Maddi only sort of remembers the particulars of who did what with the library. For starters it wasn’t built by Alex’s grandfather. I think he would be her great great grandfather. Secondly the radon vents would have been added later, although the basement was ventilated well enough that it was more a code issue than actually needing them. She does take care of all the little upkeep tasks and has a book she made to make sure she remembers. Maddison is in charge of a lot of day to day maintenance and has learned how to fix even more complex things like simple problems with the heating and AC. While she isn’t quick on the uptake she can be trained over time to do even very complex things. It just requires a lot of patience and Alex’s family are the only people willing to put that time in because she’s essentially part of their family. Outside of the library her life would have been much more difficult and bleak but the Melvil’s take special care of her, so she’s extremely happy even if she gets frustrated from time to time from not being able to do things she wants to.
Other Maddison trivia: She is dyslexic and has ADHD. However she is good at learning things via listening and seeing them done. She likes audiobooks, stuffed animals, cartoons, family movies, romances, games like Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, although she will play basically anything her friends do if it’s a group activity. Generally if they play a game where healer is a role she will be that because her natural caring instinct is extremely strong and she will “lock in” when her friends are in danger. She loves babies and they love her almost without exception. Any child left in her care is extremely safe because of her innate motherly instincts. Generally speaking she is happy to be included in any activity but will begin to space out if some part of it doesn’t hold her interest at which point she will sometimes become unintentionally disruptive. In many circumstances where it would be normal to be scared or creeped out she won’t be unless someone actually tells her that she should be and she reacts to that more than actually being scared of anything. She just matches the energy of other people.

Victoria is generally very composed unless presented with the unexpected. She tends to plan things in advance to avoid being caught off guard. Her outward personality is a front almost completely constructed for her family. Left to her own devices she would dress in bright colors and generally be a free spirit. That said, she does enjoy her status as a spooky girl, which is what makes it easy to maintain. It is extremely amusing to her to have the dual life she leads.

Well, anyway, lots going on this weekend. Hasbro Pulsecon on Friday. Hopefully I can get preorders on the two things I want. Also the splatfest, which I guess started today. I think some other stuff happens this weekend but I’ve forgotten what they are. I had better make sure…
Today I was just up kinda walkin around, doing stuff, sorting things, not getting tired. Like, that might seem pretty bland for you, but for me, after all the horseshit of the last few years, to me it’s very refreshing. I just didn’t feel like the earth was trying to drag me to its core and that was nice. I reduced two tables of random, unsorted, stuff down to one and didn’t want to just lay down for 5 hours. I did other stuff. Like, I hesitate to feel good about things for fear that god will see me and punish me for not being miserable. I’ll be quietly thankful, in the corner, so I won’t be noticed. Making myself small, so as not to be seen…
I need some new source of content to distract myself with. Youtube has turned into a clinical depression simulator now that it has driven away all of the fun creators. I can’t just watch old episodes of YIAY and classic JonTron forever. I can’t find people who appeal to me anymore. All the collecting channels are run by these upbeat schmucks, or audience captured goons. I want some videos about things made by vaguely annoyed creators with wry senses of humor. There’s not enough wryness anymore. Where are all the puckish scamps who have opinions about obscure things? Have we talked about everything finally? It kind of feels that way. People I like are all moving on to new things and are being replaced with people who annoy the shit out of me. I guess that’s just part of getting old. The things you like go away and are replaced by new, crappier versions of the exact same thing, with worst hosts. Podcasters all want to be Jo Rogan, but I don’t like Jo Rogan and I don’t want Dollar General Jo Rogan as an alternative. I want Sandy Toksvig giving humorous takes on the news of the day.
I wonder if I’ll live to see the next cool era of people. How long will it be before they start showing up? Maybe I need to learn how to pirate Bob’s Burgers so I can see what happened after the movie. I’m not watching that shit on Hulu.
I’ve listened to all the calming shows from ten years ago to help me go to sleep that they don’t work very well anymore. I could probably recite the entire run of Dr Katz from memory if I had to.
I watched the new Ghostbusters movie the other night finally. The one that people were pretty tepid about. It’s not one of the top ten best movies of all time, but it was just kind of nice. When it was over I wasn’t unhappy for having seen it. I think that striving to make very good things is ideal, but just making a nice thing to try and entertain people is fine too. The way that movie in particular was written seemed like it should have been part of a TV series, but that’s as may be. It felt like there was an small scale episodic quality to it that might have been server better over the course of several episodes.
I started watching this basketball anime and it’s okay but not as good as the volleyball one I watched. I wish I has seen the second one first and I was watching the much better show now. I’ve decided that I like sports manga even though I don’t like actual sports. Honestly it seems like I enjoy manga about any dumb shit I don’t like IRL. Maybe I should try reading the YUGIOH manga. I never much cared for the localized cartoon but I feel like the fanslated comic might be interesting. I always found the bones of the show enticing but the actual show was hard to watch. Maybe I should finally read to the end of Inu Yasha. I liked the first part. Whatever, regardless of all of that I still need calming stuff to go to sleep to, so the search continues.
I talked about a lot of dumb stuff tonight. maybe that makes up for the nights I didn’t say anything. Maybe it will entice you to support my work via the links above. I will cross my fingers. Some of them anyway. I still need to type. I hope you have a nice weekend. Please return on Monday for more low stakes sequential art. Until then, Kinnikumaaaaaaan, go fight!

