the image of him as an anthropomorphic cow.

[BenRG]

Denial and moving on to other things is an excellent way to handle that fact.

Which is why it's highly unlikely Clinton, written properly, would react  that way.

Maybe that's the way Jeph is planning to take this: Aurelia is flattered at being seen as desirable in any context but doesn't really get just how cringy or outright alarming it can be it until Clinton pulls up the fan-page (that she never visits) that is full of... charitably 'off-colour' remarks by the weirdest 'fans' about her and what they fantasise about doing to her. So, the whole thing becomes a metaphor for how little Jeph likes or even feels comfortable knowing the existence of the more aggressively hardcore sexualised parts of his fandom.

[Gyrre]

Time will tell, BenRG.
[No, I don't have access to the pareon strips.]

[Aegir]

I take a break for a little while, just a liiiiiiittle while.....and what the hell did I just come back to?! 
Am I gonna have to click “I am over 18”? and start using incognito mode?

i mean, there was nudity and the like within the first hundred strips, give or take. groping, cheesecake, sex toys, violence, drug abuse, sex.... these have been a part of QC since the beginning.

a fully-clothed bit of transhumanist eye candy, after all this time, after everything we've been through being what's causing such a... visceral trend of reactions, that's.

that's a lot of what i'm trying to get at, in general. a lot of people are mostly joking. i hope. and like, we should be able to joke and have fun and enjoy the silliness of this! there *is* silliness here, there is joyousness here!

but

she's not even in lingerie. she's just a little risque, just being different and playful and attractive in a way outside her over-culture's assigned "respectability" role for her, as a middle-aged mother. the current of disapproval and condemnation through fan reactions here and elsewhere, while not nearly as bad as it could be, well it's a damned familiar taste, i think, to women and to minorities in general, who find ourselves often enough subjected to it in our own lives when being harmless.

so that's where a lot of my frustration and sadness is coming from, here in this thread recently. why i'm bothering to type a bunch. cuz we were feasting together, communal joy together, and now that familiar poison turns sweet wine bitter on my lips.

edit: and it's far, far, far from the first time in this community and fandom

Your "fully-clothed bit of transhumanist eye candy" to me is a disturbing sexualized cartoon cow with oversized human breasts. Not comparable to anything related to the most sexual of Jeph's art involving humans.

[oddtail]

I don't want to invalidate your feelings, but what is sexually "disturbing" is a very subjective notion. If you find something unappealing, I confess to not really understanding why you can't move past it. I'm sure there will be plenty of depictions of the human body that you find appealing and I don't like. It's not like the comic is about to turn into "furry cheesecake, all the time". It's one image at this point, and it's not like it features nudity. Yes, it's deliberately sexual, but in a very "PG" way.

[BenRG]

Can we please accept that Aegir feels a visceral repulsion to even mildly-sexualised anthro art that radically impacts their ability to read, let alone enjoy, these last two strips, accept that and just move on?

[bhtooefr]

Realistically, the only actually disturbing part is her dragging Clinton into this without getting his informed consent. Beyond that, well, what she does is her business.

Also, re: QC going furry, http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1277 (and, given that it's Pintsize, this is extremely sexual for him) and http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1279 (not at all sexualized, and it's scaly I believe?, and drug-induced)

[Perfectly Reasonable]

some of the milkmaids are gonna wanna hook up with clinton arent they

crawls away

[hedgie]

I do think that this is more on the level of Roko’s “sexy unicorn dude” tea-induced hallucination. 

[Thrillho]

I am aware that I helped kick this off, but let's let this drop.

I would be disgusted if someone on here shamed one of us for being a furry. Aegir answered people's questions candidly, despite us, including me, not being welcoming.

And using a word like 'realistically' about someone saying they find something disturbing? I have had that kind of thing levelled at me before about plenty of things.

I have one friend whose trauma is literally triggered by a beloved children's character. Not presenter. Character. We don't get to choose what upsets us.

[hedgie]

One person’s squick is another person’s idea of a good time.

[bright]

I'm mostly surprised that this mostly offends me because something deep inside me is constantly nagging me "One breast, multiple nippels and lower down her body" on repeat.

[Torlek]

I'm mostly surprised that this mostly offends me because something deep inside me is constantly nagging me "One breast, multiple nippels and lower down her body" on repeat.

The uncanny valley's a weird thing. There's no reason it can't be approached from the cow side rather than the human side.

[Mr_Rose]

“Everything between here and the river is ours, child. One day it will be yours to manage in your turn.”
“But what about the far side of the valley, beyond the river?”
“We don’t go there! Not ever. That’s where the cows dwell. No good comes to those that meddle in their affairs.”

[Roborat]

OK, so this technically makes Clinton's mom a furry.

I think this is *the* first piece of fiction I've ever seen that has a character that's a furry. In the sense of having an anthropomorphic animal as a persona/avatar that they use to interact with others, not in the sense of the character actually *being* an anthro animal.

At least, I can't offhand think of any other examples.

Well, Between Failures has some furry content, and some of the characters were originally furries in a previous comic the author did.  And Sabrina Online is sort of furry adjacent, and is one of the longest running webcomics still updating, you might want to give them a look.

[Salty]

Well, Between Failures has some furry content, and some of the characters were originally furries in a previous comic the author did.  And Sabrina Online is sort of furry adjacent, and is one of the longest running webcomics still updating, you might want to give them a look.

”Sort of.” “Adjacent.”

It’s a damn shame there’s no “raised eyebrows” emote because you can be sure that if there were it would be all over this post.

[oddtail]

OK, so this technically makes Clinton's mom a furry.

I think this is *the* first piece of fiction I've ever seen that has a character that's a furry. In the sense of having an anthropomorphic animal as a persona/avatar that they use to interact with others, not in the sense of the character actually *being* an anthro animal.

At least, I can't offhand think of any other examples.

Well, Between Failures has some furry content, and some of the characters were originally furries in a previous comic the author did.  And Sabrina Online is sort of furry adjacent, and is one of the longest running webcomics still updating, you might want to give them a look.

There are plenty of stories with anthro *characters*. I was specifically referring to characters in fiction who are furry *fans*. Note this:

In the sense of having an anthropomorphic animal as a persona/avatar that they use to interact with others

Sabrina Online has anthropomorphic characters, yes, but not characters who are in the furry fandom. How would that even work in a world where everyone already *is* an anthropomorphic animal?

Or to put it another way: no character in Star Trek is a trekkie.

As to Between Failures, I'll check it out, thanks for the recommendation. I don't think I'd heard of it before.