I almost added another page of memories before this one, but decided to return to the present time because I feel like this was enough to illustrate enough of what they were going through at the time they were first friends. I’ve always made it a point to try and get readers of my work to think in more subtle tones than good or evil by way of making all the characters flawed. The hope has always been that it would foster deeper thinking about what other people are going through and what motivates them to become at odds with us, or us with them. Thomas has already expressed that he’s open to rekindling his friendship with Patty, but he’s someone who internalizes betrayal very deeply. Just jumping back into what they had isn’t easy for him. At the same time Patty forgives easily because she spent her whole childhood trying to rationalize her father’s flaws. She’s trained to find the good in people as a survival tactic. Additionally, she knows that she was in the wrong on some level in various situations. Not maliciously, or even consciously in some instances, but still not exactly on the moral high ground. Humans desperately want things to be yes or no, but a lot of the time things are kinda. She made mistakes. Without spelling it out I expect her goal wasn’t to ruin a friend group, she just didn’t realize the course she was on was going to end at that outcome. People don’t always deserve mercy, or sympathy, but in the vast majority of situations, in the course of everyday life, they do. You don’t have to render it up the second they’ve trespassed against you, but giving yourself even a few seconds to consider it is generally wise. I can sit here and try to explain it for hours and never be able to deconstruct every situation satisfactorily. Even the most mundane situations can be so infinitely complex that it would take years to fully lay out all the contributing factors. Sometimes you just have to make a call in the moment and I hope that my work makes a little room for grace in your calculations.
Just to be clear however, there are evils and harms that are inexcusable. I also hope that in the moment you will be able to recognize those as abhorrent. Even that is not always easy.

I guess I’ll leave it here for now. I should probably call attention to the Patreon, Subscribestar, Ko-Fi, and what have you, since I haven’t been doing that regularly for some time now. Since ads are functionally valueless now sustaining this story really does fall to the people who enjoy it. I hope there are more to find out in the world even if I’ m not sure how to do it. I found my document with the reviews I asked you for in the comments the other day. It seems like that happened a lifetime ago, but it was just before we found out about mom’s cancer. It hasn’t been that long, but it feels like month and months. I foolishly believed that things were going to start trending upwards right before that. I had a loose plan. Now I’m just holding things together. Still, holding things together is better than picking up the pieces. That’s something at least. I will return on Friday with more of my suboptimal saga. Until then, construct additional pylons.

36 Comments

Poor girl. It can be easy to bulldoze through what can’t easily be fixed, when you’re caught up in doing things your own way and damn the consequences… especially when that’s what you’ve been shown, and praised for, your whole life.

“You know how dad is.” There it is, the phrase so many use to justify the horrible actions of others, all you gotta do is substitute dad for anyone you want and it works. Patty really was in a bad situation, it was her dad after all, but I think she’s come to realize that excusing people bad actions, even if their family, is never the correct choice. It’s a hard lesson to take, to accept that making excuses just enables people like her dad to keep being assholes, but it’s one we all have to learn eventually. I wonder if she had a second chance, would she have stood up to her dad? Maybe kept hanging out with Thomas in secret? We may never know

Really, there’s nothing she could’ve done in that situation. It was her dad and she was at most, looking to be 18-19.

Try standing up to a parent at that point and you’re likely screwed. All you can do is say “You know how they are.”

And sadly, that goes for a lot of people who people excuse with “You know how they are.”

I can see that. :)

Nothing she could have done? Saying “you know how they are” is just another way of saying that you’re okay with their actions.

I know kids a lot younger than that who called one of their parents out. With some of them, the parent changed their ways. Some of them didn’t do any good. But they proved that they were worthy of respect even though their dad was an asshole.

And it could be she did at one point and learned it would do no good. After that, it’s “You know how they are”

Or even, she knows how her dad is, and knows what would happen if she did.

Just as easy for a parent to get physical if you call them out.

With a dad like that, usually one of two things happen to the kid–they become just like dad, or they get ground down. I had a friend with a dad like that, and I would just marvel as they would start shouting and cussing and banging things at each other, behavior that was completely alien to me, and I kept expecting them to throw fists. My friend was really nice, but he could fly off the handle, as he was raised. I also had a friend with a mom like this; my friend walked on eggshells and was just terrified of her. Neither of these are ideal behavior but trying to tell people to undo 18+ years of learned behavior at the drop of a hat, that’s not feasible. Furthermore, just because her dad is like that, doesn’t mean he’s a terrible person himself; best guess is that he loved his daughter, raised her, cared for her, provided for her, tried to push her to do what was best for herself. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t ALSO a jerk with a bad temper, but it doesn’t sound like he was the devil incarnate that she needed to run away from and cut out of her life forever. So from a moral perspective, he may have done wrong, but she also owes him immensely and throwing that in his face over a single mistake, I don’t know that that is more righteous. And from a practical perspective, she was probably broke, in a tiny 1-stop town in the middle of nowhere–going off on her own was technically possible, I’m sure, but not exactly an easy path to take without extremely good cause. You say this applies to alot of people, and sure, it CAN, but there is a world of difference between your parent/guardian who raised you and cared for you, and a distant relative or a neighbor or your boss.

