An Open Letter to TGRR

[Doktor Howl]

Dear Roger,

You've been gone a while.  Maybe sulking, maybe dead, hard to say.  Either way, I'm better off without you.  You were, in medical terms, a schmuck.  You were always so damned eager to make friends, and you never were invited.  To anything.  People just didn't care if you were around, and that bugged you worse than if they outright hated you. You were a cypher.  Ranting your guts up is fun, but it's not a personality.

Me, I can take people or leave them.  You should try that, assuming of course that you're not pushing up daisies.  I mean, everyone left you.  Not in a cloud of anger or hatred (for the most part), just disinterest.  It's been that way since you were a kid.  Always picked last for sports, that sort of thing. 

You always had this idea that you could help people.  Like you were some kind of "savior," though you couldn't even help yourself.  The only time you were worth a shit was at that chaotic Goddamn chemical plant, and only because you knew how to make things work with minimal craters.  But when you left, you weren't really missed, were you?

No, you weren't.  And the reason you weren't is the same reason you crashed and burned here.  It was your huge Goddamn validation addiction.  You got online and suddenly you got to be the center of attention...At least until people met you in the real world.  Then you sort of faded into the background, just like you always have.  A ghost.  Someone people used to know.  Just a face in the crowd. Another Tucson loser, who loses not because of failures, but just because you weren't meant to win..  "Not invited" is in your DNA, stupid old man.

Here on the other side of the looking glass, things are doing nicely.  I've been really indulging myself doing great things for bad people.  Things that might actually negatively affect our species survival.  Fuck those humans you value so much (your rants not withstanding).  They are almost universally balls of shit, and the ones that aren't are just collateral damage.

You never learned, did you?  You never understood that if you can't be a hero - and you can't - then be a villain.  It occurs to me that your aborted series Life During Wartime had a profound affect on me.  So there's that.

In closing, you miserable little fragment of a person, let me just say that I hope someone remembered to put a stake through your heart before they buried you in whatever landfill was available.

Love,
Doktor Howl

[Pergamos]

I certainly enjoyed meeting Roger on the other side of the screen.  Hearing the actual laugh added context, made the online absurdity that much deeper, richer.  I haven't been very good at keeping up any sort of connection, but I've watched exciting adventures with companies that might end the world, or just make it considerably worse, and I definitely wish him the best.