3518 Alone With His Thoughts
And we’re back! WHEW!
Sorry about the scare gang, Ole’ YAFGC’s apparently been giving the Dreamhost servers a bit of a workout apparently, but they discovered that Cloudflare was already installed on the site and…. they reactivated us. It took me a little while to get their attention as I had trouble logging in to my Dreamhost account and then trying to find time between dayjob and nightjob to address the issue…
Anyway, we’re back and I’ll upload new strips as soon as I can (I’m typing from my latop during a lunch break in my cubicle riding on the guest wifi from the Subway’s restaurant next door!).
Thanks for sticking with us and here we GO!
-Rich “Beholder King” Morris
BTW: Anyone out there know how to edit WordPress themes? The one I’m using is starting to… decay, I think, hence the mysterious broken jpg at the top of the home screen and the weird reorganized chapters in the archives, among other issues. I’m going to keep struggling with it when I can, but if anyone has any insights, do please let me know.
UPDATE June 14, 2022
Hey. Still here. Still wiped. I’m carrying a little folder around with the next strip in it, all roughed out, waiting for a chance to clean it an scan it. I’ve just been way too busy with my two jobs. I’m still alive, still okay. Just… double employed and forseeably so until September. I’ll get strips done when I can, but it’s a struggle for the moment, so please bear with me. You’re awesome!
-Rich “BK” Morris
"GUILT!" – Gonzo the Great
A classic love-murdering-accident thread?
Or maybe he’s just mourning.
Or maybe his love is the murderer, and he just got the feeling, that the royal investigators will discover the truth, and he won’t be able to save her (assuming it was one of the players)…
More than meets the eye –Optimus 😉
Hello Aunt Alycia. – Bub
It is guilt, but not necessarily the guilt of being the one to have done the deed. It is also still possibly the guilty feeling that he did not do enough, that people are dead because he was naïve. Or the guilt of suspecting who the killer is, or killers are.
It is an unfortunate truth that though Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes can find the truth, it’s the evidence that really matters. That is why coppers are so fixated on getting all the evidence they can.
I will tell you more after the evening meal and dessert, because the proof is in the pudding.
I hope the pudding wasn’t made by Brother Yeecch.
I hope the pudding wasn’t made for Brother Yeecch.
That too.
He’s just watched his dear friend of many years get worked over as a corpse. There’s more to it than just guilt.
t!
That was what I meant, that seeing a dear friend like that awakes the question: "what could I have done better? How did I fail her?" That sense of loss can arguably be like guilt in its appearance.
No pun, but I think you shouldplay the game Gris. A wonder interpretation of going through grief, as the stages of the game represent a girl coping with her world having suffered a great tragedy.
> That sense of loss can arguably be like guilt in its appearance.
That’s a fair, sensitive point. Certainly we can place some of what happened upon his eagerness for an avant-garde instrument overriding the need to think the logistics through.
Also, as he’s admitted (if we believe him), he’s been repressing the loss, too.
I’ve heard good things about Gris. A Creative Director once told me that VGs are often about literalising metaphor, and it’s amazing how often in dev discussions I realise we’re sliding inevitably into doing exactly that.
t!
Perhaps Taurenil meant more to him than he’s letting on.
Is that an Ace of Spade on his bed’s headboard?
Oh, nice catch, I didn’t notice there was a card there! …but I don’t know, that doesn’t look like a Spade to me. More like a… club?
Me: takes care to write "Spade" starting with an uppercase letter.
Also me: totally forgets to do the same for "Club". Burghurgh.
The real question is, does that make him Spade Ace? Taurenil certainly seems like she was his Heart Queen.
Ah love…at first it’s all hearts and diamonds then after a few years, all you want is a club and a spade…
Glad to see the site’s back up and nobody grabbed the domain name.
Is he rubbing Bernard’s chin?
That is insanely cute.
t!
Adorable! And i love the Bernard is present (although it makes me very curious if it was your idea and if plot-related and so more curious, or that of Rich. Either way i like the deeper characterization, and makes me miss my own mice.
On a depressing note, the obvious emotional upset shown in the last panel was eloquently done. I felt that resonate at first viewing, and feel it still.
Maula and Taurenil playing a very long game? (Well, long relative to Maula’s expected lifespan, not Taurenil’s.)
"Over a decade or so, I’ll establish a reputation for traveling with my private stash of pratroot. Then when you fake your death by pratroot poisoning, suspicion will naturally fall on me at first, and our enemies will leap at the opportunity to [redacted]."
Followed, perhaps, by someone not in on the plan acting on panic. "Oh no! Lady Maula took her revenge on Taurenil! Better for everyone if I make this look like yet another tragic harpsichord mishap…"
(And then yet someone ELSE needing a post-mortem sample of world-class card sharp brain tissue for their revolutionary gaming golem, Deep Gnu?)
Oh, I’m so glad you’re back!! I was getting worried, with that blank page showing …
Yes, i was worried (until a point. This happens before and you ever returns. The scariest is some day you couldn`t)
It was part of the story. The investigation is getting closer and the killer is getting desperate!
Yeah, I thought that the domain was repossessed or something, with the domain name seller company having their stuff up on it.
