Questionable Content XVI: Yes, Butt

[The Glyphstone]

This is just normal Faye, really.

[Yuki Akuma]

I only vaguely recall the Bubble's memory arc. All I remember is that Yay Newfriend was creepy but super helpful. Did she do something in that arc that makes Faye hate her this much?

She did sort of knock out all of her friends then shut off Faye's motor control to get her to shut up.

[Wraith]

Yay asking the pertinent questions, here.

She did sort of knock out all of her friends then shut off Faye's motor control to get her to shut up.

I mean, we all would do that, if we had the option available to us, right? That guy sitting in the library shouting into his 'phone? The angry lady in the supermarket who insists her expired Blockbuster coupons are still valid? Those damn kids and their floppy haircuts and silly clothes who won't grow up and get off my lawn....

....No? Just me, then?

[Traab]

She is incredibly intimidated by Yay, what with her being a near omnipotent AI that can and has shut down her body. And possibly a small part is bitter that despite being this godlike entity, she couldnt help bubbles. On a related note, I wonder if she will ask Yay to look into bubbles past manually. I mean, there have to be records out there of her past somewhere. That would spark an interesting bit of drama as we get into "You should have asked ME first before getting Yay to look into my past" territory and other related issues.

[Max_Killjoy]

She is incredibly intimidated by Yay, what with her being a near omnipotent AI that can and has shut down her body. And possibly a small part is bitter that despite being this godlike entity, she couldnt help bubbles. On a related note, I wonder if she will ask Yay to look into bubbles past manually. I mean, there have to be records out there of her past somewhere. That would spark an interesting bit of drama as we get into "You should have asked ME first before getting Yay to look into my past" territory and other related issues.

Would be great to see Yay offer and Faye respond "Ask Bubbles", with Faye having learned from earlier mistakes, and the comic avoiding Stupidity Plot.

[Traab]

Would be great to see Yay offer and Faye respond "Ask Bubbles", with Faye having learned from earlier mistakes, and the comic avoiding Stupidity Plot.

Its possible, but I get the feeling this will be another faye and bubbles fight where bubbles feels faye doesnt take her into consideration, like when they took out the loan for the business and faye did it without consulting her first. Kind of like the old dora/marten comics where we saw the first signs of her jealousy and double standards that in hindsight were red flags and then they started happening more often until they had their breakup. After all, without drama, this comic is kinda boring.

[Morquard]

To those that wonder: What has Yay done to Faye?

Have you ever woken up, and been in that half-sleep state, where you're awake but somehow your body isn't quite yet and you can't move? It's terrifying. And knowing - from experience - that AI can do it on command, and has done so in the past, just because it was convenient to them? Yes, I'd be terrified too.

[Vinyadan]

This conversation is bringing back my interest in the comic. It just feels like it's part of the same story as Fabble and Bubble's memory arc*, and interested in bringing it somewhere.

*which was bad, but this could give it some meaning.

[Mordokai]

This conversation is bringing back my interest in the comic. It just feels like it's part of the same story as Fabble and Bubble's memory arc*, and interested in bringing it somewhere.

*which was bad, but this could give it some meaning.

What did you find so bad about it?

Not that I disagree with you, mind you, just interested.

[Vinyadan]

What did you find so bad about it?

Not that I disagree with you, mind you, just interested.

About the comic in general, there was an overly long post I wrote some time ago.

