Bloodless
this is fine
Comments (141)
And, to my knowledge, we don't know if they are coworkers, friends, or a couple (that's OR, not XOR). All we know on that score is that the AI doesn't like men.
We've seen them in a number of places, CoD, Clinton's and Elliot's lunch, and on the street.
WAITAMINUTE, look who I found going through the archives?? Our large-eyebrowed friends! https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4124
I mean, she's IN a body store right now. It's been less than 30 days in universe probably, i'm sure they can switch it out. Hell, maybe they have one of her old model in the back somewhere
except she may have voided the warranty by having Union Robotics turn off the "no punch wall" warnings
Aw, don't worry, Roko! After five or ten years of feeling like your body isn't you and the world isn't real, you hardly even notice it any more!
*Sigh* the now all too familiar feeling of "Yesterday was Thursday, wasn't it?"
You can tell cause there's a cliffhanger
I feel like Roko is struggling that May has transitioned so easily. I'm so looking forward to know what's up
Logical enough though. Roko had strong body integration, while May hadn't been previously embodied, and hated the body she got.
I know that Roko's incipient melt-down is the focus here, but I feel the intense need to see if this is just me... Does May in Panel 2 somehow make anyone else think of Angelica from the Rugrats?
You dumb babies!
I have a - why is she so - what is - wait, what, - I have a why??!?!
Roku got a new body. Was kind of traumatic. Probably just got triggered.
Having spent a good portion of my life going through varying degrees of dissociation, yep, that layering effect is pretty much what it feels like. From the inside, it's kind of like looking out from inside of a fishbowl, complete with sloshy, dizzy feeling and distorted sound. Low blood sugar episodes can feel somewhat similar, in my own experience. They tend to pass a lot more quickly though!
I was wondering about the weird effect on roko :(
I'm so worried about Roko :(
Oh cliffhanger
Oh no roko don't fall for the trash goblin
This is an unexpected cliff hanger, to say the least. Thank you for continuing to shock me, Jeph. Gets my heart going in the AM.
Any bets Roko's body dismorphia (or however it's spelled) has just clambered out from whatever she has used to suppress it?
There's probably an element of "WTF have I unleashed upon the Earth?" in there, too.
I slightly wonder if Roko isn't dissociating.. but instead horrified that she is suddenly /super/ into May.. picturing what she could have May to do her with a loaf of bread...
Now THAT is a disturbing image!
I thought she looked out of focus in the last strip and now I know it was on purpose.
I see a black reboot screen in Roko’s immediate future. When Lemon appears, she will obliquely approach Roko’s state by asking her opinion of charbroiled steak.
Lemon will not ask about steak; not knowing much about Roko she will probably ask her opinion of something more innocuous - like bread. Which will kick Roko into overtime.
Why must we have to wait until tomorrow to see the next comic? :(
Wait three days you mean - it's the last one for this week.
I'm totally reading all her lines a la Baymax "Low Battery" scene.
It's Keep Roko Away From Kitchen Implements o'clock. Again :(
I feel like a bread board and rolling pin could be very therapeutic for her right now, at least if the rest of the ingredients were included, too. Maybe she could use a mixing bowl as well, to let her start from the beginning, but absolutely no mixers, hand held or otherwise. Apart from those exceptions, though, I totally agree 100%.
Roko's episode's hardly a surprise -- Roko's been returned to the sight of her trauma (right down to Lemon being there to help counsel). She had something to focus on for the last several days -- getting May a new body -- only now that it's done the tension's released and she's got nothing to distract her reaction now. What's more, in a really clever inversion, we're seeing the opposite side of the coin of May's reaction to Roko's new body -- May wanted a new body, got it, it's radically different from her last body and she has no issues with it at all (I suspect her integration is generally low -- she's embraced the body-change concept after all.) Now here's Roko seeing May dump her old body and be thrilled with her new one, and that breaks her substrate.
May probably has more body integration now than she's ever had, since she came from a server farm and the piece of trash was thus her first body.
There's so much here that I love. I love that May properly expresses her sincerest gratitude! I love that she's absolutely willing to help those who helped her! I love the "Whose blood" punchline bc it's a question I get asked on a fairly regular basis! I especially love how May immediately switches gears when she realizes Something Is Up With Roko. (I also love how far these two have developed in that unlikely duo sort of way) However, I definitely don't love that Something Is Up With Roko in the first place :( Maybe Melon is still around and can help out?