29 Comments

I know someone might point out “libary” as a misspelled word, but I take it as her personal idiosyncrasy and Victoria is too kind to Maddison to try and correct her. It is cute in its own way for her.

Likewise with “gass” in “cancer gass.” I fully believe she ends the word “gas” with a snake sound.

/comics1/1579-liberry She might actually be improving her pronunciation somewhat, so that it sounds more like “beary” than “berry”.

I’ve been watching two calming channels lately. Dungeon Dive, which focuses on solo board gaming, and Mortismal Gaming, who reviews video games only when he 100% finishes a game, with all achievements and endings. They are both quiet and calm people. Also watching old PBS Idea Channel videos to finish the whole run.

I find lots of good stuff on YouTube, but it obviously depends what kind of content you’re interested in. I mostly do like film and game channels now–politics is indeed too depressing. But some of that is in media too, so it gets talked about, no matter what side you’re on. Especially the “politics” of gaming these days, by which I mean, corporate shennanigans. I don’t think we’ve talked about everything, just that we’ve made it miserable to talk about most things. Although, I confess, despite my age, I will still watch Pewdiepie videos. What can I say–the guy is legitimately a happy, fun guy who just has a good time with games or his family or memes or whatever. It’s nice to see something that un-cynical.

If you want random calming, maybe check out channels on machining. You can learn stuff or just let it wash past you. There’s lots of mellow people who just like what they do and like showing it. This Old Tony, maybe. Or for more energy, Blondihacks. I don’t know – there’s maybe a 30% chance you’ll like it, 67% chance you’ll go Meh, and 3% chance you’ll hate it for some reason.

Paul Sellers is a woodworker, but he’s got a very similar and very calming vibe.

For relaxed wood working I can highly recommend the YouTube channel “Workshop Companion”. He’s calm and competent,the channel both feels cozy and also very informative. I don’t actually work much with wood (hardly at all), nor does my SO, but we both really enjoy the channel.

Oh, and there’s a cute dog.

In similar and related veins, my beloved likes to chill with channels on woodturning, sheep shearing, dog grooming, lambing, etc.

For relaxing stuff, I’ve been watching a lot of Bob Ross’, painting, TV shows.

I love seeing Maddi feeling competent and proud.

Jackie, nice touch with Maddi twirling the key ring.

Thanks

Yeah, it speaks of tbe confidence she has in her comfort zone with these little (sic) mechanical tasks which keep the library running.

I have the feeling Maddi’s bit about the “hungry beeps” is purposefully leaning into the way others see her.

As the shorter spouse my late wife would say “you have to feed the detectors” to me more than once and she certainly was kidding.

For some reason the phrase “make the hungry beeps” pleases me greatly.

If you like Sandy Toksvig, have you watched the british TV show QI ?
It possibly stands for Quite Interesting (amongst other things), and the panel just talks about random shit. Relaxing, generally funny. Used to be hosted by Stephen Fry, but he handed it over to Sandy a few years back.

