Properly Grounded

Well she IS more grounded now isn't she?

Mari San

That sounds like a way to cross her mental wires. Recovery from a bad time disassociating by getting horny? No thank you!

Silentarrow

She should have found some fresh baked bread. Probably would have worked better.

The World Famous Chocomerican

For the same reason she has a fully humanoid body, bodily orifices, breasts and a face, to better fit into the existing mostly human created society and participate in it's rituals.

Darla Donahue

Yes the strong smell definitely connected Roku to her senses and grounded her in the moment. Lemmon said it'd be grounding, not pleasant. lol. You want Pleasant? Go buy a nice tea to sniff.

Darla Donahue

The smell does seem to have ended the dissociative episode.

Rhian Hibner

Considering that a robotic olfactory sensor wouldn't even vaguely resemble a human one, why would she need a nose?

Rhian Hibner

"My dog has no nose." "How does he smell?" "Awful!"

Trigon Manthree

Wait a sec, how the hell does beeps smell anything? She doesn't have a NOSE. Does she smell through her EYES?

Tim Keating

If only she had had bread.

Tim Keating

Oooh, so close, Lemon.

Tim Keating

Pretty sure its the same thing the local newspaper does to their colour printer

Da Nargh!!

I wish I could make my hair stand out like that when I am startled. :-)

Mooster

Only comes out when she's exceedingly and emotionally angry.

Shane Wegner

Brilliant.

James Dore

“Turn off everything? But I’m bingeing on puppies on Animal Planet!”

Sleepy John

Maybe that from was a leak in May’s old body in the dumpster.

Sleepy John

Has Roko lost her accent? I'd have expected "faak" instead.

Gary Walker

When consciousness gives you lemons...

MrFrenchFries

"gimme that sweet stank"

Lightsabr2

Noseless Beeps wants a whiff?

OldGoat

Wait...shouldn't she have reverted to the "Fahk off!" accent that she normally does when surprised/scared/startled? Glad she's feeling better though. I can't imagine a disassociative episode would be too good for her. I'm very glad that she has friends to help her through it. Support can be an amazing thing.

jimfromtx

I note she *is* no longer blurry...so I guess it worked?

Chris Crowther

Hey Jeff - I was wondering if you could put a tag up for when you do this cool but disorienting visual effect on Roko? I'm sure I'm not the only visually-impaired reader and this effect gives me concerns my eyes are off or I'm experiencing a migraine aura. It's super effective at communicating depersonalization though!

Just to answer one question, you cannot copy qubits. That's the whole point of quantum computing. If you could you would have major problems with physics

Evylon

The assam? https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3427

Mark

From a weird dog?

Mark

I believe Lemon's techniques are more accepted by IRL psychotherapy, & less self-destructive/hair of the dog. Less "Irish" as it were lol

Pejo

Extremely this. So much of what Lemon walked her through are grounding techniques for panic attacks, & to a degree for anxiety too. Name out loud 5 things you can see, 3 things you can hear, & in this case, at least one thing your skilled but goofy friend scraped out of a dumpster. Jeph knows what he's talking about & shit like this makes the comic so much more personal & meaningful for a lot of people.

