Page delay and explanation for what's been going on (extreme content warning) (Patreon)

Sorry, everyone. We'll be skipping another update tonight. I hate to do this so many times consecutively, but we just haven't been at our computers enough to make comics. Considering how much this has been affecting our work, I think it's only right that we give you some details about what's been going on with us. It's not fair to keep you in the dark, and to be honest with you, it's been extremely difficult keeping this to ourselves. At the same time though, the subject matter is extremely heavy. If you want a tl;dr, then things are pretty grim for us right now but we're getting through it. If you want more details however, please allow us a bit of a therapy session as we talk about it.

The below text will have mentions of suicide, drug abuse, and sexual assault. Please don't feel obligated to read if this is too much.

First, I have to apologize. I had previously mentioned that there was a death in the family. That wasn't true, but we needed to give some explanation as to why we were delayed and we couldn't really bring ourselves to write at the time about what had actually transpired. I imagine you'll understand why.

Two weeks ago, our first delay, Leslie and I received a panicked phone call from Leslie's mom. Leslie's dad was attempting to commit suicide. We rushed over immediately, talked to him, and was able to take his guns away from him. We found out the reason for this attempt from him - Leslie's older sister was threatening to press charges against him for child sexual assault. Leslie's sister is a known drug abuser, and Leslie's dad has been nothing but an upstanding person as long as we've known him. We were inclined to believe him at the time.

Leslie and I stepped outside for a moment to collect our thoughts. At that time, Leslie's mother arrived. We told her about the alleged sexual abuse... and she confirmed it was true. Leslie's dad repeatedly molested Leslie's older sister between the ages of 6-10. And Leslie's mom defended these actions.

We left shortly after. As we tried to process what just happened, Leslie's grandmother showed up at our house, trying to persuade us to forgive him. She told us it was "a long long time ago" and that Leslie's older sister "is evil". As a reminder, she was between 6 and 10 years old during this. We kicked her off of our property, got in our own car, and drove for hours that day. We called Leslie's sister to tell her we were on her side. We were the only ones who were, apparently.

Over the next week or so, we were extremely fearful. Leslie and I loved her family, and we looked up to her dad immensely. He was always willing to drop everything to help us, he would show up at our house and have pleasant conversations with us. We regularly saw him every week or so. We moved down here specifically to be closer to him and Leslie's mother. He was a staple in our lives. And now, he was and currently is a mentally unstable gun owner and child molester. Leslie's mom on that day of the attempt insisted that losing Leslie would be the last thing to keep him from killing himself and that he still loved her so much. This wasn't something we could reciprocate. We changed the locks on our door and cleaned our house of anything related to her family. Beyond her dad, Leslie's mother and grandmother also knew about these crimes for years and covered them up for him, all while Leslie's sister spiraled downwards. We had no idea who else in the family knew about this. We didn't want to find out.

For a while, we just tried to move on, keeping in contact with Leslie's sister and letting her handle things if she decided to press charges or not. We were able to return to normal enough to get at least one more page out.

This weekend, we received another call - this time from Leslie's sister's boyfriend. Leslie's sister had been missing for 8 hours now, apparently leaving the house barefoot without her phone. We rushed over, spoke to the police (no help), and proceeded to comb the nearby woods in search for her. After a couple of hours, we finally found her. She was alive, though badly cut up. She came home, took a shower, and has been resting since.

In that time however, we found out more troubling news - Leslie's dad was threatening legal mutually assured destruction against her. "If you take me down for your crimes, I'll take you down for your crimes. My wife will bail me out, but I'm the only one would bail you out." That kind of stuff. Reading through their text message conversations only confirmed further that Leslie's dad wasn't just guilty, but had absolutely no remorse.Because of the situation, other family members got in touch with us about Leslie's sister. We decided to take the risk and start asking how much they knew. Thankfully, we were unbelievably relieved to find out that many didn't know anything about this. We've gotten the word out about Leslie's dad's crimes. We've shown them proof - Leslie's mother and grandmother's confessions, the text messages, the suicide attempt. More people are on Leslie's sister's side. What started as just us and her boyfriend has now grown into a small group of family members supporting her.

However, no charges have been set yet. We don't know if it will go through. The situation is constantly developing, and we're frankly traumatized by the events of these last two weeks. I mentioned how fearful we are and how we've had to change our locks, but it goes deeper than that. This is Leslie's father. The man who raised her, someone she respected and admired and loved dearly. Not just him, but her mother, too. And now, all those memories of them are tainted, changed forever by this new context. What was once a father doing good by his daughter has warped into a pedophile easing his guilty conscious with the child he didn't destroy. It's a lot to process, but at the same time, there's no going back. We're going to do everything we can for Leslie's sister, even if it shatters the entire family apart.

I know this is a lot of text to write as an explanation for why our adult webcomic isn't updating tonight, but we needed to finally get this out. Leslie wanted you all to know what's happened these last two weeks. It's been extremely painful, but it's out there and we're going to get through this.

Thank you all so much. We'll get back to regular updates as soon as we possibly can. I know there's no rush, but we want to get back to normal. And we will. See you then!