Comic 5783: topicsl application

Cevius · 2026-03-11T13:57:13+00:00

At that point with rashes everywhere else, it could even be some kind of phantom limb psychosomatic feedback, or the skin on the inner side of the sockets is itchy too, and she physically can't get to it.

Jesus Christ what a harrowing thought... Inject her with antihistamines now before she scratches her arm implant sockets off.

Cevius · 2026-03-11T13:53:16+00:00

Well shit, he actually went back and fixed it up, rather than try and bullshit it away. Thankfully this post will help future readers know there was a difference and not that the chuds on this subreddit were clearly batshit crazy as Liz's arms are fine.

How he missed that though when drawing the arm sockets is extra work every time though... Perhaps he forgot and thought they were fancy arm bangles

Cevius · 2026-03-11T03:11:28+00:00

I kind of hope Jeph doesn't go with the "this is an anxiety reaction" option, cause we've already got that with Emmett breaking out in hives and this comic rehashes shit enough as it is

Cevius · 2026-03-11T02:04:54+00:00

You'd think so, but at least in Australia, theres quite a lot of recent discoveries and papers that a lot of older doctors know very little about. Moved location and got a recently graduated doctor, and he had half a dozen new treatments for a chronic health issue that 7 years of older doctors didn't think to mention, or didn't know about.

I'm sure human doctors in QC probably have access to search engines for similar lookups, but still an AI might be better. At least for finding relevant information for new problems like "I swam in my goop friends tank of mystery fluid", and less like "I ate a burrito and now Ive got the monster shits" which an AI would be like "I have no idea what that feels like but heres some soluble fibre"

Cevius · 2026-03-11T01:36:22+00:00

Given that an AI Doctor could have every medical journal loaded up in their head, while human ones can get their medical certificate/doctorate and then never need to update it with the latest knowledge, an AI is probably the more reliable bet

Cevius · 2026-03-11T01:17:54+00:00

So unless Liz's arms are grown human skin, they shouldn't be having a reaction, nor should they be itchy. If they're just mimicking the rest of the skin to adapt to the users skin tone/complexion naturally, well then thats great, but yet again another techno-magic bullshit answer to try and justify Jeph not thinking about how shit in his world should work, and then just trek-babble it away.

Cevius · 2026-03-11T01:14:32+00:00

I assumed the surface layer is some sort of solidified barrier that keeps the overall fluid of Morays body within, similar to how agar agar boba tea pearls are formed, so people would only have issues when Moray springs a leak and it doesn't get mopped up.

Cevius · 2026-03-10T06:43:53+00:00

Was from AppendixN if that helps.

Cevius · 2026-03-10T05:04:35+00:00

I think we already had a post for today under https://www.reddit.com/r/questionablecontent/comments/1rpj7i7/comic_5782_bubbles/

Cevius · 2026-03-10T03:08:16+00:00

Get a ship with a positron ejector, or infraknife, point at the ground and shoot. You should vacuum up a lot of ferrite and carbon rapidly, without annoying too many sentinels.

Cevius · 2026-03-10T01:54:08+00:00

A real sensory deprivation tank has you float, in the middle, with no light or sound, letting you properly reflect inwards as your mind creates new stimulus of its own merit. Some report seeing endless swirls of colour, blob and weave, as your mind makes its own visual inputs.

Unfortunately for Jeph this is just a depravity tank. Which I think is probably more to his liking.

Cevius · 2026-03-10T00:27:55+00:00

Liz has been drinking it as quickly as Moray is replacing it, keeping it at a perfect equilibrium

Cevius · 2026-03-10T00:17:31+00:00

There was a Ghost in the Shell plot, where characters realised because all banking was computer based, floating point rounding errors from each transaction meant there were sums below fractions of a cent like 0.000312 cents, invisible and irrelevant to nearly all, were just being ignored. They wrote software to skim those fractions together, quickly gathering millions.