Tell us more about this blood of which you speak (the blood in your life, not Roko's). I'm concerned and intrigued.
Ah, it was the strange butt, and everything loosely attached.
Something I love with the robot storylines is how we can explore tropes about personality and body-type in fiction. May has in both her earlier incarnations been small, which is a common fit with the prickly personality. The cuteness of the anime hologram contrasted greatly with the crassness of her behaviour, and the more generic robot body worked well with the "horrible trash goblin persona". Now she is in a body type more commonly associated in fiction with other personality types. More reserved. More stoic. again, a great contrast to her actual personality. I also like how the color carries between all her incarnation, giving a visual shorthand that it is still the same person. Contrast Momo, who went to tiny and cute to small and cute, and winslow who went from tiny and adorable to small and adorable, and Roko who went to a very similar body type (which is a great vehicle to explore her body disassociation), and we haven't really seen a huge shift in body type vs personality until now. I really look forward to see how and if people will react differectly to tall and big titted than small and barely functional, and how and if that in turn will impact May's personality
I pay attention to how people get treated, and I feel if everybody got treated like many small people, redheads, and people of color get treated, just about everybody would be more prickly. I mean, different people are different, and there are some people who can take abuse and turn out sunshine, but how people get treated matters.
Poor Roko. I hope she's okay.
Same, she's probably dissociating from the fact that May handles her change of body so well
I’m a little distracted by how the length of May’s pigtails keeps changing.
Yes, given that her hair without the tails is almost to her waist, the pony tails should be more like the length they were in the 3rd panel of yesterday's strip. Unless she mysteriously got them chopped between then and now.
You know, now that I think of it, May, Momo, Winston, they all uploaded directly into their bodies, software transfer, not hardware. I recall Lemon saying that Roko’s cpu ‘brain’ survived (due to reinforcement), so I think Roko’s brain hardware was put directly into the new body. I don’t know if this would cause the issues she’s been having, after all, humans have this issue, and they still have the same brain the whole time...
I don't think they put her original CPU into her new body (although they may have, since it was probably a higher quality unit than what would be standard, even in the souped up Model G). I think Roko's biggest problem is that she was forced to get a new body, whereas the others <i>chose</i> to.
She was doing so well. :(
Oh no, was she not aware of her butthole before and May mentioning it has sent her into some kinda Way-Too-Aware-Of-Your-Butthole Coma??
I think you're right. Roko was so focused on her baked goods fetish that she didn't realize that this iteration of the Philomena opens the - ahem - back door to all sorts of other things she'd never imagined.
Oh... Poor Roko! I was hoping in the last one that she was just embarrassed, but this looks bad!
Oh poop, I think Roko is having another dismorphia episode.
Why is she dissociating now??
Numerous things can trigger an episode, just like in real life. Probably a combination of being in the body hub, seeing May in her new body, remembering about waking up in her new body etc...
why is roko vibrating... and pink?
As to why she's pink, we know she can change colors. But she's vibrating because she's dissociating. And she could be changing color subconsciously as part of said dissociative episode.
maybe roko can continue that sexy dream where dream roko was just about to make out with with other dream roko
LOL- Is May just looking for any reason to show her boobs? Not that I blame her- If I got new boobs I would want to show them of.
I mean, otherwise, what's the point?
Oh she's doin a big dissociate
Or she recalls the words her ghost new body told her in the dream.
What did she say, I don't remember.
Oh no... the dissociation... Hope Roko's dream-selves can help settle this.
Yeah, she started to look a little "not okay" at the end of the previous strip, and this kind of confirms it. Her body-related trauma is still a big deal.
Roko, desperately clinging to consciousness: when people look like this this is what they say so i should say it too and maybe nobody will notice anything is wrong why is everything turning gray and black
Did May get smaller? She's only had her new boobs for five minutes and she's already lost them somehow?
no, she's a slouch...
any ideas as to why I can no longer expand the comments?
In my experience, Patreon is quirky about that. Sometimes it just won't.
Oh no, roko's gonna break down and May's gonna return her body to fix Roko's
I'm pretty sure May *can't* return to her old body. That whole head-falling-off-and-torso-catching-fire thing probably falls under the banner of "irretrievable catastrophic failure."
