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spathe ham

[Gyrre]

I wonder who Beepatrice's new coworker will be?

As well as what the strip on my birthday will bring.

[shanejayell]

Well, THAT didn't go where I expected.

[Gus_Smedstad]

I dunno. Seems pretty predictable to me, really. I mean, aside from Pintsize getting emotional and all. But I'm pretty sure Jeph decided he wanted to move on from Pintsize's old appearance, which is now rather out of place compared to the rest of his art, and this is his way of working his desire into the strip.

That said, I can totally see how being a short bot without proper fingers would feel very, very limiting compared to a humanoid body. It's a very plausible rationalization for the art change.

I still don't personally care much for the new body. Maybe it's just the shirtless and pink hotpants look. None of the other near-human AI characters (Bubbles, Roko, Beeps, Millie, Melon) goes about mostly naked. Punchbot's always naked but's he's pretty industrial. Pintsize was always fully naked before, but that wasn't remarkable given his overall appearance. Not that there's anything sexy or offensive about new blue robot chest, but it's still kind of offputting.

[MrNumbers]

I just watched a friend spend two years memeing themself into realizing they're trans through funny jokes ha ha, this is the realest Pintsize has ever been.

[St.Clair]

what are these, these feelings, ugh.

[Farideh]

When pranks turn into uncomfortable self-actualization.


Which makes me wonder if the new emotions are tied to the new chassis? How much of that is hardware-specific for AIs?

[Tyr]

Considering that Pintsize's original body was probably a first-gen AnthroPC, I suspect at least part of the appeal here is even a 'low grade' modern sensorium is at least a kilometer better than his old one.  On top of that, factor in the increase in self-sufficiency his longer limbs gives him and you can kind of understand why the new chassis grew on him so quick. 

[Dock Braun]

There was a time I was a simpler person. Eventually, an uneasy felling would gnaw at me, that I'd scarcely attend to, if at all recognize. And I'd live quite happily---I'd thought---in that simple grind. It really was quite fun, but subconsciously, knowing I'd even more enjoy something even more, wore me down well. I miss it sometimes, and I occasionally go back into that state of mind, and---as one might say---shoot the shit.
Eventually, something changed, and I'd never go back. I don't recall very well at all what came first, in my journey to myself, but it was as Pintsize is now; I'm glad Jeph is going this way about Pintsize---a favourite character of mine, beloved now ever stronger.
So I never gasped in surprise, or at all felt this in any way contrary to the character. Even without whatever tenuous foreshadowing there might have been, the developments shown this past week: perfectly natural.

[Dock Braun]

Which makes me wonder if the new emotions are tied to the new chassis? How much of that is hardware-specific for AIs?

So I would wonder: Were he to return to his prior chassis, would he be satisfied with his prior chassis? If the chassis is mostly responsible for the new feelings.

What if it's a marketing trick? Psst. Hey, kid! Come try on this body. Absolutely free! And then they never wanna return to their old. An interesting way to avoid planned obsolescence?

[awkwardness]

Pintsize hates showing that he's not completely a bad comedic douchebag...but Claire really hits him hard: she's his kryptonite, the one who actually gets him and sees through his smokescreen.

I honestly hope that he doesn't stay in this chassis, it's just not him and he doesn't need the growth that having a bigger body might give him as he's growing all on his own

[awkwardness]

When pranks turn into uncomfortable self-actualization.


Which makes me wonder if the new emotions are tied to the new chassis? How much of that is hardware-specific for AIs?

He has shown this kind of emotion before, he hides it but Claire has gotten him to emote like this before. I suspect that it's her ability to get you to be a friend and confess things that you can't confess to others.

[DaiJB]

"aw buddy"
Yeah, I can understand Pintsize's response - he's never (as far as I can see in the archives) had any experience in any chassis other than his original (and its near-identical replacement).
Now, the new experiences are pouring in on him - greater dexterity, more modern senses, probably upgraded capacity, not to mention the extra height. "Prison cell" indeed!

However, I don't think you can tame Pintsize that easily - I foresee a rejuvenated prankster, with greater powers of chaos! He may keep the old chassis just for the yuks - maybe go back to it when being small and annoying is useful to him... 

[traroth]

We waited for a very veeeeeeery long time to see one of Pintsize's jokes going horribly wrong. And there it is.

