The History of That's Your Problem!

Hey! I told you that I'd be back! I'm sure you're ready to get right back into the wonderful place we like to call: That's Your Problem!!

                           

Fair enough. Regardless, I figured that since I'm going to try and boot this thing back up, that I'd be able to give you all a little history lesson on this blog.

Yeah, I know, it was around for like two years at best, rarely posted, and then died until like three days ago. That's not exactly what I meant. We're going back in time, to see where the name 'That's Your Problem' came to be, and how it all led up to a disappointingly neglected blog. So hold on to your comfy computer chairs; because it's.... gonna be a regular boring story that you probably don't actually care about. But, as usual, check the title of the blog, and get back to us. If I say you're gonna get a history lesson, then by god you're going to get one. Deal. Nerds.

Our lesson takes us back to the mysterious and dangerous time of 2003. Where the internet was rude, vile, and able to call people names without fear of retribution. Once upon a time, there was a website called BlackHole Chronicles (I promise that searching for it won't result in anything). It was a page where a few friends and myself (who all met online, mind you) posted our shitty webcomics. Boy do I mean shitty. Like, I don't have leftover examples, but I can give you two terrifying, mind-numbing words on the medium: Anyone squeamish should stop reading now.

Are you ready?

I don't think you are.

No one is ever truly ready for this horror.

You asked for it.

SPRITE COMICS.

I'm sorry.

Wait, what? You don't know what that means? What? No, it's not comics about the delicious refreshing taste of Sprite soda (I'm not getting paid to say that, but Coca-Cola, I totally could be. Just saying.) Sprite comics are webcomics that are comprised of copy-pasted character sprites from old 2-D video games (Sonic the Hedgehog being the prime example). For the most part, they're awful. comics by people who don't have the ability to draw or enlist artists to bring their stories to life. There are a few exceptions, Bob and George and 8-bit Theater come to mind.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. All of us made shitty sprite comics. There were five of us and all of our content was awful. The only redeeming factor (and I use that word loosely) was the fun we had on our forums with the few people who actually liked our stuff for some reason. You see, I was a big fan of the website Fireball20xl; the place run by Psyguy (a.k.a. Bryon Beaubien) and various friends of his (sound familiar?). Granted, Psyguy ended up being a horrible human being, but that's neither here nor there. I'm not about to get into an internet argument about that.

Regardless of the credibility of its owner, that website inspired me to pursue a career in the webcomic world. A short-lived one. I made a sprite comic, and not being creative (hey I was 15, cut me some slack), I took the name of a popular comic on that site named 'That's My Sonic' and warping it into something similar but completely different: That's Your Problem! It was exactly what you'd expect from a teenager; bad jokes and half-assed plots. I'd show you some examples of how bad this thing was back then, but all files on BlackHoleChronicles.com were lost in the devastating internet fires of '06 (a.k.a. the owner of our website stopped paying for hosting). We were all stupid teenagers; we never thought to back up our stuff. Be thankful.

Once BHC crashed and burned, we all pretty much went our separate ways. I keep in touch with a few people from back then, but not frequently. For example, TheHelpr is actually one of those guys from back then. He's also the only one I've met in person. Pretty cool guy. Weird, but at TYP, we all are. Tangent aside, I still wanted to pursue the idea of having a webcomic, and I had finally started being somewhat satisfied with my own drawing style. I made a few other things on the side, but TYP was always fresh in my mind. It was my central hub; whenever I wanted to make something short and funny with my various characters, I'd put it up on my deviantart (not linked because I don't want to shamelessly plug my own works) under the guise of That's Your Problem!.It stuck that way. Infrequent but always reflecting my thoughts and what I could pass as humor at the time.

What the actual fuck was wrong with me?

Eventually, I got the idea of blogging. I named my blog after TYP because I thought that I might ever upload my comics here. I was dead wrong. I ended up being wishy-washy and depressing for a bit, and left the blog at that.

Fast-forward a few years. I was in college and wanted to do something for fun when I had downtime. I went back to drawing, and, of course, TYP was the first that that I thought of. I was planning to reboot the whole thing and have real updates for this blog.

As you can see, that fell through as well.

Finally, I decided to make this a collaboration blog. Friends of mine would take turns posting whatever we wanted on a weekly schedule. That one can't go wrong, right? Right? Please, class, can anyone tell me how that turned out?

Now now, not all at once. One at a time.

How about you? Yeah you, the kid who looks disinterested and slumped over in their computer chair. Can you tell me?

Yeah, we fucked up.

Sorry.

But on that note, I'm at least back, and I'm never gonna leave you baby.

What? No! That's Your Problem! Not you. I'm talking to my creation. Creep.

