Questionable Content 12: Artificial Unintelligence

[mythmonster2]

Has anyone else been seeing the comic images are more zoomed out than normal on the website, or is it just me? They briefly appear at full size, but then quickly shrink a bit.

[John Cribati]

So Jeph saw the velocoraptor post on Tumblr, too, I assume.

[Lethologica]

Has anyone else been seeing the comic images are more zoomed out than normal on the website, or is it just me? They briefly appear at full size, but then quickly shrink a bit.

I'm getting the same thing. ETA: It's from adblock, for me.

[VoxRationis]

So Jeph saw the velocoraptor post on Tumblr, too, I assume.

And which post is that?

[Lethologica]

I don't know the answer to that, but this is as good an opportunity as any to share the best velociraptor slashfic ever written.

[John Cribati]

And which post is that?

Some kind of game mod or machinima that uses a velociraptor sprite from some game and makes it do... Things...

[georgie_leech]

Some kind of game mod or machinima that uses a velociraptor sprite from some game and makes it do... Things...

Even with context... Considering it's the internet, particularly tumblr, that could be anything from it jumping around with a rubber dildos attached Saints Row style, to full frontal hardcore XXX Shenanigans. You aren't really narrowing our search space here

[John Cribati]

full frontal hardcore XXX Shenanigans.

This. Orally. In a tender way that just made it all the creepier

[Kato]

So I guess Jeph isn't sure what is going on in Pintsize either? Will his journey to learn who he really is be the next big arc? Or is Jeph just effing with us? I guess the latter.

Also, what kind of group are they attending there?

[Morquard]

No Jeph, really nobody is going to.

[Wraith]

I'm wondering if this is a build-up to Pintsize getting his own humanoid body. There's a certain amount of introspection going on that feels familiar to some of Momo's moments.

Also, what kind of group are they attending there?

Given the blue walls, the AI holding a clip-board, it looks like the AI counselling sessions that Winslow volunteered for. May is there; she is mandated by court to attend, so it seems likely that Pintsize tagged along and Momo is sat elsewhere.

[Kato]

Given the blue walls, the AI holding a clip-board, it looks like the AI counselling sessions that Winslow volunteered for. May is there; she is mandated by court to attend, so it seems likely that Pintsize tagged along and Momo is sat elsewhere.

So there are sessions for criminal AIs, AIs that just want to waste people's time by joking about their insecuritities and whatever Melon might want from such an event? I mean, ist obvious it's some Kind of AI counselling, but the three (we see) just don't seem to fit together for such a Meeting, unless there really are no other options.

[Wraith]

I mean, it's obvious it's some kind of AI counselling, but the three (we see) just don't seem to fit together for such a Meeting, unless there really are no other options.

This seems to be the case. The support group was mentioned by Momo a couple of years ago; it's not a formal gathering like Alcoholics Anonymous where people turn up because they have a problem and require help to overcome it, but rather it's an arranged open group, part-therapy and part-socialising.

AI's go, more or less, to vent at the difficulties they face in day to day life and to offer each other support. Momo goes because she likes being sociable and offering help to other people, Pintsize usually doesn't attend because he considers himself well-adjusted and not needing the company of 'squares', whereas May is required to attend under the terms of her parole so for her it probably counts as an equivalent to an anger-management class rather than her 'punishment'.
And why Melon is there, is simultaneously both as obvious and obscure as why she goes anywhere; because she wants to.

I imagine it's meant to be like some kind of Veteran's Association; all members of the military are welcome to attend to socialize, but some go because it's an aid to their trauma or other difficulties. Both sit in the same room and talk to each other about what's going on, despite otherwise having nothing in common with each other.

[Max_Killjoy]

So I guess Jeph isn't sure what is going on in Pintsize either? Will his journey to learn who he really is be the next big arc? Or is Jeph just effing with us? I guess the latter.

Would it be too obvious to shorten it to "Jephing"?

[SaintRidley]

Pintsize really isn't good at parental responsibility.