About the arc in particular, the reasons are a bit different (it was years before that post, after all). It built up some legitimate drama while using an interesting take on mental trauma and removal, but then threw it all out of the window to introduce a new character who magically solves everything without any effort from Bubbles or Faye or anyone. So the characters have zero agency in their own arc. The arc then pretends that Bubbles is still the point (she isn't, Squidbot is) by having her menace Corpse Witch in a hammy display, while we know that Bubbles doesn't fight and she has only been shown using pretend violence against people who wanted to get close to her (Faye). And then we have QC's first torture session. If you think about it, it shows how arbitrary Squidbot's morals are: as far as the mind is concerned, what is the difference between depriving someone of her memories, and falsifying her sensory input? Squidbot even talks about eternity, modifying the dimension of time. In practice you end up in a world where nothing matters, because there is an omnipotent being that isn't too coherent and can enforce author fiat anytime. More importantly, does the hammy torture session actually bring us anywhere else than e.g. Bubbles and Faye calling the cops? Corpse Witch is magicked out of existence (jailed), and her business is now legal. Why wasn't it legal before? Why is it legal now? By the power of forgery? By abuse of government network? And why does Roko ignore the people who worked there, like Jeremy and Seven? What about the implications of an illegal fighting ring, such as betting, the fighters, and the public? As usual, not enough world building to sustain a serious approach.
Squidbot was so out of place, she had to be immediately modified by latching her onto Roko, another out-of-place character (a serious cop in QC?) who also needs to be normalised by leaving the cops. And I think that this was the biggest problem with the arc: a comics has genre and expectations. Squidbot met none of them. You have characters. They couldn't interact with Squidbot, only passively accept her (and their complete loss of privacy). Plus, she is portrayed as evil, self-centered and uncaring, and yet is actually a fairy godmother with some hammy evilcool stripes, because "mind bla bla bla", but ain't that convenient.
As you may have noticed, I have said hammy a lot of times, because I think that it's a recurrent problem with the arc, it tries to show off by having one-sided confrontations (Squid-Faye, Bubbles-Witch, Squid-Witch), emphasizing powerlessness in a way that reminds me of some anime, although I can't pinpoint the exact scenes. It's a trick that goes stale the by second time.

There is however something positive, in that it does lead to growth (or just relaxedness) for Bubbles. Defeating Corpse Witch also means defeating the insecurity she had been fostering. Could there have been another way? Maybe. After all, what was needed was a skilled technician, not a divinity. Both Raven and the other random chick study complex stuff at the university, they could have had a teacher with unpublished research.

[Morquard]

What I didn't like about the first Squidbot arc: It's role could easily have been filled by Station and the other "super AIs" that Station contacted, like literally 2 strips earlier. Instead of saying "We don't even wanna try" they could have answered "Ok, there's some interesting research on the topic, we'll do what we can, but can't make any promises".

Boom, a few strips later, they find out that there is no data left, just a massive kill switch inside Bubble's brain. They take it out, and hand over the evidence to the police, who raids the place and arrests Corpse Witch.

Same outcome, no god-like AI, and all with established characters that would have been believable. There was NO NEED for a Deus-ex-machina and still we got it.

[Rodin]

I'm still annoyed about Corpse Witch turning into a puppy-punting villain. As Vinyadan noted, the comic has a genre. Kill-switches and blackmail are decidedly NOT in the genre for QC, and the storyline fell apart as a result.

Corpse Witch's earlier characterization is fairly complex. She doesn't like or trust humans. She's running an under the table organization which implies shady stuff in her past. However, she is making sure to do so safely. The robot fighters are paid fairly and are not exploited. She goes above and beyond in providing safety protection for the AI CPUs to make sure nobody gets hurt during a fight. She runs her business very professionally and a lot of the conflict Faye has with her is because Faye is doing stuff that would get her fired at a "normal" job. She's an antagonist because she has a somewhat parasitic relationship with Bubbles. Corpse Witch believes humans are no good and that interacting with them will only harm Bubbles. She's wrong, but she's acting out of good intentions towards a friend and colleague.

My way of dealing with the story would have been different. Remove the bit where Faye gets fired, and instead have Bubbles wish to see her memories again as an emergent part of the healing process. They go to Corpse Witch, and Corpse Witch refuses - she thinks it will be too harmful for Bubbles and she doesn't trust Bubbles' judgement. Maybe even make it so that Bubbles made the original request that CW use her judgement, although I'm not sure on that part. Faye gets pissed, punches Corpse Witch, gets fired. Bubbles refuses to leave because if she cuts ties with Corpse Witch she's guaranteed to lose her memories - not out of a blackmail threat, but through simple "this person doesn't like me anymore".

Station comes in, and he defeats the encryption key. He finds out that the memories were deleted. Bubbles goes to confront CW, and we get an emotional back and forth as their friendship falls apart over this incident. Bubbles storms out, and we stop following the fighting ring simply because none of our characters are visiting it any more.

The other characters from the ring can be brought out of it pretty easily. Punchbot was already an accountant as his main job, so no change there. Jeremy and...Seven? They quit in protest when they hear what CW did.

