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  1. - Top - End - #841
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    I'm a bit doubtful that just clicking on the screen would start the stream, unless it was all set up and just paused or something.
    Ive played around with screen capturing programs that are used to stream before. It's not out of the question that Aurelia would have all the programs sitting open ready to go, and there is no "are you sure?" prompt for starting.

    What i cant imagine is Claire being so unfamiliar with tech that she would accidentally interact with a program without realizing it. The programs used to manage V-tuber avatars are completely unrelated to the ones used to capture a screen for streaming, so Claire would have to have clicked off the modeling program onto something visibly separate.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  2. - Top - End - #842
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    There are plenty of streamer fail compilations out there that include such things as not turning the camera off properly, turning it on by mistake, and otherwise screwing up royally. Abd claire isnt a streamer, its entirely possible for her to mess up and click the wrong stuff trying to get the computer to do what she wanted.
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  3. - Top - End - #843
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Ive played around with screen capturing programs that are used to stream before. It's not out of the question that Aurelia would have all the programs sitting open ready to go, and there is no "are you sure?" prompt for starting.

    What i cant imagine is Claire being so unfamiliar with tech that she would accidentally interact with a program without realizing it. The programs used to manage V-tuber avatars are completely unrelated to the ones used to capture a screen for streaming, so Claire would have to have clicked off the modeling program onto something visibly separate.
    Indeed, just trying to rotate the model should not have started the stream.

    And specifically starting only the audio...
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2021-11-12 at 09:50 AM.
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  4. - Top - End - #844
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    Griffon

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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    You can start a stream with a hotkey, and Aurelia clearly has a streamer-deck to the left of her keyboard. An "Open OBS and start streaming" button is entirely plausible, and all Claire needed to do was lean on it by accident, regardless of what she thought she had clicked on purpose. There's similarly no reason why OBS would randomly change it's settings from "screen capture/audio only" to "webcam and audio on", if that's what Aurelia had them set to previously.

    It's dumb, but... eh. Real streamers do dumber things IRL, it's not worth worrying about.

    I have to admit that I'm slightly confused as to why Claire and Clinton are 'competitive' now. When we first saw them together, they were just obnoxious to each other, then later they had a heart-to-heart, made up and seemed to get on better. The most 'competitive' we've seen them is when Claire found out that Clinton and Aurelia had smoked weed together and "now I kind of want to get high with mom, too". That's hardly life-long rivalry - did I miss something, somewhere?
    Last edited by Wraith; 2021-11-12 at 10:56 AM.
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  5. - Top - End - #845
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    You can start a stream with a hotkey, and Aurelia clearly has a streamer-deck to the left of her keyboard. An "Open OBS and start streaming" button is entirely plausible, and all Claire needed to do was lean on it by accident, regardless of what she thought she had clicked on purpose. There's similarly no reason why OBS would randomly change it's settings from "screen capture/audio only" to "webcam and audio on", if that's what Aurelia had them set to previously.
    OBS and other screen capture software is generally designed specifically to not accept input unless you specifically activate that window, because if youre playing a game and one of the game's hotkeys happens to be the same key you use to start/stop a stream, you REALLY dont want it being activated every time you need that hotkey.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  6. - Top - End - #846
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    I have to admit that I'm slightly confused as to why Claire and Clinton are 'competitive' now. When we first saw them together, they were just obnoxious to each other, then later they had a heart-to-heart, made up and seemed to get on better. The most 'competitive' we've seen them is when Claire found out that Clinton and Aurelia had smoked weed together and "now I kind of want to get high with mom, too". That's hardly life-long rivalry - did I miss something, somewhere?
    Depends what they are competing for. In this case it is their mother's attention and/or approval.

    And it is quite possible for siblings to compete, butt heads and still care about each other. Which reminds me - I must give my sister a call...
    Last edited by Manga Shoggoth; 2021-11-14 at 06:26 AM.
    Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.

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  7. - Top - End - #847
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    Depends what they are competing for. In this case it is their mother's attention and/or approval.
    No, it's just about one-upping each other. Claire said so explicitly.
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  8. - Top - End - #848
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Cazero View Post
    No, it's just about one-upping each other. Claire said so explicitly.
    And one-upping is not being competitive? Stephen Potter would be proud...
    Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.

    "The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud

    "Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee

  9. - Top - End - #849
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    And one-upping is not being competitive? Stephen Potter would be proud...
    It's not competing for something. That was the point I was disagreeing about.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari
    Also this isn’t D&D, flaming the troll doesn’t help either.

