Questionable Content XVIII: "That's only sort of good news"

[Taevyr]

I.... think I can see the intent of "Graduate desperate to land good job takes bad offer because she's worried its the best she'll get", but it's just executed terribly: it'd be more of a challenge to find the non-red flags in that "interview", Jeph clearly has no idea how academic institutions/job interviews works and, looking at the the "academia, right?" comment, doesn't even realize that, and it's just like everything that's been annoying me (and apparently some other people) about the comic recently is turned up to 11.

I've been reading it out of inertia with the occasional enjoyable arc for a while now, but if this becomes the new norm, I'll probably settle for occasionally rereading the older comics. I guess his patreon crowd likes it, in which case it's perfectly reasonable for him to write it, but this isn't it for me.

[Ionathus]

On the one hand; young 20-somethings fresh out of college ignoring red flags to get into "their dream career that they worked so hard for" is a perfectly normal and plausible plot. Claire has been told to prioritise herself and ignore that little voice of anxiety in order to fulfil her dreams - we could have a great and enriching conversation about her not being able to tell the difference between the voice of anxiety (which she always has, all the time) and the little voice of legitimate caution, and where that leads her.

On the other... I don't trust Jeph with that depth of conversation. It's been years since he has written anything that couldn't be resolved with an apology and a hug, and he has trampled across all sorts of nuance in between that suggests he doesn't have any interest in learning to do otherwise.

I don't know which way this plot is going to go - Claire might take the job and be an unexpected (and undeserved?) success, or it could be a ****-show that sends her packing in 6 months when Cubetown goes broke and sinks into the ocean - but the real problem is... I don't think that the journey to either resolution is going to be interesting, or relatable, or have anything happen that exceeds the very vague summaries given above. Claire goes to Cubetown, it's hard work and exhausting, she gets a hug and a pep-talk, and then either turns it around or comes home. That's it. And it will take 4 years to get to that point. Dora and Tai will still be planning their wedding.

Pretty much exactly my thoughts. My main problem with this is that, currently, Jeph seems to think Claire is doing the right thing here. I would love to read an arc about Claire taking the first job she gets, no matter how terrible it is, because she's afraid it's the only offer she'll get, and then she experiences the fallout from that...but it seems pretty clear that's not what's happening here. She'll go to Cubetown, it'll be quirky and frustrating but ultimately fine, and we all have to live with Jeph's goo fetish from here on out.

Penny's face appears on milk cartons for a cycle, and then is replaced by Emily, and then Brun, and then she too is gone....

Never in my life would I have expected Jeph to get tired of Emily...let alone Brun. When you put it in context, he really is laughably fickle about which character is his favorite and what story he wants to tell. I remember the Five Years Of Brun...and then, she just kinda...vanished.

[Rodin]

Jeph no longer having the willingness (or possibly ability) to write conflict is the big concern for me here. When did we last have major conflict in the comic? Hannelore confronting her mother? There was a brief spat between Faye and Bubbles, but I can't really count that.

Moray's design is too unique for her to be a one-off. Ergo we're going to Cubetown. Jeph can't write conflict (anymore), ergo it's going to all magically work out. Like others in this thread I can see the comics for the next several years. They write themselves. And they're not good.

[Wraith]

Never in my life would I have expected Jeph to get tired of Emily...let alone Brun. When you put it in context, he really is laughably fickle about which character is his favorite and what story he wants to tell. I remember the Five Years Of Brun...and then, she just kinda...vanished.

One theory I have seen suggested is that it's a symptom of the homogenization that has taken place - none of the characters have their own 'voice' any more, they just get dropped into whatever plot Jeph has in his head, and then speak with HIS voice regardless of context or previous inclination. So it doesn't matter which one is his 'favourite' because there's only 2 or 3 characters to choose from in total.