-----

All of that is just back-of-napkin scribbling, but I still think it would have been better than what we ended up with. Make it a tale about over-protectiveness destroying a relationship. That's what QC does. Jumping genres to become a sci-fi crime thriller isn't what anybody was interested in reading.

[Mordokai]

About the comic in general, there was an overly long post I wrote some time ago.

About the arc in particular, the reasons are a bit different (it was years before that post, after all). It built up some legitimate drama while using an interesting take on mental trauma and removal, but then threw it all out of the window to introduce a new character who magically solves everything without any effort from Bubbles or Faye or anyone. So the characters have zero agency in their own arc. The arc then pretends that Bubbles is still the point (she isn't, Squidbot is) by having her menace Corpse Witch in a hammy display, while we know that Bubbles doesn't fight and she has only been shown using pretend violence against people who wanted to get close to her (Faye). And then we have QC's first torture session. If you think about it, it shows how arbitrary Squidbot's morals are: as far as the mind is concerned, what is the difference between depriving someone of her memories, and falsifying her sensory input? Squidbot even talks about eternity, modifying the dimension of time. In practice you end up in a world where nothing matters, because there is an omnipotent being that isn't too coherent and can enforce author fiat anytime. More importantly, does the hammy torture session actually bring us anywhere else than e.g. Bubbles and Faye calling the cops? Corpse Witch is magicked out of existence (jailed), and her business is now legal. Why wasn't it legal before? Why is it legal now? By the power of forgery? By abuse of government network? And why does Roko ignore the people who worked there, like Jeremy and Seven? What about the implications of an illegal fighting ring, such as betting, the fighters, and the public? As usual, not enough world building to sustain a serious approach.
Squidbot was so out of place, she had to be immediately modified by latching her onto Roko, another out-of-place character (a serious cop in QC?) who also needs to be normalised by leaving the cops. And I think that this was the biggest problem with the arc: a comics has genre and expectations. Squidbot met none of them. You have characters. They couldn't interact with Squidbot, only passively accept her (and their complete loss of privacy). Plus, she is portrayed as evil, self-centered and uncaring, and yet is actually a fairy godmother with some hammy evilcool stripes, because "mind bla bla bla", but ain't that convenient.
As you may have noticed, I have said hammy a lot of times, because I think that it's a recurrent problem with the arc, it tries to show off by having one-sided confrontations (Squid-Faye, Bubbles-Witch, Squid-Witch), emphasizing powerlessness in a way that reminds me of some anime, although I can't pinpoint the exact scenes. It's a trick that goes stale the by second time.

There is however something positive, in that it does lead to growth (or just relaxedness) for Bubbles. Defeating Corpse Witch also means defeating the insecurity she had been fostering. Could there have been another way? Maybe. After all, what was needed was a skilled technician, not a divinity. Both Raven and the other random chick study complex stuff at the university, they could have had a teacher with unpublished research.

Thank you for a very well thought out reply. I agree with much(maybe even everything) of what you said, though my reasons are much different. I've mentioned, multiple times, I think, that I haven't been enjoying this comic much. I read it out of habit. But ever since squidbot(or maybe since the introduction or Renee and company)... I'm having a hard time remembering anything that's been going on. It's just... bland. And maybe that's more offensive than anything that would like to be offensive.

When it was the regular cast, it was more fun and even now, I remember some of the goings on from that time. But lately, it's just been... boring.

I think I will go back and read the archive until the certain point. Maybe when Hanners left for her life changing journey. What would you guys consider to be a "classical" era of QC? Because after reading the quoted post of Vinyadan, I honestly think I'm wasting time on QC.

[Max_Killjoy]

What I didn't like about the first Squidbot arc: It's role could easily have been filled by Station and the other "super AIs" that Station contacted, like literally 2 strips earlier. Instead of saying "We don't even wanna try" they could have answered "Ok, there's some interesting research on the topic, we'll do what we can, but can't make any promises".

Boom, a few strips later, they find out that there is no data left, just a massive kill switch inside Bubble's brain. They take it out, and hand over the evidence to the police, who raids the place and arrests Corpse Witch.

Same outcome, no god-like AI, and all with established characters that would have been believable. There was NO NEED for a Deus-ex-machina and still we got it.

I'm still annoyed about Corpse Witch turning into a puppy-punting villain. As Vinyadan noted, the comic has a genre. Kill-switches and blackmail are decidedly NOT in the genre for QC, and the storyline fell apart as a result.