Is Roko vibrating?
Bring Lemon out!
Not good.
Buy yourself a new ass you deserve it.
Oh no. No no no, Roko come back, sweetheart.
Oh right, Roko's deep personal traumas
#TRIGGERED
Nightmare scenario: Roko wakes up in May’s old body. ....
I could actually see that being a recurring nightmare for May.
Hoping for an Elliot intervention...
Roko needs bread!
Roko needs Cosmo.
Rokooooo!!! :(
When someone tells Lemon that a customer is having a dissociative episode, what are the odds that she'll assume that it's May?
BUT I DESERVE TO BUY MYSELF A NEW ASS.
I think the butthole thing broke her. XD
This but not in a funny way
Thanks May, now poor Roko is hyper aware of her butthole.
What I really want to know, and likely the crux of the entire issue, why does Bodyhub have shelves of cacti on the wall? :p
Free cactus with a new body?
Roko’s coloring makes me anxious. I can’t imagine what it feels like for her.
Anyone else hope we get a pinup of mays new bod flashin off her new bod?
Desperately lmao
Roko =(
I wonder if it's just *that* body that doesn't agree with her. Maybe a big change would be easier than the small one she had.
Roku gets a fighter jet body!!!!
Rokooooo. We need Yay.
Also, Jeph, I love how you create the visuals for these episodes, how the colouring is shifted outside the lines, the eyes, the slanted text. It really does give a sense that something is wrong, that Roko does not really... mesh with her body.
Roko is going to blow!!!
oh noko, roko ;-;
Roko looks like I've felt, the two times I had a severe low blood sugar episode. Totally a good call. Inaccurate ("Whose blood?!") but good call.
Uh oh. Body disassociation episode. Quick, get Lemon! On the other hand, we may get to see the more caring side of May. Though this is the bast place for Roko to have a breakdown. I imagine the staff would be somewhat familiar.
Lemon was my first thought too. Very curious to see what AI first responder social workers do
I'm wondering if Roko is having a dissociative episode, or if she saw May knock the head off her old body (remembering Roko's deep body squick), or both...
Also -- is this where Roko first "woke up" in her new body after the accident? I could see that triggering dissociation too.
On one hand, poor Roko, on the other I don't think it's going to take much to get May to flash the new "bomb" rack.
Patreon-exclusive "big titty club represent" pinup? I'm okay with that.
Well at least May isn't totally unaware, and she's showing gratitude! Poor Roko, tho
Rokoooooooo 🙁 Is she dissociating again?
Definitely Dissociating
Welcome to Dissociation City, population: Roko.
And May has calmed down, is actually acting appropriately. Dunno about the tits though.
TBH, having tits does sometimes mean you really want to show them to people. Especially when you're excited.
Seeing may adapt so quickly is probably knocking on the door of what Yay locked away. This could go VERY BAD
Yay didn't lock anything away. She has a strict non-interference policy when it comes to brains!
As I was afraid of Roko is having an episode. May is gonna feel awful thinking it's her fault (it's not, she just accidentally triggered Roko), and Roko herself is going to be upset because she feels pressure to be in charge and in control all of the time. I just want to give hugs all around.
May isn't a total goblin! She does have empathy!
Is Roko having Lesbot feelings for TittyMay?
That's gonna be a no from me, dawg
Jeph accidentally mis-aligning layers: "Uh... yeah, this is fine."
Is Roko getting body dysphoria by proxy? :(
Dunno how it works with AIs, but uh, as far as meatbrains go, that sure is a thing that happens :-/
Dysphoria?
Oh shitsnaps
Oh shit she's having a dissociative episode isn't she
Oh dear I thought she looked off in the previous page.
Oh,oh Roko! This doesn't look good. Her disassociation seems to be raging back. Fixedthat
I still kinda wonder if Roko is an uploaded human rather than a born AI or something.
Ooh! What an interesting idea!
Oh no.
Roko is like, "why did she adjust so well? What's wrong with me???"
IKR. Poor, poor Roko. 😥😥😥
ohhh shit
Does that sign say "buy yourself a new ass, you deserve it"?
Yes. Yes it does.
Whu-oh!
Uh oh...
Is she disaperating?
OH YEAH
There's the unraveling
Oh no!
oh no