2978 Man Of Principles, Mostly…

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Once again I’m setting up this post well in advance of my nightly routine. It’s actually a little surprising how much I’ve grown accustomed to that habit. I’m not in the headspace I usually am. I guess I’ll do general updates.
The updated Animal Crossing: New Horizons and I decided to actually check it out. I didn’t expect the update to really do all that much for me since many of the features involve online play & I keep hours such that no one I know is awake to play, if they even wanted to at all. Animal Crossing really isn’t a very good multiplayer game. It’s not even a good chat program. Maybe if you could use a keyboard, but I have never even looked up to see if a Switch can. Regardless, I was shocked that it had been 3 years and two months since I had last played. I’ve often spoken about my strange perception of time & that really brought it home to me. It seemed like I had just stopped playing it a little while ago to me… The game doesn’t punish you for it anymore, which is nice. I got into the swing of checking it for a little while again. The play pattern has always been calming to me, plus I have a history of using it for therapy. Some of you long time readers might recall me playing City Folk for an entire year when I was going through that bout of intense depression many years ago. It might have been longer, I can’t remember for sure now.
I don’t remember a lot of games I played in those years of intense anxiety. One of the things those kind of mental health issues does is it messes up your ability to form long term memories. Or it disrupts your ability to recall them. I have vague memories of playing Dragon Age. Bits of it come back to me from time to time. My memories of the Mass Effect games are a bit clearer. If pressed I could probably tell you the high points of the game. I did reference them in the comic at one point. Dragon Quest Seven (?) was on the DS or 3DS and I played that at least once using Jo as the character template as well as Nina, Carol, and Reggie. I remember very little of it apart from having fun. I remember Twilight Princess more or less, but I have a much clearer memory of Skyward Sword. I played the shit out of Mario Kart Wii, although what is there to remember there really? The controls for motorbikes were incredibly satisfying on Wii and they’ve never felt that good since though. I remember that feeling in the bones of my hands. There’s a clear enough memory of Wii Sports Resort, but it’s mostly flying the plane, which is what I liked best. Noodling around in the sky was a nice way to calm down. I have extremely clear memories of State Of Decay on the Xbox whatever it was. I clearly remember all the Splatoon games. Maybe it’s because they are so active and engaging. Plus the music makes it anchor better maybe? New Super Mario Brothers Wii I remember well enough at least partially because I played through at least once with the Teen. I’m pretty sure I completed it once on my own but played again with her because it was something she would pay attention to other than her phone when she first came to live with us. Also Call Of Duty Zombies I remember playing with her. I don’t remember the order these games got played in anymore. I know I played the shit out of Animal Crossing: New Leaf and the Fire Emblem games. Particularly Awakening and Fates. I never finished the one with Celica & Alm though. I wonder how well other people remember games they play. Whenever I talk to people about old games they seem to recall them extremely well, but I have spotty memories of anything past the Gamecube. I could probably recite most of Final Fantasy 6 (3 on the SNES) though. I guess you form stronger memories when you are young in addition to me not also having the anxiety problem quite so bad.

That kind of spiraled away from me just updating you…

The page for Friday last had a lot of comments, but Monday’s page only had 3. I really didn’t think I was being all that eloquent in the blog, or whatever, but many many people shared memories of the places than humbled them in life. Then on Monday people had nothing much to say. I always wonder what factors cause these kinds of peaks and valleys in interaction. The site doesn’t need interaction the way social media demands. I don’t get extra money for it. I’m just curious about it since sites that are dedicated to a single thing are pretty rare now. With ad block being what it is the site isn’t monetized in any meaningful way anymore. Hiveworks hasn’t paid me for any ads in at least 9 months. That might be a whole other things though… I haven’t bothered to bring it up to anyone because it already wasn’t generating much income. Still, every little bit helps. I hate to rock the boat since the boat has been taking on water for a long time. Not drowning is good enough in these trying times. I haven’t spoken about anything to do with it because I honestly can’t remember what I’m allowed to talk about, plus people are so fucking touchy about everything these days. At this point I’m thankful just having the hosting taken care of. That is probably not wise, but there’s a limit to how much I can stress about at any given time and I’ve been operating well past that limit for years at this point. This comic has existed through several major eras of webcomics at this point. People who used to buy advertising from me are youtube stars now. They get big money to complain about Disney. I guess I was the fool for wanting to tell my story and not fill the world with relentless criticism, or whatever you want to categorize that as.

It’s not that I don’t have opinions about things, but I don’t generally have opinions so strong about media that I feel the need to make a thirty minute essay about it. I can give you a brief rundown, but I can’t make it into grift. Plus I tend to only watch things I enjoy and won’t force myself to suffer through things I don’t. I don’t think I could make a career of criticizing Star Wars ad infinitum. I just don’t have it in me. I don’t even like the kind of people who do generally. I got a kick out of the Mr Plinket takedowns of the prequel Star Wars movies, but they didn’t change my opinions about them. I still think they are super fun and I like watching them every so often. If you can make a living shitting all over media more power to you, if I could do it I probably would because it’s a lot more profitable than webcomics. I just really like making my comic. It feels like it matters more than thousands of hours of reviews of other people’s work, even if it’s largely ignored and derided. I feel like if some version of this comic survives for 300 years it will mean more to people than the millionth takedown of The Phantom Menace. I guess that’s something I’ll never know.

The other day someone told me that they hoped the world noticed how wonderful my work is before I died. It was one of the nicest, most morbid, things anyone has ever said to me. I felt like they really understood me and my work by phrasing it that way. Like, you deserve more recognition dude, but there’s a good chance you won’t live to see it. XD At least I’ll be in good company with all the other people who weren’t noticed in their time. Although I’m not 100% sure I really earned more notice than I have. People have been saying things like that more and more though. I’ve been called underrated a few times recently. Many people tell me my comic is the last webcomic they read. It makes me feel like some sort of steward of the decline of webcomics. In reality I think it’s more like people who read my comic just haven’t gone looking for other things because the internet has changed since the days of their life having time for noodling around online. In any case it’s nice to hear that people appreciate me unprompted after going so long only ever seeing it here.

Anyway I have to take care of the things that caused me to set this post up early now. I’ll see you on Friday, and probably on Patreon for the monthly upload since that’s tomorrow maybe? In any case I hope you have a nice Wednesday.