[Shjade]

I just watched a friend spend two years memeing themself into realizing they're trans through funny jokes ha ha, this is the realest Pintsize has ever been.

I guess it would make sense for Claire to be the first one to pick up on and gently tug that particular thread. Could prove to be a very interesting conversation if Pintsize's open to having it.

[ihaveavoice]

I just watched a friend spend two years memeing themself into realizing they're trans through funny jokes ha ha, this is the realest Pintsize has ever been.

I've seen a number of people talk about how indulging an urge to cosplay as a character of a particular gender made them feel more comfortable in their skin than they ever have before. I also saw a tiktok awhile back of someone experiencing gender euphoria from a haircut, and it was the purest thing ever.

[Gyrre]

Dammit.
Now I'm mad at myself for not just listing a bunch of noncommittal neutral phrases for the poll (i.e. "we shall see", "time will tell", "let's see where Jeph takes this", etc).

If I think of a different poll, I'll swap it out.

[Gyrre]

When pranks turn into uncomfortable self-actualization.


Which makes me wonder if the new emotions are tied to the new chassis? How much of that is hardware-specific for AIs?

He has shown this kind of emotion before, he hides it but Claire has gotten him to emote like this before. I suspect that it's her ability to get you to be a friend and confess things that you can't confess to others.

Is it some combination of her personality, innate and practiced ability, and her personal presentation/appearance that allows her to coax out these confessions?

I have people confide all manner of things to me without prompting, so I'm genuinely curious what the authorial reasoning is beyond 'plot'. I'm barely more than 5'5" (165 cm) and wear glasses myself, but I'd wadger I outweigh Claire by around 100 lbs and have much broader shoulders, as I really do have 'big bones' in a non-euphamistic fashion.[1]

[1] Finally got a competent shoe guy, and my shoe size is a US men's 9½ 4E. But I still have to bump up to a 6E width because weird feet. I have to get a men's 2XL labcoat so I can move my arms more than ~10° forward. My labcoat fits like a long trenchcoat and I have to cuff up the sleeves, but I haven't ripped out the shoulders from any of this set of coats, so I'll deal with it.

[jesslc]

Some of the comments in last week's thread reminded me of a theory that I've held for quite a while now but haven't seen discussed anywhere yet. This seems to be an opportune time to put it out there and see what other people think of it.

In my opinion, Pintsize has been shifting over time to being Claire's companion AI instead of Marten's. (By "over time" I mean since Claire started staying over at Marten's regularly, before she moved in). In support of my theory:

1) The dynamic between Claire and Pintsize
Eg. Today's comic, Claire approach to Pintsize's attempts to troll her (the birdseed incident, the wolf urine sticky note), the support Pintsize provided when Claire was freaking out about her exams, Claire cuddling Pintsize when she was anxious that she had messed up with Marten. (Actually I think we've seen Claire cuddling Pintsize twice in the past.)

I feel like Claire and Pintsize's dynamic resembles Marigold & Momo dynamic way more than Marten & Pintsize's dynamic ever did. Not that there's just one way to be a companion AI, but some similarities struck me.

2) Do you remember when we learned ages ago that Marten shouldn't have been assigned Pintsize as his companion AI? Take a look at that mini arc again: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2333

Momo says in 2336 that being scared of Gordon would have thrown off the biometrics and Marten shouldn't have been assigned Pintsize as his companion.

Marten is not really an anxious person in my opinion. Sometimes he gets anxious in response to something (eg Gordon on his head) but most of the time he's pretty equanimous. Claire on the other hand does have a tendency towards anxiety which we see fairly often. For that matter, "has no chill" has been one of the defining characteristics of all the Augustuses since their introduction. I think Claire clearly comes across as someone who has worked on her anxiety a lot and manages it quite well most of the time, but it's still there in lots of ways. (Speaking as someone who's been there - in my experience, you don't really stop being an anxious person, you just get a lot better at managing it).

So Marten, who is normally a pretty equanimous person, was assigned a companion AI at least partially based on biometrics taken at a time when he was extremely anxious. Now years later, Marten has girlfriend who has a tendency towards anxiety and she seems to get along with Pintsize much better than he ever did.

Coincidence? I think not.