Pejo

I've been trying to put in words how the Fruit (and Vegetable) Sisters are a little "off", it's a fine line. Odd? Eccentric? They're pretty clearly Turing-passing, but why are they ever so slightly vaguely weird and inappropriate? I say that as someone who more or less appreciates weirdness. I haven't been able to describe the feeling without being really ableist and coming off negative about mental illness (which I myself also have), but there's something very slightly different about them. "Crazy" is much too strong and mean. It shows how subtle something like Turing is to test. "I'll know it when I feel it." My headcanon ended up with some explanation that asks interesting questions about AI reproduction. If you like a particular AI, and AIs have specific memory addresses and hard drive bits, what's to say you can't just make an exact copy of every bit in their memory and have two of that AI? Copying a trained AI you already sent through robot college is a lot faster than, well, sending them through robot college. Like Bubbles, your combat AI trained in Law of Warfare and has muscle memory proficient in every weapon and martial art? Why not get ten combat chassis and Copy and Paste, my friend? If an AI dies, why not just load them up from backup? Takes most of the risk out of it. Makes AI life a lot less precious. My headcanon answer was that things are that much more interesting if there is an inherent Uncopyability to AI. Something about the qubits used in their quantum hardware are simply resistant to being exactly copied without collapsing. Copy and Paste is exactly what was tried with the Fruit (AV) Sisters, and the result was... how they came out. Sapient, but... eccentric. It has interesting implications for the uniqueness and aliveness of AIs, and by extension, humans. It might be anthropomorphizing to call it a "soul", but if this explanation is correct, there is something unique, alive, and irreplaceable about each AI (and human, which we in theory "knew" but seem to forget often enough.) I extrapolated from there to the origin of AIs. The AI mythology says a human humped a computer. I instead headcanoned that the Ellicot-Chathams were wired up the scanners in the lab and had a, er, passionate moment strong enough that the scanners got a very strong read, which became initial seed for all EC AIs. It's anthropomorphizing again, but that was my explanation for how AIs would have things like libido, something the code in the silicon need not have. "I swear none of my code references human-like attraction!" It's a little sci fi, but I enjoy thinking that something stored in the original qubits reflects the "souls" of John and Beatrice Ellicot-Chatham. If THAT were somehow true, the next interesting implication is... that AIs could "reproduce" if they could scan a quantum imprint as strong as the original EC one. They'd generate a new waveform storing information unique to the two (or heck, more, although presumably complexity would increase untenably). AND... I don't see a reason why humans and AIs couldn't do the same. SO, some sentients, Faye and Bubbles for example, might be operating on basic unconscious assumptions that they couldn't reproduce, and thus have a gulf of distance between them that is greater than if they were a biological male and female who could directly biologically reproduce. (Adoption is always a possible thing in many variations of romantic relationships of course.) In that case, if they had a strong enough signal for each other (feelings, say), and were wired up to EC qubit scanners, they could generate a new waveform seed and become "parents" to any AIs creched off that seed. I'm sure proving that humans and AIs can combine in this way would send the anti-AI terrorists into a froth. But I find it poignant. But if Waveform Scanning could make a new qubit seed if it gets a strong enough read (Which we could anthropomorphize as "being in love enough"), then... humans and AIs _could_ have offspring that represent something fundamental about themselves. And make new and stronger offspring. Which I enjoy thinking was the missing factor in the FruitAV Sisters. "You got all that from a yellow AI sniffing garbage juice?" "You didn't?" For some reason I wrote a 25 page screenplay of blatant fan fiction about this. EDIT- Which is right here if anyone is that curious: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hfZHnwKWfc_RMOIeyIyFpkgli74J3zIF/view?usp=sharing

Shane Wegner

LOL!

John Peterson

They were able to jump in Bubbles' mind to look at the empty room where her memories used to be, so I think they're not exaggerating at all

Nicolas Demers

This is actually a really helpful technique. When I was young and inexperienced, I got *stupidly* over-stoned one evening, and my host sat me down, had me close my eyes, put a shot of sipping whiskey in my hand, and told me to toss it back. INSTANTLY I felt better and wasn't completely without control anymore. He called it "an Irish Grounding".

Buck Caldwell

She is not dissociating right now it seems. Lemon's methods are unorthodox, but you can't argue with results

Bagge

You might say it smelled ... vial.

Simon Green

Shock treatment, then

Minzoku Bokumetsu

It’s a fragment of Elliot’s skunked clothes. It’s been lingering at the bottom of the dumpster, soaking in whatever other juices glowed down.

Summer Sudbrink

Mostly accurate usage of grounding techniques. Name one thing you see, smell, feel, taste, and hear. Boxed breathing can help too, breath in 4 seconds, hold breath 4 seconds, and exhale 4 seconds. Repeat exercises as many times as necessary

Sandrock

Pretty sure they don't have any semiliquid stuff in their torsoes, unless they're Pintsize, who has a history of pouring cake batter into his chassis (and ruining it). He seems to be the opposite of Roko, completely detached from his body (while still perfectly capable of using it).

Carl Fink

Lemon is totally chaotic good.

Hawkeye

A bit like metal and plastics I would assume.

MrSinn

Combination gas chromatograph and mass-spectrometer in her left shoulder.

Adam Koslin

Wait, Beeps has no nose. How does she smell?

Yonatan Zunger

Mindfulness meditation for AIs. Neat.

Hugh Eckert

I ONCE scared a friend out of her hiccups. It worked! But she was a very good friend, who trusted that I had her best interests at heart. (I did. I don’t like upsetting people. But we were both sooooo sick of the hiccups.)

KCkittysnores

Roko needs to visit Hannelore and discuss tea.

Pete

This is something I wondered about with Yay. They won't, for good reasons, mess around inside someone's head, but they'd certainly be able to do good therapy. Or does "knowing what to say" constitute meddling with consciousness? It's a tricky question as to where the boundary is. The recent novel "The Last Human" is largely concerned with the means by which more intelligent beings manipulate the lesser, but in ways that seem to be giving the lower beings exactly what they want. Of course, Yay may be exaggerating their powers of penetration, relying so much, as they are, on intercepting communication and breaking encryption. They were certainly awkward establishing friendship with Roko. Fascinating characters!