  10. - Top - End - #850
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    And it is quite possible for siblings to compete, butt heads and still care about each other. Which reminds me - I must give my sister a call...
    Quote Originally Posted by Cazero View Post
    No, it's just about one-upping each other. Claire said so explicitly.
    I get that. I'm not an only child. But what I mean is, why is Claire competitive within the narrative? The last time we really saw Claire and Clinton, they were being rude to each other in the coffee shop, but before that they had that heart-to-heart where Clinton apologised for telling Claire to **** off and she apologised for interfering in his business.

    In the story, they made up and reached a new level of being friends with each other, it was implied to be closer than they had ever been previously. But now, that looks to have been forgotten and they're just being obnoxious again like it never happened. I'm not trying to nit-pick or anything, I'm genuinely trying to figure out if this is something that has just been forgotten, or if there was another conversation where they annoyed each other, or something?
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  11. - Top - End - #851
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    I get that. I'm not an only child. But what I mean is, why is Claire competitive within the narrative? The last time we really saw Claire and Clinton, they were being rude to each other in the coffee shop, but before that they had that heart-to-heart where Clinton apologised for telling Claire to **** off and she apologised for interfering in his business.

    In the story, they made up and reached a new level of being friends with each other, it was implied to be closer than they had ever been previously. But now, that looks to have been forgotten and they're just being obnoxious again like it never happened. I'm not trying to nit-pick or anything, I'm genuinely trying to figure out if this is something that has just been forgotten, or if there was another conversation where they annoyed each other, or something?
    I think it's just normal sibling stuff. I'm a lot closer to my sister thanks to the pandemic (we talk and play video games daily where before we'd go months without talking), but that hasn't changed the possibility of one of us just snapping and having a fight where we need to take several days to cool off before apologizing. A heart to heart can make you appreciate a relationship more but it doesn't fundamentally change who you are or overcome 30+ years of sibling history.

  12. - Top - End - #852
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Ok Jeph, so you know that rigging up a Vtuber avatar can cost upwards of $1000 right? And she has 2 spares just ready to go?
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  13. - Top - End - #853
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Ok Jeph, so you know that rigging up a Vtuber avatar can cost upwards of $1000 right? And she has 2 spares just ready to go?
    I wonder if he thinks it's cheaper than raisins.
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  14. - Top - End - #854
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    huh...
    (i don't think he's buying it)
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  15. - Top - End - #855
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Ok Jeph, so you know that rigging up a Vtuber avatar can cost upwards of $1000 right? And she has 2 spares just ready to go?
    She may have anticipated bringing her children in someday and had models ready.

  16. - Top - End - #856
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    There is this strip: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4496 were she says she was extremely high "at the time".

    I mean, of course that could mean "at the time she commisioned the avatar", but it could also mean "the time she made the avatar herself", because Jeph thinks its fairly easy to do that a high person can manage it. So I feel there might just be a program like a character generator for games that you can just make your own in a matter of minutes.

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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Honestly there should be if their world has any other tech process beside ais and their bodies. In 20 years I would be surprised if it isn't fairly easy to create an vtuber avatar by then but I would be surprised if we had full AI in 20 years.

  18. - Top - End - #858
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Unless it's stated somewhere else, that strip could be just her writing a description for a commission for a studio while high on grass.

    EDIT: Actually, it looks like they can do them on the fly. "Do you want to make a custom avatar, or use a proc-gen model?" https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4490
    Last edited by Vinyadan; 2021-11-15 at 12:26 PM.
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  19. - Top - End - #859
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    There's programme on Steam called FaceRig which lets you pick vtuber/AR avatars that runs through your webcam. The rigs within are generic characters and not as fully responsive as a proper vtube rig, but you can throw it on in under 10 minutes. That might explain why Claire's avatar is a more 'normal' cow-person (which wins a prize for most contradictory sentence I've written today, by the way), and makes way more sense than Aurelia dropping $1000, twice, based on a "may have".

    That aside, I have to admit that I'm finding Claire's behaviour to be unpleasant. Clinton streamed with his Mom and all he wanted to do was make sure that she was safe and talk about video games; Claire's only motivation seems to be to "get even" with Clinton and humiliate him with embarrassing stories. That's not so much sibling rivalry as it is bordering on bullying. I kind of hope that Aurelia makes more out of the "Not now, dear..." comment; despite the boobs, her character seems too wholesome to allow her kids to be infighting, and so far it seems to be entirely one-sided from Claire.
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  20. - Top - End - #860
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Or it's just a comic, the author likes to **** around with VTuber as a concept and didn't really checked the amount of work put.

    Guys, it's about the punchline, not the setup.

  21. - Top - End - #861
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    There's programme on Steam called FaceRig which lets you pick vtuber/AR avatars that runs through your webcam. The rigs within are generic characters and not as fully responsive as a proper vtube rig, but you can throw it on in under 10 minutes. That might explain why Claire's avatar is a more 'normal' cow-person (which wins a prize for most contradictory sentence I've written today, by the way), and makes way more sense than Aurelia dropping $1000, twice, based on a "may have".

