I am sitting in the waiting room of the ER as I type this. Mom had another bout of severe vertigo. I intended to take her but dad said he would do it instead, but as they went to leave I had an extremely strong sense that I needed to go with. So I jumped in as they started off. I already had my Surface since I intended to take her. I know these things take hours potentially so having it handy was a way to make sure I got things up on time. I mean its literally why I have the surface in the first place. I can work anywhere if I have a cell signal to post the pages. I’m sure I know why I felt the urge to go now, even though I didn’t in the moment. In future I will be prepared.

Instinct is something humans tend to ignore, but we have them for a reason. Ofttimes trusting your instincts can be a matter of life and death. In my life I’ve always had a knack for being where I needed to be to help other people. Even though I resist it, and I dont love feeling like the tool in some greater power’s plan, I have to admit that listening to that voice in my head has done a lot of good for others even if it ended up costing me something in the end. I’m a coward, and won’t willingly put myself in danger, but if I’m thrown into a situation I can’t ignore the plight of others. I guess that’s why I’m often guided to places I’m needed rather than going there on my own. It’s possible, as many people have told me, that I’m just a tool.

Its late enough, and this is also likely more routine than it feels to me, that I’m not going to text my sister. She may well see this post and be annoyed with me but I know they are all very busy and need rest. If the situation becomes dire I will contact her.

As far as the comic goes this may be the most decompressed time I’ve ever shown. What is going through Thomas’s head will have taken seconds but in our world it will be the better part of a week or more. I think decompressed is the right word. I admit that when I’m stressed I have a difficult time differentiating words that measure things. In any case I’m sure someone will correct me in the comments, or verify that I said what I meant.

My urge is often to explain things in the comic that I don’t expressly show, even though they aren’t in the comic for a reason. I really don’t like when the characters are misunderstood, but in order for there to be some level of drama there must be a misunderstanding sometimes. I am possessed of an intense desire to be understood, which is why I’m perpetually trying to explain myself over social media. At the same time it may be better that people only think they understand me because the gulf between knowing and not stops fights from happening. If people can simply assume you agree with them about things its much easier to get by sometimes. Removing doubt can certainly cause as much conflict as it can potentially end. In any event this is only Thomas’s side of things. From Patricia’s perspective these things may not have seemed as confronting to her as they do to him. Up till now we’ve mostly only ever seen this affable, thoughtless, version of Patty. Thomas however has experienced a much greater range of her emotions.

Like many of the characters Patty is an amalgamation of people I’ve known. The one that lives in the core of her genesis was a very strange woman indeed, and much more prone to violence than Patty. If I were to tell you the real stories about her I wonder what you would think. I suspect you would see her as something of an unhinged bully. Thats certainly how it seemed to me when I first knew her. Over time though I began to understand that her actions were an extension of her trauma. Eventually I think she considered me a close friend. Certainly closer than I though of her, but then again it’s hard to say. Once I had proved myself as someone who would not abuse her she treated me in ways that I wouldn’t have treated someone who I would consider much closer to me. That eventually led to a misunderstanding that damaged what I haltingly call our friendship forever.

It has been well over 20 years since I’ve seen that woman. I’m not sure what I would do or say if I ran into her now. I’m not sure we would recognize each other. I’m not even sure if I lament the loss of the friendship or simply have nostalgic feelings about the uncertainties of a youthful connection. I can confidently say that she left several marks on me, some of them literally. I dont think I did the same to her. It is perhaps the casual way that Rulette treats things that Thomas assigns great importance that annoys him the most in his current day. Being treated flippantly is an affront when one person means more to one than the other.

I suppose that is where I need to end things for now. My surface has half a charge but I dont want to run it dry in case I need it later. I hope the weekend treats you well. On Monday i’ll return with more of this saga. Until then, ponder the orbs where the power is stored.

Update: Just so you don’t worry too much mom is okay. It was just the lingering issues from the surgery. It’s very unpleasant for her but not an immediate threat.

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Oh shizz goth/scene/emo Thomas?

Hmm nevermind, nose is different.

I’m pretty sure all of these are literally from Thomas’s perspective. Visually and mentally

…Have we seen that black haired dude before?

I don’t think so

Glad you mother is okay, Jackie. Wishing her a speedy recovery.

Decompress is for emotions/relaxing after a stressful time, and probably what you need right now…instead, maybe extended? Stretched out? Outspread? Expand? I hope this helps, genuinely not trying to be ass, accidentally or otherwise.