Like Jackie said, alot goes into how we behave. I don’t think she was being that terrible, and maybe even the dad wasn’t being that terrible, just jumping to conclusions. What’s annoying is, to me, her current behavior; Jackie gives a reason, but it’s still extremely irksome to me when someone tries to basically dictate to another how long they are allowed to be hurt or mad, ESPECIALLY when it’s the person who did the wrong telling the person who suffered the wrong “Well, I am personally over hurting you, so why aren’t YOU over me hurting you?” as if that’s remotely the same. She really needs to stop trying to bargain with Thomas, like she can just convince him to stop feeling his feels, and instead just say, directly and sincerely, “I am sorry, I know I was wrong, but I want to make it up to you–please tell me what I can do to start making amends.”

As a kid, I had a friend who informed me in so many words that we couldn’t be friends anymore because ‘my dad doesn’t want me around black people. Sorry, you know how it is’.

I lost touch with him, I couldn’t tell you where he is now or what happened to said person. I just know that the memory has stuck with me two decades and change later. Why wouldn’t this stick to Thomas of even less time.

I believe it. My dad told me once, as a young teen who had never been on a date and was not even really that into girls yet, that if I ever date a black girl, don’t bring her around. He worked with black people, he had black friends, ones he would invite around to the house for birthday parties and even Christmas dinner with our family, yet he said this. Just came out of freaking nowhere, and I still don’t know if it was a broad anti-black sentiment or if he specifically had an issue with black women, but it’s stuck with me for decades as well as this surpreme “WTF dad!” moment. I doubt he even remembers it; people can never predict accurately what sort of statements or experiences will be forgotten by a kid, or live rent free in their heads forever.

You really can’t predict that. I have a vivid memory of my mom telling ~7 yo me in about ’98 “you’re lucky you have such broad shoulders – you’ll never need to wear shoulder pads” LOL. She has ZERO memory of saying this, yet it’s stuck in my brain forever.

I’m so curious to see where this goes, because so far I can understand why Thomas is so hurt. It really was a painful moment in his formative years. From Thomas’s perspective he stuck by Rulette through thick and thin, even staying after the dnd group imploded (seemingly from her actions), yet when he needed her the most she left him at the mercy of her dad rather then try to defend him. Now, whether she should have stood up to her dad or not is a different debate, but it doesn’t change the fact that she made excuses, told him to stay from the store, and then never tried to reach out for nearly 10 years. Not even after she took over the store did she go “hey, you can come back!” She told him much he got her, how much she liked him, but then never tried to patch things up until someone from his store came into hers. It was never up to Thomas to repair this situation, and maybe theirs context we’re missing, but this seems firmly on Rulettes shoulders to fix. Thomas’s only crime, is feeling betrayed, and choosing to keep his distance

I at first wanted to sigh at how she ended up, but reading the under-the-comic text made me pause. It took way too long for me to stand up to my parents. I can’t say I haven’t made similar bad calls.

Suboptimal sagas are the bread and breath of my life, and this one is among the few I look forward to every day.

I once had a friend like Patty, who ended our contact, and ended our friendship, in a similar way.

I can sort of see Thomas’ dilemma: [this person…Patty, who had treated me in really trashy ways…years ago, wants to be friends with me again? What is she thinking?
What is going on now?]

If a [past friend], like Patty, showed up at my door today, I’m not sure what I would say or do in that situation. I really don’t. Hm.

I really like this page!
When her D + D game goes wrong, in panel 2, Patty’s look is just heartbreaking. Wow!
Good show, Jackie! :D

I think I read somewhere else that she liked to mess with the guys and rile them up, that led to conflict between players. It’s not that the party was wiped out, my interpretation of the space in speech bubbles is that multiple players quit, the party had less people, then she dragged them into an encounter that killed the rest. Everyone else then bailed. The DM being the last to leave alongside Rulette and Thomas (who may have been the only two left in the party by the end since we don’t see the other guy).

I think you’re right.?

That’s supposed to be an! Stinking smartphones. ??