All AIs are wacky and inane, except for the ones that are scowly and tsundere. Everyone under the age of 24 is neurotic, anxious, and has the vocabulary of a tik-tok meme. Everyone over the age of 24 is snarky in a "this clever setup-and-retort has been carefully written and rewritten several times and can't possibly be mistaken as off-the-cuff". The only exception is the Augustus family, who are one chipmunk-esque person spread thinly across three red-haired bodies and thus flit randomly between quirky, anxious, scowly and snarky without provocation.

Jeph found himself in the position of having two characters, Brun and Claire, with similar plots - both have dead-end jobs and are aspiring for something in their chosen career. Rather than write two different stories with two resolutions, it feels like, he has instead decided to just abandon one entirely, and to run with the one that gets him the most LGBT-brownie points among his Patreons. Financially sensible, maybe, but also kind of suggests that the representation and diversity in his characters are hollow and token?

[The Glyphstone]

From a certain point of view, Claire is telling the truth. She is completely unqualified for the job. But from everything she has seen, everyone on Cubetown is unqualified for their jobs either. So she is the right person...

[Traab]

Now, hear me out on this. Its entirely possible that she COULD turn this situation around. Here is why. They seem to have basically unlimited funds, and ais willing to go out and do whatever they need to in order to make all this work. If I were claire, id spend the next however long it takes for them to get to cubetown, excessively researching what is involved with setting up this department and making lists. In turn, when she gets there, she can start telling them, "Ok, here is what I need now." Then, when she gets the first batch of materials and people/ai to form the foundation, she requests the next batch of whoever and whatever she needs. Then, once she has at least the solid framework of the department built, and she is more settled in and aware of whats needed, she can basically name someone to take over and get transferred to an actual librarian job in the company assuming they still need such. Or, it might turn out that she kind of likes her job as director of her own department. Sure it isnt being a librarian, but its hardly like she is the first person to get a degree then never get work in that field.

Obviously I left it all very vague on details, but thats because I know nothing about how to form such a department or how detailed it would have to be to work.

[Ionathus]

The problem there is that Claire has no management experience and no experience building infrastructure (business infrastructure, digital infrastructure, academic infrastructure, you name it). It's really not as simple as "I'll spend my 2 weeks' notice reading online tutorials and then just ask for what I need."

I mean, it will be as simple as that, unfortunately. But it's not supposed to be.

[Rodin]

One theory I have seen suggested is that it's a symptom of the homogenization that has taken place - none of the characters have their own 'voice' any more, they just get dropped into whatever plot Jeph has in his head, and then speak with HIS voice regardless of context or previous inclination. So it doesn't matter which one is his 'favourite' because there's only 2 or 3 characters to choose from in total.

All AIs are wacky and inane, except for the ones that are scowly and tsundere. Everyone under the age of 24 is neurotic, anxious, and has the vocabulary of a tik-tok meme. Everyone over the age of 24 is snarky in a "this clever setup-and-retort has been carefully written and rewritten several times and can't possibly be mistaken as off-the-cuff". The only exception is the Augustus family, who are one chipmunk-esque person spread thinly across three red-haired bodies and thus flit randomly between quirky, anxious, scowly and snarky without provocation.

Jeph found himself in the position of having two characters, Brun and Claire, with similar plots - both have dead-end jobs and are aspiring for something in their chosen career. Rather than write two different stories with two resolutions, it feels like, he has instead decided to just abandon one entirely, and to run with the one that gets him the most LGBT-brownie points among his Patreons. Financially sensible, maybe, but also kind of suggests that the representation and diversity in his characters are hollow and token?

I think it's some of column A and some of column B, where column B is "Jeph inserts new characters when he gets stuck/bored, then keeps the ones he finds interesting". The library interns are the best example of this in action. Raven got less screentime as he got bored with her, so she was assumed to be "off-panel". Then we get the new library interns - he needs basic personalities for them, so he sticks Claire as the comically serious, Emily as the weird one, and Gabby as the straight (wo)man. Gabby isn't interesting and has no role with Marten doing the straight man already, so she quietly vanishes. Emily needs to fill Raven's role so she plunges headfirst into lolrandom and Raven ceases to exist. Claire is the one he likes the most, so she gets an actual personality. I'm fairly sure the decision to make her trans came later.