"riding on the guest wifi from the Subway’s restaurant next door!"
I’ve always wanted to do something like that.
Agreed. The first day or so wasn’t worried, but as time passed… anyway, glad to see things are back.
Yeah. I wasn’t worried since I saw another comic with a site on WordPress (Modest Medusa) briefly disappear a couple days prior to YAFGC, but then it was taking a while for YAFGC to come back…
Whooo, that was a scare. Dang hosting company being all pokey and proddy trying to resell… bleh.
Well this is a tough spot for the brother monk, and "I" think it could be a whole range of sources of pain. I think Baron Baz is involved… XD
Did he just realize who really did it and feels terrible about it?
I think the Abbott pushed the pin through what he thought was a dead Taurenil, not realizing he was killing her.
Intriguing theory… How come?
In my theory, probably to protect some Abbey secret – that it was aiding the cheating, or that one of the prize artifact was more than it seemed, or something like that. They might still ask a dead body questions when it was moved out of the anti-magic field.
Feels a bit cheat-y, though. Relies on some speculation that dead bodies can be interrogated, when that’s been called into doubt with the no-bringing-Taurenil-back business.
You’re back!!!
Phew! I’m been doing Yet Another Reread when it suddenly "died" between pages. I’ve been obsessively reloading the page since then. 😀
Add another to the Glad-You’re-Back Chorus. I was wigged out when I saw the "For Sale" sign up.
We had a huge windstorm tear through earlier this week (in Ontario here) and had a few days without power, I was checking out one of my favourite webcomics to see if there was anything new–and saw THAT.
Glad it’s fixed!
You
Gah! Please ignore the You at the bottom. It was a typo from an earlier sentence I thought I deleted. Would edit it if I could.
Is Word Press crumbling the reason the old forums are borked? You can’t even read old threads because the system can’t look up the text and serves up blank posts instead.
And yet Spambots can still register.
We’ve seen the site go haywire before, so I wasn’t ready to panic, but it’s good to have you back, Rich.
Another thought on Abbot Heigh’s behavior: the last thing said to him before he went off to seek solitude was Captain Carruthers calling him out for withholding information on Taurenil and her family. In the last panel, are we seeing a man who knows that there are yet more things Carruthers ought to know about Taurenil, but who really, REALLY doesn’t want to sully his friend’s legacy?
If so, the Laws of Narrative place him in a perilous spot right now. Alone, with most of the suspects in unknown locations, and quite possibly about to make that tough decision to share what he knows…
I saw a "Please upload your content" message since Monday. I have changed web hosts before, and seen similar messages, but usually just for an hour or so, not several days. Then my thinking got to "I hope his backups are intact, ’cause there is a LOT of content to recover." Glad to see everything is back again.
Are those letters on the abbot’s pillowcases, or just fold lines?
More importantly, why does a single Abbot have two sets of pillows in his bed and are those creases where heads were resting…on both of them ?
I had faith you’d return.
This storyline has been really interesting so far. I still have no idea who might have really done it but it;s a good ride along the way to finding out!
Considering we haven’t really met the suspects yet (essentially, we’re just past the point where the detective arrives, is given a list of suspects and views the crime scene, so like four chapters into a typical Agatha Christie), we really have no way of figuring out who did it. After the interviews, well, then the speculation can start for reals.
What’s the record for longest commentary on a thread? I think we’re going to break it.
If I am remembering correctly, there was one strip which reached over 120 comments.
t!
Above 100…
I’m so looking forward to meeting the group of suspects, but t!’s making us wait to go talk to Maula first. WAH!!! Jk, just as intrigued, and who knows what clues will be… I can’t say revealed necessarily, but introduced 🙂
Can’t complain about any scene which gives us more Maula!
Has anyone questioned Bernard yet? Where exactly was he at the time of the murder? He’s been quiet as a church (abby) mouse this whole time!
Well, he’s deaf, so he wouldn’t <i>hear</i> the questions…
Is everything okay? You said you’d upload as soon as you can, but it’s been a while now. Not such a long while, of course, but I’m starting to get worried again.
Yeah, you are not alone. I keep checking in.
*sees update to the strip description above* So ignore long pauses and don’t worry until after September, got it! Better too much work than not enough. Glad things are going well for you Rich, other than being hectic!
** Sees June 14 update **
Thanks for checking in, Rich! Glad to know everything’s going well (if busy as hells), and we’ll look forward to hearing from you when you get a chance. Put yourself and the family first, though!
Best regards and gratitude,
– all of us
I second that.
Just pop by when you can and feel like it – either to update, or like just now, we will be here. As always. :).
Numerous studies have shown that once an artist starves to death,the production of new pages tapers off dramatically.
You need to take care of you first, we’ll keep coming back regardless and when it’s time for new work to appear, we’ll be here waiting patiently.
No worries, Rich, just glad to hear all’s well. Take care of yourself first, and don’t worry. We’ll be here. Wishing you and the family all the best.
As long as you’re okay, we’re okay. Cheering you on!
So, Sibling Reeeaaaawwwwen "Re’en" – Is he a doppleganger? He looks a bit like the doppleganger named "Pandora’s Actor" in "Overlord" in his natural form.