Corpse Witch's earlier characterization is fairly complex. She doesn't like or trust humans. She's running an under the table organization which implies shady stuff in her past. However, she is making sure to do so safely. The robot fighters are paid fairly and are not exploited. She goes above and beyond in providing safety protection for the AI CPUs to make sure nobody gets hurt during a fight. She runs her business very professionally and a lot of the conflict Faye has with her is because Faye is doing stuff that would get her fired at a "normal" job. She's an antagonist because she has a somewhat parasitic relationship with Bubbles. Corpse Witch believes humans are no good and that interacting with them will only harm Bubbles. She's wrong, but she's acting out of good intentions towards a friend and colleague.

My way of dealing with the story would have been different. Remove the bit where Faye gets fired, and instead have Bubbles wish to see her memories again as an emergent part of the healing process. They go to Corpse Witch, and Corpse Witch refuses - she thinks it will be too harmful for Bubbles and she doesn't trust Bubbles' judgement. Maybe even make it so that Bubbles made the original request that CW use her judgement, although I'm not sure on that part. Faye gets pissed, punches Corpse Witch, gets fired. Bubbles refuses to leave because if she cuts ties with Corpse Witch she's guaranteed to lose her memories - not out of a blackmail threat, but through simple "this person doesn't like me anymore".

Station comes in, and he defeats the encryption key. He finds out that the memories were deleted. Bubbles goes to confront CW, and we get an emotional back and forth as their friendship falls apart over this incident. Bubbles storms out, and we stop following the fighting ring simply because none of our characters are visiting it any more.

The other characters from the ring can be brought out of it pretty easily. Punchbot was already an accountant as his main job, so no change there. Jeremy and...Seven? They quit in protest when they hear what CW did.

-----

All of that is just back-of-napkin scribbling, but I still think it would have been better than what we ended up with. Make it a tale about over-protectiveness destroying a relationship. That's what QC does. Jumping genres to become a sci-fi crime thriller isn't what anybody was interested in reading.

If I were doing a rewrite of that arc, I'd start with those ideas for sure.

In a different comic Yay Squidbot would be an interesting character -- it's completely out of place in QC.

[Wraith]

I think I will go back and read the archive until the certain point. Maybe when Hanners left for her life changing journey. What would you guys consider to be a "classical" era of QC? Because after reading the quoted post of Vinyadan, I honestly think I'm wasting time on QC.

I would say the period before Faye's breakdown and hospitalisation. Whereas the comic had serious and emotional moments before that, this was the scene where drama and angst came to a head and seriously changed the ongoing dynamic of the plot.

In broad terms I feel that this was when the comic stopped being mostly funny with slice-of-life elements and started becoming "daytime soap opera"-style levels of overacted sincerity. That's not to say that QC couldn't become serious and stuff, but I don't think it was done particularly well and was... well, hammy in a way that it hasn't really grown out of. Faye coming to terms with her backstory and growing into a different person could have been a great arc, but instead she has remained an fairly unpleasant character and the focus on her problems generally makes it difficult for me to sympathise with her; especially when, as in the most recent plot, the drama is generated by her just being dense or neurotic rather than actually being a problem without an obvious solution.

Specifically, it was just after this point that we started to meet Bubbles, Corpse Witch, Roko and the crew at the Skate Park, and so it's when humanoid AIs started to become "funny coloured humans", rather than the expensive, somewhat unique robots. Although I like Bubbles, Roko, and some of the stories that have come out of that, I also think it's quite well agreed that making AIs into "human but purple" ruined some of their mystique and the comic really lost some of it's identity.

[Vinyadan]

There's also that, AIs being not human, it was easy to devolve into complete randomness. But randomness isn't character, and instead makes everything depend on author fiat. This can be avoided by world building, but I hadn't seen much when I stopped being a daily reader. Add to this that Faye and Bubbles were supposed to work in this AI world, but lack of world building meant that they were essentially floating in the void. I remember reading a post about this in the past, that QC used to have some solid small-town background, so that you knew what world the characters were living in, but this gradually disappeared or wasn't adapted to the new reality of AIs.

[Keltest]

I dont like this. Faye and Bubbles are talking out their issues like adults. Im expecting Crushbot to fall out a second story window onto Faye and/or Bubbles next page.