Matt Grayson

can they vomit? probably not. cuz thatll ground you to your body real fast.

Ashley Thomas

See Lemon is good at her job (never doubted her, A lot of psychology Is just suggesting strategies and seeing what works.)

Thisguy

Grounded af

sjlxndr

Can Beepatrice smell things without a nose?

Pete Hanson

She seems back in her body and able to interact with the physical world again

Todd Ellner

Good trick lol

red sands

This is very similar to a lot of anti-anxiety exercises I do

Samantha

Sometimes that enhanced sensorium package isn’t always a positive.

Mark P.

Doesn't have to be pleasant to be effective!

Merle Blue

Haha, now I imagine Lemon plugging her into an old 5,25” disk drive or something.

Daniel Rydberg

I honestly don’t think that skunk is the most strange thing Melon has smelled.

Daniel Rydberg

In humans, smells have such a deep impact is because it's such a primal sense, it reaches into the most primitive parts of the brain. I would think in robots it would be i don't know, serial ports? Terminal commands? Humm, ...

Nicholas A Wagner

They will be featured right next to Gwyneth Paltrows “This Smells Like My Vagina” candles.

Daniel Rydberg

Love the mix of recognisable therapeutic technique and dumpster goo

Stuart Telfer

Okay, that was the first big LOL I've had from QC in a long time. Bravo.

Also matters what the input is, and what you're focusing on. Closing your eyes and just feeling is a grounding technique for humans... and Roko is, in her responses, extremely human.

Ardent Slacker

That Family Resemblance is starting to show

Thomas Halpin

Lemon isn't failing to deliver!

MiaKitty

Oh right, she's still Melon's sister.

C-Cubed

Bwa ha ha. That was good.

Jp

This is legitimately the first hearty laugh I’ve had from QC in forever. Fart jokes are best jokes. Bad smell jokes are a very close second.

gn0w1

So I really care about all the cute ai buddies. But I am more interested in the buy makeouts I’ve been promised

Daniel Burnett

Nicholas Cage

Michael Boettger

Is Beeps wearing Kevin Smith's jorts?

Richard

awwwww

Ellie Hanna

I retract anything negative I ever said about Lemon. She's really good.

Matt Grayson

Next, she needs to work on acceptance. Don't judge the smell of the goo as good or bad, just acknowledge it for what it is.

Wolfger

What is it with Melon and Lemon and smells??? Melon wanted to rub all over Elliot when he got sprayed by a skunk and now Lemon is carrying around weird dumpster goo!!!

Shawn K. Younkin

I'm reminded of Cher shouting "Snap out of it!" then smacking some guy.

Alacrity Fitzhugh

S T A N K

Wynn Donivan

Weird Dumpster Goo is the name of my Gwar cover band

David Browne

Lemon is actually quite good at her job. Unorthodox, but good.

Ted Van Roekel

Interesting. The diffraction that we see when Roko disassociates seems to disappear between panels 1 and 4. Maybe excessive input is part of the problem.

Michael Boettger

Dumpster Goo candles coming to stores near you in Normal, Weird, and Esoteric varieties

No question that Lemon and Melon are sisters.

awgiedawgie

I want to see what they saw when they smelled it! The olfactory synesthesia strips are my favorite...:)

Douglas E. Smith

weird shit doesn't fake beeps!

jimbo

"Normal Dumpster Goo" is the name of my new... damn... I don't have a band.

Matt Grayson

Actually yes. The last bonus comic. But they would have you believe they're both melon.

William Davy

Surprisingly good advice for dissociative states even if you are not an AI.

Abhayakara

mmm dumpster goo...

Alacrity Fitzhugh

That's certainly one way to practice mindfulness.

fluffy

Lemon is more of an Oscar Vibenius than a Napoleon LeNez, seems like.

Seth Aaron Hershman has they she pronouns

Should of gone for the tea at Coffee of Doom

Michael

Teach me your ways, Sensei Lemón!

Miyaa

have we ever seen Lemon and Melon in the same room tho

Magic Chopstick Games

where do you think Lemon got it from?

Kurt Lewis

Seems to be working.

Michael Boettger

beeps no

Kurt Lewis

W E I R D G O O

Is that similar to scaring a human to cure a hiccup?

Nulgar

Well, Lemon's not *wrong*...

Jennifer Doyle

Oh god, don’t let Melon smell it.

Lord Crusade

Lemon is surprisingly helpful!

Alexander W Couzens

Smelling salt, but it's Melon's cooking experiment 20149-B

Ting

Smelling Goo

:-) Excellent technique!

Matt Grayson