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

[Wraith]

Fact is, Bubble is right on a professional level to point out a serious oversight and be critical of her business partner.

Fact is, Faye is right that her personal life partner should be more curteous when criticizing her, because you allow yourself to be extremely vulnerable with these people, so any negative feedback can be felt much more profoundly than with a causal work acquaintance or even work friend.

This is a good summary of what I was thinking, however I don't think that Bubbles was even all that discourteous. She didn't swear, she didn't shout, she made one 'snippy' comment while also making a good point. This is unusual for Bubbles, who is usually stoic and taciturn. This sort of comment from her is notably direct, but compared to the way that other characters tease each other - especially the way that Faye talks to people - it barely even registers.

The two sides aren't equal. Faye was goofing off and half-arsing her work, potentially putting Melon at risk and certainly endangering the reputation of their fledging business with her flippancy; Bubbles was slightly less than grovelling in pointing out the mistake and expecting Faye to own up to it.

One of the theories I've seen put forward that could arise from this arc is the suggestion that Faye doesn't really see AIs as 'real people'. They're pastel coloured and have silly names, and their bodies can get beaten up and welded back together without it hurting them, so as far as she is concerned their bodies aren't as valuable as a human body. Its not bigotry, she's just wildly underestimating how much value an AI has on its physical body - for some its a hugely intimate thing like Roko's trouble integrating into her new chassis, whereas for Bubbles its her only link to her past and her old life without her memories so her body represents huge sentimental value to her. Sometimes AI chassis are disposable, but others are utterly indispensable, and I can understand how Bubbles would be upset at Faye failing to understand the difference, implicitly suggesting that even Bubbles' body is 'disposable' in the same way that Melon abuses her body or that May discards her old one.

I hope it goes that way. Yet another "she said a mean thing and I overreacted and said mean things back until we all apologised" arc just really, really isn't doing it for me.....

[Mechalich]

One of the things that frustrates me about this bit is that Jeph has changed the nature of AI bodies from something like an industrial robot to something much more like an advanced sci-fi android.

When Faye was working in the underground fighting ring she was performing macroscopic industrial maintenance, welding, soldering, part replacement, and other sorts of activities that were very much a cross between automotive and appliance repair, and AIs were presented as being highly mechanical 'under the hood.' Fast-forward to the present comic and we see Melon stripped down and she's a human being made of synthetic components, with faux muscles, ligaments, bones, and the whole package. Not a robot at all, but rather an android. In fact the very language used reveals this: 'maxillary' is clearly a reference to 'maxilla' which is the upper jaw bone in vertebrates. There's no reason Melon should posses anything even like that since it would make far more sense to cast the non-motile portions of the skull as a single piece rather than the series of fused components vertebrates have as a consequence of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Faye isn't qualified to repair mechanical people. Neither is Bubbles. The kind of machine shown in comic 4792 is obscenely complicated and probably requires maintenance by a team of highly trained specialists, ie. just as a GP wouldn't be equipped to handle the major skin grafts necessary to treat a severe facial burn and would refer the patient to a surgical specialist.

Faye's casual treatment of AI bodies was totally appropriate a few thousand comics ago, but it no longer is because the nature of those AI bodies changed during an absurdly small in-universe window, often on characters who existed throughout that period like Melon (seriously, if they'd peeled Melon's skin off at comic #3000 she would have looked different underneath).

[Delicious Taffy]

Huh. In today's strip (#4795), Faye is calling Melon "May". I wonder if that's a normal typo or if the author actually forgot which blueish jackass was in the shop. Or maybe Faye forgot also, since May is in there all the time and she just got used to saying May as the default M-name. Either way, it's a little funny. Might get fixed, might not.

[VoxRationis]

One of the things that frustrates me about this bit is that Jeph has changed the nature of AI bodies from something like an industrial robot to something much more like an advanced sci-fi android.

When Faye was working in the underground fighting ring she was performing macroscopic industrial maintenance, welding, soldering, part replacement, and other sorts of activities that were very much a cross between automotive and appliance repair, and AIs were presented as being highly mechanical 'under the hood.' Fast-forward to the present comic and we see Melon stripped down and she's a human being made of synthetic components, with faux muscles, ligaments, bones, and the whole package. Not a robot at all, but rather an android. In fact the very language used reveals this: 'maxillary' is clearly a reference to 'maxilla' which is the upper jaw bone in vertebrates. There's no reason Melon should posses anything even like that since it would make far more sense to cast the non-motile portions of the skull as a single piece rather than the series of fused components vertebrates have as a consequence of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Faye isn't qualified to repair mechanical people. Neither is Bubbles. The kind of machine shown in comic 4792 is obscenely complicated and probably requires maintenance by a team of highly trained specialists, ie. just as a GP wouldn't be equipped to handle the major skin grafts necessary to treat a severe facial burn and would refer the patient to a surgical specialist.

Faye's casual treatment of AI bodies was totally appropriate a few thousand comics ago, but it no longer is because the nature of those AI bodies changed during an absurdly small in-universe window, often on characters who existed throughout that period like Melon (seriously, if they'd peeled Melon's skin off at comic #3000 she would have looked different underneath).

I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment. The more we see of these sorts of advanced bodies, the less plausible it is that a business like Union Robotics would even have made sense on paper. Devices as intricate and technologically advanced as these bodies aren't repaired by two people with a buzz saw.

[Wraith]

Faye: "Bubbles got angry with me for failing to point out crucial information that radically changes the context of a situation, and then refusing to take ownership of my mistake; what a bitch!"

Also Faye: "I have failed to point out crucial information that radically changes the context of this situation, also why are you implying it was my own fault?"

Ah, Faye - you never change. You dumb-ass.

[SaintRidley]

And in leaving out said crucial information, she's shown herself to have utterly failed to consider her client's/patient's differences from her own meatbag experience. Meatbag privilege in action.

[Cikomyr2]

Today's pun made the entire setup of the joke worth it.

[SaintRidley]

I really want Roko to find the bread of her dreams.

[Radar]

I have to compliment Jeph on today's visuals of stretching the dermal layer in place - it was a bit strange but at the same time felt very natural for what was going on.

[Mordokai]

I know by this point everybody is probably sick of my fanboying, but everytime Hanners appears, the comic instantly gets better.

[Manga Shoggoth]

She does bring a certian something to the comic.

[Mechalich]

Characters talking about problems with their work and their relationships is what QC is good at. Even though the framing of this situation doesn't quite click, the core conflict is very much in Jeph's wheelhouse - Faye and Bubbles could have had the exact same argument working on a dishwasher as opposed to Melon. Post-world tour Hanners has taken an upgraded place as the sounding board participate in these kinds of conversations, being more assertive and experiential than Marten (who used to do a lot of this).

[Morquard]

Ugh, perfect opportunity for some relationship drama of actually established characters instead of drama with new robots... and they're both "Oh I'm so sorry" - "No its me that's sorry!" Gods, what has this comic come to, people talking about their feelings like rational adults...

[Rodin]

Ugh, perfect opportunity for some relationship drama of actually established characters instead of drama with new robots... and they're both "Oh I'm so sorry" - "No its me that's sorry!" Gods, what has this comic come to, people talking about their feelings like rational adults...

On the one hand...

I do like that QC characters go away from a fight and cool down, talk it out with someone, and then realize that the fight was stupid. Characters in all sorts of media will typically hold grudges until they die of old age over the pettiest of nonsense and it frequently bugs me that temporary spats don't happen without either major drama or wacky hijinks ensuing.

On the other hand...

This is about the 5th or 6th time we've seen this exact sequence with various couples. Dora with Marten several times, Dora and Tai a couple times, Marigold and Dale...it's been done. And we could use some of the relationship drama. It's also quite a promising character clash - Bubbles takes her work very seriously and always has done, while Faye has always been very flippant about her job. And it's resolved in under a week?

[Wraith]

Couldn't even have left it over the weekend and given us the pretence of some sort of cliffhanger, too. Just done and dusted, and a whole new unrelated arc on Monday morning - assuming that a couple more strips aren't added on to next week to excruciatingly explain to us what just happened last week, that's happened enough times too.

I almost hope that Melon is happy with her new skin, tips them £5 and a pigeon (because lolrandom) then walks straight out of Union Robotics and is his by a street-sweeping truck. Not because I hate Melon, quite the opposite, I just think it would be funny to watch Faye and Bubbles watch their hard-work and emotionally fraught success go right down the storm drain and they have to start over again.

[Delicious Taffy]

See, this is the good stuff.

Also: Oh no, they made Melon hot. Think of all the extra nonsense she'll be able to get into/away with now.

[mucat]

Also: Oh no, they made Melon hot.

Hopefully they did the opposite? I mean, the poor girl was catching fire before...

[Wraith]

Oh good, this again.

Why did Bubbles seem surprised that Melon had a wifi antenna? She's not just an AI mechanic, she's specifically the COMPETANT AI mechanic, and she literally just removed that section of skull AND replaced the skin AND regrew the hair, did she not know that there was a couple of copper and/or fiber-optic rods in there as she was doing it?

Why does Professor Bennet randomly shrink and grow between panels 1, 2 and 4?

Where did Professor Bennet's spectacles go between panel 1 and 2?

Why won't Jhim 'let' Sam get healthy, nutritious breakfast? Does he only force-feed her boutique pastries and artisan raisin bread? The MONSTER!

I also have mixed feelings about 'Emmett Bennett' as a name, but that's not really an issue so much as a "I hope there's a punchline involved at some point".

[Willie the Duck]

Why did Bubbles seem surprised that Melon had a wifi antenna? She's not just an AI mechanic, she's specifically the COMPETANT AI mechanic, and she literally just removed that section of skull AND replaced the skin AND regrew the hair, did she not know that there was a couple of copper and/or fiber-optic rods in there as she was doing it?

There is nothing in the strip to indicate that the hair is specifically a wifi antenna. It is a cowlick that she naturally possesses (because she's Melon and her hair does that. See Dilbert's tie). It just happens to give better wi-fi signal when it sproings back up because it's funny. I'm guessing Rocky and Bullwinkle did the same thing with horns and tv reception 50-60 years ago.

Why does Professor Bennet randomly shrink and grow between panels 1, 2 and 4?

Where did Professor Bennet's spectacles go between panel 1 and 2?

There is an attempt to have the 'camera shot' pulling back -- we see more and more ceiling (and top of her head stays fixed, relative to the tree outside). What's not right is that, in a pullback, we should see more to the left and right. We get a leftward movement between 1&2 (exchanging milk carton for Sam), so hard to judge. Between 2&4, there ought to be a slight increase in stuff we see left and right (maybe get parts of the milk carton again along with Sam), but we don't.

The spectacles don't make sense (unless she starts washing them between 1&2, in which case why not make it obvious?). If were looking for issues, there's also the disappearing left inner window frame that was there in panel #1, but missing in 2&4 (could have been part of the pullback and change in angle, but the lower window still has the piece to which it used to be co-linear).

Why won't Jhim 'let' Sam get healthy, nutritious breakfast? Does he only force-feed her boutique pastries and artisan raisin bread? The MONSTER!

I also have mixed feelings about 'Emmett Bennett' as a name, but that's not really an issue so much as a "I hope there's a punchline involved at some point".

Side note: AFAIK, Sam's dad is Jim. I think Jhim is a Something*Positive character.
Maybe he thinks that, as a single parent (and in the food profession), he 'ought' to be making his kid a fresh breakfast every day (now how do you want your eggs today, young lady? And no, 'in cereal form' is not an answer.)

Names: I don't love all the goofy names, but with characters like Jim Bean and Marigold Farmer, it's at least a consistent trend.

[Wraith]

There is nothing in the strip to indicate that the hair is specifically a wifi antenna. It is a cowlick that she naturally possesses (because she's Melon and her hair does that. See Dilbert's tie). It just happens to give better wi-fi signal when it sproings back up because it's funny. I'm guessing Rocky and Bullwinkle did the same thing with horns and tv reception 50-60 years ago.

I'm fairly sure its deliberately implied. Melon's hair suddenly sticks up like an antenna and her wifi is immediately improved - surely that's most likely interpreted as cause and effect, not a really weird and pointless correlation-without-causation?

For the record I'm not against funny. I thought it was cute, and I like Melon because she's generally good natured and genuinely caring. However, "random thing happens and Melon says another random, but entirely unrelated, thing" is just a really bizarre punchline, but the alternative also doesn't make much sense.

Side note: AFAIK, Sam's dad is Jim. I think Jhim is a Something*Positive character.

Thank you, much appreciated.

Maybe he thinks that, as a single parent (and in the food profession), he 'ought' to be making his kid a fresh breakfast every day (now how do you want your eggs today, young lady? And no, 'in cereal form' is not an answer.)

As is usually the case, I think we're just putting way too much thought into it. Sam is lolrandom - that means the loud quirky kid likes boring, tasteless cereal because Shut Up She Just Does, Okay?.

[Willie the Duck]

I'm fairly sure its deliberately implied.

It's implied that her hair sticks up, and it gives her better reception. As far as I can see, that's it. That that must mean that there was an antennae in that hair is, AFAICT, not needed.

Melon's hair suddenly sticks up like an antenna and her wifi is immediately improved - surely that's most likely interpreted as cause and effect, not a really weird and pointless correlation-without-causation?

The causation is the hair sticking up causes improved wifi because it is acting like an antenna, not that it is an antenna (complete with physical wires and whatnot), and that works in-comic because it would be funny. Let's say we were watching Family Matters, and Urkel puts on some wacky invention involving tin foil and batteries and gets near-electrocuted (cue 90s sitcom-grade special effect). The family comes to his aid, pulls him out and asks if he is okay. He says, "I can hear FM stations when I touch my fillings!" Would that imply that he somehow made a working radio in his mouth?

For the record I'm not against funny. I thought it was cute, and I like Melon because she's generally good natured and genuinely caring. However, "random thing happens and Melon says another random, but entirely unrelated, thing" is just a really bizarre punchline, but the alternative also doesn't make much sense.

I know you're just doing the 'what are the logical conclusions of the thing.' However, much like the 'Dora must be pedo-ing on underage Tai in the we-could-have-met-as-teens' saga a while back, I think you have decided a thing must-be (despite alternate potential explanations), and found problem with the implications of that doesn't-have-to-be thing. Melon's force of Melon-ness causes her hair to sproing back up into her identifiable cowlicked self (despite it being totally new hair and having no reason for it to be so) and that's the nonsensical situation. Her response that it improves her wifi is just a sitcom joke-closer.

Mind you, next time we cut back to the shop, they could be discussing how her hair includes antenna wires, but again I don't think that is necessary for the situation to 'make much sense' (as far as sitcom logic ever does).

As is usually the case, I think we're just putting way too much thought into it. Sam is lolrandom - that means the loud quirky kid likes boring, tasteless cereal because Shut Up She Just Does, Okay?.

Well, yes, that's most of these things. The strip would be barely worth discussing if not for over-analysis. She likes the thing, so Emmett has to change their position on the subject. The main takeaway I get from today's strip is that Becky probably knows about Emmett's crush on Sam.

[Delicious Taffy]

At the very least, Emmet's Mom seems to actually like Sam. Seems like a bit of a helicopter parent, but mostly in regard to safety and health instead of trying to micromanage their friendships, which is nice. I really hate her hair, though.

[Keltest]

At the very least, Emmet's Mom seems to actually like Sam. Seems like a bit of a helicopter parent, but mostly in regard to safety and health instead of trying to micromanage their friendships, which is nice. I really hate her hair, though.

My uncle runs a machine shop. If anything, I think this is a fairly restrained reaction to learning that your kid was messing with things in there and then not telling you about it.

[Traab]

Im thinking she is manipulating sam to learn more details about what her kid is up to and sam seems to operate under the rule of "everything is fine, there is no reasons anyone could ever object to whatever odd thing I do" so has no trouble sharing. I do hope emmet doesnt get into trouble over this. Im not sure about panel 4 and that expression. Could be she is hiding her own snort of laughter at the idea, could be a grimace she is hiding so as to not let on that she is upset by hearing about this for some reason.

[Keltest]

Im thinking she is manipulating sam to learn more details about what her kid is up to and sam seems to operate under the rule of "everything is fine, there is no reasons anyone could ever object to whatever odd thing I do" so has no trouble sharing. I do hope emmet doesnt get into trouble over this. Im not sure about panel 4 and that expression. Could be she is hiding her own snort of laughter at the idea, could be a grimace she is hiding so as to not let on that she is upset by hearing about this for some reason.

The followup questions seem to indicate the grimace.

[Radar]

The followup questions seem to indicate the grimace.

And the specific nature of the question indicates that there was a very good reason for the grimace. It kind of unsubtly suggests that such things like fires, explosions and unauthorized use of machines did happen before.

[theangelJean]

And the specific nature of the question indicates that there was a very good reason for the grimace. It kind of unsubtly suggests that such things like fires, explosions and unauthorized use of machines did happen before.

Well, according to Emmett, they have... In fact, all of them. And then some. Emmett has been transparent with Sam, at least ... Eventually.

Also in my backwards archive trawl to find that link: remember how we were wondering why Willow was suddenly being introduced to the old cast? It was so unrealistically serendipitous that we forgot Jeph had already lampshaded it as exactly that... And it might all have been in service of a joke about Willow and Iris's relationship.

[Willie the Duck]

Asthma attack and hives? Emmett must have really gotten into trouble when they got into trouble.

[Vinyadan]

Well, according to Emmett, they have... In fact, all of them. And then some. Emmett has been transparent with Sam, at least ... Eventually.

The one about getting drunk and falling into a ditch sounds terrifying. I read a similar story of a grown man, an alcoholic, who got drunk, passed out in a ditch, spent the night there, and in the end got three fingers amputated.

And then there are those who don't fall into the ditch and simply pass out in a field, and get run over by a tractor, and those who drown in a puddle instead...

[Eldan]

Or who freeze to death and never wake up, or fall in the wrong spot and hit their head, yeah. (My father worked in a clinic for addicts for 40 years. I heard a lot of stories.)