[John Cribati]

It's part of Jeph's plot to move on to different characters. If the OG cast keeps acting like this, the audience will eventually understand that there is no more drama to be had from them.

[Willie the Duck]

I dont like this. Faye and Bubbles are talking out their issues like adults. Im expecting Crushbot to fall out a second story window onto Faye and/or Bubbles next page.

It certainly was at least second or third down the list of things I would have expected. On some level, this is giving those who complain when Faye acts like an idiot just to create a plot exactly what they want. However, it does kind of cut short the plot as well, meaning that now Jeph has to come up with something else to do. I had previously kind of assumed that Faybbles were being brought into the 'boringly happy and conflict-resolved' zone like Marten/Claire and Dora/Tai, with only the getting-the-business-afloat story providing much conflict. When Faye started having this insecurity, I assumed I was wrong, but this quick resolution moves me back towards that thought.

[Morquard]

I start feeling this whole plot was just another vehicle for Spookybot, to make up with Faye and by extend bubbles, so she can now hang out with the gang, without it being weird... Yesterday's "I'm sure she's re-evaluating her opinion of us" makes me afraid of just that.

[Vinyadan]

Well, if this plot had been meant to go somewhere, the most obvious way would have been to have Bubbles' ex walk in. TBH, I was expecting Faye to interact a bit longer with Squidbot. She's been so important for both of them, it's very odd that almost nothing has been built out of their relationship.

You know what Roko and Squidbot remind me of? Digger and the Shadow Child (I don't remember the name). Only those had some more meaty content (growth, among other things).

[Ibrinar]

You know bubbles really should have left herself some notes about important stuff.

[Keltest]

You know bubbles really should have left herself some notes about important stuff.

The whole point of having the memories blocked was that she didn't want to remember. Leaving notes would defeat the purpose.

[Wraith]

I start feeling this whole plot was just another vehicle for Spookybot, to make up with Faye and by extend bubbles, so she can now hang out with the gang, without it being weird... Yesterday's "I'm sure she's re-evaluating her opinion of us" makes me afraid of just that.

This is pretty much what I was thinking. That, and I kind of feel like Jeph wanted to explore the theme of memories and relationships, but then he gave up right at the interesting moment.

Faye actually had some reasonable conflict to address here - what if Bubbles was engaged to someone else? What if she was married? Could Faye provide Bubbles with that sort of commitment which she once had and might want again? What if the relationship ended tragically? What if the relationship ended tragically and it was Bubbles' fault? Could Faye accept it if Bubbles had done something horrible to her former partner and 'hid' from the responsibility by getting her memory wiped rather than face up to it and make amends? All interesting stuff that would have explored Faye and Bubbles' relationship and given it depth....

...And then Squidbot showed up and fixed it for her, again. No need to talk to Bubbles, no need to learn about Faye; Just "stop being a dumbass because it doesn't matter" and they're off back to silly stoner humour. It's a bit of a shame because Jeph can do silly and he can do drama, but at the moment he seems to be undermining himself by trying to do both at the same time and not quite pulling it off.

[Ibrinar]

The whole point of having the memories blocked was that she didn't want to remember. Leaving notes would defeat the purpose.

Not really having notes won't bring any memories back and she can selectively exclude stuff if she really doesn't want to know it. (But it just being notes without any emotional connection will blunt any reaction to that knowledge anyway.)

[Traab]

What I dont understand is, why couldnt she have basically downloaded her problematic memories to a zip drive or something then had corpse witch "block" them just to be safe? Backing up files is just basic safety really. Iirc she knew how risky the procedure was supposed to be so making sure they were possible to recover wouldnt be unreasonable. If I could, i would totally do regular memory backups for myself.

[The Glyphstone]

The post singularity world of weird skinned human robots is hard enough. I doubt Jeph wanted to include a plotline where regular memory backups mean all those robots are effectively immortal and the humans are not.

[Keltest]

Woah, ok. Well played Jeph. I legitimately got feels with this update.

[mythmonster2]

Yeah, me too. No matter how much a tragedy affects you, life moves on. Eventually, so do you.

[Wraith]

The post singularity world of weird skinned human robots is hard enough. I doubt Jeph wanted to include a plotline where regular memory backups mean all those robots are effectively immortal and the humans are not.

We already have this; it's called Altered Carbon and the first series is awesome.