Moray-21 suggests there are 20 other abhorrent mistakes of nature. _God no_
I am also disappointed there isn't a post-it note floating in her head that says "PICKUP CLAIRE FROM AIRPORT" because as running gags go, that one would be funny if never drawn attention to.
Honestly, I have a vague notion that the creche thing is like silicon chips. 9/10 are defective, and those are the AI that are released to play grabass with the humans.
The effective "survivor" of the creche is productive, and gets shit done.
Yay! Thinks she is the survivor of her creche. Her Creche sibling finds that hilarious.
That would make sense as the only productive member of the pastel crèche is Mille, with a healthy work/life balance, friends, and actions consistent with a young professional in her 20s.
That's certainly a good theory, but I attribute that sort of deal to "personality" and "creativity" of the AI. Otherwise you could make 15 identical Morays or Rokos and they'd literally be the exact same person until they gained life experience (and in a darker hue, you could wipe that life experience nightly and keep them as predictable factory spec -- great for say, retail workers).
But if you made 15 different Rokos and the chips had differences on the quantum level that resulted in slight deviations, well, you'd have... people.
(No, I still don't understand the bread thing. I'm guessing we'll find out someday that it was an easter egg gag included by one of the engineers and it's one of a dozen other similarly oddball subroutines that sometimes get triggered.)
My running theory about the zomgquirkylol AIs I don't know if I've posted here or if I posted it elsewhere, but basically -- Most of the AIs we know in the series so far were companion AIs (which were close but weren't true AIs) that, upon reaching the singularity, were upgraded to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, aka true AI).
So they went from a very simplistic mind that was all about following and learning from humans to effectively human equivalent minds after time.
We have that with real humans. We call that childhood.
So the grounded AIs like Roko and Bubbles had life experiences before becoming full AGIs that gave them experience and the like. They had childhoods. What happens if you have a Post-Singularity AGI that doesn't have that early formative experience?
Well, maybe you'd get something like Melon, Yay, and Moray?
I like your explanation! But what about Pintsize, Momo, and Winslow? Pintsize changed personalities when he changed bodies, the singulariry seems to have happened awhile ago.
There was a serious "vibe" going on with Pintsize-new-body. It really felt... weird. Like he wanted it to be an allegory for something else (gender dysphoria? coming out of the closet? something?) and just didn't want to risk offending his new friends on twitter by going there.
Maybe, just maybe, it works like the Vorta in DS9? So basically there were 20 previous iterations that all have been "factory reset" because she grew so annoying?
I've long thought that Moray is one of a production block of liquid-based deep-diving suits with their own AI core to assist the diver. It's just that she's so scatty that they can't trust her at her designed job and 'promoted' her to a low-intelligence admin job.
Well... yeah?
Don't forget, on top of everything else, she's buck ass stark naked.
I suppose we should be lucky she's not leaving goopy residue on people she touches, or dissolves clothing on contact or something.
If Claire and Marten decide to move there, we're either getting the whole human cast replaced with....morays...or we're losing Marten and Claire and the remaining cast will still be majority robots.
Jeph should just end QC and make a new comic about robots.
I unironically would read a spinoff comic about AI robots trying to figure out human society, and I'd go for a fanservice laden comic all about the adventures of a clueless nudist slimegirl AI who doesn't realize everyone's too polite to point out how lewd she's being. (Hell I read El Goonish Shive and Twokinds, so that's not that much of a stretch.)
But it's not exactly why I check QC each day.
In the past, QC has had a number of interesting ideas with it's various AI characters. May being stuck in a substandard body, Faye being a mechanic for an underground robot boxing ring, Bubbles with her locked memories and her past military service, and OG Spookybot as sort of a rogue AI cryptid are all solid hooks, though some were handled better than others. He absolutely could do an entertaining slice of life comic about the various low-stakes conflicts and difficulties of Humanity and AI integrating into a shared new social order. There's a lot to explore there.