When Faye and Bubbles are starting up their mechanic shop, they need a wacky first patient. Enter Melon. Jeph falls in love with Melon, but now there's two lolrandom people in the strip (Emily and Melon). So Jeph quietly writes Emily out. Claire is the sole survivor.

This pattern goes back all the way to freaking Sara. If Jeph doesn't like a character, he simply forgets they exist. If he's done with a character? They don't exist either. That's why Angus never checked up on Faye after she nearly killed herself with booze. He literally no longer existed. And if he likes a character? They get their personality re-written into whatever popped into Jeph's head at the time. Hannelore, Brun, Clinton...the list goes on.

That's why Moray is so terrifying. She has all the hallmarks of "new character Jeph has fallen in love with". And I don't see any way of us getting out of it unless the reaction to her is so negative that even he has to reconsider.

[Mechalich]

The problem there is that Claire has no management experience and no experience building infrastructure (business infrastructure, digital infrastructure, academic infrastructure, you name it). It's really not as simple as "I'll spend my 2 weeks' notice reading online tutorials and then just ask for what I need."

I mean, it will be as simple as that, unfortunately. But it's not supposed to be.

Yeah, I'd add that even if Claire could work hard at getting up to speed in office management, Cubetown's situation is very clearly unique and generalized book-based documentation regarding setting up these kind of systems might be less than useless. Also, Claire absolutely doesn't have the sort of take-charge, delegate-my-way-to-competence personality that someone charging into this system actually needs and who would make the best use of Cubetown's unusual resources. I mean, Cubetown very well might have the kind of supercharged systems-modeling AI on staff who could crank out all the software and databases a modest IS Department needs from scratch in an afternoon but Claire would never trawl through the company directory and metaphorically cold-call that person for help.

[Ionathus]

Yeah, I'd add that even if Claire could work hard at getting up to speed in office management, Cubetown's situation is very clearly unique and generalized book-based documentation regarding setting up these kind of systems might be less than useless. Also, Claire absolutely doesn't have the sort of take-charge, delegate-my-way-to-competence personality that someone charging into this system actually needs and who would make the best use of Cubetown's unusual resources. I mean, Cubetown very well might have the kind of supercharged systems-modeling AI on staff who could crank out all the software and databases a modest IS Department needs from scratch in an afternoon but Claire would never trawl through the company directory and metaphorically cold-call that person for help.

Exactly. It would take an immense amount of hustle and elbow grease to get this stuff up and running, and somebody with a very assertive personality and an incredibly strong drive. Dora, or Faye, or maybe Hanners if she channeled her mother? I could see it. Even though they all have even less experience with databases than Claire does (maybe excepting Hannelore), they are far better candidates on personality alone.

By contrast, Claire needed a goddamned pep talk just to broach the subject of a possible relocation with her significant other.

Even in the best-case scenario, even if all the pieces are there...Claire is still not the person for this job, and portraying her acceptance of this job as positive character growth is flat-out absurd. Jeph will smooth the edges and it'll all be a quirky conflict-free flavorless sludge of a story, but in reality Claire would literally die in less than 6 months at this "job."

[geoduck]

Exactly. It would take an immense amount of hustle and elbow grease to get this stuff up and running, and somebody with a very assertive personality and an incredibly strong drive. Dora, or Faye, or maybe Hanners if she channeled her mother? I could see it. Even though they all have even less experience with databases than Claire does (maybe excepting Hannelore), they are far better candidates on personality alone.

... Jeph is going to have the entire main cast be recruited to go work in the Cube, isn't he?

[Mordokai]

Today was the time that I quitely sighed to myself and said, oh, goodness gracious.

This can't possibly end well. Or, at the very least, shouldn't. And the fact that it will... I would like to say it angers me, but quite frankly, it saddens me more. Does Jeph really think so low of our intelligence that he thought nobody would notice the massive dumpster fire that all this is?

Or is he really that blind to the reality of the world?