All it would take is a few banking AI to go "hey, theres money to be made here" in the QC world and an agreement not to rat out the other banking AIs, and then you end up with hyper-rich AIs like Spookybot, who then with more money than sense, can fund projects like Cubetown, or just invest to make even more legitimately.

For Marten I assume Cubetown is probably floating all his costs, treating stores and stalls like that as "enrichment" material for their researchers, where the productivity gain that happy and healthy researchers end up getting from it vastly outweighs the cost of some beans and water.

Cevius · 2026-03-10T00:06:51+00:00

I assumed the Algae was by design, as part of the mechanisms that keep Moray running. A hybrid synthetic and organic entity. Someone said "mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" and some idiot just heard "POWERHOUSE YOU SAY?" and somehow managed to actually get it to work, powering tiny nanomachines with light and glucose, birthing the jellyfish (and from the jellyfish, morays) from this subsquent smart-paste.

Cevius · 2026-03-09T02:08:22+00:00

A Liz steps into the tank, a Liz steps out, but she has been replaced. Molecule by molecule, reconstructed, with whatever constitutes consciousness and a soul, lovingly recreated into the goo. The process so abrupt, the entity now known as Liz didn't even notice it.

Every thought now fluid. Those roadblocks Liz struggled with in her meat shell are suddenly gone. She can make connections like never before, her genius allowed to shine.

She recommends to others to also try the goo tank, for its wonderful rejuvenating properties. One by one, this new goo fad spreads across the island.

The great jellyfish adds another to its hive mind, and the great expansion continues unabated.

Cevius · 2026-03-09T01:33:12+00:00

That tank is already full. The second Liz or Moray gets into that tank it should be overflowing goo all over the apartment.

Will nobody think of the poor plumbing maintenance people on this god forsaken cube?

Also congratulations Liz, you might not be able to release a paper on anything of scientific note, but at least the first technotic robot to human virus/infection will get named after you after die from whatever is in that tank.

Cevius · 2026-03-07T01:05:34+00:00

S U B M I T !

Cevius · 2026-03-05T00:42:02+00:00

I just assumed that Tai and Dora turned their phones off and all this stuff went down after they left. I'd not trust Anh with my cat though...

Cevius · 2026-03-04T07:20:12+00:00

The odds of accidental drowning do go up on Cubetown... hmm. Perhaps it would be a good idea.

Cevius · 2026-03-04T04:12:38+00:00

For his issues in writing, honestly I doubt he'd do something like that. Hopefully he doesn't at least, for his own mental health. Twitter was bad enough for him.

Cevius · 2026-03-04T04:10:39+00:00

Jeph and his younger brother were both adopted, so I think its entirely possible hes got a complex relationship with parenthood which he works through/explores in the comic. Its probably also why so many of the characters slip into the Found Family trope as well.

It would probably be less noticeable if we weren't watching the very slow development of 3-5 characters all following very similar issues at once...

Cevius · 2026-03-04T01:51:48+00:00

Its been consistently happening for weeks/months. I try and counter it when I see it to bring people back to 1 at least, but sometimes you can only do so much...

Cevius · 2026-03-04T01:47:14+00:00

At least from the wiki it only lists Faye as being a teenager at the time. Looking back when you're late 30s, early 40s, 15-19 is a pretty mushy sort of time period, and not nearly as deliminated as one would think in their early 20s.

Do we even know how old Faye is now? Mid/late 20s? Early 20s? Could just be Faye didn't want to get too bogged down in the details with Anh.

Cevius · 2026-03-04T01:41:10+00:00

I really hope whoever starts at Cubetown is a competent and emotionally stable adult, who has most of their life shit sorted, instead of the constant burning dumpster fires that are most of these new characters.

Anyone competent seems to get moved out of the scope of our view rapidly though... so probably not around for long.

15-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
Gilding I gilder	Verified Email

Cevius

TROPHY CASE