The part I can't explain so well is that Dora has anxiety issues too. Though I do see Dora's issues as somewhat different to Claire's. In my opinion Dora's issues seem to mostly be around control and trusting people. Whereas I don't think Claire seems to have a lot of trouble trusting individuals, her anxiety is more generalised.

From a meta perspective, we didn't get the reveal of Marten being inaccurately assigned Pintsize until quite a while after he and Dora had broken up. So it probably wasn't until that point that Jeph gave any thought to what sort of person Pintsize might actually be a good companion for. This, of course, assumes the shift I think I've been seeing is deliberate on Jeph's part - it could just be that I saw a pattern where there wasn't meant to be one. But I have been thinking that it might be a deliberate writing choice and I'm definitely going to take the current comic as further confirmation! I mean - can you imagine Pintsize having this vulnerable conversation with Marten? I can't. 

Because of this theory, I don't see Pintsize ever leaving the Marten/Claire household. But if they ever end up doing a long distance relationship for some reason, I think Pintsize would probably go with Claire rather than Marten. Say if Claire got offered a 3 or 6 month contract position to cover someone going on sabbatical/maternity leave/etc and it's on the other side of the country. (I don't know if this happens much in the US, but it's not that uncommon here. One of the public libraries I used to work at advertised a position like this once & I've seen other organisations advertising "maternity leave contract" positions in the past too. Since they're not permanent contracts, most people already in the field wouldn't bother applying, so they can be a good way for a newbie to get some experience, maybe even a foot in the door.)

[notStanley]

Would Pintsize give up cake batter just because he changed chassis?  I think not.

[Shjade]

Is it some combination of her personality, innate and practiced ability, and her personal presentation/appearance that allows her to coax out these confessions?

I'm sure it varies from person to person, situation to situation, etc., but in my experience?

Timing. It's mostly timing.

You can be the most understanding, trustworthy person in the world, and it doesn't mean a thing if they're not in a place to talk about it when you're there to listen. Being that kind of person and being available for those conversations more often increases the odds of it coming up. But unless someone's paying you to listen to them for therapy, I don't think you're generally going to get people to open up through effort on your part most of the time (and might make things worse trying).

Note: I'm not licensed for anything, this isn't Official Mental Health Advice, just my perspective.

Different topic: that's an insightful point, jesslc. Would never have occurred to me, but I can see it. Totally plausible.

[Farideh]

I will accept your theory as canon, jessic.

[shanejayell]

Comic's up.

Is kinda awww... then goes right back to usual Pintsize. 

[Farideh]

You know, I could handle the hot pink pants, and the hot pink tie, but the socks and sandals combination broke my brain.

[DaiJB]

See?! I told you - you can't hold Pintsize down for long! 

(Not human-like anatomy, then? I'll admit that surprised me a bit - I expected Pintsize to at least have somewhere to attach his giant Robo-appendage  )

[sitnspin]

Considering there are dildos you can hook up to a computer via USB in our world, I'd say he still has that option.

[Annemoon]

Is it some combination of her personality, innate and practiced ability, and her personal presentation/appearance that allows her to coax out these confessions?

I feel like there are a few factors that trigger it.

- Non judgement: You come across as someone who doesn't judge quickly, or signal to them that you wouldn't judge them.
- Show that you have room to have these conversations
--> both of these are usually signaled partly by being open about your own issues, talking about them to others and notably to this person
- show interest
- give space to let them come to you when they are ready to talk
--> these two above have some inner conflict, e.g. a lot of people need _some_ "asking questions" for it to come up, but at the same time room to not speak and speak at one's own terms.
This is where that timing thing comes in btw
In my experience, ask in the general direction, but don't pry, let follow up come out on their terms, and keep silences people usually need to time to decide what to say,
so by just keeping your mouth shut for a while in these occasions you usually give them some space to do that.

That's what I've learned on this over the years.
Of course you also shouldn't be a gossip

[Gyrre]

Is it some combination of her personality, innate and practiced ability, and her personal presentation/appearance that allows her to coax out these confessions?

I'm sure it varies from person to person, situation to situation, etc., but in my experience?

Timing. It's mostly timing.

You can be the most understanding, trustworthy person in the world, and it doesn't mean a thing if they're not in a place to talk about it when you're there to listen. Being that kind of person and being available for those conversations more often increases the odds of it coming up. But unless someone's paying you to listen to them for therapy, I don't think you're generally going to get people to open up through effort on your part most of the time (and might make things worse trying).