But either way, yeah, I think I am overstaying my welcome as well. I will wait until the end of the week and after, unless something really world shattering(this time in a good way) happens. After that, I will bid it farewell.

[Willie the Duck]

This can't possibly end well. Or, at the very least, shouldn't.

I mean, there's the linchpin isn't it? Everything here thus far has been a perfectly valid (if a little hamfisted) story about someone interviewing for a job they shouldn't accept, taking the offer (despite having absolutely valid reservations), and later either realizing it was a mistake or realizing that she's not the one to try to fix this. IFF the story progresses such that she moves to Cubetown and it ends up being a huge mistake, or she realizes she's not the one for the job and convinces the Cubetowners to go look for someone with actual experience in this process (or maybe even that she snaps and becomes a pitiless taskmaster and somehow becomes a new, confident person, showing growth), it would be a reasonable (if hardly A+ implementation) storyline. We just don't have faith that this will happen.

I'd hesitate to put down actual odds, but I give it a 1-in-three-to-five chance that Jeph surprises us. If only because 1) Jeph has shown a lot of qualities, by no means all positive, but being completely stupid isn't one, and 2) why have all this setup about the place being a madhouse and a poor job opportunity if she's just going to move there and it work out perfectly?

[Erloas]

Her growth is going to come out of realizing that she doesn't need a worryingly crazy high profile job for a company that has no idea what it is doing. She has to realize she is more important than a job title, and suddenly a much more reasonable, and local, job will come up that she can take.

[Traab]

I mean, there's the linchpin isn't it? Everything here thus far has been a perfectly valid (if a little hamfisted) story about someone interviewing for a job they shouldn't accept, taking the offer (despite having absolutely valid reservations), and later either realizing it was a mistake or realizing that she's not the one to try to fix this. IFF the story progresses such that she moves to Cubetown and it ends up being a huge mistake, or she realizes she's not the one for the job and convinces the Cubetowners to go look for someone with actual experience in this process (or maybe even that she snaps and becomes a pitiless taskmaster and somehow becomes a new, confident person, showing growth), it would be a reasonable (if hardly A+ implementation) storyline. We just don't have faith that this will happen.

I'd hesitate to put down actual odds, but I give it a 1-in-three-to-five chance that Jeph surprises us. If only because 1) Jeph has shown a lot of qualities, by no means all positive, but being completely stupid isn't one, and 2) why have all this setup about the place being a madhouse and a poor job opportunity if she's just going to move there and it work out perfectly?

Yeah I mean, he is being very open with the dialogue with even his characters stating this is way out of her wheelhouse, so im willing to give him credit because he isnt just ignoring all the red flags, or is unaware that these ARE red flags. He knows, he put them there to BE red flags, so he probably has a direction to go in that will at least make some sense. That said, this could also be a cause for drama locally as she has decided to take the job, and everyone is going to be like, "Uhhh claire? This is a VERY BAD IDEA!" And it will turn into major arguments, questioning faith in her, yadda yadda. And boom, she and marten break up, she leaves for canada, and we only see her with a few rare comic segments trying to maintain her sanity at her new job. She is basically the new steve. Or it switches to cube town entirely with her as the main character, goo girl as the whacky sidekick, and their shenanigans trying to enforce order on a chaotic workplace.

[Willie the Duck]

Yeah I mean, he is being very open with the dialogue with even his characters stating this is way out of her wheelhouse, so im willing to give him credit because he isnt just ignoring all the red flags, or is unaware that these ARE red flags. He knows, he put them there to BE red flags, so he probably has a direction to go in that will at least make some sense.

Indeed. He's not been shy to make clear that this is, in universe, a really bad job/bad idea.

That said, this could also be a cause for drama locally as she has decided to take the job, and everyone is going to be like, "Uhhh claire? This is a VERY BAD IDEA!" And it will turn into major arguments, questioning faith in her, yadda yadda. And boom, she and marten break up, she leaves for canada, and we only see her with a few rare comic segments trying to maintain her sanity at her new job. She is basically the new steve.