    That aside, I have to admit that I'm finding Claire's behaviour to be unpleasant. Clinton streamed with his Mom and all he wanted to do was make sure that she was safe and talk about video games; Claire's only motivation seems to be to "get even" with Clinton and humiliate him with embarrassing stories. That's not so much sibling rivalry as it is bordering on bullying. I kind of hope that Aurelia makes more out of the "Not now, dear..." comment; despite the boobs, her character seems too wholesome to allow her kids to be infighting, and so far it seems to be entirely one-sided from Claire.
    I mean, keep in mind that literally nobody knows who she is talking about BUT claire clinton and their mom. So this is less bullying and more teasing. And remember mom was bringing up his anime girl game purchases when he was on the stream. But in general yes, I agree, she is not the nicest in general with her behavior. She seems to backslide from time to time to bratty sister status.
    "Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
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  22. - Top - End - #862
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr2 View Post
    Or it's just a comic, the author likes to **** around with VTuber as a concept and didn't really checked the amount of work put.

    Guys, it's about the punchline, not the setup.
    The setup is just as important to the joke, and when he's clearly talking about stuff he knows nothing about, it hurts the whole thing.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  23. - Top - End - #863
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Okay, now THAT is crossing a line. The Golden Rule of free-form roleplay is that you should never presume another character's actions or reactions, and that includes back-story. Taking away their agency for your own narrative is extremely Bad Form.

    Jesus H Christ, I think I just had a 'Furcadia' flashback....
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    Okay, now THAT is crossing a line. The Golden Rule of free-form roleplay is that you should never presume another character's actions or reactions, and that includes back-story. Taking away their agency for your own narrative is extremely Bad Form.

    Jesus H Christ, I think I just had a 'Furcadia' flashback....
    Yeah, this is Claire's irretrievable "moral event horizon". She's finally pushed too far into villain territory and god-moded for somebody else's character. If this comic wants to maintain some semblance of reality, the next two years of strips will be her arrest, trial, and eventual incarceration for this heinous crime. Am I joking? Who knows?

    (Also, the phrase "Furcadia flashback" does not belong in the mouths of a civilised species. Truly Man is the Earth's greatest foe.)
    Last edited by Delicious Taffy; 2021-11-16 at 05:22 AM.

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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Im groaning because now I can see these two idiot kids taking turns on her streaming service taking pot shots at each other and basically ruining it for their mom.
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    Traab is yelling everything that I'm thinking already.
    "If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."

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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Delicious Taffy View Post
    (Also, the phrase "Furcadia flashback" does not belong in the mouths of a civilised species. Truly Man is the Earth's greatest foe.)
    It's almost a shame that we're only on page 29 of the thread; "Questionable Content XVIII: Like A Furcadia Flashback, But More So" is a thread title that I can get behind
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post

    I have to admit that I'm slightly confused as to why Claire and Clinton are 'competitive' now. When we first saw them together, they were just obnoxious to each other, then later they had a heart-to-heart, made up and seemed to get on better. The most 'competitive' we've seen them is when Claire found out that Clinton and Aurelia had smoked weed together and "now I kind of want to get high with mom, too". That's hardly life-long rivalry - did I miss something, somewhere?
    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    In the story, they made up and reached a new level of being friends with each other, it was implied to be closer than they had ever been previously. But now, that looks to have been forgotten and they're just being obnoxious again like it never happened. I'm not trying to nit-pick or anything, I'm genuinely trying to figure out if this is something that has just been forgotten, or if there was another conversation where they annoyed each other, or something?
    I think you've missed that if Jeph had done what you are apparently distressed that he did not do--had the pattern of two characters' relationship completely change based on one conversation--then it would be legitimate to point and say "that's bad writing."

    Possibly also that "just obnoxious to each other" had any motivation and/or could be described by their mother as "being competitive."

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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    I think you've missed that if Jeph had done what you are apparently distressed that he did not do--had the pattern of two characters' relationship completely change based on one conversation--then it would be legitimate to point and say "that's bad writing."

    Possibly also that "just obnoxious to each other" had any motivation and/or could be described by their mother as "being competitive."
    I dunno about you, but single conversations with a sibling can DEFINITELY completely change their relationship. Heck, I wrote off my own sister because of one a couple years back, and only interact with her when necessary.

    Single moments between adults, when taken seriously, can and should have meaningful impacts on the involved parties. There've been several single-conversations in this comic that have done that, even with characters that had long relationships. Granted, there aren't many characters that have 20+ year long relationships with each other in the cast...

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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Wildstag View Post
    I dunno about you, but single conversations with a sibling can DEFINITELY completely change their relationship. Heck, I wrote off my own sister because of one a couple years back, and only interact with her when necessary.

    Single moments between adults, when taken seriously, can and should have meaningful impacts on the involved parties. There've been several single-conversations in this comic that have done that, even with characters that had long relationships. Granted, there aren't many characters that have 20+ year long relationships with each other in the cast...
    The key phrase there is "can". And it doesn't mean that the relationships cannot backslide or undergo rough periods when one or both parties backslide into old habits.

    Saying "their relationship was A, then it became B, ergo it is unrealistic for them to act like A again" is demanding a one-way relationship system that simply doesn't exist in real life. People are complicated, relationships are messy.

    And we see it all over the place in the comic, too. Dora had heartfelt conversations with Marten over her relationship anxieties right up until they broke up...and then still displayed some of those tendencies with Tai. Faye had a few heartfelt conversations with people over her alcholism before she had an event that scared her enough she quit drinking. And not long after that, she fell off the wagon. Then nearly fell off the wagon again. And then...well, you get the point.

    Claire and Clinton had a heartfelt conversation, but they are still fundamentally the same people. Claire saw an opportunity to score on Clinton, and her troll tendencies got the better of her. It's totally believable and not bad writing in the slightest.

  30. - Top - End - #870
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    Default Re: Questionable Content XVII: "My Brain Is Trash And I Live On The Internet"

    Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
    Claire and Clinton had a heartfelt conversation, but they are still fundamentally the same people. Claire saw an opportunity to score on Clinton, and her troll tendencies got the better of her. It's totally believable and not bad writing in the slightest.
    What I was trying to get at was, has there been a logical link between the two examples of behaviour - Clinton/Claire making up, and Clinton/Claire being at odds again? Because to steal the adage: The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.

    Webcomics are a visual narrative - you may have noticed.
    I mean this in the sense that, we only know what is going on in the story, because the story tells us what is going on. We know, for example, that the Questionable Content world is basically the same as ours, except for the few differences that we have explicitly had explained to us. It's "our world, but with robots" - this is known, it's clear, it's been repeated and expanded upon, no issue there. No one would ever say, "QC world is the same as ours, except that there are two suns" because no one has ever mentioned that the sun is different, and it'd be very abrupt if tomorrow a character were to mention it for the first time like we were just supposed to know that. We can't assume a fundamental difference about the world exists without it first being shown or told to us.
    This is basically what stories are - a list of reasons why what is happening, is different to what you are experiencing. If a story goes, "Then the hero pulled a live snake out of his bag - oh by the way, he packed a live snake in there earlier, it's definitely the thing he does even if it wasn't mentioned..." that's bad writing even if, in real life, it's plausible (if odd).

    This is kind of what I'm seeing between Claire and Clinton. We've been told and shown that when younger they were bratty to each other. We've been shown that this led to a breaking point where Clinton told Claire to **** off because he was upset by her "prioritizing her wants over the needs and comfort of others" and their relationship deteriorated. We've also been shown that they met up again, hashed out the situation, apologised and pledged to be better to each other. We were shown that their relationship had grown, and they were closer to each other again.

    But this week they're bratty again. Why? The last time we saw them together, Clinton was trusting Claire enough to ask for relationship advice, which she was treating sympathetically rather than teasing. It still looked like they were close and friendly with each other, so it's not like they have fallen out with each other again. Are we to assume that something has happened between them 'off camera'? As above, that would be a bad story.
    The comparison with Dora is a good one - she was shown to have neurosis, then underwent therapy, and took medication, and has referred to both repeatedly since as a call back to her previous behaviour justifying her current actions. In comparison, Claire and Clinton's previous behaviour shows their relationship gradually improving, except for this week when Claire is apparently willing to sabotage their mother's streaming career in order to humiliate her brother.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for Jeph to spoon-feed me every detail of every scene at every moment, and I realise that we're frustrated by the glacial pace of the storytelling, and (especially given Claire's reaction in today's comic) the story may be building up to some kind of intentionally irrational behaviour on Claire's part but we just haven't seen it yet. But that's why I asked, what signs have I missed that suggest this is the case?

    Having a characters' relationship change based on a single conversation is arguably bad writing, true. But it's also bad writing if the characters don't change based on the same event and it isn't explained why - if Claire and Clinton had a heart to heart that apparently seemed healing, but it wasn't and they had no intention of changing their behaviour, then what was the point of showing us the conversation? Why doesn't it count towards explaining their current behaviour? What else has happened to explain it, that I genuinely don't remember?

    [EDIT] Please read the above in the spirit of an interested conversation, by the way. I'm not demanding answers or insisting that you respond to a point-counterpoint debate, I'm genuinely interested in the situation as discussing narrative conventions, world-building devices, and so on. I love this kind of stuff, so if there's a new trope I can learn then I'm all for hearing it.
    Last edited by Wraith; 2021-11-18 at 07:12 AM.
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