I’ll try that again – image a “!” symbol at the end of my 1st reply. Hang all smartphones. Ha!

To be fair I was responding to a guy like 3 comments down who also made a comment on the DND thing so you’re not the only one who messed up a little XD. The comment was still understandable though regardless.

*Snrrk*
Thanks, Xian! :D
I guess I’m “hitting nothing but homers”, today.
But, to be fair- I can pat myself on the back a little, today. I- made the bed, + ate three vanilla cookies, and operated a sprite bottle, without hurting myself, today. XD
Cheers. :D

“At the same time Patty forgives easily because she spent her whole childhood trying to rationalize her father’s flaws. She’s trained to find the good in people as a survival tactic.”

Fuuuuuuuuuuck

That hits deep.

I realized that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. I forgive so so easily. Stab me in the back? I’ll usually forgive you.

If you forgive your parents for shit for decades you just kind of get used to the idea that that’s how humans are. They’re not there for you, they hurt you sometimes, but it’s not their fault. After all humans are flawed and there’s no reason to hold it against them. If you’re too picky you’ll just end up cut off from any good that you can enjoy between the betrayals.

I think for me I unconsciously categorize everyone into two categories. Not trustworthy, and hasn’t proven untrustworthy yet. Even the people who prove untrustworthy I usually continue to keep around in my life. After all, no man is an island.

Despite being in therapy now and learning to finally set boundaries and no let people treat me like crap I still don’t really have a solution for this. I don’t know whether my upbringing causes me to gravitate to untrustworthy people, or if my standards are so high that everyone eventually proves untrustworthy. If you never get a baseline for how people are supposed to behave you end up having to learn all this stuff in your 30s or 40s (or even later)

I think to a certain extent, it’s better to be too forgiving than not forgiving enough. People CAN change, they DO change, and while it’s also important not to give people leverage to hurt you, if you live closed off, you will live a much smaller life.

I have the opposite opinion of the other individual; it’s better to have high standards. Part of the problem likely isn’t you attracting bad people, it’s that people are worse. Not that every person is a criminal, I don’t mean like that, but e.g. it’s absolutely shocking how many folks will date a cheater, or be friends with someone they know is cheating on their significant other, etc. Or people who are friends with folks who shoplift. What I’m getting at is that even people who don’t directly do these bad things are increasingly supporting it, deliberately or not, or at least tolerate it. Compare that to not even that long ago where someone engaging in this sort of behavior would be widely shamed and ostracized, either pushing them to do better, or just pushing them away, out of the lives of decent people so they can’t cause more issues. People CAN change, but typically it only happens if there is pressure to do so; when someone is being a selfish twit, yet all of their friends and family members support or at least tolerate this behavior, they have no incentive to improve, which then leads to more and more people going “Why should I put in the work to be a good, honest person, when I could instead just do what I want, when I want, without much downside?” It’s better to set boundaries, have standards, and end up with a small group of friends and family members you can trust with your life, than have lots of…social contacts, let us call them, whom you can’t really trust and eventually stab you in the back, leading a roller coaster life of ups and downs, goodtimes and betrayals.

Can I just say, these flashback pages are some of your finest work. This is the type of writing that I love your comic so much! The constantly changing end evolving style of Rulette also works really well here. Hats off!

This is some seriously good writing, here. Thanks, Jackie.

….well damn. All these memory panels are a great way to explain their relationship. GG my dude, GG.

What pitgamer said. That last panel was a punch in the gut.

I’m a little confused by the DND thing… She was a pc, she was a rules lawyer, the party got wiped and then everyone including the DM quit?

If a DND group just rage quit everytime a tpk happened nobody would ever play the game. Sounds almost like a really immature group all around and she probably shouldn’t shoulder the whole responsibility

There’s a lot of guesswork, but I don’t think it’s a TPK where everyone died all at once, technically, so much as a compounding effect.

Rules lawyers are sometimes useful, but they are also frustrating at the same time – many know the ins and outs, and now how to break the system. Mature ones know when to stay quiet for the rule of cool, but most which derive the moniker are somewhat immature and power gaming, at least in my two decades of DMing.

In older D&D games, you didn’t always get experience from “killing monsters” or “survivng encounters”, but rather by how much loot you could bring back. This did not preclude, of course, your killed party members.

Rulette could have easily been a PVPer who specialized in punching through specific defenses and ruled her way out of narrative consequences, leading to a member or two to quit – before going higher and harder. Perhaps killing a god crucial for the plot for the sake of an item, or sacrificing a player for a power boost without their consent, or even being the winner of a PVP melee where she basically got the right dice to ‘beat’ the players, causing the group to give up and move on, all because of “what her character would do”.