In theory possible, in likelihood, I somehow doubt it. Claire and Marten seem to be one of the bedrock relationships he uses to juxtapose others (even Faye-Bubbles who I doubt will break up but are coded as having more issues to sort out). If he were to break them up, I would expect more buildup of underlying problems despite them seeming like a forever-couple (Dora-Marten, although even then it seemed kinda forced). If the drama is everyone saying it is a bad idea, I expect the outcome is her resisting said advice, her and Marten going there, and eventually realizing that everyone was right.

Or it switches to cube town entirely with her as the main character, goo girl as the whacky sidekick, and their shenanigans trying to enforce order on a chaotic workplace.

I think that is the fear -- we both lose them to the main comic environ (mind you, they were barely in focus for years already), have to put up with Wackyland robots, and maybe Claire succeeds at changing the place without evidence that she ought to (although if we go there and it does work out, I'm still rooting for it being because she snaps and starts kicking rears and taking names).

[Traab]

Oh god, I just started imagining how something similar to this setup but theoretically possible would go when it comes time to setup job duties and such. I mean, she is being hired to be the director of a department that she has to build from scratch. How do you define that in a contract? Like, will she be promised a budget to work with to fund what she will need to buy build or hire? Will she be placed in the org chart as a c level employee with all the benefits responsibilities and authority that it implies? or somewhere lower than that but still the director of the department? What kind of duties will she have while startup is taking place, and when will it change to oversight of the department itself? I know literally nothing about corporate infrastructure and how all this works and even im seeing more and more problems erupting. She needs to sit down with someone who has both the authority to authorize all this, and the knowledge to negotiate on the subject, as well as the attention span to do this "boring" stuff. I really do think that this could be handled with just the right amount of fridge logic to satisfy most people. Because its a comic, and the point of it isnt to dig down deep into the nitty gritty, its to tell a story that hopefully makes us laugh on a regular basis.

Im reading a webcomic where the two main characters start off as a newspaper intern and an agent for a secret department of the us government and now they are married, she is a doctor, and he is president of the united states. I dont care too much how precisely it got to that final point, I dont need the full details of how they lobbied for support to get named on the ticket then raised enough money to run for and win office, i just needed enough to justify it happening.

[Mechalich]

Indeed. He's not been shy to make clear that this is, in universe, a really bad job/bad idea.

A big part of the problem, at least for me, is the 'foreign country' complications attached to this. It is perfectly possible to recognize that a company is extremely dodgy but to go ahead and work for them anyway since the salary they're offering is pretty great. In most cases even if the company does collapse embarrassingly, so long as the employee avoids doing anything actively illegal and can justify for the future that they performed their assigned duties effectively, it'll be fine. WeWork, to use a notable recent example, laid off thousands of people when it went down, but most of those people are okay and just have a funny story to tell regarding future interviews. It's the upper level employees who got paid primarily in options rather than real money who were screwed. That's a critical point of this interview/job negotiation, Claire needs to make absolute sure Cubetown pays her in cold, hard, (Canadian) dollars, but if this were a US job that would be the only real danger.

This being in Canada though, and on an island/floating base introduces additional complications, like immigration law and Claire possibly being stuck in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of crazy AIs when everything implodes.

I think that is the fear -- we both lose them to the main comic environ (mind you, they were barely in focus for years already), have to put up with Wackyland robots, and maybe Claire succeeds at changing the place without evidence that she ought to (although if we go there and it does work out, I'm still rooting for it being because she snaps and starts kicking rears and taking names).

The part that's most worrying to me is that Jeph seems to think his wackyland robots are endearing, such as his 'I love Moray already' that tagged comic #4858. I don't love Moray, I find her terrifying and want to boot her as far from any and all serious responsibilities as possible. LolRandom characters can be fun, and QC has had great success with them, but they need to be doing LolRandom things in a non-serious context not engaged in serious business. Pintsize playing games with a Roomba is funny, Pintsize playing the same games with a 10-ton industrial robot is the stuff of nightmares.

