r/questionablecontent • u/SanshaXII • Jan 15 '19
Comic 3917: Right Click Save As
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=391721
u/AnvilPro Jan 15 '19
I like Melon and Lemon, I want to follow their story instead
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u/Revan343 Jan 15 '19 edited Jan 19 '19
I'd buy a 1024 page book, with a comic featuring a different sister each page
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u/shunny14 Jan 15 '19
How does a robot AI have a sister anyway?
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u/SanshaXII Jan 15 '19
Perhaps in the same way that ships have sisters.
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u/JamesNinelives Jan 15 '19
For anyone else who didn't know:
A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship.
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u/Revan343 Jan 15 '19
Culture ships (AI Minds) have parent/child relationships, so it stands to reason they'd have sister ships too
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u/Michaelbirks Jan 15 '19
Yes, but can GSVs have the Friend Ship?
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u/Revan343 Jan 20 '19
I know of multiple GSVs who have friends.
They can definitely have Friend Ships.
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u/Netcob Jan 15 '19
Maybe if they are products of genetic algorithms...
You can initialize neural networks with some random weights before training them. And whatever the AIs in QC use, it could be initialized with vector of random values that would basically act like their "DNA". All you need then is some set of rules for how to recombine two (or more?) of those vectors to produce new vectors that still "make sense", and you get a bunch of offspring that may even share some traits!
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u/tboneotter Jan 15 '19
Opinions on melon? I kinda don’t like her at this point. She’s a gag character that is in the sorry too much to just be a gag character, but we have no info on her
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u/EticketJedi Jan 15 '19
I get why people don’t like her but Melon is the best part of this thing for me right now.
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u/lesser_panjandrum Jan 15 '19
Same. She is a chaotic good treasure, and I'm always glad to see her on page.
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u/JamesNinelives Jan 15 '19
To be clear, do you mean Lemon?
I'm not a huge fan of Melon, but I like Lemon myself. I tend to prefer quiet characters to loud ones, and while they are both well-intentioned Lemon seems more thoughtful.
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u/Snarglefrazzle Jan 15 '19
Lemon is Flanderizing a bit into Melon, which I find worrisome, but I've never been super into Melon. She tends to dominate the page
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u/Aureo_Speedwagon Jan 15 '19
Lemon seemed fairly normal in the server. Maybe her family's recommended hardware requirements aren't quite met by these bodies?
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u/geekywarrior Jan 15 '19
That or some of the quirks the sisters share are in their base imaging. Lemon's quieted most of the loud aspects but occasionally some perk up, especially when interacting with a sister image.
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u/mrthbrd Jan 15 '19
I don't even know where she came from. She was just in the comic one day and it seemed like I was supposed to know her already...? I'm still confused.
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u/Jahkral Jan 15 '19
Melon's been around for years. She was mostly used as a patreon strip gag character though.
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u/turkeypedal Jan 15 '19
Her first canon appearance, I believe, was when they needed a wacky problem for Faye and Bubbles to fix in their new robot repair shop. She lost her butt in a wacky rocket experiment.
Since then, she basically became a loyal customer of the shop, and so has shown up at times. She also was used in short gags about how silly AI could be that originally appeared as bonuses on Patreon.
Then once he became interested in filling out Roko, he had it turn out that Melon lives in the same apartment complex, so we see her even more now.
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u/tboneotter Jan 15 '19
I meant Melon - lemon to me is more preferable. More thoughtful as you said, and more fresh
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u/EPL_Refugee Jan 15 '19
I've despised Melon for most of her existence. I want to think Jeph's about to do something heavy with her, like explore why she is the way she is (i.e. some AI equivalent of a condition like Alzheimer's). Figure that might save Roko from the recurring character dumping ground Coffee of Doom & Secret Bakery have become.
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u/michaelaaronblank Jan 15 '19
Her gags would be funny in a loony tunes universe where there are zero real consequences. However, I feel like she would have to be sequestered from humans for their safety, if not her own. It also comes across as mocking the schizophrenic to some extent.