[Yana]

Is it just me, or is every (or most) comic these days about Fubbles or Melon in some capacity?

[Eldan]

Jeph always does that. He falls in love with characters for a few months, and then everything is about them.

[Wraith]

"All of the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Poochie?'." etc, etc.

[Yana]

"All of the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Poochie?'." etc, etc.

That's distressingly accurate.

[Wraith]

Mmm, not really; I feel that's a parody of Jeph's intentions here, and is more insulting than I intended.

As always, it's his comic and I don't mean to mock him or what he chooses to write about; it's perfectly in keeping with Claire's character to have some salacious gossip and want to share it as often as possible.

On the other hand... Clinton's ambivalence matches my own.
He doesn't know Faye or Bubbles. I mean, a couple of years ago he was at a house party where Faye also attended (and was busy engaging in sloppy, drunken makeouts with someone else), and then he paid her to fix his hand a few weeks ago when she bullied him for social media reviews. He knows even less of Bubbles.

To Clinton, Faye is his sister's boyfriend's roommate that he met once or twice. Why should he care who she's dating? Is it because Bubbles is an AI and he's a computer/AI nerd? He's spent his entire adult life studying human/AI interaction, if anyone is completely unsurprised that AI's have picked up a number of human quirks like sex and romance, then it's him.

I'm quietly hoping that this leads to an offhand comment to Clinton about "If anyone was gonna try to bang a hot lady robot, we thought it would be you", which leads back to the Clinton/Rocko shipping that I was quite interested in.
Unfortunately, I suspect that we're instead going to end up talking to Amanda and Evie and putting up with their smug "I knew it!" faces.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

To Clinton, Faye is his sister's boyfriend's roommate that he met once or twice.

Without meaning to disagree with anything you've said, Faye and Bubbles are also "your hand specialist and their hot assistant". I can see how that might qualify as juice gossip to circle back to the patients, in the same level as "your dentist just shacked up with their receptionist". I've certainly have had family members feel that such a revelation must be transmitted to me, even when I had literally been to said dentist once, and it was just to drop of a different family member.

But yes, a specialist you've only visited once is about as relevant to an individual as their sister's boyfriend's roommate, even if it scores significantly lower in the degrees of separation measurement.

Grey Wolf

[Vinyadan]

Clinton thought that they were banging, and Bubbles had a hard time dissuading him.

A question about Claire's body: is it an impression, or it's become completely feminine? I mostly am looking at the curve in the lower back in the last panel, and the shoulder/chest size compared to Clinton. Also, Adam's apples are not being drawn any more for both characters (I think she used to have one in the early appearances).

[Wraith]

Hard to say. I definitely think that she's less skinny than she was originally portrayed as, but that could be anything from her posture to the fact that she's wearing a thick coat. Or even just how the art has evolved since then; certainly compared to this strip, her eyes are bigger, rounder and have heavier lashes. Although that was a pretty rough week for the art in general, I think....

[eee]

Oh Lord have mercy, Claire and Marten are going to get engaged now.

[The Glyphstone]

Maybe a year from now. That feels like the setup for one of Jeph's brick jokes.

[Keltest]

Maybe a year from now. That feels like the setup for one of Jeph's brick jokes.

Will Marten even still be in the comic in a year?

Anyway, this new page is definitely selling the sibling vibe.

[Beelzebub1111]

She gets excited by and invested in other peoples relationships because she's unexcited by her own. To her, her relationship with Marten is too vanilla and uninteresting, so she fetishizes other people in "queer" relationships in an attempt to live out the uniqueness that she feel's she's lacking.


See, I can do psychoanalysis 101 just like Bubbles.

[georgie_leech]

That's not psycho 101, that's assuming the least charitable interpretation is the correct one.

[Eldan]

Yeah, but this is Marten. He's like a homeopathic dilution of vanilin.

[Wraith]

"It is YOU who is the The Dork!" is probably one of my most favourite contenders ever for a new thread title.