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2022-07-25, 04:10 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Butts disease has been known about for a while, yeah. Jeph isn't even subtle about it.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2022-07-26, 02:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2013
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
I'm still so far down the levels of disbelief hole that no light is reaching from the surface.
I've never bought that "too shy to enter a bar" Marigold would become a streamer.
I've never bought that she would be a V-Tuber either.
I especially never bought that she would be willing to play porn games on her stream.
I never bought that she would become hugely successful - a streamer I watch regularly answered a question about becoming a successful streamer with "You've got a better chance of becoming an actor or a musician".
I've never bought that Aurelia could be doing her stream without knowing the sort of audience she was attracting. Half the time she seems to know, the other half she's clueless. Which is it?
I don't buy that Aurelia's stream is popular enough that a collab between the two would be exciting or hypeworthy.
I don't particularly buy that the two streams share an audience, or that the streamers would even be aware of each other on a professional level.
I didn't buy that Aurelia would be super flustered about meeting Marigold.
I don't buy that Aurelia would be unaware of innuendo, especially given the type of crowd her stream attracts.
And I super duper special don't buy that a bit of innuendo would go viral. Worse things than that are said on streams every second and this wouldn't raise a blip.
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Can we please stop with the VTuber stuff? He's yanking characters around and re-writing them to force them into a mold to tell a storyline that doesn't make sense in a field that Jeph seems to have even less of a clue about than I do (and I'm an old fart when it comes to this stuff). Every new comic I have a refrain of Morbo from Futurama saying "X DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!"
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2022-07-26, 03:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
This one kind of makes sense. I have a very, VERY limited experience of vtubers, but from what I have seen their platform is incredibly incestuous even if you don't take into account networks, wikis, and collab-groups with a shared agent or sponsor.
They're both presenting as cis female, they're both American, and they're both independently 'internet famous' above a certain level. Streamers build collabs from WAY less common ground, and them being in a niche community seems like enough of a handwave.
As for everything else... Yeah, pretty much. This is what the comic is now - it's not been about indie rock loving 20-somethings getting into weird situations for about 2000 strips, and it's not going back.
Although I have to admit, the Giga-Chad-Cow face in today's strip is both overwhelmingly horrific, and yet absolutely perfect. Jeph deserves credit for really capturing the degeneracy of Youtube Thumbnail Face, which is separate from but as similarly untreatable as Butts Disease.Last edited by Wraith; 2022-07-26 at 03:41 AM.
~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
RPG Characters What I Done Played As (Explained Badly)
17 Things I Learned About 40k By Playing Dark Heresy
Tales of a Role-Play Gamer - Horrible Optimisation
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2022-07-26, 04:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- Oxford, UK
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
I don't in my heart believe this is the case, but I choose to believe that this entire storyline is the result of Jeph getting the number of Marigold's subscribers wrong and then refusing to do anything but double down on it. Making one of your characters secretly Pewdiepie so as not to admit you mixed up viewers and subscribers.
- Avatar by LCP -
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2022-07-26, 04:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
I think this is mostly derived from the audience end. The vtuber audience is very niche, but also very committed, so among the people who follow any vtubers the proportion that follows a metric f***ton of vtubers is quite high. There are actually a lot of markets like this, and some of them are quite big. For example, cruises. The number of people with any interest in cruises is fairly small, but among the cruise-interested the number of people who only do cruise vacations is quite high.
They're both presenting as cis female, they're both American, and they're both independently 'internet famous' above a certain level. Streamers build collabs from WAY less common ground, and them being in a niche community seems like enough of a handwave.
Two successful streamers in the same small Massachusetts town is a massive coincidence, and while that's perfectly reasonable thing to happen in a sitcom-ified world, it's also something you can build a joke around.
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2022-07-26, 04:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
I'd like to say that I completely agree with you LeSwordfish, but it's the most convoluted ret-con he could have gone for, and it's taken far more work than simply correcting. It it wasn't deliberate, a more simple fix would have been something like:
Aurelia: "Hey, look! I just got my 26,000th subscriber!"
Anyone: "Twenty-six THOUSAND subscribers!? Assuming you're paid half of the $5 subscription, you make nearly $63,000 per month from this!?"
