2902 Goblin Victory.

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I genuinely don’t know what happened to that stupid toy. I’ve been through damn near every box I have stacked in my room and haven’t found it. I’ve seen boxes with other things that arrived at around the same time and it’s not in it. The only thing I remembered about it is that it had another rare toy with it that is also missing now. I know at this point it probably seems silly that I’ve been obsessed with this thing for over a week at this point, but it’s not easy for me to earn money. All the stuff I gather is a representation of hours of struggle. To carelessly lose something is infuriating and it’s directed at the person I hate the most; me. It’s still possible that I just misplaced it in the endless shuffle of moving things from place to place but at this point I have passively accepted that I somehow threw it away, and possibly an entire box of things. As I’ve stated before it’s my habit to actually write trash on any box that has things in it that have been designated trash. It’s been a pretty good system because I never write it on a box until the moment I have ensured beyond doubt that the box contains trash as part of the contract with my paranoia. Mistakes happen though. I’ve been extremely tired and when I get like that I often lose focus. The fact that I have no specific memory of most of my actions is proof enough of that. All that said, I haven’t searched 100% of my living space and I’ve moved many many things around. I may yet run across it while I continue my overarching task. I guess all I can do is live in hope. Maybe I’ll find a clearance one at the store.

The last thing that I remember losing in my room is actually a lens from my magnifying glasses. It straight up disappeared. I cleaned every inch of the floor and the damn thing just disappeared into nothingness. I keep thinking I may find it at some point when I’ve completely removed everything from the room, but I’ve needed it several times since it was lost. It probably would have been more efficient to just buy another set of lenses, since they entire thing was only $17 when I originally purchased it, but as previously stated, money is hard to come by when you draw nonsense for a living.

As sort of an all encompassing fuck you from me to me I also managed to hurt my shoulder while moving things around. Generally it doesn’t bother me, but when I lay down it is excruciating. The tragic irony being that resting is what allows your body to heal faster and I haven’t had decent rest in almost 3 weeks now. I should count my blessings in that it hasn’t hindered my ability to draw. That would be a true disaster. My entire life hinges on basically the three feet of my right arm. Fucking it up is something I live in perpetual fear of. Of course it’s my dominant arm so using it is the natural thing to do. I wonder sometimes if it would be wiser to learn to use my left arm for menial tasks. I like my left arm and don’t want to lose it, but he’s not a trustworthy fellow. His best function is steadying things for my right arm.

Well, anyway, this page will go up for Friday, which is Halloween. Obviously it will be the final page for the October pages post on Patreon/Subscribestar as well. I was thinking the other day about how I used to stress about having a holiday image made for each one, every year, for years. That was such a big deal in the early days of webcomics. After all the various disasters of the last decade I’m just glad that I get the comic out at all, generally within an hour of the agreed upon posting time. Since it’s basically just me running the show now holidays sneak up on me because I don’t really care about them anymore. The 4th of July is basically the only one I really look forward to because it’s a special time for my mother and I to bond over our shared love of history and explosions. With all the other ones it feels like I’ve done everything thematically I can think of with my characters. Plus I still have a hard time seeing my art as a treat for others, especially if they don’t react very much. My audience tends not to be super effusive, probably because a person’s audience tends to be a reflection of themselves.

A lot of the stuff from the early days of webcomics were just little rituals that someone started and we all followed along because it seemed to get attention. In the era of the algorithm nothing but the whim of the robot seems to get a person any attention beyond the whim of the robot. All my social media accounts have been shadowbanned, on and off, for at least 5 years if not more. It is hard not to succumb to the feeling of futility. Additionally I have lost my connection with webcomics as a “community”, although I never felt like I was part of a community. I just saw that there were other little groups and sort of stood on the sidelines as I always have, observing.

This happened a few weeks ago but I noticed people talking about Questionable Content in the comments, so I was reminded of it. I never really talked about it at the time because a lot was going on, but I finally stopped reading QC. Not because I hated the story or anything though. I certainly hadn’t been well pleased with the direction of the writing for many years, but not to the point of not wanting to read it, and I generally like all the new and odd characters. The thing that finally severed my ties to the last connection to webcomics outside of my own was accidentally seeing the social media of the creator. I had blocked him on everything years ago because I find Jeph absolutely infuriating as a person. That said, as long as I never saw his socials, I could still enjoy his work. At least in so far as I was still capable of enjoying it in its current state. Unfortunately I stumbled across him on Bluesky and he was being so vile I found I could no longer abide. It never occurred to me to seek him out there to shield myself, and I was sideswiped by a quick barrage of garbage takes that seemed practically tailor made to get my dander up. It may seems silly to some of you, but his work was the last connection to a group of people who functionally inspired me to make my own comic. I read QC for well over 20 years, and suddenly I felt like I couldn’t, in good conscience, support him in any way anymore. Maybe that was unfair of me. I’m not sure. There were a lot of things happening and I was pretty unprotected emotionally in the moment. I had already had ties cut with other longtime friends, which probably left me badly unbalanced. Regardless, I dropped his work after over 2 decades of dedicated reading. I didn’t feel vindicated, or just, or whatever. I felt like I lost something again because of all the wedges social media has driven between everyone. It hurt. Genuinely. The years of habit didn’t understand what I was doing. The part of my brain that remined me to check QC daily is still doing its task and I have to say “No, that’s not for us anymore. He hates us.”

I’ve been on both sides of these sorts of things. Every so often I’ll shoot my mouth off out of anger and someone will send me a long message telling me how much I hurt them, and how sorry they are that they can’t enjoy my comic anymore. I don’t like getting that sort of message. My guess is that no one does. Having stood on both sides I get extra emotional about it because I never purposefully would want to take a comfort away from someone. I know how it feels. At the same time it’s very hard to put aside your humanity and be perfect all the time to everyone. On my best days I’m wildly emotionally unstable. I has taken years of effort to get myself to keep my mouth shut on the internet as much as I do now and I still talk too much. After covid I think people finally got a taste of what it’s like to be me though, and they understand why I am how I am better. When I explain my normal level of isolation people get it now. So it feels like I get more of a pass when I explain my situation now. The entire world got a little taste of it and they did not like it.

Anyway, I’m basically completely disconnected from webcomics as a reader now. It has left a void in me that nothing has ever replaced. When I was working retail I would come home and page through QC, PVP, Shortpacked, Starslip Crisis, Penny Arcade, and many other comics that I can’t even name anymore without straining to do so. When I started making my own comic I was even friendly with some of those people. It’s possible that Between Failures wouldn’t even exist anymore if not for Scott Kurtz, Dave Kellet, Brad Guigar, and Kris Straub, although he and his cohorts probably have no knowledge of the moment they potentially saved it. My guess is that Brad would be the only one of them to spare some piss if he found me on fire these days. Even so I still feel like I owe them some loyalty in spite of the fact that I don’t believe they would extend a helping had now if I really needed one.

I guess this is just the way of things. Time wears away our edges. Then again maybe that’s just my perspective on things and other people don’t feel like this. I don’t know. All I know is that it seems like all that ever happens is I lose things and never gain anything to take their place.

In any case, I hope you have a spooky Halloween, if you observe it. We’ll be in a new month when I return with more comic. I hope to see you then. Until that time, keep away from rugs or fabrics.