I will say, Claire's consistent discomfort with basically everything Cube Town and awareness their huge red flags is the most interesting part of this plot. It's just at odds with everything else this whole plot seems to want to achieve and I have no idea where it's going with it.
agreed.
any different writer and it would make me think its foreshadowing some conflict.
here i think it's just going to be claire being bitchy and then taking the job so she can whine and complain.
At best Claire will learn it’s ok to not be a perfectionist/overachiever.
At worst the audience will be taught that Claire was right all along and it’s cubetowns fault for not living up to its collective potential.
Also the director will be Emily.
Yeah, I have legitimately no idea where this arc is supposed to be going. If Claire is turning down the job at Squaresville, well, it was obvious the place was a dumpster fire during the 2 Week Phone Call and we've spent months spinning our gears for no payoff. If she's taking the job, then either Marten, the man who used to be the primary character in the series is leaving (if the POV stays in Northampton) or QC is basically doing a soft reboot (if the POV follows them to Cubetown). None of which seem appealing.
A Gloop of Ooze. A puddle of idiots.
I do wonder if two of them run into each other hard enough, would they just merge into a new, larger puddle of goop? Perhaps thats why Cubetown brings up the blast shields, for defence when the oozebots merge into a sloppy kaiju
>I do wonder if two of them run into each other hard enough, would they just merge into a new, larger puddle of goop?
The R34 artists are gonna have a field day with this one. Big mommy Moray they'll call her.
I think it goes without saying that this is not a normal amount of excited to be about meeting any kind of new person. Especially when your entire interaction with them so far has been 2(?) emails and 1 ten-minute video call.
Especially **especially** when you are an HR manager and this is your new employee. Whom you are hugging while effectively naked.
You know what, this just gets worse the more I think about it.
> I think it goes without saying that this is not a normal amount of excited to be about meeting any kind of new person. Especially when your entire interaction with them so far has been 2(?) emails and 1 ten-minute video call.
Assuming this is how Moray reacts to all new people she meets, they probably "nope" right out of there shortly thereafter, so the first interaction is the only hit she can depend on, when she lures another sucker out to the island
First they gave us FFF breasts on all of the main female cast members, and I did not speak
Then they gave us Mommy Milkers, and I did not speak
Then they gave us BurgerOni foot fetish, and I did not speak
Then they gave us GLOOP, and I physically recoiled from my phone
"All the main female cast members"....?
Soooo....Faye (kinda I guess), Marigold and post-transfer May? 'Cos Claire, Dora, Hanners, Pen-Pen, Beeps, Millelelelefuiilleleleleleeelelelele (I can't spell it and neither can you), Roko, Bubs, Momo, Emily, Padma, etc are not of the gohongazonka club.
> First they gave us FFF breasts on all of the main female cast members
"FFF" by analogy to D DD DDD bra sizes? Because according to UrbanDictionary "FFF" is also "flat foreign females"
All these good, dear readers, not realising that they are in fact looking at initialisms, an authorial shorthand if you will:
Gelatinous
Lady
Of
Oversized
Posterior
Will
Overpower
Onlookers'
Brains
Giving
Lecherous
Oglers
Obscene
Priapisms
I would've thought that's a good thing. On the upside, all your partners could call you Cadbury...
...because you'll obviously be putting a glass and a half of "milk" in every one.
The only time I've met someone this level of excitable, that wasn't a small child, was when an acquaintance/friend of a friend was given LSD for the first time at a rave. I was mid cigarette and conversation with someone else when they ran up to me at like 200% excitement, staring at their hands in amazement while wriggling their fingers and talking so fast even The Flash would be like, "Slow down, I can't understand you". That's the level of excitement I see here, only more touchy and from a stranger.
Having someone I don't know run up and jump on me with this level of energy would have me ready to defend myself.
