Questionable Content

Oh. You're the one who hates Dora. I knew it was someone here.

Badguy, BadWolf, easy to mix up.

New comic

I'm not sure if I'm surprised that Jeph reads Olgaf or that Marigold does. (The color tinting in that comic is hard on the eyes though.)

There's a lot in that comic that's hard on the eyes.

Sometimes quite literally on the eyes.

Clearly, you and I think of the same comic. I'll take "EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" for $1,000, Alex.

... I'm seriously hoping this leads to Marigold talking this out with Dale.

Seriously, this really is something that can happen in relationships, with one partner obsession over all of the potential ways a partner could screw around on them, particularly if they've had the bad experience of partners who screw around. And from personal experience, it doesn't even have to be infidelity that sets off the eventual explosion if they don't talk it out. Anything that feels like "hiding something" can suddenly conflate itself with that fear of infidelity and suddenly that surprise job interview with a prestigious company becomes "you're hiding things from me because you want to sleep with other people." Humans are messy.

Specifically, it's not that Marigold has had bad experiences; it's that she's naive, inexperienced, and we know from past strips, a bit insecure about her own attractiveness. Plus, she has a semi-sexualised fixation on all things Japanese, which she knows Dale to some extent shares.

This is a totally logical bit of characterisation. How she handles it remains to be seen. She is naive and inexperienced, but she's also shown herself not to be entirely stupid, so it could go various ways.

I mean there's insecure and thinking your partner as unfaithful.

I guess she hasn't threatened someone with a sword yet so that's a plus.

edited 15th Feb '18 9:31:49 AM by Mr.Badguy

New comic.

• sigh* here we go.

How about it, Jeph? Surprise us. Have Dale pick up something's wrong and force Marigold to say what the problem is.

Have to admit, not a fan of this kind of storyline. Probably because it's a bloody cliché. :/

They both play dating sims, they'll get through this.

I'm not 100% convinced that won't just make them handle this worse.

No one else noticed?

Dale’s glasses are opaque again. Cool detail.

His glasses are augmented reality glasses aren't they? Do they do anything besides show him A.I.s that aren't in bodies?

They give him a heads-up display and allow him to search the internet on the fly.

God that must be disorienting. I hate having screens that close to my eyes.

Let this be the one time in QC the characters display any sort of emotional maturity and talk through their problems like adults.

I'm normally on the bench for maximizing drama, because how boring would a story be if a conflict arose and was then just immediately deflated, but yeah, there's no way this is going to be any good and it needs to end before it ruins Marigold as a character.

My guess is Marigold throws a hissy fit and then May saves the day by telling Dale to just be super accommodating of Marigold's whiny pissbaby behaviour.

Or, you know, we remember that momo still contains social protocol libraries and talks Marigold through it, like she has done for nearly every struggle Marigold has been through up till now.

Considering how it's currently casting this as being all in Marigold's head, I highly doubt that will happen. If anyone here gets told to stop behaving the way they are, it'll be Marigold. It's very clear that Dale and Emily haven't done anything wrong.

I feel the way I do because we're expected to sympathize with Marigold's irrational thought process the way we were with Dora (or at least that's the impression I'm getting from the little text at the bottom anyway), who was a total shithead to Marten but was accommodated by him anyway. I mean she's treating Dale as unfaithful to her because he's laughing with Emily, that's just not an acceptable way to think of your partner.

Granted I could be wrong, since there was that storyline where Marigold tried guilting Momo into helping her and she had to realize on her own that she was terrible. That story was quick, snappy and effective so hopefully that gets replicated here instead of being painfully drawn out.

IDK I never read Marigold as particularly insecure either. She's introverted and this is her first relationship, so that's certainly a recipe for insecurity, but other than that one time she didn't want to be seen in a bikini I can't remember any time where she acted like this. Hell she was confident enough to pursue that dude in space.

edited 16th Feb '18 2:10:57 PM by Mr.Badguy

"Expected to sympathise"

Uh yea? It's not as if people with insecurities are alien monsters that should be shunned out of trying any relationships ever.

edited 16th Feb '18 9:03:27 PM by Adannor