So all in all, welcome back to That's Your Problem! Our goal here is to entertain you with whatever comes to mind at the time. We try not to censor ourselves here, so the page won't be for the faint of heart (at least not until we get a paycheck for it. You know what I'm talking about. Yeaaaaaah in it for the money baby~).

So look, I've said it before and I'll say it again. We want you to enjoy our content, but if anything here offends you, or upsets you...

Well...

Let me just direct you to that glorious title one more time.

~Arlon

Wew lad

Hey kids!

Oh you mean you aren't kids? What's that? You're just dust particles because of how inactive this blog has been?

Oh dear.

How embarrassing. Boy is my face red. Or pale considering I don't really get sunlight.

Yo, don't judge. That's not cool. How dare you!

View image | gettyimages.com

Aaaaanyway, welcome back to That's Your Problem! The blog where various contributors (a.k.a. probably just me) tell it like it is about pretty much whatever they want to. If you don't like it? Tough.

Still mad?

Let me point you to the title of this blog. Get it now?

Alright, cool.

I'm going to try to start updating this thing again, and probably get some other people in on it. At the very least, I'm going to try to get someone who actually knows what they're doing in on this. You know, something that we've never tried on here before. Crazy, I know. Either way, I'm going to give you at least one post per week.

But this isn't it, for the record. I'll post something with actual content later this week. I promise.

No wait! Come back! I have booze! Money! Candy!

Ok, I don't have any of that. Oh come on! Get back here!

Fine. I'll just come find you when I actually get something done. You didn't have to be so rude about it.

Jeez.

~Arlon the Enigma~

Another Day, Another Poem

This one's actually going to get published, supposedly. I think it's a lot more polished than Phoenix Bloom, but it doesn't have the same sort of high moments the other poem does. Anyway, here you go:

Pause Painting

JS Harlow

When my mom was not yet full

With me my grandma had a painting

Of her made, so everyone she knew

Would know that she'd had a daughter

Of beauty. I never saw it. A psychic

Came to my grandma's house

On its big hill and saw that painting

In the foyer. And she said, "That woman

Right there that I see is pregnant with a

Little boy." And maybe she had known

Somehow, but I doubt it.

I think there was a power there cause, you see, because

The next thing she said was talking about me.

"He'll be tall," she said, and I am, and more--

"He'll be a man who sees through windows

With great big moon eyes and a hitch in

His step.

"He'll be a fool," she said--I am, "and he'll

Start in on those fixes on his walks

And never stop till he's fixed himself.

"He'll have beef jerky muscles in his withered arms

And tracks running up and down his thighs. He'll

Run up and down them night and day and listen, too."

My grandma said no thing to her. You don't entertain

A guest and then let her out. They had a shot of whiskey

Each with the other of them and my grandma was listening

The while. "He'll find a lady," the psychic said. "Crash right

In to her. Left. He'll nearly shake her teeth out

And he'll be tall and a damned sight more handsome than

Any man ought to be. And he'll smile and she'll be butter in his hands.

"There'll be a little girl," she said--and there was, "and all that time

He'll be running up and down those tracks and listening, listen.

And that little girl, I don't know what she'll be,

And I don't know the lady but you better watch out

For that little boy cause, because, he'll be

Just like you." My grandma let the psychic out

And put a mirror up in the foyer the very next day.

It stayed there till I was five years old

And in it I'd see black welshes out the window, baaing

On the hill, and, no matter how many times I tried,

I could never hear the damn things.

----------

Look forward to the next installment of Silver and Gold next Thursday!

Silver and Gold, Chapter 1, Pt. 3: Trapped Matron

See above. Hope you guys enjoy!

Silver and Gold Chapter 1, Pt. 3: Trapped Matron

"You violent, stubborn child."

Things were black for a second after Reah opened her eyes. Her head was swimming. What had happened? Her vision cleared. Reah was in the infirmary, apparently. She didn't know anywhere else in the world with a ceiling made of blackened glass.

The Convent of the Sisters of the Frozen Blood was a behemoth: a unified mass of brick and tinted glass rising above the squat, sod slope-roofed homes and stores in the village below. In opposition to the manor of the fulke estates on the hill directly across from it and the cemetary hill at the far eastern edge of town. It had originally been composed of separate buildings, each with their own purpose. Those buildings had grown together over the millenia that the Convent had existed, however, and, like barnacles heaped by tides on rocks, it was now impossible to tell the parts from the mass.

The convent had been built as a prison, originally: a place where The King could store women of the noble chaste who had stood against him in his conquest of the nations which would become the Gehennan empire. He turned these ladies of nobility to vampirism by his own hand—a gift he otherwise deigned to give only to his four chosen—and bound them to eternal confinement in the Convent's walls. The King was nothing if not cruel in his justice: those first dozen Sisters of the Frozen Blood had had ample opportunity over the three millenia since their turning to dwell on their mistakes.

Over the years, however, the purpose of the Sisters' prison had changed. The life of a Highblood vampire was not an easy one. Many a Gehennan noblewoman turned by one of The King’s four chosen overlords--his Hands--or by the products of their turnings, the Highblood lords of Gehenna, had chosen a life of contemplation over that of death and intrigue in the halls of The King’s great capital, Gaterau. As the population of the Convent of the Sisters of the Frozen Blood had swollen, the buildings on the promontory just west of Fulkton Gardens had grown to suit their population’s needs.

The Orphan Annex was one of the newer additions to the convent. Housing at any one time one hundred or more orphans of mixed ages and genders taken from across the nation of Gehenna, it served not only as a symbol of good will between the vampiric Sisters and their human neighbors, but also as a mercy to the Sisters themselves: providing them with a distraction from their eternity trapped within the convent’s walls.

Sister Meri had been one of the original sisters of the convent. Reah did not know the story of the vampire's early life. She thought that only Meri knew that story, now. The woman was mistress of the convent infirmary. She had been the first sister to know Reah. She had treated her after the fire which had nearly killed her. She seemed to actually care for her. Reah had not wanted to see her today.

Reah was lying on something soft: one of the infirmary's beds. She was not under the covers, though. She must have been unconscious for only a short time. She tried to rise. A white hand with long, sharp fingers pressed her down onto the mattress.

"You are not ready to be up yet. Stubborn."

Reah's eyes followed the hand up to the tight black sleeve which met it at its base. She followed the sleeve up and past the sharp outline of the shoulder it led into: up the long, soft white neck beyond it and past the pursed lips hiding the shark smile which did not belong under the kind gray eyes of the strawberry blonde matron of the convent's infirmary. Reah felt red on the base of her neck and averted her eyes.

"I'm fine, Sister."

"You should know better, Reah." A hand was on her chin. It tilted her head on her pillow to look back in the direction of the woman admonishing her. "After two weeks ago. Your birthday is coming."

I know, Reah thought, I can't get into any more trouble.

Reah's mother had never shared the birth date of her daughter. But Meri had given the girl a date and time to celebrate. Reah supposed it had been in an effort to cheer her up during her first months in the convent. She could not remember back that far. Reah was fourteen now, or fifteen. She didn't know. And her birthday was three weeks away.

Fifteen was the age of adulthood in the Convent of the Sisters of the Frozen Blood. If Reah proved her maturity then she would be allowed to decide to leave. If she did not...

I won't be dragged back here again.

"I'm sorry, sister," she said. She was.

"That Breeden boy knocked your head into the floor. He's not allowed here again. You! Do you know what you did to poor Jocelin?"

Reah sat up, guilt and caution forgotten. She barred her teeth, staring into Sister Meri's eyes.

"I don't care."

The woman blinked, and then opened her mouth. She started laughing. It was beautiful laughter--joyful--but it showed all her rows of teeth. Reah ignored it. She rubbed the back of her neck.

"Sorry."

"Ha! I'll bet you are, girl."

Reah rose on shaky feet.

"Is church over?"

"No such luck for you. There is still half an hour's waiting for that."

Reah grimaced. There was no way she could pick flowers for her mother and still manage to get to church on time. Not if she still had to make it to her room. She took a few steps towards the door.

***

She opened her eyes. Meri was looking down at her, worried.

"What...?"

"You fell again. It did not take much effort to revive you, but I do not like this, Reah, you had just recovered--what have you been doing to yourself these past weeks?"

Reah sat up again. Carefully. She'd take things slower this time.

"Nothing," She said. Sister Meri was looking at her still. She hated to see the woman when she was like this. "I've been having trouble eating."

"Boys?"

Reah blushed. "No, no. Nothing like that. I just haven't been able to eat everything I want."

Meri turned away from her and there was momentary silence.

"Ah," the matron said.

Reah had run away from the orphanage nearly two months ago, into the woods. That had proven a stupid decision, on her part. The girl could barely even remember, now, why she had fled in the first place. She had come back, almost starved, two weeks before, and, though she was now recovered, Reah knew that she had come back a different person than when she had left.

Reah had come back to the orphanage half-starved. She had never weighed enough to begin with. She couldn't afford to lose any weight. And yet, since her return, she had barely been able to eat at all. The only thing that she could stomach was mutton and beef and chicken: animal flesh. She had used to love vegetables. She'd vomited the day before when she'd tried to force a piece of cabage down her throat.

It was more than the food or the weight loss, though: she'd been feeling tense. Her mind and her gaze was constantly straying beyond the convent's walls and she had been having trouble keeping her thoughts at hand.

And her eyes. They worried her the most: they were changing. There was a mirror along the wall opposite of Sister Meri circled in peeling, white painted iron flowers. Reah snuck a glance. Yes, right there, on the edges of her irises:

Flecks of gold.

"You will not be going to church today, Reah. I want you on bed rest."

Reah started, then turned around.

"No," she said. "The black fall lilies have just bloomed, Sister. I've never skipped them before."

"Oh? And have you collected these flowers already?"

Reah shook her head, but she didn't drop the subject. "I'll pick them after church."

"You have chores after church, Reah."

"I've never missed giving the first bloom before, Meri!"

Sister Meri did not reply for a second. She had turned back around and was regarding Reah. Judging her, she guessed. She had to understand! If she didn't understand...

"Very well. You will make it to church on time?"

The vampire's stare did not leave her. There was no way that Reah could make it to church at all, not if she went out deep enough into the woods to find the secret places where her mother's black fall lilies grew. Reah knew Meri knew that.

"Yes, sister."

"Very well. Be on your way, girl."

"Sister Meri, I..." Reah stopped. It didn't matter, anyway.

In three weeks Reah would be leaving Fulkton Gardens. There was nothing north of the town but wasteland and barbarians, but south...

She would say goodbye to Sister Meri.

But first she would see her mother.

"Stay out of trouble," the woman said. Reah departed.

5 minutes of me watching planet's funniest animals.

AW FUCK
GONNA WATCH THE PLANET'S FUNNIEST ANIMALS
SEASON 9
EPISODE 1
HAHAHAHAHAH
THAT CAT ISIN A HAMMOCK
AND THAT DOG IS ROCKING IT BACK AND FORTH
OH FUCK
THE HAMMOCK FELL
FUCKING ANIMALS HAHAHHAHAHAH
HAHA OH WOW
THAT BEAR IS SNEEZING LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER.
A FISH IN A GIANT FISH? ITS LIKE THE FISH ATE THAT CAT.
PFFFT. HAHAH CATFISH.
HAHHAHAH OH WOW
A RABBIT
IN A BIRD CAGE
RABBITS DONT BELONG IN THERE
YOU SILLY RABBIT.
cute duckies!
OH FUCK, THAT KID IS BEING CHASED BY A DUCK. SOMEONE DO SOMETHING.
TURTLES ARE FUCKING AWESOME. LOL. THAT TURTLE IS IN A RUSH, BUT THAT'S SILLY, IT'S A TURTLE. TURTLES RARELY HAVE ANYHWERE GOOD TO GO.

P.S absinthe is some hard shit.

HAHA HA ha haha...ha

My bad. Forgot to post yesterday. Alcohol was involved, get off of me.

'That's what she said!'

...Oh fuck off.

Dislike Button

Where is it? I think Mark's really slacking here not putting it in. We have the like button which is all great and anything, but if you use the internet often you know that the internet doesn't thrive off liking other people's stuff and agreeing with them. It needs hate and arguing and trolling and lots of it.

And we could have it on the book easily. It's like one copy paste job and and changing a plus sign to a minus. Think of the possibilities.

You know that guy/girl who constantly feels the need to update their Facebook status with the dumbest shit ever? "Just poured a glass of milk!" "Douchebag McGee is watching TV for the next 2 hours." Yeah, fuck them. With the dislike button, it'd be a 1 second task to show that idiot how stupid his post is. Maybe he brushes off 1 dislike as just some angry guy, but after 6 or 7 or more dislikes on his post he gets the point that no one gives a shit that he just let his dog out to take a piss for the third time that day. And there's no greater feeling than seeing an idiot slowly come to terms with the fact that he's a failure at life.

And we could go even further with it too. A lot of forums (ipb 3+ for instance) have a rep system where you can "+1" (like) or "-1" (dislike) a post. And the total rep you've received for your posts is stored and is viewable by everyone.

Think about introducing that shit to Facebook. It encourages people to make status posts, thereby increasing activity and it'd be insanely fun. If you're an idiot with a poorly informed opinion on things? You either are scared out of posting (for fear of negative rep) which is great because then we don't have to read that shit or you go ahead and post and we constantly negative rep you. If you make a smart observation or funny post or something like that, you get rewarded for it as people +1 you.

And then you have a leaderboard showing the largest negative rep (best trolls or most hated people) and the best rep. That'd be sick. People who make shitty posts get made to look like idiots with the negative rep, and others are rewarded for smart posts.

Plus, imagine how much stupid drama would go on on facebook between "friends." It'd be awesome. Nonstop arguments and people getting pissed off about their rep. What's better than that?

Do it Zuckerberg.

~Ben~