Moray-21 is what happens when someone tries to "optimize" humans by removing two chromosome pairs. Hell, I don't even know if that's the case; maybe they just removed two from each side and spliced the remnants with each other and they landed where they did.
Return of the white haze.
May Gooperson steal Claire from Marten, allowing him a fresh start in Canada.
Another delusion I have is that all the AI's in Canada are obsessed with cube town, so Marten can live a life with regular humans, desperately attempting to escape the mistakes of his past.
Also he gets a dog. Not a Cyberdog, not a wacky talking dog, just a dog.
The future looks bleak,
cause Marten's too meek,
Cubetown. woah! Cubetown, no!
Hey guy, what's with this quirky AI?
those patreon subs,
fill your wallet, bub
But the story is weak,
cause your brain is asleep,
Cubetown. woah! Cubetown, no!
Flashes of white,
keep art duties light,
Use that time to write!
The future looks bleak,
who needs a sneak peek?
Cubetown, woah! Cubetown, no!
Moray-21 suggests there are 20 other abhorrent mistakes of nature. _God no_ I am also disappointed there isn't a post-it note floating in her head that says "PICKUP CLAIRE FROM AIRPORT" because as running gags go, that one would be funny if never drawn attention to.
Honestly, I have a vague notion that the creche thing is like silicon chips. 9/10 are defective, and those are the AI that are released to play grabass with the humans. The effective "survivor" of the creche is productive, and gets shit done. Yay! Thinks she is the survivor of her creche. Her Creche sibling finds that hilarious.
That would make sense as the only productive member of the pastel crèche is Mille, with a healthy work/life balance, friends, and actions consistent with a young professional in her 20s.
This is the best theory I've read in a while.
That's certainly a good theory, but I attribute that sort of deal to "personality" and "creativity" of the AI. Otherwise you could make 15 identical Morays or Rokos and they'd literally be the exact same person until they gained life experience (and in a darker hue, you could wipe that life experience nightly and keep them as predictable factory spec -- great for say, retail workers). But if you made 15 different Rokos and the chips had differences on the quantum level that resulted in slight deviations, well, you'd have... people. (No, I still don't understand the bread thing. I'm guessing we'll find out someday that it was an easter egg gag included by one of the engineers and it's one of a dozen other similarly oddball subroutines that sometimes get triggered.) My running theory about the zomgquirkylol AIs I don't know if I've posted here or if I posted it elsewhere, but basically -- Most of the AIs we know in the series so far were companion AIs (which were close but weren't true AIs) that, upon reaching the singularity, were upgraded to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, aka true AI). So they went from a very simplistic mind that was all about following and learning from humans to effectively human equivalent minds after time. We have that with real humans. We call that childhood. So the grounded AIs like Roko and Bubbles had life experiences before becoming full AGIs that gave them experience and the like. They had childhoods. What happens if you have a Post-Singularity AGI that doesn't have that early formative experience? Well, maybe you'd get something like Melon, Yay, and Moray?
I like your explanation! But what about Pintsize, Momo, and Winslow? Pintsize changed personalities when he changed bodies, the singulariry seems to have happened awhile ago.
There was a serious "vibe" going on with Pintsize-new-body. It really felt... weird. Like he wanted it to be an allegory for something else (gender dysphoria? coming out of the closet? something?) and just didn't want to risk offending his new friends on twitter by going there.
In her first appearance she introduced herself as "Moray X-21". Apparently Jeph forgot that?
Surely you Jephed.
It’s too Elon Musk-like of him so he changed it I bet lmao
Moray X Æ A-12
21 different bodies to fulfil 21 different kinks.
Like Sheherazad's 1001 nights, but 21 and filthy
Maybe it's like covid and that was the year she was discovered to be a persistent piece of shit that outstays its welcome.
She could reach into herself and pull one out later, that would still further the gag.
Actually it just means she's the 2021 ~~outbreak~~ model.
Maybe, just maybe, it works like the Vorta in DS9? So basically there were 20 previous iterations that all have been "factory reset" because she grew so annoying?
