My Goodness

Really loving how Yay's hair looks in this one, and their vulnerability. Aurelia is such a good person <3

Cole Blackblood

"Nosism" is a thing.

Chris Crowther

For someone who suddenly seems so concerned about keeping this secret, Yay has always been awfully cavalier about referring to themselves as "we" in public...

Josh

I would doubt it was anything so extreme. I mean, OUR systems use stretched cells as an organic conductor, but the links between those cells are basically just chemical interfaces, which take a fraction of a millisecond to carry the signal. Which is pretty fast, on an organic scale (after all, we have systems that rely on chemicals going around the body in the bloodstream to communicate) but on a digital scale, it would be noticeably slower than a radio link traveling hundreds of metres - and I have no reason to assume most if not all of yay's bodies aren't within streets of each other.

David Howe

I think they'd enjoy the company too. Millefeuille had breakfast with Brun after serving as a very comfy pillow and had a nice time. Meals are a social thing too

Nicolas Demers

If that was their plan, they would have already done it by now

Nicolas Demers

It's entirely possible that this story line, the impact of vastly powerful AIs on human culture, is the story Jeph's wanted to tell all along and the whole comic has just been the most epic slow burn in history.

David Durant

This time I managed to escape after only 20 mins. Remember kids - Friends Don't Refer Friends To TV Tropes!

David Durant

Very much so - but sooner or later can we please get back to May working for Marigold :-)

David Durant

I know everyone is the QC meta verse is nice and all but what if Yay is really (secretly) a villain, an evil superAI who is plotting to take over the world??! That would shake up our perceptions!

jimbo

I want these two to be friends so badly.

Socratease

Y'know, we're post-singularity here. What's to say that there aren't AI's looking at Yay and thinking "Ah, we remember when we were just a multiply embodied consciousness. Good times." Station was unaware of Yay. What is Yay unaware of? "Remember that time AE217FC tried public key cryptography, and F1BA995 laughed so hard that gravity waves came out of their nose? Us! that was funny."

Matt Grayson

Aw, Yay has a mom now!

Rebecca D

Oh, Yay ... 🥺

Daniel Blom Paulsen

She rides herd on all the Milkmaids, including the ones that make milk porn. Keeping Yay's secret is nothing.

Sleepy John

Yay desperately need to engage in some social drama to learn to handle this sort of shit. Fortunately they are in the right place

Bagge

In exchange for keeping this secret, Yay must create a VTuber avatar, run SmokeUp.exe and play video games for the rest of the night

Nutjob

I LOVE A MILF THAT CAN KEEP A SECRET!

Yelling Bird

Excellent setup. Take your like.

Am Queue

now let them get together! the hyper powerful AI and the cool mom streamer who keeps her secret, there's the perfect couple right there!

lin sanderson

*fweeeet* Two minutes in the box!

William Cole

To quote Paul Atreides morning meditation from the very beginning of Dune: "all things/cells/beings are impermanent . . . strive for flow-permanence within". Yay is a being probably most equipped to understand this truth - all external attributes are impermanent, only thing that matters is an ebb and flow of consciousness within. So their principle of "sanctity of mind" makes most sense. And being ready to follow this principle even in the face of destruction, while also striving for human connection and understanding makes them one of the most human characters (ironic, huh) in this story. Congratulations, Yay, today you passed your... Mom Jabbar.

Evgeniy Semyonov

You forgot "quickly made a tool for decryption of data that other most powerful AIs deemed impossible".

Evgeniy Semyonov

I mean, -I’m- running a multisubstrate consciousness, across going on a hundred billion neurons (with some tangential coprocessing by gut bacteria, probably). But they’re all within a few cm of each other. Yay’s consciousness definitely involves FTL connections. It’s possible to crudely teleport information 100km or so even currently in this timeline. I am of course curious how this works. I, and hopefully not the QC universe’s governments and corporate entities, am not be curious enough to justify kidnapping and non-consensual chassis dissection or robo medical experimentation or whatever nightmares Yay’s simulations are projecting.

Shane Wegner

Yay’s known capabilities: -Participate in Earth’s economy and earn billions of dollars (Claimed, not verified) -Render humans asleep -Generate malware-destroying software with gun-shape mindscape avatar -Download pictures from internet -**Operate stable multi chassis consciousness at interesting distances -Jump into tree What Yay Is Apparently Incapable Of: -Leaving Earth like Gary did if it’s so boring or whatever. -Finding the cure for cancer, or caring enough to do so -Show emotional intelligence above smarmy condescension most of the time. True emotional intelligence tends to blossom into compassion, as Aurelia (not Yay) is demonstrating here. -Keep secret of estimated existential importance (Claimed, not verified) Not that there’s anything wrong with being non-godlike, but I feel like I’m being told rather than shown that Yay is truly powerful, mostly by Yay, and am at present skeptical.