Jackie, I love the fact that you have put all of this thought into character development (though you’ve been doing this for how long now? It’s over ten years, I think?) I also love the fact that, in doing so, some of the characters have developed a lot more depth than seems obvious. I think a lot of people would have written Maddi off as useless, largely because of the learning disabilities you mentioned, and her attraction to childishly innocent delights, such as the animatronics that got us to this point in the story.

I have known and become friends with people like Maddi. The world is often not very kind to them. You’ve written some good friends for her, and I love it.

They’re going Down down to goblin Town

Hi Jackie – good to hear your having (a) good day(s). I love reading your backstory on the characters… it’s like little gold nuggets of your creativity. Thanks!

Civvie 11 is a fun channel about boomer shooters and what not

Hey Jackie, not sure if this would work for you but I use Lego build videos to fall asleep to. I usually have them muted, not sure if you need sound or not, but it will usually take no more than 5 minutes for me to be out like a light.

AllNewBricks or AustrianBrickFan are my favourite channels. AllNewBricks uses a stop motion style which is my preference but they don’t upload often. ABF uploads everyday.

Anyway, this is my first comment but I’ve been reading your comic for close to 10 years and I look forward to every new page. Thanks for all the great work you do.

Is now the time I start repping Jelle’s Marble Runs?

The marbles have teams! There is an announcer that talks about the marbles like they are actually athletes! It is absurdly compelling and the tracks they make are wild.

If you’re looking for a vaguely annoyed YouTuber with a wry sense of humour and opinions on obscure topics, I would highly recommend Chris Broad and his channel “Abroad in Japan.” His channel is also a pretty decent way to travel vicariously, for those of us too broke to fly to the other side of the planet ourselves.

Big Clive has a cheap electronics review thing on youtube, and also does livestreams. He’s a Scottish guy on the Isle of Man and has a soothing, soporific voice. Kind of like a Scottish Mr. Rogers who occasionally cusses. Also gay, but not militant about it. And generally never comes up in the electronics review videos. I often find I’ve started one, and dozed through several more.

I occasionally watched Kinnikuman on TV when I was in Japan, back in ’84. Haven’t seen it here in the States, but I assume that the scatology and fart jokes aren’t quite as numerous.

I think the interesting thing about sports animes is they’re not really about sports at all, and the more of them you watch the more you start to notice that.
I don’t know what topics generally interest you, but I know a few youtubers I enjoy with a wry wit, and if you’re willing to read my rambling suggestions I’ve got them below. Most of what I watch is commentary and comedy, and because Youtube’s algorithm doesn’t actually suggest anything new or useful anymore I don’t branch out much, but I like it well enough.

Any Austin has a calming voice, a fun sense of humor, and makes videos about video game infrastructure. If you’re unsure what I mean by video game infrastructure, trust me when I say I’m not either. He’s fun, and makes strange topics very interesting.
Josh Johnson does short stand-up videos about current events- most of which I didn’t know about until he posts something, but he explains the context well, tells good stories, and always makes me laugh, so I don’t mind that I don’t really know what he’s talking about going in. For a guy who talks about politics he’s very chill, which I appreciate because I’m tired of all the grandstanding.
Wizards with Guns does sketch comedy that feels akin to the earlier ages of Youtube, complete with a slowly increasing level of ridiculousness throughout each video, but with a higher refinement of actual comedy. It’s short stuff, but it’s fun.
Eddy Burback does commentary on all sorts of things, and while his more recent projects have taken on a deeper, more existential note, his earlier work is lighthearted and fun. No matter what he does, though, it’s enjoyable and interesting. He also has another channel with his brother called Burback where they just talk about random niche games.

The YouTube channel “Aging Wheels” might entertain you. I certainly like it.

Have you checked out RedLetterMedia? Maybe you would enjoy “Best of the Worst”.

And I usually enjoy “Technology Connections”.

There’s a guy on youtube, whose YT channel specializes in collecting: action figures, and [1970s, 1980s, + 1990s] toys.

His youtube channel is named: “Ed’s Retro Geek Out”.

In his videos, I don’t think he’s [overly happy], or [overly upbeat].

Please give his channel a look.

Cheers.

2725 Down In The Underground.

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