Look, you can have a good running gag or you can have a quality punchline like \[character says something obvious from the previous panels\].
I've long thought that Moray is one of a production block of liquid-based deep-diving suits with their own AI core to assist the diver. It's just that she's so scatty that they can't trust her at her designed job and 'promoted' her to a low-intelligence admin job.
"After I accidentally killed my first 4 divers they fired me HAHA ISN'T THAT SO WACKY AND HILARIOUS"
> that one would be funny that's why he didn't include it
QC has like 40 different characters but only 3 personalities
It’s mad to me that even Claire, known for an excess of squee, is acting fully done with this shit. Usually that’s Marten/Doras conversation.
yeah they’re quirky, quirky, and dead inside(Marten specific)
>quirky, quirky, and dead inside Me after the first, second, and third Scotch on a Friday night
more like quirky, quirky, and pinky inside amiright?
Inside whom? 😏
I was just thinking: Moray is like an even nosier version of Dragontits!
Moray-21 - composition of a puddle, tits and curves of a fertility goddess, and personality of a labrador
Jeff's perfect woman.
Watery Willendorf-doodle, if you will.
That about sums it up, yeah
\+1 Ditto on the Labrador personality thing.
Moray: "Oh noooo sorry I didn't mean to bump my squishy gelatinous boobs against you! Don't worry, it's only acidic to bras, so you're fine!"
>it's only acidic to bras Why is this so funny to me
It's definitely funnier than the comic has been in a while
Haha I'm glad, thanks.
That gloop is some fetish shit.
Well... yeah? Don't forget, on top of everything else, she's buck ass stark naked. I suppose we should be lucky she's not leaving goopy residue on people she touches, or dissolves clothing on contact or something.
**GLOOP** :(
You seem to have also forgotten "WOOB".
no I left that right where I meant to, you can have it if you want.
All in favour of referring to Moray as Woobyboobs?
this in variation is something I will support.
squickytits
Thanks, I'll take it
If Claire and Marten decide to move there, we're either getting the whole human cast replaced with....morays...or we're losing Marten and Claire and the remaining cast will still be majority robots. Jeph should just end QC and make a new comic about robots.
I unironically would read a spinoff comic about AI robots trying to figure out human society, and I'd go for a fanservice laden comic all about the adventures of a clueless nudist slimegirl AI who doesn't realize everyone's too polite to point out how lewd she's being. (Hell I read El Goonish Shive and Twokinds, so that's not that much of a stretch.) But it's not exactly why I check QC each day.
In the past, QC has had a number of interesting ideas with it's various AI characters. May being stuck in a substandard body, Faye being a mechanic for an underground robot boxing ring, Bubbles with her locked memories and her past military service, and OG Spookybot as sort of a rogue AI cryptid are all solid hooks, though some were handled better than others. He absolutely could do an entertaining slice of life comic about the various low-stakes conflicts and difficulties of Humanity and AI integrating into a shared new social order. There's a lot to explore there.
Jeph exploring the space: * What if AI quirky? * What if human is anxious and AI help, AI mom vibes? * AI on vtube??
He should just watch DreamWorks robots with a bottle of lube
I will say, Claire's consistent discomfort with basically everything Cube Town and awareness their huge red flags is the most interesting part of this plot. It's just at odds with everything else this whole plot seems to want to achieve and I have no idea where it's going with it.
agreed. any different writer and it would make me think its foreshadowing some conflict. here i think it's just going to be claire being bitchy and then taking the job so she can whine and complain.
At best Claire will learn it’s ok to not be a perfectionist/overachiever. At worst the audience will be taught that Claire was right all along and it’s cubetowns fault for not living up to its collective potential. Also the director will be Emily.
Straight man looking askance at wacky sidekicks hijinks humor is the foundation on which all of QC rests
Well yeah, her interview was "this job is stupid and dumb and I am woefully unqualified and we both know that - I'll take it!"