Note: I'm not licensed for anything, this isn't Official Mental Health Advice, just my perspective.

Different topic: that's an insightful point, jesslc. Would never have occurred to me, but I can see it. Totally plausible.

So I'm just going to keep getting random coworker confessions in the breakroom and be the person the distraught distant relative at the funeral comes to for comfort? *deep sigh*
[The latter has only happened once so far.]


EDIT: Come to think of it, I got a message out of the blue the other day on one of the other forums I frequent requesting advice. I won't share their username or what they were asking for guidance with but their opening line was "I've seen your posts on the extended forum and you really seem to have a lot of insight." I don't have much recent experience with what they were going through, so all I could do was be honest about it and throw out a few ideas. Hopefully I wasn't completely useless.

[John Allenson]

Perhaps the rule concerning no discussion about private parts could be relaxed about Pintsize.

It is a good metaphor for how Pintsize interacts with the world. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=8

Honestly, (My Opinion Only) I've felt that Pintsize has been pretty Asexual.  Which needs an explanation.  Pintsize seems to be fascinated with the concept of sexuality, he refers to it as human ingenuity.  Pintsize seems to use squicky sexual imagery to distress people.  But other than an early story line Pintsize has not shown interest in being intimate with anyone; in contrast to May or Bubbles.  It has been shown that he'll use descriptions of sex to distract others from what he's actually concerned about.  The various talk about things like 'toast fetish' seems to be play acting (unlike one robot with a fresh bread fetish).

I think Pintsize is already more interesting now that he's exploring a wider set of possibillities of sensation and expression.

[wiserd]

Well, THAT didn't go where I expected.

The USB port?

[shanejayell]

New comic.

So... COULD Faye demolish a normal robot?

[John Allenson]

So... COULD Faye demolish a normal robot?

She worked as a mechanic/doctor at a robot fight club.  She'd know how to disable a robot.
And that's if annoying Faye doesn't also irritate Bubbles.

I'd be glad to see an end to the Chaos Goblin schtick.
I am looking forward to seeing Momo and Winslow reacting to Pintsize 2.0.

[cesium133]

I was going to point out that this is Pintsize 3.0, but there isn't much of a difference in appearance between Pintsize 1.0 and Pintsize 2.0, so I guess we could call those Pintsize 1.0 and Pintsize 1.1.

[Farideh]

I'm not sure how I feel about the full-size Pintsize. Time will tell.

[Shjade]

I guess he's Gallonsize now?

[QuestionableIntentions]

Wat? No more Chaos Goblin? Instead another insecure hipster? Whyyyy? 

And can I just say how much I love Claire telling people how they should behave, how they should be? And telling them what their bodies should mean for them? I want to see her reaction if someone did that to her.

[Platypodes]

Anyone else get the sense that Jeph decided that a wacky grope-bot with magical fingerless hands doesn't fit with how the strip evolved, so he's just gonna give him a new body and a new personality in one fell swoop?

[cesium133]

I guess he's Gallonsize now?

With all that Canadian Tire money, he's Litresize.

(I can't see the word 'litre' spelled the Canadian way and not mentally pronounce it 'leetra'. It just looks wrong.)

[Farideh]

Wat? No more Chaos Goblin? Instead another insecure hipster? Whyyyy? 

And can I just say how much I love Claire telling people how they should behave, how they should be? And telling them what their bodies should mean for them? I want to see her reaction if someone did that to her.

I didn't interpret the comic that way. I saw it more as Claire trying to help Pintsize identify his emotions ("is this how you feel?" rather than "this is what you're feeling"). If he had replied "no, that's not it", she would have accepted that. Also remember that Claire knows Pintsize quite well, better than Marten does in some ways. She knows how far she can go.

[Gus_Smedstad]

Again, I'm not really surprised by the direction this is going. I was having trouble visualizing much of the old Pintsize behavior in the new, teenager body. A joke about filling his body with birdseed and having birds nest in his mouth (remember that one?) doesn't really work with the new body.

I'm mostly OK with that. Characters defined by their zaniness (hello Melon!) aren't very interesting to me. I don't really find "look how nuts this character is" to be all that funny. I think really good absurdist humor is tougher to pull off than it looks. Not everyone can be Monty Python.

We're pretty much getting an entirely new character with a familiar name.