There is a lot of things this could be, but from the context and knowledge of older systems, it probably came from exasperation of having to deal with someone who knew how to exploit a system and steal a spotlight, before everyone got shafted.

I had a player once I played with who legit would roll a D20 and usually wind up with 17-20 on the dice every time. This led him to being exceptionally cocky, taking on fights he probably couldn’t have won. Naturally the party ‘stuck together’, but couldn’t keep pace with the difficulty spikes. Many died along the way – especially when his luck suddenly would roll 1s and 2s for a hot half hour. Suddenly, the entire party is dead because he decided to provoke the entire palace guard and incriminate all of us into it, and the GM was inexperienced enough, or biased enough, to let it happen. Over and over. It’s not always fun in a situation like that.

What I’m getting at is a single TPK rarely causes party rage quit – usually the TPK is the ingition point of an explosion, not the wick that’s been burning for a while that led up to it. Rulette’s headstrong nature and boldness were, in the words of Top Gun, letting her “Ego write checks her body couldn’t cash”. Or at least, she wasn’t wise enough to know how to dig herself out of the trouble she made for herself.

It sounded to me more like it wasn’t so much a party wipe as it was she just drove everyone away. Either they just up and left the game, or they intentionally allowed their character to die and *then* left the game. And it usually takes quite an effort to make the DM quit the game.

If we read the second panel fairly literally, it comes across, to me, as saying “Great, you got whatever it is you wanted, killing half the team and pissing off everyone else in the process, destroying the entire game. But you ‘won,’ and I hope that was worth it.”

Also, rules goblins can be annoying, in almost any sort of game. If it’s a strict competition, sure, fine, that’s kinda required to keep it fair. But in anything else? Rules are more like guidelines–they are there to facilitate the fun, but if and when some rule actually does the opposite and makes people miserable, it’s okay to bend it back to continue facilitating the fun. Main healer technically should get turned to stone and everyone else forgot to prepare for this sort of situation? Maybe fudge it a bit so the party can get out and prepare properly this time, instead of forcing them into a death spiral because “teh rulez.”

“Humans desperately want things to be yes or no, but a lot of the time things are kinda… People don’t always deserve mercy, or sympathy, but in the vast majority of situations, in the course of everyday life, they do.”

This is one of the reasons that the Bible’s standard of behavior for love (1 Cor. 13:4-7) includes “…[love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” In other words, give them all the rope they need to either hang themselves or pull themselves out of the pit. And be there to help and support the positive outcome.

This is not something that humans can do consistently enough to make a difference. That’s why we need God’s supernatural power, through His Holy Spirit living in us, to be a true Christian that displays His love all (or nearly all) the time.

Well said.

Jesus, Jackie. These last three panels have been incredibly well done. Not like, shift in the art style well done, but more like, the story got so effing real well done. Watching Rulette’s past way of ruining her own life is so real that it’s crazy. I know people, il people, that are EXACTLY like that, and I personally do the thing of forgiving too easily. Good work.

In my view:
the extreme sadness that Patty is feeling is very easy to pick up on. It can be deeply seen + felt.

I think she just realized…on that day, by running her d + d character, in an overbearing way- that she just…accidentally…and without realizing that it might happen- shut down her d + d group/a group of her friends, and drove them all away from her.
That…must…really hurt.

I remember being about Patty’s age, maybe about 18 or 20[?]- I was just out of high school + thought I was: invincible, [+ one of the best guys out there], and was going to just make goals + would never fail…then…in my words- while using that point of view, + wrecked one of my first jobs out of school, + ended up losing that job, + getting verbally bashed by many of the bosses of that company, for losing that job.

I’m not trying to pass moral judgments on me or the people involved, but I feel that I know what it’s like to go through an experience of: being fresh out of school, + be over confident, + then totally trash a situation by mistake, and then feel really ashamed + sad after going through that event.

It’s just my opinion- maybe her d + d friends warned her…for years upon years, [not] to “act all rock star”, in the d + d game, but she did it anyway.

To me: she deserves some sympathy.
Geez, I’ve been reading a lot of philosophy today, but I would like to say- I feel she needs some sympathy…or at least her 18-year-old self…needs some sympathy, after this event.

To me- she totally wrecked the 1940s…prototype-fighter plane of D + D friendship…and rubbed everyone the wrong way, but I don’t believe that she had intended to do that, in her d + d group.

That is how I see it, anyhow.

I think-, “She meant well, but faired ill”, as some people like to say.
Thus endeth the soapbox speech.

3031 Speed Of Memory 4: Age Of Apocalypse.

36 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply