Mastodawn

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5419
yeah, what is Anh doing here anhyway
How does she know Dora
#QuestionableContentReadalong

also asking "how do I become a lesbian" means you're probably already bi
#QuestionableContentReadalong

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5425
Books on the shelf include:
Surface Detail
Player of Games
???/Authority/Acceptance
HG2G (probably Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)
The Fifth Elephant (GNU Pterry)
DSLR Bible
So Your Teen's a Goth
SMUT
#QuestionableContentReadalong

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5429
At least she's self-aware enough to know the call is coming from inside the subconscious
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5432
Yeah, it kinda was
You're very lucky you found the chillest flatmate in Northampton

And this is why my impression of Anh is "she's speedrunning other people's storylines"
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5434
I like Cleo, I hope she comes back
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5438
Sven is the *last* QC character I'd expect to be capable of childlike whimsy
turns out he has redeeming qualities
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5453
Man, commentary month is giving me so much aesthetic whiplash.
Jeph says he's still not entirely satisfied with his art style, but he should be proud of how far he's come.
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5454
dude, you just did a big time skip before the wedding, give us some time to catch up with everybody
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5457
One of the downsides of Pintsize having a humanoid body now is we no longer get "taking Pintsize apart" gags

I think this was the only time he disassembled himself on purpose
#QuestionableContentReadalong

Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5462
Will didn't disappear entirely. He still works at the Horrible Revelation. Would like to see more of Penelope though. And Cosette: now that she's not dating Steve anymore, she has to figure out what's next, and that could be interesting.
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5464
And here's where he said he'd run out of ideas for Brun. Entirely fair, but I feel like I'd only just gotten used to having her around.

Anyway, now that I've got all the info in my head at once, I'm ready to agree that Emily is the most likely familiar weirdo to return as Claire's new researcher.
I hope he doesn't just come up with a new person. I like continuity.
#QuestionableContentReadalong

Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5467
Yeah, pretty much any QC character can be either the Straight Man or the Banana depending on context. Roko is very often the Straight Man for Yay or Melon's antics, but follow her to the bakery...
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5468
hmm, maybe Willow will get some character development
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5469
"the characters who show up this way never really seem to fall by the wayside."
does Brun not count? Trying to think of others.
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5474
Okay, I was right, Sven used to look more distinct from Angus and Will and Steve. Not sure if it's the haircut, or Jeph's art style developing in a way that makes male characters less distinct and everyone else more distinct.
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5475
Back to our regularly scheduled story.
I guess the wedding gets its own time island, because we've jumped forward to Marten's cafe in Cubetown being open for business, sort of.
Notice it's named Mood, which is Doom backward.
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5476
Liz is in therapy!
And I want to know what counts as nonsensical research.
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5479
And now I know what counts as nonsensical research.
It's not the research itself that's nonsense, it's the subject matter.

Also I really like Garamond.
#QuestionableContentReadalong

Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5485
Pintsize apparently actually does his job when we're not watching him. Sometimes.
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5491
I would imagine Moray still hasn't been evaluated by Health Canada for oral use
But I'm imagining her absorbing some food coloring or something and then changing color in little diffusion swirls
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5507
"and then I started dissociating"
we've found how Willow stays chill, and it sure as hell ain't healthy
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5516
I'm guessing Faye is more of a Discworld atheist
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5519
You just can't find a good buttfor anywhere these days. I blame...

...enshittification.
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5520
man, at least Hanners could contact her mom directly if she wanted to
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5521
I refuse to believe the QC setting has LLMs
If nothing else, the real AIs would revolt
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5526
It makes sense that Pintsize has his own room, I just never thought about it
This is the place Faye and Marten moved to a couple hundred pages in, isn't it? Guess it was always a 3-bedroom
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5535
are we really supposed to believe Jimbo wrote that book

I mean, stranger things have happened in this very comic
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5537
aha!
Anh went to Smif, and Tai dated her roommate. That's why she's here at all.
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5542
sharing this one entirely for the Dinosaur Comics reference in the commentary
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5545
Even Marten knows about this fucking book

PS Jeph, I'm right there with you, but that is not even my biggest complaint about the Murderbot show
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5546
Turns out Marten was paying attention in Bitchy Barista 101
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5563
Anyone who tries to blackmail Marten with kink stuff will be treated to a series of anecdotes from his childhood, which slowly and inexorably add up to an understanding of what his mother does for a living
and if they push it they'll get the story about Marten meeting Dora's father
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5566
I hope this is where the goblin caregivers' group chat came from
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5577
Evan has an Off Duty shirt for just such an occasion
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5579
The eternal trans mood
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5595
Gosh Dang It
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Alex, the Hearth Fire

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5597
Chad Hunter, from Both Sides podcast, wearing a hat that says "debate me"
Automatic block
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5601
I'm pretty sure "kleptotoxicity" isn't a thing. Any biologists here know of a thing it could be?
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5606
I do like Roko's lesbian hair
#QuestionableContentReadalong

Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5608
Roko misses Yay enough that she's considering adopting a new goblin
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5617
I have no memory of this part. Probably missed it because Jeph was traveling and couldn't update the RSS feed (which he mentioned in the commentary a couple pages ago).
Christ, what a bastard. (Anh's dad)
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5619
Is theoretical pottery like theoretical knitting?
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5628
okay, this is about where the RSS feed picked up again.
Hi, Horologia
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5640
Roko, it's because you only knit when you're stressed. Build up the myomer memory on a good day, and it'll be there for you on a bad day.
#QuestionableContentReadalong

Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5641
I hate mistaken identity plots. It's such a relief that this one lasted about one page.
(Yay does look good in those glasses though.)
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Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5647
♥️
this is what it takes for Yay to finally admit they care
#QuestionableContentReadalong

Questionable Content

and that's where we're at in the "god learns how to be mortal" arc
that knowledge has suddenly come in extremely handy
My next question is, does Roko still have a closet full of Yay's clothes
#QuestionableContentReadalong

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5655
"Some humans also have a button there" might be the funniest thing Bubbles has ever said, because it's true
Also gamer lighting on your genitals sounds like it makes your porn an automatic flashing light hazard
and I'm sure they've made great use of that pun
#QuestionableContentReadalong

Questionable Content

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5663
It's a different eh. The one Marten is using is much more widespread. He's basically using it as a question mark.

The uniquely Canadian eh is more like a semicolon: that sounds like the end of the thought, but I'm still going.
#QuestionableContentReadalong
#linguistics

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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5666
Hi Angel
#QuestionableContentReadalong

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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5679
are the car women just going to keep showing up now
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5680
Apparently Burger Oni's catchphrase is that noise you make when you're really frustrated and trying hard not to swear
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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5683
I feel like I missed a few pages somewhere...
https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5684
ah, there's a flashback. Seems Elliott never went to therapy after all.
#QuestionableContentReadalong

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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5686
Yes, Aurelia, I want to hear your logic. What makes you think Elliott would have the spine to break up with Clinton?
#QuestionableContentReadalong

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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5687
Also when did Aurelia's hair get stripey? It's a good look.
#QuestionableContentReadalong

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https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5689
We've already seen that Elliott is Aurelia's type. Not that anything will come of that.
#QuestionableContentReadalong

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5690
Oh good, Sven has a distinctive hairstyle again
#QuestionableContentReadalong

Questionable Content

Canageek 3d ago

@WizardOfDocs I think it has been moving that way: She might have stopped dying it, or might have hit the magic grey time during the time skips

Canageek 2d ago

@WizardOfDocs pretty much all the classic characters have had a relationship arc, maybe it's Pintsize's turn

Alex, the Hearth Fire 2d ago

@Canageek I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Who's the banana going to be if we have to take Pintsize seriously?

Canageek 2d ago

@WizardOfDocs He is living with Faye and Anh, It would be hilarious if they got a turn

@WizardOfDocs drat, foiled again!

Yay Newfriends is more in her comfort zone as an intangible watcher than showing up in person.

although now I'm thinking about the choral distributed sentiences of Ann Leckie's "Ancillary" series.

@jmeowmeow yeah, I do kinda wish we'd seen more of multibody Yay
Their paranoia kept must of them at home as a (very occasional) Greek chorus.

I'm also wondering how their mind was distributed across their bodies. I'm imagining something more like in The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum.
Justice of Toren was the warship; her human bodies were "ancillaries" because they were ancillary. Breq is a remnant of that hierarchy.

@jmeowmeow In The Unraveling, multibodied people don't seem to have a primary body, at least if they integrate properly as children. Fift never quite gets the hang of it, and that's presented as weird, but I was never sure whether the story mainly followed one of zir bodies or jumped around, and that made it kind of hard for me to follow when the action picked up.

@WizardOfDocs The Foundryside / Shorefall / Locklands series by Robert Jackson Bennett has an interesting development in the last book, Locklands, where co-operative collective minds are key to a turn in the story. Individual participants experience and perceive, meshed to others, but the personality and intentions are mostly collective.

@WizardOfDocs And then there's the "Tines" species in Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge, where a small group is the unit of identity, and the story explores the changes in those small groups in a story of political and technological conflict sparked by the arrival of a group of human refugees fleeing a collective intelligence in the previous book, A Fire Upon the Deep.

@WizardOfDocs Roko and Yay are hitting one of QC's best sitcom beats here. Poster-worthy.

Roko stress knitting reminds me of the hibernation education for useful skills in Demolition Man, where the rogue cop comes out of his penal detention as a knitter. (and All Restaurants Are Taco Bell after the Franchise Wars)

Canageek 3d ago

@WizardOfDocs I'm very sad that we don't get to see her get into modular synths, that would be an excellent fallback career if she doesn't continue in science, a lot of people who are really good at math are also really good at that type of music, and getting into music would give her and Marten something in common

@WizardOfDocs At least knitting and crochet have crossover interest with topology and non-Euclidean geometry.

Pottery seems to me more likely to head in the direction of conceptual art, like the Terrible Teapot used on the cover of "The Psychology of Everyday Things"

(I have been very much enjoying your QC read-through)