I had a dream once where a woman grabbed my head, looked me in the eye, and said “when you wake up I won’t exist.”

Freaked me out

My lad is growing up too fast - he's got lots of hobbies, one of which needs a lot of fitness so I try and get out with him once a week for a half hour run - partly to introduce him to cardio training but mainly to just get some time alone with him before he realises his dad is an arsehole.

It's great. Admittedly, he's just "Roblox Roblox Roblox Roblox Roblox Roblox can we go to the shop Roblox Roblox" but it's time with him to talk to me about whatever he wants and it's time that I absolutely adore. I hope when (if) he chooses to have kids, he'll look back and think "hey that was some decent dad time I had outside the house".

I'm also secretly hoping that if he's ever going through a rough time in life that he's keeping to himself and we're still out banging miles into the tarmac, then somewhere between "what's your favourite Grow Your Garden pet?" and "I just got a badge in Doors for using a crucifix on door 69 while getting chased by rush", there'll be a little breadcrumb or hint at a drama that we can talk about and ease his mental health just a tiny bit.

Who knows. A dad can hope.

Reminds me of the self aware board game commercial family on Community.

Big Community: The Board Game energy.

They are having the best day of its life, for ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

You woke up with a memory of this day but it never happened.

Since OP decided not to post it, here's the extra text:

"This is one of those comics that causes a bunch of readers to check in on my mental health, isn't it?"

I much prefer when OPs include it in the description.

Young Zach was really going through some shit, huh?

you stupid child

As I said the last time I saw this, the early-aughts webcomic 1/0 covers this in some depth.

It's exactly 1000 strips, and holy frick how is it 25 years old

I fully expected in big font underneath:

9/11/01

A small chip of my childhood and joy has fallen by the wayside.

Immersion ruined

The images viewed by the minds are very much alive though

Bye, Ralph.

But they were alive in my head and my existence is only validated by my perception. Thus, they were real. I perceived therefore I experience reality.

I dunno. I'm not like a philosopher or anything

I mean, this is literally the same concept I used to stop myself from crying whenever I remember the time Lucario sacrificed himself in place of Ash.

Heart breaking

How I feel after watching we were liars

Yes, but what they represent is what's beautiful. Things do not need to be real to have inherent meaning.

Even after all these years, I recognized this as Saturday morning breakfast cereal!

Worse, they were AI generated.