[TV4Fun]

RIP the last vestige of pre-Cerebus Syndrome QC.

[badbum61]

Claire, I imagine, would have particular insight into inhabiting a body that doesn't express how you feel within...so she's perfectly placed to have this conversation with Economysize.

[John Allenson]

RIP the last vestige of pre-Cerebus Syndrome QC.

It's more growing the beard.  A lot of the characters are now in healthier and/or happier places than they had been.
Hannelore is certainly less creepy than she had started out as.

[BenRG]

Well, someone send me a Personal Message when the wedding starts. Apart from that, there isn't much call for me to be around right now.

May be Jeph should consider renaming this strip B. U. D. D. I. E. S. or something similar? I'm actually serious. This isn't Questionable Content really, it's a thematically and atmospherically different work with very different ground rules.

When did that happen? I think after Faye and Bubbles got together. There really was the feel that the idea jar was empty. There was a sudden tidal wave of new/promoted to main cast characters and a lot of the old cast were demoted to supporting status that really suggested a move to a whole new strip with a whole new set of ideas and intentions behind it.

[Gus_Smedstad]

Mentioning the “Cerebus effect” trope makes me think of the other thing Cerebus is know for, which is Dave Sim’s descent into misogyny and madness, which greatly overshadows anything else the poster may be trying to say.

Anyway, it’s true the strip has changed a lot in tone. Don’t see a lot of storylines about jet propelled roombas these days.

I do remember Hannelore as she was initially, rather than the over-the-top neurotic abruptly morphed into. I thought that version was more interesting than the neurotic. I suspect, though, you’re talking about her transition from neurotic to mostly well-adjusted person after her journey to Dagobah. I’m certainly OK with that change, though I notice she hasn’t healed to the point where she’s gotten physical with anyone. I don’t think she will, either, since she’s very much in the background these days, and the days of Hannelore-centered stories are gone.

[Grognard]

I am honestly disappointed in Jeph and today's comic.

Nice use of Hate Speech there.

For someone who is socially progressive and wants people to come together to find a better way forward...

"ACAB" and "Defund the Police" is hardly that and is in no way "funny".

If these statements, directed at a different people group, would get me banned from this board: then it shouldn't be in the comic and it is never "funny".

Jeph: you had easily a dozen different ways to make this strip funny: You CAN do better than this/ you SHOULD do better than this.... you almost had it with the fashion police.

I know I'm not the author, nor the artist, and I don't know the stresses of production ... but I believe in you and believe you can do better.

[Potato Farmer]

I'm having difficulty seeing Pintsize in this new body.

With all the other AIs I was like "Sure, same person, different form." But with Pintsize it seems... awkward. Maybe because unlike the other AIs he's been in the comic from the very beginning and his old chassis was very iconic.

Of course, I imagine that for trans people this sounds very similar to being told that the people around them are having trouble adjusting to their new gender and appearance (if they've taken that step).

[DaiJB]

I am honestly disappointed in Jeph and today's comic.

Nice use of Hate Speech there.

For someone who is socially progressive and wants people to come together to find a better way forward...

"ACAB" and "Defund the Police" is hardly that and is in no way "funny".

If these statements, directed at a different people group, would get me banned from this board: then it shouldn't be in the comic and it is never "funny".

Jeph: you had easily a dozen different ways to make this strip funny: You CAN do better than this/ you SHOULD do better than this.... you almost had it with the fashion police.

I know I'm not the author, nor the artist, and I don't know the stresses of production ... but I believe in you and believe you can do better.

What? Are we reading the same strip? It is #4538, right? The one with Claire and neo-Pintsize talking feelings? Where's the "hate speech"? Where are all these references you speak of?

I'm just confused. 

[oddtail]

Ignoring that it's not in the comic...

Wait, "Defund the Police" is hate speech how...?

"ACAB" is arguable I guess, but how is "this institution should receive less funding" hate speech? That makes no sense.

[sitnspin]

Being a cop is a choice. Being a bastard is a choice. If you choose to uphold a corrupt and abusive system you are in fact a bastard. ACAB isn't a joke, it is true.

[Marco]

2) Do you remember when we learned ages ago that Marten shouldn't have been assigned Pintsize as his companion AI? Take a look at that mini arc again: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2333

This was stablished waaay back: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=11