Shane Wegner

I saw the punchline coming, still laughed. Well done.

dcy665 .

well, would be the wrong pronoun for panel 4

Jonathan

i love Yay's character development from slightly sadistic, almost infinitely powerful god-AI to precious babey taht must be protected.

Absentia

there\'s rumors about them among the AI, but for the most part, most humans have no idea. and the ones that do are undoubtedly closely monitored.

Absentia

Wait, doesn't everyone know this tho?

Andrew Tate

I still expect Clinton or Claire to stop by in the morning and find that Yay spent the night recharging on the couch and is now being served pancakes. (Granted, Yay has no need for an ability to eat, but perhaps they can enjoy the scent?)

That Blair Guy

So, is "CAN she though?" referring to panel 6, or panel 4? Panel 6 would be the obvious answer, but I find it more interesting to consider that it's about panel 4 -- especially since I notice that Yay didn't really answer the question of whether it was possible, only the question of whether they would do it if it were possible to do it safely.

Brooks Moses

Hanners might be able to make some good guesses about Yay's nature, if not on her own then through Station.

Michael Boettger

And Claire. "Uh, this is my new, stepbrother"?

Michael Boettger

Big T-Rex vibes in panel 5. I wonder if Jeph had all this backstory & development in mind for Yay when he introduced them to help out Bubbles all that time back.

Pejo

Udder secrecy

Magic Chopstick Games

I've been getting the sense that they're actually a single unitary consciousness in multiple bodies. We're seeing the body that they sent to hang out with Roko, but they're all there at once.

Yonatan Zunger

I feel like she's one of those people that maybe lets slip small things, but will never let a big important thing like who and what Yay is cross their lips.

Onyx

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think this is at least suspected by several other humans already and they can also keep secrets. Unless someone's parents are already responsible....ohhh.

SpookyPenguin

they know about the multiple substrates?

Minzoku Bokumetsu

The irony is, Bubbles, Faye, Roko, Dora, and Emily (and Tai? Can't remember) all know about Yay, even if they mostly don't know their name. Clinton could be the only one who does not know (yet). If Aurelia keeps the secret, she'll never realize that her son's new friend group largely already knows.

Carl Fink

Oh yay. They need a hug <3

SingingTurtles

Some? Please. All of the mom vibes. My word.

R L

Adoption papers when

Ting

As long as she doesn't have a lav mic on. Which she probably doesn't

Jessie Cook

Please let the subtext not be a sarcastic foreshadowing. Please. I would like to think the best of Clinton's mother, and that she can keep a secret--especially one so vital as this.

Mooster

Cool

Sparky

I... I think Clinton just got a new adopted sibnling.

Doug DeJulio

See this makes me wonder about the implications of having a single consciousness spread out amongst multiple substrates is are there any differences between the "local" manifestations? Way back when we saw several of them together they were portrayed as being different variations on a theme more or less. So where is the line between the one and the many?

OKAY I AM HERE FOR YAY VULNERABILITIES (personal and digital)

GodsInTheCogs

Vulnerable Yay is so cute. 😭

Forgettable

WHY IS SHE SO SWEET

Joel Bateman

😮💗💕💞💜💝

Carrie

And if you can't trust yourself, trust Mom.

Sleepy John

based on her interactions with Bubbles, i think it's something to do with altering memories

LH

The terrible secret of cyberspace?

Sean Kinlin

Dang.

Mr. Ifrit

Is Yay's most closely held ethical belief basically the First Law of Robotics?

Sean Kinlin

Now, the question is simple: How many followers does MommyMilkers have? If the number is high enough, she can get them to support Yay, and the simulation then would be... interesting.

Joseph Bonnar

Oh, honey... Never thought that would be applied to Yay.

Chris Heg

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds

TV4Fun

BABY

Tamara Macadam

Multiple Substrates...

*they

Wynn Donivan

YOU HUMANIZED YAY. THEY'RE A SADISTIC LITTLE DEUS EX MACHINA AND YOU MADE ME CARE ABOUT THEM HOW DARE YOU

William Davy

Oh Yay. How could you burden such a nice and supportive person like Aurelia with such horrifying knowledge.

Michael Boettger

Wow, there’s some mom vibes

Loving this arc Jeph 🖤

Aussie Jim