Questionable Content

Mental image: The tattoo is on fire.

It's not funny when people actually laugh at Claire's jokes.

Claire is funny, and not because she's actually funny.

...I think she's funny.

I think Marten's laughing because of Claire's predicament in the last panel. Jeph's afterword is usually a little joke in itself.

After re-reading the strip, maaaaaaybe not. If a pun like that got Marten laughing all the way to the piercing place, he needs to ground himself a little. Could this be Marten's true form when he's happy, after the years of pessimism and fleeting moments of happiness we've come to know and love?

...Nah, Jeph just needs to dial back the bubbles a bit. Things are a bit too sugary for my tastes, and I like nothing better than a happy, gooey pairing.

edited 4th Sep '15 8:34:28 AM by MrMallard

Yup. It's official. Jeph has turned Claire from a genuinely likeable and endearing character into a Creator's Pet. Leaving aside all the various and well-documented OOC moments that have preceded this in Marten and Claire's official relationship, the desire for a septum ring makes no sense with Claire's established personality, and is clearly just because Jeph likes them. And everyone is probably going to love it even though it will look incredibly stupid and out of place.

This storyline would make way more sense if it was Tai and Dora in place of Claire and Marten.

edited 4th Sep '15 8:42:50 AM by BadWolf21

And you all thought I was mad when I said this was a sign of Creator's Pet-ness. But Who's Laughing Now??

... oh. Marten. Marten is laughing now.

Okaaaay, I thought it fell kind of flat. I don't suddenly think Claire has ascended into Marysuehalla.

After that wretched harpy Dora and that non-entity Padma, I'm fine with Marten being happy for once.

Who said Mary Sue? Creator's Pet is not the same thing at all.

Ironically, Claire wasn't a Creator's Pet to begin with. She was actually an Ensemble Dark Horse. But since the relationship started, Jeph has been overshilling her to the point that fans have turned against her. Which really sucks, because she was a really good character before that. She still has good points, actually. Jeph just got really bad at writing her.

edited 4th Sep '15 9:40:11 AM by BadWolf21

I don't know what everyone's so angry about, Claire's being written just fine, and all of this makes complete sense with what we know of Claire's character.

She a young woman who's just now coming into her own: she's been trying to balance the desire to try new things with her need for approval. She's mentioned wanting to dress differently before, and to be adventurous, and specifically wanting more piercings.

In fact this was foreshadowed early on: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2535

A septum ring is a weird first choice, but it's hardly like it's out of the blue.

edited 4th Sep '15 10:01:25 AM by LMage

It makes it way worse that in the strip that introduced the completely out of the blue development, Jeph used the newspost to express his love of septum rings. It reads as Claire only wanting one because the author likes them, and he likes Claire.

Having Marten laugh hysterically for hours at that "joke" doesn't really help matters.

Jeph has weird commentary in his news posts all the time. It's hardly new.

Weirder timeline gags have taken place, and they were probably already walking there or Claire told the joke to the piercing guy too.

It's not the fact that Jeph said something in the newspost, it's the fact that we know Jeph's personal feelings on the matter and the uneasy feeling that Claire's being used as a mouthpiece for it. He's upping the Author Appeal, you know?

Sorry, I'm not buying it.

I like Claire. She's one of the deepest characters in the comic. Her lame sense of humour, her passion for books and library science, and her friendly sibling rivalry with her brother are more important to her character than the fact that she's trans, but that's a big part of her identity too.

The problem is that instead of letting these characteristics speak for themselves, Jeph warps the writing to make sure we know how awesome Claire is. There's zero subtlety about it.

edited 4th Sep '15 10:20:43 AM by BadWolf21

I do feel that Jeph's gotten a bit rusty when it comes to Claire, but her getting a piercing "because Jeph likes piercings thus turning her into a creator's pet" is kind of a dumb way of rationalizing it.

Personally, I think it might be the golden sitcom rule: potential couples are (more or less) boring once they get together. There's something about the Will They or Won't They? that keeps things exciting - I mean Christ, why else did anyone watch Friends?

These two seperate characters now share a bunch of screentime as a singular unit, and even if they retain their individual character quirks, their extended screentime together might end up with those quirks cancelling out against their partners'.

Even saying that, I don't think the pairing is devoid of character or potential. I do think Jeph has been a bit dry with Claire lately, but there's still a ways to go before the relationship or Claire as a character is exhausted of anything positive.

Here, let me break down exactly what I don't like about this storyline.

There's nothing wrong with the premise. Claire wants a nose ring, Marten is surprised, Claire convinces him. That's good.

Here are the problems. There's two of them.

First, Claire doesn't just want a nose ring. She wants a septum ring. That's a hard sell for a first facial piercing. From what we know about Claire, it doesn't seem like it would be her first choice. It's a much edgier look that she's ever expressed in. Even her vision of "Cool Claire" isn't particularly extreme. It's really just a black top, sunglasses, and the piercing. This is not helped by the first time she mentions it being accompanied by Jeph expressing his love of them. The obvious conclusion is that it's pure Author Appeal.

Second, the way she convinces Marten. Claire talks a bit about why she wants it, Marten isn't really on board, Claire cracks a joke. That's more or less fine. It's not great, but it's competent. The problem is that Marten finds Claire's pun so funny that he's either still belly-laughing at it several minutes later, or after hearing it a second time, both of which make him look like a moron. It's not a good joke. Claire's sense of humour has never been portrayed as anything but super lame. And that's fine. I don't have an issue with Marten liking her lame puns. The enthusiasm she puts into them is very endearing, and it's believably part of the reason he loves her. But nothing about them warrants the reaction this one got.

tl;dr "Claire wants a nose ring, Marten isn't convinced, Claire lays out her reasons and cracks a joke" = good. "Claire wants a nose ring (specifically a septum ring because how rad are those amiright?), Marten isn't convinced, Claire lays out her reasons and cracks a joke (that Marten finds so hilarious that the piercing guy is worried about him when he's still laughing several minutes later)" = bad.

Eh, I think there's an unsaid "Marten. Marten. Seriously it wasn't even that funny." in there.

I'm not up in arms about it, but Claire pretty clearly has author favoritism.

You know, it could be that Marten thought Claire's pun was just so terrible that he can't stop laughing at it. A sort of "I can't believe you actually said that" thing.

Beyond that, you guys know that this is a comedic webcomic, right? Exaggerating something for comic effect is pretty common in comedy.

New comic.

I know it's Rule of Funny for the punchline, but if you have rules, why didn't you mention them?

Bleh, hate how those look.

Hell, Marten should KNOW the rules; wasn't he there when Tai got her ladyparts pierced?

I'm...98% sure that Marten wouldn't adorably poke Tai's crotch under any circumstances.

He did get all redfaced when she whipped it out, didn't he....

I feel like any objections to the problem would be on Marten's side, not Tai's.