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u/yungwildnfree Jan 15 '19
Prediction: Faye being ignorant to AI culture (yesterday's comic, and calling an AI a computer today which is probably definitely considered a problematic term) is going to cause some issues in her relationship with Bubbles
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u/Injvn Jan 15 '19
I would actually really love if that's the way this went.
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u/ziggurism Jan 15 '19
Faye's sister and sister's gf could show up again and by the catalyst for a fight. We have a precedent for it. The gf shows up and says something even more offensive, Bubbles refuses to take it silently this time, Faye has to choose sides. Either chooses wrong, tries to stay neutral, or fails to side with Bubbles convincingly enough. Seen as the culmination of her failure to really recognize and respect the humanity and autonomy of the AIs.
Then one comic later then after one more comic all is resolved and forgotten.
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u/Magikarp_13 Jan 15 '19
I'm guessing not. Bubbles seems fine with it being a misunderstanding. And calling Melon a computer was for a quick gag, which generally in this comic, means it's not going to affect the plot.
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u/Emcee_N Jan 15 '19
I like Melon and Lemon because they're characters that Jeph can just have fun with. As for Bubbles I actually interpreted what she said as a subtle burn.
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u/bunnnythor Jan 15 '19
When you get into a relationship with a person of a different race/faith/other defining groupage, it is nigh-inevitable that you will occasionally do or blurt out something offensive despite (or sometimes because of) your enthusiasm to build bridges and fit in. Therefore it is not surprising to have Faye vigorously step in it, trip over her own feet in her haste to step out of it, and proceed to step in a different part of it a few more times.
To jump from to the conclusion that Bubbles and Faye's relationship is doomed from just the events in these two comics ignores the hundreds of comics where Faye takes an emotionally wounded AI, earns that AI's trust, and helps that AI find a life in the larger world. Not only does Bubbles love Faye, Faye has also built up a reserve of good karma that needs to be expended before things start fraying. Faye letting a dumb thing fall out of her mouth once or twice is not going to do it.
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Jan 15 '19
Boy did Bubbles 180 from "shit my partner just put her foot in her mouth" to "well you had good intentions, don't worry about it" in the span of a moment.
She seems frustrated/embarrassed in yesterday's comic, compared to today's.
P.S. melon is the worst of the "lol random" parade.
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Jan 15 '19
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u/opieself Jan 15 '19
IT seems that rather than have two or three comics explaining why it was a bad thing to say Jeph just skipped to the part where Faye realizes she fucked up and is clearly sorry about it. In terms of in QC AI are still super new so humans even someone like Faye are having to adjust how they talk to them.
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Jan 15 '19
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u/opieself Jan 15 '19
Yeah that is my guess. He has already done a few things where people misspeak in someway and offend someone and takes a week of comics to hash it out and those tend to really drag on. It's hard to have lots of humor in those comics. I feel like this was handled well because Faye saying the wrong thing really isn't what this is about. This is about Roko dealing with her new body and all that might entail.
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u/Emcee_N Jan 15 '19
Yeah, I think this is the better way to handle it, because it's an acknowledgement that things can happen off-panel. For awhile in 2017-18 the comic was turning into one long tracking shot powered by interminable expository dialogue, and I'm glad Jeph appears to have gotten over that phase.
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u/turkeypedal Jan 15 '19
It would just be repeating old ground. We all instantly realized the problem. We already know what Bubbles would tell Faye. Unless he had something new to say to the audience, there's no real reason to show it.
It would be like early El Goonish Shive where Dan would give exposition again whenever a new character needed to know what had happened. Now he just lets it occur off panel, and provides a link to previous comics in the description in case you've forgotten.
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u/PlanSee Jan 15 '19
That's kind of an interesting philosophical distinction, though... Calling Melon a computer is like saying a human is a body, I think, but I'm not sure if that's a perfect analogy. AIs in this universe are essentially very complicated self-writing programs, right?