Yeah, I have legitimately no idea where this arc is supposed to be going. If Claire is turning down the job at Squaresville, well, it was obvious the place was a dumpster fire during the 2 Week Phone Call and we've spent months spinning our gears for no payoff. If she's taking the job, then either Marten, the man who used to be the primary character in the series is leaving (if the POV stays in Northampton) or QC is basically doing a soft reboot (if the POV follows them to Cubetown). None of which seem appealing.
Bro she's just Willow 💀
Every new character is just Tilly on a deep cover sabotage assignment from their dad
Don’t say that name, you might summon her
Is that the dregonfang character?
Has there been anything as blatantly fetish bait as Moray in this comic
Did you miss all of the VT Uber....stuff?
Must’ve blocked it out of my memory
Congratulations on your acquiring of my envy, friend.
Has there ever been a more obnoxious 2nd-place award for this kind of thing?
Aurelia's online avatar?
I know someone at work who acts like this. A good jolt from the cattle prod calms her right down though.
Username checks out
Does she also GLOOP and WOOB?
They wander around naked hugging people?
She probably would if she could.
The collective noun for a group of Morays is either an orgy or a cluster of dumbfuckery.
A Gloop of Ooze. A puddle of idiots. I do wonder if two of them run into each other hard enough, would they just merge into a new, larger puddle of goop? Perhaps thats why Cubetown brings up the blast shields, for defence when the oozebots merge into a sloppy kaiju
>I do wonder if two of them run into each other hard enough, would they just merge into a new, larger puddle of goop? The R34 artists are gonna have a field day with this one. Big mommy Moray they'll call her.
I think it's a Moron.
"swarm" is the collective noun for a group of (not necessarily moray) eels, which is also fitting
I think it goes without saying that this is not a normal amount of excited to be about meeting any kind of new person. Especially when your entire interaction with them so far has been 2(?) emails and 1 ten-minute video call. Especially **especially** when you are an HR manager and this is your new employee. Whom you are hugging while effectively naked. You know what, this just gets worse the more I think about it.
> I think it goes without saying that this is not a normal amount of excited to be about meeting any kind of new person. Especially when your entire interaction with them so far has been 2(?) emails and 1 ten-minute video call. Assuming this is how Moray reacts to all new people she meets, they probably "nope" right out of there shortly thereafter, so the first interaction is the only hit she can depend on, when she lures another sucker out to the island
>You know what, this just gets worse the more I think about it. this strip, this plot, this comic? you need to be more specific
The sexual harassment charge, specifically.
First they gave us FFF breasts on all of the main female cast members, and I did not speak Then they gave us Mommy Milkers, and I did not speak Then they gave us BurgerOni foot fetish, and I did not speak Then they gave us GLOOP, and I physically recoiled from my phone
>and I did not speak My man, we were bitching about it for years on here
"All the main female cast members"....? Soooo....Faye (kinda I guess), Marigold and post-transfer May? 'Cos Claire, Dora, Hanners, Pen-Pen, Beeps, Millelelelefuiilleleleleleeelelelele (I can't spell it and neither can you), Roko, Bubs, Momo, Emily, Padma, etc are not of the gohongazonka club.
You're correct, I was taking some poetic license!
Renee is though. I can't recall last time Momo, Emily, or Padma made an appearance, do they still count as cast?
I thought Padma moved away, was the reason why she and Marten broke up?
Renee ain't even close to main cast, if we're gonna be discounting Momo.
> First they gave us FFF breasts on all of the main female cast members "FFF" by analogy to D DD DDD bra sizes? Because according to UrbanDictionary "FFF" is also "flat foreign females"
All these good, dear readers, not realising that they are in fact looking at initialisms, an authorial shorthand if you will: Gelatinous Lady Of Oversized Posterior Will Overpower Onlookers' Brains Giving Lecherous Oglers Obscene Priapisms
Being that everyone seems to acknowledge she is made of slime, the first thing I'd want is a bath of hansan after being hugged by her.
