Peregrine Lake – A Weekly Webcomic Written by Trae Dorn and Drawn by Ethan Flanagan

As the year comes to an end yet again, I’ve ended up reflecting a lot not just on the last twelve months, but my past in general. Who I am, where I’ve been, and who I’ve brought with me.

When we were down in Milwaukee for Christmas, Crysta and I got dinner with Chris and his partner Sarah. I haven’t seen Chris in years, and it was the first time meeting someone that important in his life. It was nice — and frankly it’s been too long since we got together. Chris is arguably my oldest friend, he was the best man at my wedding, and even though it had been ages since we got together, talking to him always feels like no time has passed. We’re both awful at keeping in touch, so it’s nice to be reminded that the connection we have is still there and easily rekindled.

And we’re both going to try to be better about, like, actually talking to each other.

Coincidentally, I separately ended up in a conversation with another good friend about a person we used to both be close to the other night. I could have sworn that I wrote a blog post about this at some point, but for the life of me I can’t find it. Maybe it was on a social media platform, but it doesn’t matter really. The friend I was talking to the other day was talking about how she wanted to reconnect with this person who is now far removed from both of our lives.

She in part removed him by choice, but me not so much.

This person had been a close creative collaborator with me, and how he chose to make his exit from my life has always been something of a sore spot. My friend wanted to reconnect with him because she missed him though, but apparently he doesn’t want to talk to her.

For like the dumbest, most childish fucking reason I’ve ever heard.

So finally, after learning some more details about what happened between those two, with over fifteen years in the rear view, I’m finally at peace with what happened. Frankly I think I might significantly better off to not have had this person in my life, and maybe I should count my blessings that things ended when they did. Who knows what passive aggressive landmines I narrowly avoided.

There’s also a lesson here I think. If someone is important to you, and they reach out, you’ll answer. Distance and time don’t matter when people decide they want to reconnect, and when both people value a relationship it’s as easy as sitting down together again and sharing a meal.

We have limited time on this planet. My grandmother died earlier this year, and my cousin just a few weeks ago. There is a finite amount of moments we’ll spend with the people we care about, and we should value each one we get to share. If someone doesn’t value making a connection with you, then maybe they weren’t worthy of your time to begin with. I don’t know. It made sense to me at the time.

Oh, and you can go fuck yourself, Matt.

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Fifteen years ago today I wrote a blog post title “We’re Living in a Cyberpunk Novel,” and it was when I had the dawning realization that so much of our world felt like it was ripped straight out of a William Gibson novel. At the time I was looking at the current headlines and the state of technology, and it was really clear the way the world was going.

Well, uh, it got worse?

Like as we bring 2025 to a close, we see less corporate regulation, the attempted dismantlement of our democracy in favor of oligarchy, the weird, broken state of social networking, and the complete digital chaos of the future of the free and open web. Like elections are affected by social manipulation through digital platforms, and billionaires harvest our data through the control of online spaces. Massive amounts of money are being spent on data centers that poison the environment so you can do “research” (and sext) with a supposed “AI” that makes shit up constantly.

And we all use Amazon Prime.

It’s not great. And while when I wrote that original post fifteen years ago these observations felt novel, today they seem obvious and mundane. Like as we are fully immersed in late stage capitalism, it’s hard not to notice how bad things have gotten. And to be fair, since speculative fiction is far more often an observation of the present than a prediction of the future, it’s pretty obvious we didn’t have to go that far to get here. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Now obviously we need to fix the structural issues in our society and fight back against the pending environmental apocalypse, but, like, you probably already knew that if you’re reading this. The problem I’m having right now is that we’re stuck in a cyberpunk dystopia and some of y’all are still wearing khakis.

Like if I’m going to be stuck living in a pulp story, we should at least get the cool ass aesthetics to go with it. Like I know I’ve clearly embraced this world in my workspace, but we should be going for it in our homes, our fashion, just everything. Like everyone should be going full weirdo, regardless of what age you are. If we’re all carrying devices that let corporations track our location and listen in on our conversations everywhere, we should at the very least be dressing like it.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I wanted a space opera future, not a cyberpunk one, but this is the one we’re living in.

Now where’s my god damn flying car.

Also maybe buy my new book Buried Memories, book four in the Mia Graves Saga. It’s queer urban fantasy and not cyberpunk, but you’ll probably still like it.

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So I already made a post about this on TikTok/Bluesky/Tumblr/YouTube (because I am, if anything, distributed these days), but I wanted to talk about it here — as it feels more permanent. This last weekend I was at a convention, and like most cons where I table a few people came by to pitch me their own creative projects. Now let me be clear: I genuinely like that people do this. It’s fun to hear people tell me about their passion project. I just really only have one ask if you’re going to do this though.

Talk to me first.

Now, that may seem obvious to most of you, but it apparently isn’t for everyone. And most people, in fact, do this. Like at said con, a guy came up to my table, saw that my banner said I was a podcaster, and talked to me about the fiction podcast he was working on. It was a great conversation, and while I haven’t checked out his show yet, I fully intend to give it a listen some time this week. He started out that interaction gauging my interest though, and letting me know who he was as a person. It was fun, it was nice, and he left me his card. All in all, a positive interaction.

But that’s not what all of these instances are like.

A while later, a different guy comes up to my table. I greet him, but am effectively ignored. Now, that happens, and while it’s a bit rude not to respond at all, nerds can be awkward so I’m used to it. After a few moments of looking at my stuff, he starts picking up my cards and putting them back down one by one. I have several different business cards (one for each comic, one for Nerd & Tie, and one that’s a general “me” card), so I’m not sure why he’s doing this. When he gets to a Peregrine Lake card though, he turns it over and says his first words to me in the two minutes or so he’s been at my table: he asks for a pen.

I hand it over, assuming he wants to note something about my stuff on a card, which has happened before. I mean, the card he’s picked is one for a website where there isn’t anything for sale on the table right now, so I just assumed it was the one thing up his alley. I’m under the impression that he’s going to jot something down and walk away with the card.

That is, in fact, not what happened.

Instead he writes out quite a bit more than I’m expecting him to, and Crysta and I are just sitting there in silence. Then, when he’s done, he hands me my own card. What he’s written down is a URL and some social media accounts, and he tells me he’s starting a creator collective of independent writers. He mentions having talked to some of the other authors at the con (there were a couple). I politely took the information, and told him I would check it out, and he walked away.

But here’s the thing, if he’d bothered to speak a word to me when he arrived, he might have asked me what my thoughts on a creator collective are. That’s when he’d learn I’m already a part of one. Like one of the cards he picked up and ignored was literally for it.

And we could talk about how he should probably have brought some sort of card or flier if his goal was to network, or how it’s difficult to convince me that you’d be a good advocate for my work when our interaction is this awkward, but that’s not the point. If he had started with a conversation, he would have learned my background in that space. And while I have no interest in changing affiliations, we could have talked about working together or I could have given advice on how to grow and promote.

It just would have required a god damn conversation.

I just want to feel like you see me as a human being, really. Take some time to find out my interest, figure out my vibe, and importantly let me figure out yours. It will be a better experience for both of us, trust me.

Also, remember, you can pre-order Buried Memories, the fourth book in my contemporary fantasy series the Mia Graves Saga, out December 15th 2025.

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