Decompress can also be used more literally to refer to the undoing of compression, which isn’t quite the opposite of compression as Jackie is trying to convey here. I believe dilated is the term. Compressed time is when you press a large sequence of events into a small period of time, while dilated time is when a small period of time is stretched into a larger period.

Granted, this series of flashbacks are representing a very large amount of recollection and consideration occurring in a brief period of time, so compressed would refer to the sequence from Thomas’s perspective, and then that moment of recollection is being dilated for us to show it over a much greater period of time. So from a certain perspective, decompression might be more accurate in this case than it otherwise might be. Still not quite the right word, but I’m not sure we necessarily have a better one given both compression and dilation are both occurring.

Trusting ones instincts and going with them is human. But what diferentiates humans from animals is that we are not slaves to our primal instincts, we are in controll of ourselves. Anyone unable to controll their urges should just be labeled as an dangerous animal and be put down.

Where’s the downvote button when you need it?

A bit drastic as a philosophy but I have to wonder whose urges hurt them.

“Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.” -Adolf Hitler.

Is this one here spouting nazi quotes just gonna stay? Is this supposed to be an environment that welcomes this sort of scum?

Seeing as he presented it in the context of an indictment of the sentiment expressed I don’t see why he should be unwelcome. I can see why you might find it unclear, but I understood the parallel he was attempting to draw. He’s been commenting for years never expressed support for national socialism. He was commenting in good faith as far as I could tell at the time & further comments bore that out.

Please ask for motivations, before making judgments, OK?

…Or- several of my family members + friends were NEARLY killed by the Nazi military, during WW2.
Some of these people, the Fs + Fs, are still alive.
I love + value these family people + friends.

….What do think my opinion of the Nazis is?

This sounds like something a Vulcan would say, if he had been wounded by an angry human at some point, twisting his own people’s beliefs.

This something a human says after seeing how some coddle and protect the animals dangerous to human beings.
My comment is not of cold logic, but pure disgust and hate towards the criminal elements of society and those who would protect them.
But unlike them I am not acting out of those primal urges, I can behave in civil society. We do have a right to voice our opinions, which are like assholes, everyone has one.

Oh. I see. I retract my Hitler quote. I wasn’t sure exactly how broad your- [these people deserve the death penalty] idea, was.

Such as- if a guy’s primal urges make him: eat 5 donuts today, or have an 8 hour date with his girlfriend, or see 6 hours of sci-fi films,…do those activities deserve the death penalty?

In my view- lots of people have their own perspectives on the death penalty. To me that is OK.
I misunderstood what you were saying.
I’m Sorry. My gaff. Cheers.

Thanks for the update to not worry too much about your mom, but definite best wishes in her direction.

Love the continuation of plot and thoughts and back story. The women in your life reminds me of mine, too

A) You’ve got the right work. Whatever the word might mean in general, in the comics field a short amount of time presented over many panels or pages is called “decompressed,” and it was indeed intended as a counter to old-fashioned comic book storytelling where days or months or even years would be compressed into a a few pages.

B) I think the black-haired guy MAY be a younger version of the creepy tall dude who’s one of the three “regulars” who never buy anything.

C) Glad your mom is doing better than you made us fear from your opening.

Out of curiosity, having never heard this before, I looked into it, and this does not appear to be correct at all. “Decompressed” is closer the opposite of what we’re seeing here, as it is when stories are very slow and drawn out, with single interactions taking entire pages o more. “Compressed” is a very new technique that is intended a counter to “decompressed” stories that became increasingly common over several decades, which deliberately tells stories extremely quickly. Neither of these technically have anything to do with the depiction of the passage of time, but if we wanted to apply the terms here, this would be “compressed” because we’re squeezing years worth of interactions into a few pages–if it were “decompressed,” it’d be the exact opposite, with each of these individual occurrences getting a page, or several pages, to flesh them all out.

Joel is named and seen here /comics1/2179-luscious-locks in Rulette’s presence.

One of Those Three Guys is here /comics1/93-for-great-justice.

You well could be right that these are the same guy.

You people are faceblind. I know my art isn’t that bad.

I do have some face-blindness. And your art is quite good.

I’m often surprised at how much people can endure before deciding to trash a friendship or not.

Even as a kid I was the type of person who would gladly drop anyone, friends or family, if they mistreated me or someone I know.

I am glad for it. My inner circle is fairly small but I trust each of those people with my life.