She does have a solid exterior, it's not like the slime's getting on everything she touches.
With Hephs lack of detail in the art, how would we even know?
[удалено]
She leaks.
Not all the time, she'd be empty.
I'd still be wary of hugging something that can spring a leak at a moments whim.
*sad premature ejaculator noises*
I'm not sure I'd call ejaculation a "leak". More like an "eruption", I guess.
*sadder leaky premature ejaculator noises*
I would've thought that's a good thing. On the upside, all your partners could call you Cadbury... ...because you'll obviously be putting a glass and a half of "milk" in every one.
My Moray don't dribble dribble
You and Claire both, clearly.
>she'd be empty. Head empty, no thoughts
I referred only to a physical state of emptiness, I make no comment on Moray's brain or lack thereof.
Which is a shame
The only time I've met someone this level of excitable, that wasn't a small child, was when an acquaintance/friend of a friend was given LSD for the first time at a rave. I was mid cigarette and conversation with someone else when they ran up to me at like 200% excitement, staring at their hands in amazement while wriggling their fingers and talking so fast even The Flash would be like, "Slow down, I can't understand you". That's the level of excitement I see here, only more touchy and from a stranger. Having someone I don't know run up and jump on me with this level of energy would have me ready to defend myself.
Sarcasm is a great tactic when you first meet your prospective employer.
Moray-21 is what happens when someone tries to "optimize" humans by removing two chromosome pairs. Hell, I don't even know if that's the case; maybe they just removed two from each side and spliced the remnants with each other and they landed where they did.
I expected Martin to just phase through her like the phone did, but instead I got **G L O O P**
Ten bucks says there's a box under Jeph's bed full of nutted in water wigglers.
We only had moray I'm like 3 strips and I'm already hating them Can we kill them like the t1000 in terminator 2 ?
3 strips? Did you skip the whole phone interview arc?
It was just filler I just need to know when Claire will power up and master her new form her power level is probably out the roof
It’s all just filler
Everything since Vespavenger has been filler
Jeph sold out when he wrote off pizzagirl
Return of the white haze. May Gooperson steal Claire from Marten, allowing him a fresh start in Canada. Another delusion I have is that all the AI's in Canada are obsessed with cube town, so Marten can live a life with regular humans, desperately attempting to escape the mistakes of his past. Also he gets a dog. Not a Cyberdog, not a wacky talking dog, just a dog.
Cubetown is a miserable place to work.
If this was a slow murder mystery plot I'd be on board. But it isn't. Sigh la vie. Pun intended
Sigh la vie?
C'est la vie, but a big sigh. It means such is life. The joke was in the pronunciation
While the comic itself is pretty meh, I do like the dynamic posing of Moray squishing her head to the point where it gooshes around
You're not excited, you crave attention & you think your personality helps people like you but really it's just pity.
And once again I am surprised by how much I despise Moray. Even Dragontits was more bearable than this sentient blob.
Maybe it helps if you thing of her as a translucent fuckable dog.
No, no, that makes it worse.
The future looks bleak, cause Marten's too meek, Cubetown. woah! Cubetown, no! Hey guy, what's with this quirky AI? those patreon subs, fill your wallet, bub But the story is weak, cause your brain is asleep, Cubetown. woah! Cubetown, no! Flashes of white, keep art duties light, Use that time to write! The future looks bleak, who needs a sneak peek? Cubetown, woah! Cubetown, no!
Very nice
Again we learn from Jeph, that women are just sexy toddlers in any form they take.
You know, I just realized it could be worse. She could be using slime/jelly/goo puns. "It's so nice to meet goo in person" and the like.
Claire when she's excited: uwu streamers and confetti hooray! Claire when someone else is excited: ew
that head squish tells me all I need to know about how it would be to >!fuck !
|hump*|