Aurelia: "WHAT? Heavens no! Sorry, I meant... followers? Is that the right word? I'm still learning the terminology, as I have repeatedly demonstrated over the last few dozen strips."
Anyone: *exasperated anime face*
That's two panels, the third could be one of those extra-wide ones with a punchline about how unlikely it would be for a naïve middle-aged person to ever make it that big in such a niche, and yet highly saturated, market.
It was the other way around, wasn't it? They were organising a collab, and THEN found out that they can practically see each others' houses. I assume that before this phone call, they were planning on... whatever it's called where you combine a video call on stream and have both avatars appear at the same time.Last edited by Wraith; 2022-07-26 at 04:43 AM.
~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
RPG Characters What I Done Played As (Explained Badly)
17 Things I Learned About 40k By Playing Dark Heresy
Tales of a Role-Play Gamer - Horrible Optimisation
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2022-07-26, 07:51 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
I don't think it has anything to do with 'admitting' anything. I think he just made the error, decided it would be fun or funny, and rolled with it.
I do not love this plot arc, but I do like that Jeph is playing around with new ideas. No one benefits from the strip becoming another Dilbert or Beetle Bailey (or insert other iconic example of strip in infinite stagnation). Hanners gets a personality re-write, retroactively develops highly improbable backstory and side-drama and it turns out great. Marigold gets a personality re-write*, develops highly improbably side-drama and it turns out less than great.
*and, to be fair, Marigold always had pervy and desire-to-share traits, just hidden under extreme insecurity and shyness. If getting a boyfriend and having a security blanket of pseudonym&avatar-gated anonymity let her control the later and allow the former to flourish, it's not the most far-fetched thing in the world.
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2022-07-26, 09:35 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2013
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
That’s the other bit that’s bugged me since the start of this storyline. Not them being in the same town - that’s standard sitcom stuff.
It’s the whole “superhero secret identity” business with streamers. If you look up most successful streamers above a certain popularity level (well below the supposed success level of Marigold) you can find their real name. It’s not a secret, they’re not worried about obsessed fans. I’ve seen them make appearances on late night talk shows with their real name (MitchFlowerPower went on Colbert).
It’s not the big secret the comic presumes. And even if they don’t publicize their name…it’s STILL not something they hide from friends and family. It’s a job! The way they tiptoe around it is ridiculous and it’s highly improbable word would not have spread amongst the close circle of friends.
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2022-07-26, 09:43 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Marigold is super shy and somewhat afraid of judgement. I think its in-character for her to want to keep it private. Aurelia meanwhile doesnt seem to be concerned with proactively keeping it secret as such, she just isnt advertising her identity at all. When she thought somebody figured her out, her reaction was "wow, cool, a fan!" not "Uh oh, I've been made! To the bunker!"
“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.”
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2022-07-26, 04:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Jeph referenced streamers Ouro Kronii and Nanashi Mumei in the comic. Those two streamers, like others contracted through the Japanese conglomerate Hololive, are cagey about their actual identities. This, however, seems to be a specifically Hololive thing, possibly because as contracted streamers Hololive owns the identities, not the actresses/actors who play them and could hypothetically replace the actual people behind the vtuber identities at any time if they wished. I don't actually know (you'd probably need to be an expert in Japanese contract law to figure out the particulars), but the circumstances of vtubers who contract through Hololive (or a similar agency) are clearly different from that of those who operate independently - at a guess it's probably similar to the differences between Japanese musicians who work for corporate-backed idol groups like AKB48 versus those who operate independently. Jeph, however, seems to have completely missed that distinction.
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2022-07-26, 06:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Dancin' away
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
i am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
i am going to make it though this year
if it kills me
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2022-07-26, 10:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Are they ever gonna play a video game? This is why I don't tune in to any of the streamers I like until at least an hour after they've started.
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2022-07-26, 11:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2022
- Location
- Misery (h/t XTC)
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
I'm not really convinced it was an error in the first place. Whether intentional or not, QC has long since moved from being a slice-of-life comic to being a light science fiction comic, complete with fictional colleges, AIs integrated into regular life, at least one character who is a cyborg, and... two characters who happen to be huge Vtubers more or less on accident.
Of course, I think that's part of the reason why some people aren't totally on board with this particular storyline. One of my favorite writing professors called it the "aliens playing poker" problem. To wit: If you have two characters who are both not human playing poker, no one is going to notice how weird or unrealistic or strange the alien physiologies are because we don't really have any frame of reference for it. But if they're playing poker wrong, readers are going to pick up on that and nitpick the heck out of it, because even if it's 200 years in the future and poker will logically have evolved significantly beyond its modern state, poker is a real thing with an understandable reference point.
The AI stuff is easy to accept as "it's all made up" because we have no actual human-level AIs to use as a baseline. But two super-popular streamers living in the same town without knowing it and feeling like they're way more successful than they "should" be? We have real numbers and sources to base that on, that's easier to scrutinize.
(Personally I'm just lukewarm on the story. I wouldn't say I'm not enjoying it, exactly, it's just not focusing on characters or a plotline that I'm particularly engaged with at the moment. But not all of them are going to be, and hey, it's nice to have a story about Marigold that isn't focused on her relationship or a story about Aurelia that's unrelated to her children.)"But it always seemed weird to me to get mad about things going wrong, as if everything turning out OK was promised to anyone, ever. There wouldn't need to be paladins if the world was, like, fair." -Lien
I get to be a favorite today!
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2022-07-27, 12:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2006
- Location
- Under Mt. Ebott
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Yes, while you often CAN find the real identities of vtubers if you really care about it, it's typically considered gauche to bring it up unless they do so themselves openly (such as kson). The whole idea of vtubers is that it provides a certain layer of removal between the specific person and the character.
Like, you probably could find who, say, Pikamee is, but also most fans not only don't do so, they'd consider you telling them to be kind of rude.
As for hard to believe... Kronii (who Jeph referenced in a previous strip) once got trending on twitter just for saying "flower" in a silly voice. The stuff that becomes viral in vtuber fandoms is almost as inscrutable as what becomes viral on tiktok fandoms.Last edited by Drascin; 2022-07-27 at 12:19 AM.
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2022-07-27, 01:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Jeph has made numerous factual errors of this kind in the past. It is quite clear by this point that he does not perform even fairly basic googling regarding factual background points that would arise in the comic. For example, in the very last plot he kept having Nelson refer to an 'NLRB violation,' which isn't actually a thing. The NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) is an agency of the government, the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act) is the actual law governing the rights of employees.
The other part of this is that it doesn't actually benefit the story for Marigold and Aurelia to become unexpectedly wealthy via streaming. Marigold becoming a streamer and making roughly the same amount of money she made before with massively greater job satisfaction (a much more plausible level of popularity) would be a far better outcome for the comic. Likewise, Aurelia becoming independently wealthy actively imperils an existing storyline: Claire's job search.
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2022-07-27, 02:30 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
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2022-07-27, 02:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
A massive and sudden increase in family wealth inherently decreases the urgency associated with income-related needs. Aurelia having a giant pile of money means that while Claire may still want to work, she no longer needs to. That's a very important distinction. In particular, it presents an excuse for her to hold out for a job in a place she likes rather than latching on to the first available offer.
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2022-07-27, 05:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
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2022-07-27, 06:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
- Location
- Toledo, Ohio
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Indeed, having her mother just blunder into a pile of cash while she's working her tail off to forge a career is likely to add fuel to the fire for Claire.
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2022-07-28, 10:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2022
- Location
- Misery (h/t XTC)
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Wow. Next you're going to tell me that this comic isn't a good instruction manual for running a coffee shop, handling a college library, or living with heightened anxiety.
For the record, at least in my experience, it's not uncommon for people to refer to violations by the agency which governs them even if that's not technically the law under consideration. But considering this is a comic that had a pizza-delivery superheroine and action movie setpieces just happening around the protagonists back in 2006, my expectation is and has always been that "amusing slice of life" tops "realistic and well-researched."
Marigold's change in occupation led directly to May getting a new job and Dale leaving CoD, which cleared space for Claire to step into that role which also directly ties into her ongoing story. Aurelia's streaming has not materially changed anything going on with Claire or Clinton at this point - there's no indication that her streaming job is why she is able to afford her house or offer support to her children or anything else. It's just another element of her character."But it always seemed weird to me to get mad about things going wrong, as if everything turning out OK was promised to anyone, ever. There wouldn't need to be paladins if the world was, like, fair." -Lien
I get to be a favorite today!
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2022-07-28, 11:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Okay, it's not a video game but at least they're doing something.
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2022-07-29, 08:42 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Other than other people think it is and I don't know (or have strong opinions on the subject), my reason hinges on the 'Marigold had to sell that rare anime porn DVD to get money for May's fundraiser despite (us finding out after the fact) having crazy good income at the time was because she locked her account and getting that resolved was harder than selling a DVD and getting the cash from that transaction in-hand' micro-plot feels a lot like an author saving throw.
My threshold/criteria tends to hew to 'if I saw this show up on a tv sitcom from the 70s-90s, would it grate on me as a failure of basic knowledge?' And also 'if I didn't have issues with this strip for other reasons (whatever they may be), would this be notable?' This doesn't strike me as different than (ex.) the M*A*S*H crew getting hold of a movie that was released domestically less than 3 weeks before the armistice, and I don't think, if QC wasn't in the 'I wish it was still the show I loved 10 years ago' zone, then no Jeph's lack of perfect knowledge regarding being a streamer would not be a notable flaw of any kind.
I don't think we were going to see them play a game in-frame. There are so many webcomics out there already about actually playing computer games already. This was going to be about streaming like Coach was about coaching football or the like -- the stuff around the edges of the actual thing.
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2022-07-29, 08:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
There are some small touches about this comic that I like. That both her hands and book that MM is 'holding' are clearly just MS Paint scrawls superimposed over the avatar to make it look like she's holding a book, are both very cute and absolutely something I've seen a streamer do for a joke. Like the youtube faces from the other day, its a clever and fun observation of the platform.
Everything else, though? ...I miss Emily. And Steve. And Penelope. And Pizza Girl.~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
RPG Characters What I Done Played As (Explained Badly)
17 Things I Learned About 40k By Playing Dark Heresy
Tales of a Role-Play Gamer - Horrible Optimisation
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2022-07-29, 11:43 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
- Location
- right behind you
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Im actually finding this fairly entertaining. It makes for a nice change of pace from the calm cool collected near perfect relationship nonissues that have formed over most of the comic. Honestly, at this point only faye and bubbles seem to have a realistic chance for something terrible to happen between them.
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"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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2022-07-30, 10:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Ashland, Kentucky
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
random thought hit me teh other day
instead of six degrees of Kevin Bacon this comic engages in two degrees of Martin
is there a single character that is more than two points away from himPonies not only make ME want to be a better person than I was before they entered my life, they make me want to HELP OTHERS be better people too.
And that is a GOOD thing by any definition.
full size avatar
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2022-07-30, 10:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
“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.”
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2022-07-30, 10:43 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2022
- Location
- Misery (h/t XTC)
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Renee was a good friend of Padma, who dated Marten. Renee is also a good friend of Elliot, who has hung out with Marten. Elliot is also dating Clinton, whose sister (Claire) is dating Marten.
Renee works for Jim at the Secret Bakery. Jim is romantically linked to Marten's mother."But it always seemed weird to me to get mad about things going wrong, as if everything turning out OK was promised to anyone, ever. There wouldn't need to be paladins if the world was, like, fair." -Lien
I get to be a favorite today!
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2022-07-30, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
RPG Characters What I Done Played As (Explained Badly)
17 Things I Learned About 40k By Playing Dark Heresy
Tales of a Role-Play Gamer - Horrible Optimisation
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2022-07-30, 10:58 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2022
- Location
- Misery (h/t XTC)
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
"But it always seemed weird to me to get mad about things going wrong, as if everything turning out OK was promised to anyone, ever. There wouldn't need to be paladins if the world was, like, fair." -Lien
I get to be a favorite today!
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2022-07-30, 12:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2004
- Location
Re: Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"
Hark! An avatar drawn by Kate Beaton!