I had a middle school friendship that, in retrospect, wasn’t a friendship at all.

I was more than a bit oblivious at the time, but a couple of decades later realized some of the stuff in his room that was the same as mine … actually had been mine. The guy had been stealing from me, not a lot but still.

It was just outside the realm of possibility at the time so I never even considered theft, but afterwards his behavior fit together like in some heist movie. There was more than that too. What a douche.

Good to hear your mom’s well. That kind of thing is hard to deal with.

I see a handful of people talking about who the grumpy guy with the black hair is and my guess is it’s that one friend mentioned some time ago that we lost to suicide (I refuse to censor myself) its a shame I dont remember his name but I do remember him being described as gloomy but a great friend.

I join those who wish for your moms continued recovery.

She doesn’t look happy with the thought that Thomas might be gay in the last panel. another point for the headcanon that she had feelings for him.

Headcanon? She’s practically announced it.

Real

Will simply add enjoying the flashback/recall of it all, and even with your update hope your weekend goes more calmly for you all.

Over time, I have had to learn to explain myself less and less on social media.

When in a (political) disagreemnet I used to anticipate an opponent’s arguments and preemptively shoot them down. That got me accused of “mansplaining”. I never understood why until years later. I wasn’t treating that woman any differently than anybody else, male or female. so it never made sense.

Mansplaining has been and always will be a stupid excuse that people use when they’re wrong or they can’t explain themselves. Woman created the word for when she knows a subject but a man would explain it to her? Yeah, women do that to men all the time. Notice men don’t go around saying womansplaining. :p

Hoooohhhh boy Jackie, you had me really concerned there about your mom. Glad she’s doing alright. Secondly, this is an interesting look at Thomas. You say decompressed, I’d say unguarded or unobscured in a way. Thomas is very forward in how he feels at times, especially with our ever spectacular Miss Graves, but his character is also built upon a lot of development that we know bits of since they happened before the comic. Similar to the bits we know about Nina and others.

Last little bit, I and a good deal of your other readers are all appreciative of you being a workhorse about Between Failures, but, and I’ve said it before, please, if something actually important and concerning comes up, take some time to address it or handle it.

I’m glad that you and your Mom are doing OK, Jackie.
I’m hoping that good, future days are coming up for the both of you. Cheers.

A story beat here, Thomas liked Rulette, right? Because especially in a small town in the 80s/90s when they were kids, a girl you like asking if you are gay for expressing that you like her in the way that feels natural to you (Thomas’ poetic ass soul having him talk about her eyes and the slight difference in her hair and shirt and stuff) was DEVASTATING. Like, having been through the same thing at one point, I would have rather the girl just punch me in the face at the time. Not because I think anything is wrong with being gay, but it took me YEARS to feel like I wasn’t weird for wanting to share the things I like with the people I like.

I learned when I was very young that it was good to notice the little things about a girl – the colour of her eyes, whether she has pierced ears or not, etc. Unfortunately, it never did me a bit of good. Now that I’m older, I think it might rather have come across as a bit creepy.

Then again, it never got me accused of being gay, either. That’s a pretty big misunderstanding to just blurt out in a group of people (I presume they’re in the shop). If it was in public, that comment alone probably would have sabotaged any semblance of friendship I had with the accuser. Combined with all the crap her dad was always saying, and the friendship would have been absolutely torpedoed.

Lol, the object of your affections seemed to be more on the level of “love your huge honkers, baby!” and “great ass!”. You have to adapt the message to the recipient.

Patty’s comments about her dad remind me of a local business I used to support. The fellow, who has since retired, ran a business supporting my favorite hobby. He had a brick and mortar store and was an early adopter of internet sales and had a fairly strong online presence. He was skilled and knew his product. He was also a grouch and didn’t have much patience for people who didn’t follow the hobby in the traditional way. If it weren’t for the online sales the store probably wouldn’t have lasted long enough for him to retire. There were a few of us who could look past the grouchiness and in some cases even sympathize but he alienated most of the local hobbyists to the point that they would drive 150 miles rather than do business with him. Interestingly he didn’t see himself as grouchy and I doubt Patty’s dad did either.

Nice nod back to Rulette telling Ed that the comic store guys spent a lot of time not, uh, looking at her eyes. Thomas’ shyness and politeness set him apart it seems.

—

Grateful to hear about your mom.

3029 Speed Of Memory 2: Cruise Control.

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