[BRC]

The thing is, I'm usually down for the wacky robots being endearing, because while wacky, they're usually fairly competent at what they do.

Like, yeah Beeps is a ditz, but she's a ditz at her after-hours volunteer gig, she's presumably decently competent at the thing she actually gets PAID to do. It's not surprising that a volunteer organization has a member who has more enthusiasm than competence, it's a volunteer non-profit, you don't really get to pick who volunteers.

Moray is presumably in a position of authority, and this is her Job. I could see it if she was goofy-but-competent.

[Cikomyr2]

She can share her worries with Hannelore.

[Traab]

The thing is, I'm usually down for the wacky robots being endearing, because while wacky, they're usually fairly competent at what they do.

Like, yeah Beeps is a ditz, but she's a ditz at her after-hours volunteer gig, she's presumably decently competent at the thing she actually gets PAID to do. It's not surprising that a volunteer organization has a member who has more enthusiasm than competence, it's a volunteer non-profit, you don't really get to pick who volunteers.

Moray is presumably in a position of authority, and this is her Job. I could see it if she was goofy-but-competent.

Didnt roko basically take over the entire ai rights group shortly after showing up? Mainly because nobody knew how to do half the things they needed? Thats why I kind of felt this was familiar, "crazy ais being whacky want to run a company but need a stern adult figure to keep control over and be exasperated by them." It seems to be at a higher level this time, with them being just a bit better than freaking melon at controlling themselves, but thats not a high bar to clear.

[BRC]

Didnt roko basically take over the entire ai rights group shortly after showing up? Mainly because nobody knew how to do half the things they needed? Thats why I kind of felt this was familiar, "crazy ais being whacky want to run a company but need a stern adult figure to keep control over and be exasperated by them." It seems to be at a higher level this time, with them being just a bit better than freaking melon at controlling themselves, but thats not a high bar to clear.

Yeah, but that was a volunteer organization with, like, two members and a budget from a dead lady's will, meaning they're not actually accountable to anybody.

[hungrycrow]

Roko walked into an AI rights group with no experience and now they're crushing corporations because Roko tells it like it is. Jeph might be intending these red flags to actually be red flags, but it would be in keeping with the rest of the comic for Claire to be wildly successful anyway.

[Keltest]

I think the real tragedy here is that nobody has any faith left in Jeph to actually pull this off in a way that both makes sense and is satisfying.

[Wraith]

I'm honestly struggling to interpret Panel 5.

I assume that it's supposed to be an anime "Thing" - the character is asked an innocuous question, and they answer with exaggerated solemnity and seriousness to emphasize just how seriously they believe in the answer.

But the blank, black background just makes it look like Claire is having an existential crisis. Someone asks her about her cute boyfriend - she doesn't smile, she apparently hesitates in answering, and The All-Consuming Black Void opens behind her. It puts me in mind of the Dolly-Pull scene from the movie Jaws, which indicates a terrible sinking feeling as the character realises something horrible is occurring....

That's certainly NOT what was intended, but Jeph has shown 'ominous' and 'determinedly sincere' in his art before, and this is such a downgrade.

[VoxRationis]

I think it's not necessarily something that is generally ominous, but indicates a darkening of Claire's mood as she reevaluates the pros and cons of the situation in light of the new fact that Moray just openly made a very unprofessional inquiry into an avenue that she has no right to explore.

Edit: Also, is anyone else surprised by the fact that Moray is apparently a membrane-bound sack of aqueous fluid, rather than some sort of body of self-assembling viscous substance of homogenous density?

[Morquard]

Ok, I haven't posted in a while, because what was there to say that others hadn't said way better?

I took this recent development as a sign to reevaluate why I actually still read this comic. It started out as a cute, funny, slice of life comic of twenty-somethings. I was a twenty something at the time I started reading. I could relate, not to all but some. They had a funny, quirky, chaotic robot. Cool. I wished I had one of those. Slowly plotlines got more complex, and that was fine. They were interesting for the most part.

But at some point it jumped the shark. I didn't notice at the time, or for a long time after. Thinking back, I think, for me it was around the time when every new AI was suddenly in a fully functioning humanoid body, when just a while before Hanners had been sent a super advanced prototype by her dad for that, and everyone agreed it was super cringy. but then it became the norm in like 3 months. And in the case of Bubbles or Roko, also retroactively confirmed to have been the case for years. New characters got introduced. Old ones faded. Ok that happens in RL so makes sense it happens in a slice of life comic. But most of the new ones were... lacking.

It's not to say I didn't enjoy the comic at all. Or that I hate all the robots. I liked the Faye/Bubbles story as they got together. Going from co-workers and friends to lovers. It would have been interested to explore the opposite with the May and Sven relationship, going from **** buddies to an actual relationship, but that got dropped the moment May had her fetishized tall, big-titted body as well. Brun could have had some interesting dynamic with Clinton and Elliot, maybe even the comics first thrupple. But the way it came across was that apparently "I'm autistic" also means "will never ever love someone". Speaking of Elliot, when was the last we saw him? Once he got together with Clinton, after that apparently that plotline also lost interest for Jeph.

So yes, I realized, till now I read it mostly out of habit. It's part of my daily routine, open my Webcomics folder, check them. It's in there. It's #2 actually, right after OotS, a position it once warranted but not anymore for a long time. It was honestly more hassle to remove it, than not, and sometimes there were interesting stuff still happening. Also I enjoy this thread here, talking about QC, so I didn't wanna loose that either.

But now... this. I don't even know how to describe Goo girl. I'm trying not to kinkshame here. I know some people are into that, or like it, and that's fine and I respect that, but it isn't for me. I thought I at least give it till the end of the current arc to see where this is going. Maybe it will be resolved as the "This is a terrible idea lets never talk about Cubetown again". I have my doubts, but hey, its possible. I at least wanted to give it the chance.

But in today's comic with her essentially ******* during an interview at the thought of someone elses boyfriend (or what else is "I just sprung a leak" supposed to mean?) I think I'm done.

I'll probably still check in to this thread every now and then, maybe when it seems that things have "stabilized again" or something, I might give it a new chance.

Anyway, it was a fun ride, here in the forum at least. Always enjoyed your opinions and sometimes argument. But I'm gonna delete that bookmark now.

[Mechalich]

I think it's not necessarily something that is generally ominous, but indicates a darkening of Claire's mood as she reevaluates the pros and cons of the situation in light of the new fact that Moray just openly made a very unprofessional inquiry into an avenue that she has no right to explore.

Very unprofessional, also, it represents a failure of her duty as director of SR to tell Claire, upon mentioning a boyfriend, that unless her boyfriend has dual citizenship he won't be able to join her in Canada.

[hungrycrow]

Very unprofessional, also, it represents a failure of her duty as director of SR to tell Claire, upon mentioning a boyfriend, that unless her boyfriend has dual citizenship he won't be able to join her in Canada.

All he has to do is walk in and mention some concept relating to running a company and he'll have a job just like that.

[Wraith]

I think it's not necessarily something that is generally ominous, but indicates a darkening of Claire's mood as she reevaluates the pros and cons of the situation in light of the new fact that Moray just openly made a very unprofessional inquiry into an avenue that she has no right to explore.

That's fair. I suppose it could be interpreted as the proverbial straw that broke the camel - Claire can put up with inanity and unprofessional AI nonsense at work, but only up to the point where it intrudes upon her personal life. If Moray pisses herself in excitement because Claire has a boyfriend, just imagine how inappropriate her reaction would be to finding out that Claire is trans?

Both subjects - Claire's relationship status and potential medical needs, particularly when relocating to an artificial island with unknown lodging availability - are potentially relevant information to a HR professional, but absolutely NOT when it looks that it might be taken only as tweenage gossip fodder.

Or it could still be an anime thing, just an impromptu and out of place punchline for an unfunny joke. If tomorrow's strip doesn't mention it, I will assume as much. I stand by my complaint that we can't tell just by looking, because it's out of place, not funny and just... odd.